One Big Union

Although it was midsummer, Frank Bacon was playing Lightnin' to jammed houses, Fay Bainter was filling standing room in East Is West, something called Nightie Night was opening that very evening at the Princess, and eleven other shows were doing adequate hot-weather box office. At 8:20 p.m. word was flashed along Broadway, with Broadway's customary flair for the spectacular, that "Lightnin' has struck!" Then, one after another, in the Shubert, Playhouse, Lyric, Astor, Knickerbocker--in all but one of Broadway's showhouses--lights were dimmed and the customers were told to go home. There would be no show that night. Broadway's showfolk had gone out on strike.

Frank Gillmore has not forgotten that night in Manhattan 18 years ago this week. For although he was not to become Actors Equity Association's president until ten years later, that night was Equity's coming of age, and Frank Gillmore was even then Equity's guiding hand. The strike spread to eight hinterland cities, closed 37 houses, kept 16 others from opening, cost producers & actors $3,000,000, lasted 30 days. It was Broadway's one big strike and still is the Theatre's one big Labor milestone. When it was all over Actors Equity emerged a victorious and potent body. Five years later Equity obtained a closed actors' shop, and no producer dared open without an Equity contract.

First whisperings of a slipping Equity were heard in 1929 when President Gillmore descended upon Hollywood to persuade that still rambunctious community to join up with Equity. He returned to Broadway with no cinema contracts. It was not until in 1933 that Hollywood, by then feeling public stirrings of social-consciousness, formed a haphazard Screen Actors Guild which, like Equity, received its charter from American Federation of Labor through a loose-knitted "International" organization called Associated Actors & Artistes of America (A. A. A. A.) Not even Equity members were sure whether it was victory or a concession when Gillmore thereupon laid down the law that no cinemactor who was an Equity member could remain in good Equity standing unless he joined the cinema Guild." By last spring Screen Actors Guild, now 10,000 strong and thoroughly publicity-wise through the leadership of such luminaries as Robert Montgomery (Guild president) and Franchot & Joan Tone, had little need for Equity support when it wrung a 90% closed shop from Hollywood producers. President Gillmore's consolation was a sketchy group of radio performers which Equity still kept under its thumb. I Last week the actors in this quiet little drama emerged from the wings to play their parts on Unionism's stage. What precipitated the show was the simple fact that entertainment had gone a long way since that August night in 1919. Stage performers were now a distinct minority in show business. Not only had the Screen Actors Guild twice as many members as those on Equity's books. All over the land were radio actors who six weeks ago opened up an active membership drive for 10,000 members as a subdivision of Equity. Presided over by energetic Lawrence Tibbett, the independent American Guild of Musical Artists, is currently hoping that the A. A. A. A. will offer its patronage and simultaneously revoke the charter of the Musical Artists' rival Grand Opera Association.

Last week in Equity's Manhattan offices there met with Frank Gillmore the heads of all A. A. A. A. unions, among them Screen Actors' Executive Secretary Kenneth Thomson, an ambitious B-picture cinemactor whose talents as organizer have exceeded his talents on the screen. When the meeting was over, Equity no longer had the leading role in the theatrical unionization show. A new strong A. A. A had come forth to play the part. ' That part will consist in being pretty much the One Big Union of show busines assuming full responsibility for jurisdictional disputes, integrating the unions into a harmonious structure, planning long range policies. It will light censorship, act as liaison between acting groups and other unions, give a lift to WPActors.

In relinquishing its pretensions to supremacy in the entertainment labor held. Equity surrendered its radio division, approved the establishment of a new autonomous A. A. A. A. affiliate to be known as he American Federation of Radio Artists. In return, A. A. A. A. provided Equity's president with a soft place to light.

Septuagenarian Frank Gillmore. no less astute than when he was a budding Equity member of 46, was offered and immediately accepted the presidency of the leorganized A. A. A. A. How nominal that job would be no one was prepared to say but not nominal was the salary--$13,000 per year, same as Frank Gillmore received from Equity, whose leadership he intended to retain, minus emolument, for the time being at least.

*Not, however, under A.A.A.A. are theatrical unions outside of the acting profession, whose members include stage employes, dramatists, screen writers, musicians in orchestras.

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