Beyonce's Dreamgirls role makes her highest paid black actress in history

Singer/actress Beyonce Knowles arrives to the premiere of 'Dreamgirls' at the Ziegfeld Theatre, Monday, Dec. 4, 2006, in New York. (AP Photo/Paul Hawthorne)

In this photograph provided by Paramount Pictures, Beyonce Knowles arrives for the premiere of 'Dreamgirls' at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York, Monday, Dec. 4, 2006. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Albert Ferreira)

London - She had to shed more than 9kg to trim down for the high-profile role, alongside Jamie Foxx, but the sacrifice is undoubtedly worth it for Beyonce Knowles, as she is in line to earn more than any other black actress in Hollywood history for her role in Dreamgirls, a fictionalized account of the 60s Motown sensation Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Unlike her peers, including the Oscar-winning Halle Berry and Whoopi Goldberg, Knowles will become the only black female artist to actually see her earnings rise to secure the chance to headline in a movie, critics are already touting as an Academy Award nominee.

Knowles saw her fee rise to 12.5 million dollars that is twice as much as she earned for her last major film role, as a "black empowered" secret agent in Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Thanks to the tough negotiating stance her father Matthew Knowles took when he told studio bosses he was weary of a 'racial pay gap' between black and white performers in "so-called liberal Hollywood", she is expected to make up to 24 million dollars from the Dreamgirls CD.

Knowles's CD royalty rate is estimated at 17 per cent of proceeds - unusually high, given she did not write any of the songs. It is part of a calculated strategy by her father, business associates said last week, reports the Sunday Times.

And if industry predictions are to be believed, following a deluge of advance orders, the soundtrack to Dreamgirls could become the biggest-grossing double-album soundtrack since Saturday Night Fever in the 1970s.(ANI)