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And the villain still pursued her: The actors’ equity association in Hollywood, 1919–1929

2005; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680500064975

1465-3451

Sean P. Holmes,

Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Sean P. Holmes has a doctorate in American History from New York University. He teaches in the American Studies program at Brunel University in London and is currently writing a book about the unionization of stage actors, Weavers of Dreams, Unite! Constructing an Occupational Identity in the Actors’ Equity Association, 1913–1934. Notes Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in Illuminations (New York, 1968), p. 228. Richard de Cordova, Picture Personalities: the emergence of the star system in America (Urbana, IL, and Chicago, 1990), pp. 23–39. de Cordova, Picture Personalities, pp. 40–45. See also Benjamin McArthur, Actors and American Culture, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 195–196; Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: a social history of American movies (New York, 1975), pp. 41–45. On the failure of prominent stage actors in the movies, see McArthur, Actors and American Culture, pp. 201–206. Frances Agnew, Motion Picture Acting (New York, 1913), p. 31. Figures for the number of provincial theatres available to touring companies are from Jack Poggi, Theater in America: The Impact of Economic Forces, 1870–1967 (Ithaca, NY, 1968), p. 29. Figures for the decline in the number of traveling companies are from Robert McLaughlin, Broadway and Hollywood: a history of economic interaction (New York, 1974), p. 1. The latter figures presumably refer to New York-based companies rather than to the dozens of small road shows which toured the minor theatrical circuits of rural America during the 1920s. In a survey of the theatre business sponsored by the Actors’ Equity Association, Alfred Bernheim reported that there were some 300 tent-rep companies touring the small towns of the South and Midwest during the summer of 1926. See Alfred Bernheim, The Business of the Theatre (New York, 1932), pp. 98–99. For a rather poignant description of how the decline of the provincial theater impacted upon the hundreds of performers who labored in theatrical obscurity, see George Arliss, My Ten Years in the Studio (Boston, 1940), p. 3. Frances Starr, The Theatre Will Not Perish, Theatre Magazine, 47 (January 1924), p. 23. Frank Gillmore speech, 4 February 1913, File ‘Historical—Minutes AEA Founding, January–April 1913’, box MH1, Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) Collection, Robert Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, New York. On the stage actors’ strike of 1919, see Sean P. Holmes, All the World's a Stage!: The Actors Strike of 1919, Journal of American History, 91 (March, 2005), in press. On mass production and the managerial revolution in the Hollywood film industry, see Janet Staiger, Mass Produced Photoplays: economic and signifying practices in the first years of Hollywood, in Paul Kerr (ed.), The Hollywood Film Industry (London and New York, 1986), pp. 100–103; Janet Staiger, Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the rise of the studio system, in Gorham Kindem (ed.), The American Movie Industry: the business of motion pictures (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL, 1982), pp. 94–102; David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: film style and production to 1960 (London, 1985), pp. 88–95, 128–153. On differentiation as an economic imperative, see Staiger, Mass-Produced Photoplays, pp. 107–108; Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, pp. 96–102. On the role of advertising in directing consumers to sources of exchange value, see Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, pp. 99–100. de Cordova, Picture Personalities, p. 112. Danae Clark, Actors’ Labor and the Politics of Subjectivity: Hollywood in the 1930s, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1989, pp. 7–8. Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By (London, 1968; repr. 1989), p. 39. Ibid., pp. 59–60. Sean P. Holmes, The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour, 1916–1934, Film History, 12 (2000), pp. 100–102. Barry King, Articulating Stardom, Screen, 26 (September–October 1985), p. 47. Wedgewood Nowell to Frank Gillmore, 30 July 1924, Folder ‘Motion Pictures—Hays Negotiations, 1924’, box MX1, AEA Collection. On this and other grievances that freelancers had against the studios, see Holmes, The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour, pp. 103–105. Barry King, Stardom as an Occupation, in Paul Kerr (ed.), The Hollywood Film Industry (London and New York, 1984), pp. 167–168. See, for example, the case of Jetta Goudal in Holmes, The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour, pp. 106–108. See, for example, Joseph Henabery's account of how he dealt with a group of extras who belonged to the IWW during the shooting of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance, in Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By, pp. 