The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild
Page 39
27. Meadow, Oral History Project, 24.
28. Richard Levinson and William Link, Stay Tuned: An Inside Look at the Making of Prime-Time Television (New York: Ace Books, 1981), 184–186.
29. Ibid., 14.
30. David Isaacs, interview with the author, 30 July 2013.
31. Cheri Steinkellner, interview with the author, 12 August 2013.
32. Ron Clark, interview with the author, 26 August 2009.
33. Frank Pierson, interview.
34. George Eckstein, Oral History Project, 5.
35. Ernest Kinoy, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, spring 1978), 20.
36. M.W., “Kanter Adds Dimension to Hyphenated Career: Writer-Prod-Dir-Emcee,” WGAw Newsletter, December 1967, 7.
37. Carey Wilber, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 25 July 1978), 5. Wilber is cited in the materials as Carey Wilbur.
38. Ben Roberts and Ivan Goff, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 28 April 1978), 22.
39. Stephen Farber, “Rift Remains after Strike by Writers,” New York Times, 30 June 1973, 67.
40. Sy Salkowitz, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 4 April 1978), 13.
41. Sherwood Schwartz, Oral History Project, 8.
42. Leonard Stern, interview with the author, 14 January 2010.
43. Leonard Stern, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 17 May 1978), 9. These issues are still a part of the organization’s mission statement today. See “The History of the Caucus,” Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors, last modified 2001, http://www.caucus.org/about/shorthistory.html.
44. Some writers are also members of the Producers Guild of America, just as others are also members of the DGA and SAG.
45. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et al., Petitioners, v. Writers Guild of America, West, Inc., et al.; Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Inc., Petitioner, v. Writers Guild of America, West, Inc., et al.; National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. Writers Guild of America, West, Inc., et al. Case Record No. 437 U.S. 411 (1978). Opinion delivered by Justice White. Others voting in favor were Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, William Rehnquist, and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart, William J. Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. M.W., “Hyphenate Sam Rolfe,” 1.
49. Stirling Silliphant, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 1 March 1978), 4.
50. Patricia Falken Smith, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 16 March 1978), 15.
51. Saul Turteltaub, interview with the author, 16 August 2013.
52. Marc Norman, What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting (New York: Three Rivers Press/Random House, 2008), 390.
53. McGilligan, Backstory 4, 5.
54. William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1986).
55. Paul Schrader as quoted in Norman, What Happens Next, 397.
56. Geoff King, New Hollywood Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 90.
57. Mark Norman, interview with the author, 9 June 2011.
58. For more on the rise of independent films and the mainstreaming of the indie, see Alisa Perren’s excellent Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012).
59. Stanley Rubin, interview by the Writers Guild Oral History Project (Los Angeles: Writers Guild Foundation, 9 May 1979), 20.
60. The Writer Speaks: Fay Kanin, DVD, 18 May 1998, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.
61. Fred Silverman, interview with the author, 16 August 2013.
62. J. B. Bird, “Roots,” Archive of American Television, Television Academy Foundation, 2013, http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/shows/roots.
63. Writers on Writing: William Blinn, DVD, 23 April 2009, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.
64. Writers on Writing: William Blinn.
65. Fred Silverman, interview.
66. Ibid. Norman Lear echoed this longing for the Fin-Syn structure and smaller corporate overhead in his interview with me, 20 August 2013.
67. John Caldwell, Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 57.
68. Norman Lear, interview.
69. Television Academy, “Hall of Fame 2011: Inductee Susan Harris (Exclusive Interview),” YouTube (recorded 20 January 2011), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1j2Mw59DPQ&noredirect=1.
70. Allan Burns, interview with the author, 7 August 2013.
71. Robert Schiller, interview with the author, 12 January 2012.
72. Norman Lear, interview.
73. David Isaacs, interview.
74. Alvin Sargent, interview with the author, 25 August 2009.
75. Michael Franklin, memo from the WGA to All Signatories to the 1973 WGA MBA, 8 April 1974, Archives, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles. The memo does not note whether these women were staff writers or freelancers.
76. Ibid.
77. Michael Franklin, interview.
78. Jean Rouverol Butler, interview by Howard Suber, Suber Files, tape 6, Archives, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.
79. Norman Lear, interview.
80. WGA Women’s Committee, “Women’s Committee Statistics Report,” 7 November 1974, Archives, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.
81. Ibid.
82. Barbara Corday, interview with the author, 30 August 2013.
83. Ibid.
84. Both quotations from Leonora Thuna, letter to the editor, “Story Eds Should Become Aware of Women Writers,” WGAw Newsletter, June 1983, 17.
85. William T. Bielby and Denise D. Bielby, The 1987 Hollywood Writers’ Report: A Survey of Ethnic, Gender, and Age Employment Factors (West Hollywood, CA: Writers Guild of America, West, 1987).
86. Ibid.
87. Cheri Steinkellner, interview.
88. James R. Webb, “Screenplays and the Black Writer,” reprinted from the Stanford Alumni Almanac, March 1969, in “POV: Point of View,” WGAw Newsletter, May 1969, 1, 8.
