Melissa McCarthy | Ghostbusters

It took Melissa McCarthy almost twenty years before Hollywood success welcomed her. At one point in her life, she drowned in credit card debt and had to work odd jobs to make ends meet. Her lucky break arrived in 2011 in the movie Bridesmaids. From having a $5 bank account balance, she slowly rose to become Hollywood’s third highest-earning actress.

According to Forbes, in 2017, the sum of the top-earning actresses’ salaries totaled $172.5 million while the actors’ wages totaled $488.5 million; McCarthy, like Scarlet Johansson, is one of the leading figures who believe that they should have equal pay with their male counterparts. McCarthy’s earliest appearance on television was in the series Jenny. Her initial movie appearances were in Go, Drowning Mona, The Kid, and Charlie’s Angels. She had also started a production company, On the Day Productions, with her husband.