60–61. Clark, Negotiating Hollywood, p. 20; for more on the process of fragmentation, see pp. 18–23. Minutes, AEA Council Meeting, 5 January 1920; Minutes, AEA Council Meeting, 16 February 1920; Minutes, ‘Meeting held … between … members of the Motion Picture Players Association … and members of the AEA Committee’, 17 March 1920; AEA Council Meeting, 20 March 1920; all Reel 5032, Microfilm Collection, Robert Wagner Labor Archives (hereafter Wagner Microfilm). I have not been able to ascertain exactly how many movie actors actually belonged to the Motion Picture Players’ Association and the Screen Actors of America but the sources suggest that it was a very small percentage of the whole. Minutes, AEA Council Meeting, 29 January 1924, Reel 5034, Wagner Microfilm; Alfred Harding, The Motion Pictures Need A Strong Union, American Federationist, 36 (March 1929), pp. 284–285; Alfred Harding, The Revolt of the Actors (New York, 1929), pp. 243–244; Murray Ross, Stars and Strikes: The unionization of Hollywood (New York, 1963), pp. 24–25; Louis B. Perry and Richard S. Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), pp. 338–339. On subsequent representations to Hays, see Wedgewood Nowell, Special Representative of AEA (Los Angeles) to Will H. Hays, 26 July 1924, and Nowell to Frank Gillmore, 26 July 1924, both Folder ‘AEA NY–Hollywood Re: Motion Picture Contracts, 1924’, box MX1, AEA Collection. For the full text of the statement, see Los Angeles Examiner, 10 September 1924, p. 1. The earliest evidence I have found that the studio heads had a spy close to the Equity leadership is an unsigned document detailing the deliberations of AEA delegates at the AFL's national convention in El Paso in 1924. See unsigned typescript, 1 December 1924, Part I, Reel 19, Will H. Hays Papers, Microfilm Edition (hereafter Hays Papers). Harding, The Revolt of the Actors, pp. 535–536. On IATSE and the signing of the Studio Basic Agreement, see Ross, Stars and Strikes, pp. 13–18. Clark, Actors’ Labor and the Politics of Subjectivity, p. 129. For the full text of the AEA's condemnation of the Academy, see Equity, 11 (June 1926), p. 6. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 1, 1 June 1927, p. 1, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Collection, Margaret Herrick Library (hereafter Academy Collection, Herrick Library). On employee representation schemes in the 1920s, see Howell John Harris, Industrial Democracy and Liberal Capitalism, 1890–1925, in Nelson Lichtenstein and Howell John Harris (eds.), Industrial Democracy in America: the ambiguous promise (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 60–65. For more on the operation of the Academy as an employee representation scheme, see Holmes, The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labor, pp. 110–112. See, for example, Mary Pickford, What the Academy Means to Me, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 9, 2 April 1928, p. 1, Academy Collection, Herrick Library. On the pay-cut controversy, see Ross, Stars and Strikes, p. 27; Perry and Perry, History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, pp. 338–339; Harding, The Motion Pictures Need A Strong Actors’ Union, pp. 287–88; Harding, The Revolt of the Actors, pp. 536–537. For the full text of the resolution, see Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 3, 2 July 1927, Academy Collection, Herrick Library. See the letter from the film bosses to the Academy, reproduced in Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 3, 2 July 1927, Academy Collection, Herrick Library. On the breach between Equity headquarters and the Los Angeles office, see Ross, Stars and Strikes, pp. 28–29. Alfred Harding's near contemporaneous accounts downplay this aspect of the Equity campaign in Hollywood. See Harding, The Motion Pictures Need A Strong Union, pp. 288–289; and Harding, Revolt of the Actors, pp. 538–539. For a digest of the Academy contract, see Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 6, 1 January 1928, p. 2, Academy Collection, Herrick Library. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Bulletin, No. 7, 1 February 1928, p. 3, Academy Collection, Herrick Library. On the insertion of sound into the stylistic paradigm of the classical Hollywood cinema, see Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, pp. 301–304. On the demand for stage personnel in Hollywood after the advent of sound, see McLaughlin, Broadway and Hollywood, pp. 105–107. For statistics on the number of Equity members who relocated to Hollywood, see Harding, Revolt of the Actors, p. 540. On the ‘Equity Shop’ ballot, see Equity Shop in Sound and Talking Pictures, Equity, 14 (June 1929), pp. 7–9; Somerset Logan, Revolt in Hollywood, Nation, 129, 17 July 1929, pp. 61–62; Harding, Revolt of the Actors, p. 541; Ross, Stars and Strikes, pp. 29–31. On the rumors that Equity's contract demand was a move to force established screen performers out of the industry, see Hollywood Filmograph, 8 June 1929, p. 4. Carmel Myers, Why Stage Actors Fail in the Talkies, Theatre Magazine, 49 (February 1929), p. 32. Fred W. Beetson to Will