89. Ibid.
90. Carey Wilber, Oral History Project, 3.
91. Bill Boulware, interview with Oliver Williams, “POV: A Writer Who’s Black . . . and Working: An Interview,” WGAw Newsletter, June 1983, 28–29.
92. Len Riley, “POV: All-White or All-American?” WGAw Newsletter, June 1980, 26–30.
93. Jennifer Holt, Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980–1996 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 3.
94. Ibid, 15.
95. The Nielsen Company–NTI in 1980 and 1990, cited in “TV Basics,” TVB (New York: Television Bureau of Advertising, 2010), 2, http://www.tvb.org/media/file/TVB_FF_TV_Basics.pdf; Larry Gross, “My Media Studies: Cultivation to Participation,” Television & New Media 10, no. 1 (January 2009): 66–68, doi:10.1177/1527476408325105.
96. Cheri Steinkellner, interview.
97. David Isaacs, interview.
98. Will Tusher, “Producers Once Again Unified,” Variety, 8 February 1982, 1.
99. Ibid., 12.
100. Grace Reiner, interview with author, 23 June 2009.
101. Ibid.
102. Dale Pollack, “Writers Pondering Strike Issue,” Los Angeles Times, 15 February1985, http://articles.latimes.com/1985–02–15/entertainment/ca-3397_1_strike-issue.
103. Standard & Poor’s, Industry Surveys 1985, L18, as cited in Holt, Empires of Entertainment, 16; Alan J. S
cott, On Hollywood: The Place, the Industry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
104. Susan Christopherson, “Labor: The Effects of Media Concentration on the Film and Television Workforce,” in Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, ed. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 160.
105. Peter Lefcourt, moderator, “Seven Letters to the Editor: A Roundtable Discussion on Politics in the Writers Guild of America,” Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America, West, April 2005, http://www.wga.org/writtenby/writtenbysub.aspx?id=872.
106. Ibid.
107. Edmund Morris, letter to the editor, WGAw Newsletter, May 1985, 26–27.
108. Grace Reiner, interview.
109. Ernest Lehman, “From the Guild President,” WGAw Newsletter, November 1985, 1, 8–9.
110. Howard Rodman, interview with the author, 15 February 2011.
111. Cheri Steinkellner, interview.
112. “Writers Strike Chronology,” Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1988. Accessed at http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-04/news/mn-10237_1_writers-guild.
113. See Chad Raphael, “The Political Economic Origins of Reali-TV,” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, no. 41 (May 1997): 102–109.
114. The WGA made slight gains on creative rights and foreign sales. The AMPTP secured a sliding residual scale for hour-long reruns.
115. Chuck Slocum, interview with the author, 14 January 2010.
116. Marc Norman, interview.
117. George Axelrod, interview by Patrick McGilligan, Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 69.
118. Ronald Bass, interview with the author, 13 June 2011.
119. Joe Eszterhas, interview by Michael Fleming, “Playboy Interview: Joe Eszterhas,” Playboy, 1 April 1998, 58.
120. Ronald Bass, interview.
121. Caldwell, Televisuality, 105.
122. Saul Turteltaub, interview.
CHAPTER 5 CONFEDERATION
1. Tom Fontana, interview with author, 23 October 2009.
2. A series of film-worthy twists, turns, mysteries, and dramas led to leadership upheavals within the WGA West, including the successive departures of two presidents, Victoria Riskin (My Antonia), the first female president of the WGAw (2001–2004), and Charles Holland (Murder One), the first African-American president of the Writers Guild (January–March 2004).
3. John Auerbach, “Writers United?” Cinema Journal 45, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 97.
4. Carl DiOrio, “Mangan to Exit WGA East,” Hollywood Reporter, 31 August 2007.
5. Tom Fontana, interview.
6. Howard A. Rodman, “WGA Strike One Year Later: Rodman,” Deadline Hollywood, 28 February 2009, http://www.deadline.com/2009/02/wga-strike-one-year-later-howard-rodman/.
7. Susan Christopherson, “Labor: The Effects of Media Concentration on the Film and Television Workforce,” in The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, ed. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 162.
8. Andy Meisler, “The Man Who Keeps E.R.’s Heart Beating,” New York Times, 26 February 1995.
9. Denise Mann, “It’s Not TV, It’s Brand Management TV: The Collective Author(s) of the Lost Franchise,” in Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Media Industries, ed. Vicki Mayer, Miranda J. Banks, and John T. Caldwell (London: Routledge, 2009), 99–114.
10. Norman Lear, interview with the author, 20 August 2013.
11. Barbara Corday, interview with the author, 30 August 2013.
12. See Mara Einstein, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the FCC (London: Routledge, 2004).
13. Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706 6(2)(A) (2006).
14. Jennifer Holt, Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980–1996 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 150.
15. Charles Slocum, interview with the author, 24 January 2010.
16. Charles Slocum, “Seven Steps to Wisdom,” Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America, West, October 2002.
17. This instability was occurring across media industries beyond film and television. See Mark Deuze, Media Work (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007).
