Quigley's Annual List of Box-Office Champions, 1932-1970

by Elizabeth, ReelClassics.com

October 23, 2003

Quigley's Annual "Top Ten MoneyMakers Poll" has been conducted every year since 1932 and is based on a yearly survey of motion picture exhibitors.  The survey asks the exhibitors to vote for the ten stars who generated the most box-office revenue for their theatres that year. Though it doesn't reflect actual box-office receipts, the Quigley poll has long been regarded as a reliable indicator of a star's box-office draw.  It is published annually in the International Motion Picture Almanac (New York: Quigley Publications).

When looking over the lists below, keep in mind that (especially in the earlier years) a star's ranking was frequently influenced by major blockbuster movies of their career, but not always in the year of the film's official release.  This is because under the old method of distributing films, it often took a movie many months after its premiere to reach theatres throughout the United States.  In the days of single-screen theatres (as opposed to today's multiplexes), films were not released simultaneously in hundreds of theatres across the country the way they are now.  Instead, movies opened in a few large theatres of major metropolitan cities before gradually working their way into the smaller theatres and cities as the larger theatres chose to showcase new films.  The more successful a film was, the longer it played in the big theatres, and the longer it took for people in the smaller cities to get to see it.  Thus, individual films continued to generate box-office revenues for several years, spreading out the impact of their success on the annual ranking of their stars.

* indicates a star's first appearance in the rankings

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