H. Hays, 8 June 1929, Part I, Reel 2, Hays Papers. For the details of their plans, see Beetson to Hays, 8 June 1929. For the full text of the statement, see New York Times, 7 June 1929, p. 29. On the response of employers associations and the Los Angeles newspapers, see Logan, Revolt in Hollywood, p. 62. Equity Catspaw For Federation, Los Angeles Times, 3 August 1929, City Section, p. 1. What Noted Actors Say of Equity Demands, Exhibitors Herald-World, 22 June 1929, p. 82. Equity Shop Order Attacked by Mack and Lionel Barrymore, Exhibitors Herald-World, 15 June 1922, p. 97. For further expressions of anti-Equity sentiment amongst the screen actors, see Actors Back Producers Protest Against ‘Equity Shop’ Demand, Exhibitors Herald-World, 22 June 1929, pp. 81–82. Equity's Demands, Film Spectator, 29 June 1929, pp. 3–4. Temperate Counsel of Far-Seeing Producers Fails, Says Gillmore, Exhibitors Herald World, 15 June 1929, p. 99. On the ‘Simon Legree methods’ of the studio heads and their representatives, see Actors’ Studio Status from Bad to Worse, Says Gillmore, Exhibitors Herald-World, 13 June 1929, p. 115. Actors’ Equity News of Hollywood, 13 June 1929, p. 3. See also Frank Gillmore to Will H. Hays, 4 June 1929, Part II, Reel 1, Hays Papers. On attendances at Equity rallies in Hollywood, see Hollywood Fight Goes On As Negotiations Fail, Equity, 14 (July 1929), pp. 7–8. On the AEA's successes against small producers, see untitled clipping [July 1929], Llewellyn Miller scrapbook, n.c. 1847, New York Public Library at the Lincoln Center (hereafter NYPL-LC). For the full text of De Mille's statement, see New York Times, 5 July 1929, p. 10. The Deadlock in Sound and Motion Pictures, pp. 24–25; Conrad Nagel's Part in the Hollywood Fight, Equity, 14 (September 1929), pp. 15–16; New York Times, 27 June 1929, p. 17; New York Times, 29 June 1929, p. 15; Hollywood Filmograph, 19 June 1929, p.1. For biographical data on the dissidents, see Nagel, Conrad; Barthelmess, Richard; Rathbone, Basil; Novarro, Ramon; Patsy Ruth Miller; and Dressler, Marie, all microfilmed clippings file, Herrick Library. On Gillmore's abortive efforts to orchestrate a walkout of extras, see New York Times, 10 July 1929, p. 14; New York Times, 12 July 1929, p. 21. On the 1919 strike as performance, see Holmes, ‘All the World's a Stage!’. Untitled clipping, Hollywood Filmograph, 27 July 1929, AEA file, Herrick Library. Untitled clipping [July 1929], Llewellyn Miller Scrapbook, n.c. 1847, NYPL-LC; Hollywood Fight Goes On As Negotiations Fail, pp. 8–9. On the supply of unreleased material, see Richard Watts, Jr., The Film Parade, Film Mercury, 20 September 1929, p. 4. Confidential typewritten report to Fred W. Beetson, 8 June 1929; confidential report to Fred W. Beetson, 9 June 1929; confidential typewritten report to Fred W. Beetson, 11 June 1929, all Part II, Reel I, Hays Papers. On the initial response of organized labor to Equity's motion picture campaign, see New York Times, 20 June 1919, p. 19; Who Will Win in Hollywood? Equity, 14 (July 1929), p. 5; The Deadlock in Sound and Talking Pictures, p. 8; Harding, Revolt of the Actors, p. 544. On the actions of the maritime unions, see Hollywood Fight Goes On As Negotiations Fail, p. 32. On the position of IATSE, see Ross, Stars and Strikes, pp. 36–37. For evidence of the hostility of many trade unionists to the AEA, see Report of the Proceedings of the forty-fifth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor Held at Atlantic City New Jersey, October 5 to 16, Inclusive 1925 (Washington, DC, 1925), pp. 337–338. On the problems facing the musicians in the wake of the sound revolution, see James P. Kraft, Stage to Studio: musicians and the sound revolution (Baltimore and London, 1996), pp. 47–57. On the mood of the Equity rank-and-file, see Variety, 17 July 1929, p. 7; and New York Times, 21 July 1929, section VIII, p. 4. On Nagel's role in facilitating talks between the rival parties, see New York Times, 2 August 1929, p. 16; and Ross, Stars and Strikes, p. 32. On the failure of the talks, see Suspension of the Fight in Hollywood, Equity, 14 (September 1929), pp. 7–8; Hollywood Fight Goes On As Negotiations Fails, p. 7; Harding, Revolt of the Actors, pp. 545–546. For a detailed description of this meeting, see ‘Meeting at the Hollywood Legion Stadium, Hollywood, California, August 10, 1929’, typewritten report, Box MC4, Folder 15, AEA Collection. For the full text of Barrymore's statement, see New York Times, 13 August 1929, p. 22. For a detailed report on the AEA's final acrimonious meeting in Hollywood, see ‘A General Meeting of the Actors’ Equity Association held at the Hollywood Legion Stadium, Hollywood, California … on August 17, 1929’, typewritten report, Box MC4, File 15, AEA Collection. On the ‘Equity Shop’ struggle as a campaign to ‘Broadwayize’ Hollywood, see A Divided House, Exhibitors Herald-World, 6 July 1929, p. 60. On the emergence of the Screen Actors Guild in the early 1930s, see Clark, Negotiating Hollywood, pp. 37–62; David F. Prindle, The Politics of Glamour: ideology and democracy in the Screen Actors’ Guild (Madison, WI, 1988), pp. 18–25.