LA, Aug 29: - He got his big break as a bit player on "Saturday Night Live." She started out as a fashion model. Now they rank as Hollywood's highest-paid performers in the latest book of "Guinness World Records." Adam Sandler is listed in the newly published edition of "Guinness World Records," launched this week, as the film actor with biggest annual earnings, with paychecks totaling $47 million in 2001 alone.
For that same year, Cameron Diaz tops the list of best-paid film actresses with estimated earnings of $40 million, according to Guinness. The book cites figures published last year by Forbes magazine's "Celebrity 100" list.
Sandler joined the Hollywood big leagues with the success of a number of film comedies in the late 1990s, including "Waterboy" and "Big Daddy," only to see his very next film, "Little Nicky," flop at the box office in 2000. He fared better last year with "Mr. Deeds" and his romantic turn in "Punch-Drunk Love."
In the Guinness record book, the former "SNL" sketch comic replaces action star Bruce Willis, who ranked No. 1 in last year's edition by earning $70 million in the year 2000.
Diaz, who was a fashion model before snagging her film debut in "The Mask," supplants Julia Roberts as the top-earning actress in the 2004 edition of Guinness.

Diaz has had a hot streak, playing a pickpocket in "The Gangs of New York," the voice of Princess Fiona in the computer-animated fairy tale "Shrek" and its sequel, and a high-kicking crime fighter in a pair of movie adaptations of the 1970s TV detective drama "Charlie's Angeles." Bureau Report