Film Actors Organize: Union Formation Efforts in America, 1912-1937

216 Pages·2009·0.92 MB·English

by  Kerry Segrave

Film Actors
Organize
ALSO BY KERRY SEGRAVE AND FROM MCFARLAND
Actors Organize: A History of Union Formation E›orts in America, ¡880–¡9¡9 (2008)
Obesity in America, 1850–1939: A History of Social Attitudes and Treatment (2008)
Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1840-1899: Death Sentences
and Executions in the United States and Canada(2008)
Women Swindlers in America, ¡860–¡920(2007)
Ticket Scalping: An American History, ¡850–2005 (2007)
America on Foot: Walking and Pedestrianism in the 20th Century (2006)
Suntanning in 20th Century America (2005)
Endorsements in Advertising: A Social History (2005)
Women and Smoking in America, ¡880 to ¡950 (2005)
Foreign Films in America: A History (2004)
Lie Detectors: A Social History (2004)
Product Placement in Hollywood Films: A History(2004)
Piracy in the Motion Picture Industry (2003)
Jukeboxes: An American Social History (2002)
Vending Machines: An American Social History (2002)
Age Discrimination by Employers(200¡)
Shoplifting: A Social History (200¡)
Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television(¡999)
American Television Abroad: Hollywood’s Attempt to Dominate World Television(¡998)
Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities(¡998)
American Films Abroad: Hollywood’s Domination of
the World’s Movie Screens from the ¡890s to the Present(¡997)
Baldness: A Social History (1996; paperback 2009)
Policewomen: A History(¡995)
Payola in the Music Industry: A History, ¡880–¡99¡(¡994)
The Sexual Harassment of Women in the Workplace, ¡600 to ¡993(¡994)
Women Serial and Mass Murderers: A Worldwide Reference, ¡580 through ¡990(¡992)
Drive-in Theaters: A History from Their Inception in ¡933(1992; paperback 2006)
BY KERRY SEGRAVE AND LINDA MARTIN AND FROM MCFARLAND
The Continental Actress: European Film Stars of the Postwar Era;
Biographies, Criticism, Filmographies, Bibliographies(¡990)
The Post-Feminist Hollywood Actress: Biographies and
Filmographies of Stars Born After ¡939(¡990)
Film Actors
Organize
Union Formation Efforts
in America, 1912–1937
KERRY SEGRAVE
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Segrave, Kerry, ¡944–
Film actors organize : union formation efforts in America,
1912–1937 / Kerry Segrave.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4276-8
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Actors—Labor unions—United States—History—20th
century. 2. Actors’ Equity Association—History. 3. Screen
Actors Guild—History. I. Title.
PN2016.S46 2009
331.88'11791430280973—dc22 2008050692
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2009 Kerry Segrave. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover photograph: Actors strike, ¡9¡9 (Billy Rose Theatre Division,
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Contents
Preface 1
1. Early Efforts and Equity’s First Attempt, to 1923 3
2. A Brief Lull, 1924–1927 18
3. AMPAS and Salary Cuts; Equity’s Second Attempt, 1927 33
4. A Second Brief Lull, 1928–1929 58
5. Equity’s Third Attempt, 1929 68
6. Organizing Founders; Salary Cuts, Again, 1930–1933 111
7. The Coming of SAG, 1933–1936 126
8. SAG Negotiations and First Contract, 1936–1937 149
9. Conclusion 167
Notes 183
Bibliography 195
Index 205
v
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
This book looks at the efforts made by actors in the motion picture
industry to organize themselves into a trade union, from the earliest
attempt, which took place around 1912, through the formation of the
Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) in 1933. The book’s coverage ends in 1937,
the year that SAG received formal recognition from the film studios as the
bargaining agent for the film players and the year in which SAG signed
its first contract with the motion picture industry cartel.
Over that period of time many groups surfaced briefly to try and
organize the players but all disappeared quickly. Earliest attempts were
centered on the New York City area but the focus quickly switched to
California as the film industry had mostly relocated to Hollywood by
around the middle 1910s. During the years before 1920 there were only
two actors’ unions of note in America, the White Rats, representing mostly
vaudeville performers, and Actors’ Equity Association, representing mostly
stage players. Both made half-hearted attempts to organize film players
before 1920 but each was busy enough in its own sphere trying to survive.
The White Rats failed to survive but after Equity successfully fought a
stage strike in 1919 its future seemed assured. Thus, Equity seemed the
logical candidate to organize the film players.
And over the course of the 1920s Equity launched three major, con-
centrated efforts to do just that. However, it failed each time, for reasons
both internal and external. During the lulls between those efforts the film
producers attempted to take advantage of the situation and impose salary
cuts on the players. The producers failed in those efforts, for reasons both
internal and external, but such behavior tended to draw Equity back into
1
Preface
action to launch another organizing drive. This book looks at all those
efforts, at the working conditions of actors during the period, and at the
strategies employed by the producers to keep out the unions. Everything
was used by the producers, from the formation of a company union to a
media blackout imposed on the unionists by an anti-union press that was
only too happy to side with the film cartel.
By the time the 1930s arrived the situation was bad enough for the
film players that a union was seen more and more as a necessity. Disen-
chantment with the company union had reinforced that idea but Equity,
having made many mistakes in its earlier organizing efforts, was no longer
acceptable to the players as the organization to turn to. Thus SAG was
formed and within a few years it had achieved recognition and a first con-
tract. Since the film screenwriters and directors formed unions of their own
at roughly the same time as SAG it meant that Hollywood and the film
industry had become fully unionized.
2
1
Early Efforts and Equity’s
First Attempt, to 1923
The organization of film actors into a trade union was slow in com-
ing, relative to most professions and trades. Writers and directors were
equally slow to organize in Hollywood while motion picture craftspeople
and technicians organized themselves earlier. Part of the slow start had to
do with the nature of the film business; a wider variation in salaries and
conditions than were found in most industries. As well, there was a per-
ceived independent nature found in actors, making them less amenable to
team work, and so on, compared to most occupations. Additionally, there
was a certain amount of snobbery involved; actors were artistes, not stage
hands or carpenters, laborers who had earlier unionized and allied them-
selves with the American Federation of Labor. Then, of course, there was
the notorious and egregious anti-union atmosphere found in Los Ange-
les. Because of that bias the unionization of any part of the Hollywood
film industry was delayed, compared to unionization in other parts of
America. The earliest effort to organize a union among the film actors
seems to have been in 1912, although no details apparently were ever
reported, except as a brief line a year later in an account of attempt num-
ber two. Motion picture studios had not fully transferred production to
California in the first few years of the 1910s, although they soon would,
and those first few efforts to organize took place in New York and vicin-
ity.
After working undercover for months a band of progressive, reformist
actors gave up in despair in their attempt to organize an actors’ union
3