Oprah Talks Her Way Back to Top of Pay List

NEW YORK — Talk show host Oprah Winfrey is once again the highest-paid figure in the entertainment industry, according to Forbes magazine.

Her combined 1995-96 earnings: a whopping $171 million.

That puts her $21 million ahead of No. 2, director Steven Spielberg, and returns her to the top spot she last occupied in 1993.

“The reigning queen of talk television, Oprah just keeps on going, despite a temporary dip in ratings two years ago,” Forbes says in its Sept. 23 issue, released Sunday. The magazine said a fitness book she co-authored added to her talk show earnings.

Forbes noted that the world’s top 40 list, which the magazine has been compiling since 1987, over time has seen increasingly eye-popping numbers in the income figures it calculates.

“A decade ago the top salary for a Hollywood actor was about $5 million. Today it’s more like $20 million,” the magazine says. “A hot new rock band at the center of a bidding war can fetch $600,000 for delivery of a record--four times what it would have gotten in 1987.”

Here is Forbes latest top 40 list, which covers combined earnings in 1995 and 1996.

1. Oprah Winfrey, $171 million

2. Steven Spielberg, $150 million

3. Beatles, $130 million

4. Michael Jackson, $90 million

5. Rolling Stones, $77 million

6. Eagles, $75 million

7. Arnold Schwarzenegger, $74 million

8. David Copperfield, $74 million

9. Jim Carrey, $63 million

10. Michael Crichton, $59 million

11. Jerry Seinfeld, $59 million

12. Stephen King, $56 million

13. Garth Brooks, $51 million

14. Andrew Lloyd Webber, $50 million

15. Tom Hanks, $50 million

16. Siegfried & Roy, $48 million

17. Tom Cruise, $46 million

18. Harrison Ford, $44 million

19. Clint Eastwood, $44 million

20. R.E.M., $44 million

21. Sylvester Stallone, $44 million

22. John Grisham, $43 million

23. Robin Williams, $42 million

24. Robert Zemeckis, $42 million

25. Roseanne, $40 million

26. Michael Douglas, $40 million

27. Bruce Willis, $36 million

28. Luciano Pavarotti, $36 million

29. KISS, $35 million

30. Charles Schulz, $33 million

31. Bill Cosby, $33 million

32. John Travolta, $33 million

33. Mariah Carey, $32 million

34. Tom Clancy, $31 million

35. Kevin Costner, $31 million

36. Denzel Washington, $30 million

37. David Letterman, $28 million

38. Metallica, $28 million

39. Mel Gibson, $28 million

40. Sandra Bullock, $25 million