*alert SAG VP's statement "suggests" that President Gilbert should resign !!

Backstage East

April 13, 2005

SAG Leaders at Odds Over Reality TV Show

By Roger Armbrust

A Screen Actors Guild national vice president—and a major opponent of SAG National President Melissa Gilbert—has declared that Gilbert should step down if she is going to host a new reality television show. Gilbert has countered by arguing that she’ll be hosting a union show, and that she needs to pay her mortgage.

At a national membership meeting last weekend, she asked members, “When’s the last time you turned down a union job?” Gilbert is scheduled to host a new reality TV show for CBS titled “Reunion,” which will chronicle the efforts of people trying to find long-lost family members. “Reunion” will be shot under the jurisdiction of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

Anne-Marie Johnson, SAG’s 1st national vice president and chair of the union’s Hollywood board of directors, said on Monday, “I don’t fault anyone for seeking employment, but she’s not anyone. As an actor also, I’m struggling to find myself a show, a series, and I know that one of the main enemies to a legitimate actor is reality television. It’s very upsetting to find that the president of my union chose to feed the beast.”

Gilbert came back just as strongly Tuesday evening, saying, “Anne-Marie Johnson is playing politics with my career and the careers of all other SAG members. I’m appalled that she would tell those in the leadership that we should turn down union work. Do I wish there was more scripted programming? Absolutely. I believe the contract we negotiated supports the creation of more scripted programming. I said I won’t apologize for taking union work, and I won’t.”
Ø Gilbert’s opponents, including the operators of the website SAG Watchdog, have argued that earlier this year, in SAG and AFTRA’s negotiations on a new TV/theatrical contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Gilbert relinquished certain residuals that regulars of new scripted series would have been entitled to—a break for producers that would allow them to invest in scripted programming rather than reality TV, which often hires nonunion talent.

Gilbert and her supporters, in their ballot statement endorsing the new TV/theatrical pact, didn’t connect the rollbacks with reality TV. Of the cuts to residuals, they said, “We believe limited short-term sacrifice is necessary for long-term gain. The rewards for actors are greater if a series can remain on the air long enough to find its audience, generating more work and more residual payments.”

In a slide show on its website reviewing the new TV/theatrical contract, however, SAG does tell its members, “The negotiating committee confronted the ‘reality’ of reality television and its devastating impact on actors working in scripted television.” The web presentation also contains a slide stating that from the 2004 season to the 2005 season, reality TV will result in a “projected loss of over 9,000 union jobs.”

But the slide show also notes that SAG worked with the directors’ and writers’ guilds to regain lost scripted hours and negotiated other gains for scripted shows as well. In October of last year, SAG issued a press release stating that guild statistics “strongly indicate actors are bearing the brunt of today’s trend toward more reality programming and runaway production.” The statement quoted Gilbert as saying, “It’s been clear for some time that reality television and runaway production are having an adverse impact on the number of opportunities available to working actors.”

But Gilbert indicated on Tuesday that she sees more reality programs joining the union ranks and considers the reality TV phase we’re now in to be cyclical. She may have a point. A report from the opening of MIPTV, an audiovisual market taking place in Cannes this week, notes that scripted shows are overshadowing reality programming.

Gilbert’s Statement:

Gilbert had SAG provide Back Stage with a copy of the statement she read Sunday at the union’s national membership meeting, in which she told members she was currently working on a pilot called “Reunion” and that it was a union production. She did not name the union. “Would I love to be starring in a one-hour episodic series in prime time? You bet,” Gilbert said in her statement. “Over the past year, I have worked on an independent film, a movie of the week, and guest-starred in several series. Like many of you, I was considered for pilots and kept my fingers crossed...to no avail. So I am glad to have this role on a union series. Like most of you, I have a family and a mortgage. And I hope each of you gets the opportunity to appear on my show just like the several union actors who have already had speaking roles in the first few segments. “So I ask you: When’s the last time you turned down a union job?” she continued, ending her comment on reality TV with, “I will not apologize for accepting union work on a prime-time television series.”

Gilbert’s message didn’t satisfy Johnson. “If I found myself being offered a TV show that was a reality show, I would first resign as president of SAG,” Johnson said. “What’s more important, to lead the guild or the need for finances? If your need for finances is so pressing that you’ve exhausted all other methods except for a reality show, I’d step down and apologize to members. But she said she would not apologize.”

Asked if she would be a candidate for the union’s national presidency in the fall, Johnson said she didn’t plan to be. But as a leader of Membership First, the slate of SAG board members opposed to Gilbert’s Restore Respect group, Johnson said her party planned to offer more candidates in the fall election and hoped to make inroads in the branches, where Gilbert has shown consistent strength.

Gilbert also said Tuesday that she had turned down three other reality TV programs because “I felt they had no social value. They felt exploitative to me. But this show is close to my heart. And it’s a union show.

Hmmm, does that mean that the shows that our president “turned down” were NON-UNION SHOWS? ”

As the Ol’ Dog has said, “If our president needed the bread and it’s a union show,” I don’t blame her for taking it and, seriously, I'm sure it is close to her

---but, and it’s a big BUTT,

she should have done the “Robert Montgomery”* thing and resigned for the good of her union.

*Montgomery resigned as SAG's President when he felt he was compromised by his producer status.

Personal note: As a person the Ol' Dog likes Melissa Gilbert, not only is she cute, (hey, she is okay?) and, despite all the bites she has taken from the Ol' Dog she has been nothing but nice whenever we have chanced to meet.

Once again a big But , I think she is out of her league as the President of Our Guild, and she should return to what she does best ACT !!