The Reader's Page

Arabella Speaks out…..

Happy Birthday, Screen Actors Guild

SAG President Melissa Gilbert at work

Before June 30, 1933, repeated attempts had been made by the New York-based Actors’ Equity Association to set up an organization that successfully championed actors’ rights and framed rules to outlaw intolerable working conditions. But nothing worked…..except the actors who often worked six days a week, day and night. Ralph Bellamy remarked “it was really seven. You’d come into work on Saturday morning at the usual time and work all day, all night, though the night until the leading lady fainted Sunday noon”. Loretta Young recalled checking into a hospital suffering from complete exhaustion….as a child star! California law required that a minor could only work four hours a day and could not work after 5 o’clock. A teacher had to be present at all times. But the studio asked Loretta to come back to the set after the teacher left where she would work until nine or ten o’clock and sometimes all night on Saturday. Together with all the other abuses of the actors’ rights, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Then, in 1933, some courageous thespians decided to take matters into their own hands. They were all members of Actors’ Equity and most were veterans of the Broadway stage. Contract players and free lancers, actors in leading roles and seasoned supporting actors, some with years of work in silent films and others who were the new crop of “talkie” recruits, and according to SAG, an “action-oriented, motivated, gutsy group.”

They met at the home of Kenneth and Alden Gay Thomson in the spring of 1933 and on June 30, 1933, 21 actors filed Articles of Incorporation and became the Guild’s first officers and Board of Directors with Ralph Morgan as their first president. Unlike AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) the Guild was open to all film actors, not just “by invitation-only”. Film “extras” were also admitted as non-voting members giving them the benefits and protection of the Guild but not the control. Actor Alan Simpson gave the group their motto…..”He best serves himself who serves others”

In 1939, the Screen Guild Theater radio show made its debut with the sole purpose to raise money for the Motion Picture Relief Fund, and eventually aid in the building of the Motion Picture Country House retirement home in Woodland Hills, California.

By 1950, SAG embraced television: “…motion picture actors are motion picture actors whether they appear in films for theatres or films for television, and the Guild is the only logical bargaining agent for the motion picture actors, no matter where their films may be exhibited.”

In 1995, the first annual SAG awards show debuted and George Burns became the first actor to get a Life Achievement award on television.

Today, thanks to the Guild, actors also have a pension and welfare plan, residuals for feature films sold to TV and diversity in casting. Over their 61 years, there have been 23 presidents including Charlton Heston who once parted the Red Sea as Moses, and Ronald Reagan who got so used to the title he kept it as President of the USA. Melissa Gilbert now occupies the top seat, the third women to achieve that post (preceded by Kathleen Nolan 1975-1979 and Patty Duke 1985-1988). We wish her and SAG a great birthday year!

The Original Founders of SAG:

Alan Mowbray Morgan Wallace	James Gleason Arthur Vinton	Lucile Gleason Ivan Simpson
Boris Karloff Claude King	Noel Madison Charles Starrett	Kenneth Thomson C. Aubrey Smith
Richard Tucker Leon Waycoff Ames	Clay Clement Reginald Mason	Bradley Page Willard Robertson
Lyle Talbot Ralph Morgan	Alden Gay Thomson

 

 

A little mouse told me...

 

….that some golden age celebrities had very unique beginnings!

For example….

…Clara Blandick (Auntie Em in “The Wizard of Oz”) was born June 4th, 1880 on an American shop anchored in…Hong Kong!

…Both Sally Blane (“No More Women” 1934) and Jon Hall (“Hurricane” 1937) literally caused trains to stop in their tracks. Sally (Loretta Young’s sister) was born July 11th, 1910 in Salida, California after labor pains caused her mother to get off the train. Jon, on the other hand, arrived in the depot moments after the train had to stop in Fresno, California, on February 26th, 1913.

…Silent film child star Philippe de Lacy was found in WWI France by a Red Cross nurse Edith de Lacy. He was in a shellhole where his mother and five siblings had been killed by a German bomb.

… June Duprez (“The Thief of Bagdad” 1940) was born during an air raid on May 14th, 1918 in Teddington, England.

…Jim Brown (“Air Force” 1943) was born on March 22nd, 1920 in a tent city that sprung up during an oil boom in Desdemone, Texas.

…Jean Aurel, the French director, was born November 6th, 1925 aboard the Orient Express!

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Ask Arabella...

 

From Colleen Woomer, Jackson, Mississippi…. I have been reading up on silent film stars and so glad I found your site. I have noticed that many of these stars had “labels”. Clara Bow was called “The It Girl” and Florence Lawrence was “The IMP Girl” and sometimes “The Biograph Girl”. Where did these labels come from and could you tell me what other stars had them?

Now that would take pages, Colleen! “Biograph Girl” and “IMP Girl” came from the studios where Florence made her living. She was the first“Biograph Girl” and then, when she left that studio and went over to Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture Corporation, she became the “IMP Girl”. She also became the first star to be listed in the credits by name. Clara Bow’s title on the other hand was one of those designed by the publicity department to create an image or define a particular role. Here are some of those: Victor Mature became “The Hunk” after an ad for “Samson and Delilah” (1949) described him as a “great hunk of man”. This literally became part of the American lexicon. John Barrymore was best photgraphed from the side showing his best asset so he became “The Great Profile”. The most famous pin-up girls of WWII were Betty Grable “The Legs”, Rita Hayworth “The Love Goddess” and Veronica Lake “The Girl with the Peek-a-boo Bang”! Some others… “The Oomph Girl” ….Ann Sheridan “The Blonde Bombshell”….Betty Hutton “The Hungarian Rhapsody…Vilma Banky “The Look” …Lauren Bacall “The Vamp” …Theda Bara. But Arabella’s favorite is…”Greer Garson in Fur”….Lassie!

From Carl Moneta, Detroit, Michigan….. Are Betty Hutton and her sister Marion, still alive? If so what are they doing now?

Betty is still with us. They finally released her movie “Annie Get Your Gun”(1950) to VHS and DVD after years of legal wrangling. But sadly, Marion passed away at 67 on January 10th, 1987 from cancer. Marion made only 5 films, at least one of them playing herself as the vocalist with Glenn Miller’s Orchestra (“Orchestra Wives” 1942). When she left her singing career behind in 1954, she eventually went back to school and by the early 1980’s, she was a program director for a women’s rehabilitation center in Seattle, Washington.

 

 

Now Arabella Asks...

 

The Post Office has issued another stamp to honor John Wayne. He is in their series for the Legends of Hollywood. But why still no honors for America’s Singing Sweethearts, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald? Let’s complain loudly! Call, write or e-mail the Postmaster General about this continuing omission… pmgceo@e-mail.usps.gov/

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