Reagan, Heston and How Hollywood Made a Deal – The Hollywood Reporter

In 1960, the crumbling infrastructure of the Hollywood studio system was shaken by a one-two strike launched by two important branches of its workforce — the writers and the actors.  Since neither job description was but thought-about on the cusp of obsolescence, administration was compelled to barter with labor and attain an lodging. Either side had incentives to actual a deal that shared the wealth and saved the store ground working. Ultimately — and this is likely to be the unhappy distinction between 1960 and 2023 — they noticed one another as collaborators fairly than mortal enemies.  

The explanation for the “double strike” by the Writers Guild of America and the Display Actors Guild was, after all, tv, the technological menace that had reworked the enterprise however not the nice print within the employment contracts. Each units of artists needed an even bigger lower of the post-1948 characteristic movies that had been offered to TV and a stable deal for revenue sharing sooner or later. Well being advantages and dealing circumstances have been additionally on the desk.  

The important thing difficulty for each guilds was residuals — that’s, cost charges for work performed and recycled on movie and over the airwaves. The foundation phrase implies “left over,” however by 1960, residuals have been trying like the primary course. Much more than the libraries of characteristic movies on the public sale block, the syndication of filmed sitcoms like I Love Lucy, The Danny Thomas Present, and Father Is aware of Greatest was already producing thousands and thousands of {dollars} in income for the producer-owners; the creators and performers needed a justifiable share of the windfall.

(Because you ask: the historical past of residuals within the leisure business dates to the start the age of mechanical copy, with the introduction of the phonograph being an inflection level. From round 1910 onward, singers obtained royalties based mostly on document gross sales. Radio and juke bins difficult the rewards construction, however the American Federation of Musicians — most likely essentially the most feared of all performer unions, recognized for its hardball ways — was able to do battle with what it referred to as “the mechanical monsters.” As early as 1932, it had obtained residual offers for the recorded work of singers and musicians broadcast over the airwaves. With the onset of tv, an eventuality not foreseen within the authentic contracts of the artists who created and appeared within the characteristic movies, serials, and shorts that made up a lot of the content material of the medium within the late Forties and 50s, calculating funds obtained much more complicated. Except artists had been good sufficient to barter a profit-sharing association again within the day, they have been often shut out from further income down the road.  No fools, Abbott and Costello had secured a share of earnings for the theatrical reissues and TV rights of their Common movies and cleaned up. In contrast, the Three Stooges obtained not a dime from their Columbia shorts, made within the Thirties, which have been broadcast in saturation rotation in nearly each TV market in America.)

WGA and SAG sought a residual components that may give standardization and certainty to creators and performers. The expertise, a spokesman for the American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists stated in 1960, is “entitled to get a portion of all this cash that’s floating round. It is so simple as that. The place would everyone be with out expertise?“

The WGA threw down the gauntlet first.  On January 16, 1960, citing “a constantly uncompromising angle on the a part of producers,” WGA president Curtis Kenyon, a former screenwriter now toiling in tv, referred to as a “two-pronged” strike in opposition to each movie and tv manufacturing.  Among the many calls for: residuals “in perpetuity” and never merely for six re-runs; a lower of the revenue stream from international distribution; and extra equitable working practices, notably involving regarding speculative or “spec” writing.  

Having stashed away a backlog of scripts, the producers figured they might bide time and wait out the writers.  Thirty-nine scripts for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis have been already locked and the present remained in manufacturing.

Actors have been a extra seen and helpful commodity. “The walkout of the Writers Guild over the weekend doesn’t fear the producers, however a strike of the actors due to the refusal of the studios to satisfy their calls for can be a demise blow to the enterprise,” famous Billy Wilkerson, editor-publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, often no good friend of labor.

The actors had a formidable fighter of their nook within the particular person of SAG president Ronald Reagan, the previous Warner Bros. star who had downsized into tv and, since 1953, had served as host of CBS’s anthology collection Common Electrical Theater.  As SAG’s chief from 1947 to 1952, when Hollywood discovered itself within the crosshairs of the postwar anticommunist campaign, Reagan had efficiently steered the guild by way of its most treacherous interval. In 1947, he had eloquently defended the patriotism of the movement image business earlier than the Home Committee on Un-American Actions, receiving among the greatest critiques of his profession. At this time, Reagan’s actions through the blacklist period have turn into extra controversial (heck, all the things in regards to the period is), particularly his position as an off-the-books FBI informant and his participation in “clearance” procedures, whereby actors accused of ideological malfeasance must clarify or recant earlier than a star chamber of business apparatchiks. But his friends thought sufficient of Reagan to draft him in 1959 for an unprecedented sixth time period as SAG president. Anticipating the upcoming battle with the studios, they needed a trusted and skilled participant on the sector to signify their pursuits. “Ronald Reagan is enjoying his best half to the least applause,” was the road going round city.

SAG proceeded rigorously. On the night time of February 17, 1960, on the house of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 100 members met to authorize a strike, figuring {that a} threatened work stoppage would put them in a greater bargaining place.

But the Affiliation of Movement Image Producers, represented by govt vice chairman Charles Boren, refused to budge on the actors’ calls for. “No cost twice for a similar job,” as Selection’s Bob Chandler characterised their place. “Nothing in any respect, they stated, and we gained’t talk about it.”