18. Tom Fontana, interview.
19. This is a summary list of the major regulatory provisions. The Telecommunications Act also revoked regulations on radio station ownership and cracked down on content violations with the inclusion of the Communications Decency Act, a new ratings system, and the requirement that all new television sets include the V-chip, a technology intended to allow parents to manage their children’s viewing based on content ratings. For a detailed analysis, see Jeff Chester, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy (New York: New Press, 2007).
20. Emanuel Levy, Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film (New York: NYU Press, 2001), 510n38. Later companies like Lions Gate Entertainment followed this pattern to great success.
21. Another example is Fox Atomic. For more discussion of this movement, see Chuck Tryon, Reinventing Cinema: Movies in the Age of Media Convergence (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 171.
22. Gary Indiana, “Gus Van Sant,” BOMB 45 (Fall 1993), http://bombsite.com/issues/45/articles/1699#.
23. Alisa Perren, Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012).
24. Levy, Cinema of Outsiders, 3.
25. Disney subsequently sold Miramax in 2010—not back to the Weinstein Company, but rather to the oil money/private equity firm Filmyard Holdings.
26. There were also a number of short-lived series (The Critic) or series shown briefly on primetime that then transitioned to Saturday morning (Batman: The Animated Series, The Tick, Life with Louie).
27. WGA memo, “WGA Reaches Groundbreaking Contract Agreement with Fox Television: Primetime Animation Writers Reach Contractual Parity with Their Live-Action Counterparts Los Angeles,” 14 August 1999, Special Collections, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library Archives, Los Angeles.
28. David A. Goodman, interview with the author, 24 April 2009.
29. Sydnye White, “Documentary by Design,” Cinema Journal 45, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 94.
30. Bill Carter, “Reality Shows Alter the Way TV Does Business,” New York Times, 25 January 2003.
31. John Koch, “On the Dock of the Bay,” Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America, West, May 2005, 17.
32. Del Reisman, “Spring through the Guilds and Honorary Societies,” Weekly Variety, 18–24 November 1996.
33. John Zuur Platten quoted in Suzanne Oshry, “Getting in the Game,” Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America, West, October 2004, 52.
34. Christy Marx quoted in ibid., 55.
35. Charles Slocum, interview.
36. The memo suggested a “charm school” that would have promising writers “undergo an intensive image makeover.” The goal was to increase the visibility of writers and to improve their professional status. Ron Tammariello, internal memo to Brian Walton and Paul Nawrocki, 1995, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library Archives, Los Angeles.
37. See Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, “The Showrunner as Auteur,” in Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status, ed. Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine (New York: Routledge, 2011), 38–58.
38. David Goodman, interview.
39. Mann, “It’s Not TV, It’s Brand Management TV,” 99–114.
40. Michael Curtin, “Matrix Media,” in Television Studies after TV: Understanding Television in the Post-Broadcast Era, ed. Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay (London: Routledge, 2009), 13.
41. Http://transition.fcc.gov/ownership/california100306/statement_patric_verrone.pdf.
42. Robin Schiff, interview with the author, 21 April 2009.
43. Grace Reiner, interview with author, 23 June 2009. Howard A. Rodman said of her: “Grace
Reiner is a force of nature, and has the entire MBA in her head, like a character from Fahrenheit 451” (Howard A. Rodman, personal communication with the author, 15 August 2010).
44. David Robb, “WGA to Decide Walton Verdict,” Hollywood Reporter, 4 August 1998.
45. Daniel Petrie Jr., memo to the membership of the WGA West, “A Referendum Defeated 921–821,” September 1998, Archives, Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library, Los Angeles.
46. Elias Davis, interview with the author, 29 September 2009.
47. Anonymous, interview with the author, 26 April 2012.
48. Grace Reiner, interview.
49. Marc Norman quoted in Michael T. Jarvis, “Putting Faces to Some Famous Words,” Los Angeles Times, 31 October 2003, E10.
50. William Goldman quoted in ibid.
51. Charles Slocum, interview.
52. Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau, “Introduction,” in The YouTube Reader, ed. Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau (Stockholm: National Library of Sweden, 2009), 10.
53. Ross McCall, interview with the author, 16 May 2009.
54. Greg Thomas Garcia quoted in Neely Tucker, “Reality Looms: Writers’ Strike Could Change Pace of Television,” Washington Post, 1 November 2007.
55. Mark Gunn, interview with the author, 22 March 2009.
56. Patric Verrone, interview with the author, 26 April 2012.
57. David Young, interview with the author, 29 May 2012.
58. Jim Benson, “Top Model Takes Strikers Off Payroll,” Broadcasting & Cable, 7 November 2006, http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/106484-Top_Model_Takes_Strikers_Off_Payroll.php.
59. Stephen J. Cannell on behalf of the Caucus of Television Producers, Writers and Directors, statement read before the Public Hearing on Media Ownership, F.C.C. Hearings Concerning Media Consolidation, 3 October 2006, Los Angeles, http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=5513687633.
60. Taylor Hackford on behalf of the Directors Guild of America, ibid., http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=6518528813.
61. Mike Mills on behalf of the Recording Artists Coalition, ibid., http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=6518524527.
62. John Connolly, AFTRA national vice president, ibid., http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=6518524524.