Screen Actors Guild

A merger attempt with the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA) fails. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is a labor union based in Los Angeles with 20 branches spread across the United States, representing about 120,000 actors in film, television, commercials, music videos, and industrial films. The guild represents its members in contract negotiations, establishing compensation, working conditions, and benefits. In addition, SAG offers members a pension and health plan, authorizes showcase productions, and sponsors acting workshops and seminars. Actors who need more than the offered workshops have options like classes from takelessons to choose from. Although most of the administrative duties are handled by a chief executive officer hired outside of guild membership, the presidency is filled by an active member. Ronald Regan used this high-profile position as a springboard for his political career. Decades before the rise of motion pictures and a century before the advent of television, American performance arts were limited to the stage. Hundreds of cities and towns maintained theaters housing stock companies of actors that mounted a variety of plays to entertain their patrons. The stock theater tradition was undercut by the advent of touring stars who used a company's actors in supporting roles. Because this arrangement led to uneven performances, the stars began to take along key supporting actors and eventually toured with complete ensembles. Theater owners became landlords and stock companies began to fade from the scene. New York City became the center of the theater world during the latter half of the 1800s, serving as a clearinghouse for productions that originated there but played only brief runs before the show was taken on the road. It was a time when playwrights received no royalties and actors were often at the mercy of unscrupulous managers and producers. The first attempt to organize actors was made in the 1860s with the Actor's Protective Union. In the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor granted the first actors' union charter to the Actors National Protective Union. The first modern actors' union was Actors' Equity Association (Equity), founded in 1913. It was accepted into organized labor in 1919 and launched a major Broadway strike in that same year, establishing itself as a force to be reckoned with in the theater. While Equity was establishing itself, the motion picture industry was growing rapidly and employing an increasing number of stage actors. In the early days, screen actors were not even named, a practice that eliminated the costly star system that had evolved in the theater, but the audience soon demanded to know the names of their screen favorites, and the star system took hold in the movies as well. After the film industry settled in Hollywood, screen actors looked to band together as had their stage brethren, forming an organization called the Screen Actors of America as well as the Motion Picture Players Union, which represented extra players. In 1920, Equity superseded these organizations and was granted jurisdiction by the American Federation of Labor to represent both principal and extra motion picture performers. Hollywood did not recognize the union, however. In 1929, Equity launched a strike to gain recognition in motion pictures, but the strike was broken and recognition denied. While Equity may have failed to establish itself in California, an increasing number of its members were taking the train to the West Coast to work in the movies. Following the success of The Jazz Singer, which launched the era of "talking pictures," there was a major shift in Hollywood's acting pool. Many stars of the silent movie era were unable to make the transition because their voices did not translate to the screen. As a result, stage actors were in high demand. However, talking pictures were also more difficult to make, requiring longer hours and leading to abuse of performer