On March 7, SAG referred to as the strike. Offstage, a tense collection of contract negotiations ensued instantly.  At Reagan’s facet, doing the heavy lifting was John L. Dales, the savvy counsel and govt secretary for SAG.  Dales was the hands-on element man, who checked the contract language line by line.  Not like the strike by the WGA, which focused each movie and tv manufacturing, the SAG strike was aimed toward movie manufacturing alone. Work on eight characteristic movies — together with The Wackiest Ship within the Military and Butterfield 8 — screeched to a halt.  

The choice to strike was not universally standard with the SAG rank and file.  “Actors should not morally justified in placing and inflicting backlot staff to be laid off,” stated the actor Glenn Ford, talking for a bunch of 40 dissidents. “If it weren’t for the blokes within the crews, we wouldn’t be actors.” Tony Curtis, getting in contact together with his Bronx roots, shot again: “If Glenn Ford feels our union didn’t do a very good job, let him be part of the butchers’ union.”

Depart it to gossip columnist and SAG member Hedda Hopper (who made frequent cameo appearances in movie and TV as herself) to resurrect the specter of Hollywood previous.  “Isn’t it coincidental that at a time when among the extra liberal producers are hiring Communist writers that this strike got here up?” she stated. Hopper was referring to the latest bulletins by producer-director Otto Preminger and producer-star Kirk Douglas that screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, essentially the most infamous member of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, was to be employed underneath his personal identify for Exodus (1961) and Spartacus (1960), respectively.  By way of studying the room, she couldn’t have been extra unsuitable.  The writers and actors had no considered smashing the capitalist machine; they simply needed an even bigger slice of the pie.  

On the night time of April 4, in the course of the strike negotiations, each side paused to attend the thirty second Academy Awards ceremonies on the Pantages Theater. Reagan had hoped to shock the viewers with an announcement that the strike had been settled, however negotiations remained at an deadlock. The MC for the night, after all, was Bob Hope, internet hosting the Oscars with the ninth time. “Welcome to Hollywood’s most glamorous strike assembly,” he stated. “I by no means thought I’d reside to see the day when Ronald Reagan was the one actor working.” 

Hope obtained an enormous ovation when, to his shock, he was introduced with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. “I don’t know what to say,” he stated, genuinely moved. Then he delivered a line that will need to have happy the WGA: “I haven’t writers for this sort of work.” (Indulge me with yet one more Hope wisecrack, a line which will now appear prophetic. Introducing the 5 nominated songs, he stated, “We want to announce we pay for all of the sheet music, purchase all our personal data, and not one of the younger women has been technically augmented.”)

On April 8, SAG and the Affiliation of Movement Image Producers got here to phrases. The guild dropped the calls for for residuals on 1948-1960 movies and accepted as a substitute an enormous cost to the SAG pension fund. For movies made after 1960, nevertheless, actors would obtain a proportion of receipts, minus deductions for distribution bills. Producer contributions to the guild’s well being and welfare funds have been additionally elevated. Reagan, even then tax-averse, identified that the pension funds, in contrast to residuals, have been tax free, whereas residuals have been taxable as gross earnings.

Requested how he felt on the finish of negotiations, Reagan stated. “Very comfortable.” Charles Boren of the AMPP agreed. “Very comfortable certainly.” (There’s a coda right here: in 1981, in one of many defining acts of his presidency, Reagan fired over 11,000 air visitors controllers, who have been placing in defiance of a courtroom order. He reminded Individuals that he was a union man who had lead the Display Actors Guild out on strike — a authorized strike.)

On April 18, 1960, at a mass assembly on the Hollywood Palladium, greater than 2,000 members voted overwhelmingly to affirm the deal.  One of many few voices raised in opposition got here from Hedda Hopper, nonetheless crimson baiting and shilling for the producers. She was hissed down by the group.

SAG and the producers then issued a kiss-and-make up joint assertion:  the settlement “is honest and equitable and can result in steady labor-management relations within the business.” Earlier than the ink was dry, producer Jerry Wald had resumed manufacturing on Let’s Make Love.

With the actors again at work, the writers had much less leverage. “You actors at the moment are working the enterprise,” admitted a depressed screenwriter to a SAG colleague. WGA leaders figured the most effective technique was to make use of the SAG settlement as a mannequin. Not like SAG, nevertheless, knowledgeable negotiators weren’t on the desk for the writers and the talks stalled.  Consensus opinion within the commerce press asserted that WGA was “being injured by the worst public relations program within the historical past of administration disputes, and that novice negotiators,  irrespective of how exhausting they work, are lambs amongst wolves on the negotiating desk.”

Not till WGA despatched in its personal wolf, Evelyn Burkey, govt secretary of its east coast department, did the writers shut the deal — first with the Alliance of Tv Movie Producers and the Affiliation of Movement Image Producers (June 19) after which with the three main networks (June 25).

The WGA settlement set forth a components for residuals tied to worldwide grosses: along with the unique paycheck, 40 p.c of similar will probably be unfold over 5 home reruns with 4 p.c of absolutely the gross paid out in perpetuity. Either side agreed that the negotiation “marks a milestone within the historical past of labor-management relationships,” assuring “the perpetuation of our business” and “elevated revenues” for all involved. As soon as all of the smoke had cleared, THR columnist Mike Connolly expressed the prevailing sentiment round city. “Thank God it’s over,” he stated.  “Let’s go to work.”