Prairie Tale (30 page)

Bruce didn’t say anything. He already knew what had happened. Sometime in the night that little voice in me had said,
Oh no? You don’t think I can do it? Well, watch this.
No one taught you how to become president of SAG. No one in Hollywood ran classes on how to become a labor leader.

“Patty Duke did it,” I said. “William Daniels has done it for the last two years, and I don’t think he’s done a very good job. Why can’t I do it?”

“Do you really think you can?” he asked.

“I honestly don’t see why I can’t.”

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking I just might.”

I decided to explore the issue with people whose opinions I valued. My first call was to Anna, and she said, “Do it.” Not so much because the Guild needed me, which she said it did, but more because she said it would teach me more about myself than anything I had done before. My manager and agents gave their endorsement and assured me it wouldn’t negatively impact my career (
ha!
). Then I got a brilliant idea.

I called actor Kevin Kilner, another newbie board member and a supporter of mine. He was a big, tall, good-looking, very smart, and reasonable guy. We had already bonded and we would cling to each other in the future, or rather I would rely on him many times as a life raft. I called him and said, “You know who would be great for this job, far better than me? Warren Beatty.”

“Call him and see if he’ll do it,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, I will,” I said. “And I can be his vice president.”

I phoned Warren, who had supposedly once mulled a run for United States president, and told him that I had been asked to run for the presidency of SAG, but I wasn’t sure I had it in me. Then I made my pitch. After a long pause, which was common when speaking with Warren, he said, “Melissa, I would rather be the president of Cambodia.”

However, he encouraged me to run. After some discussion, I said, “Okay, I’m going to run. But if it gets to be too rough or too much trouble, I’ll quit.”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “I’ve known you for a long time. You’re tenacious. Once you get in there, you’re going to want to see things change, and you’re going to want to stay until those changes happen.”

I laughed. “You don’t know me
that
well.”

I took a drag off a cigarette. He chided me for smoking.

“So I can count on your endorsement and support?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” said Warren.

“Are you telling me that you’re not going to publicly support me in this?” I asked with an indignant tone.

“I probably will,” he said. “But I don’t like stepping out publicly on stuff like this.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“To be honest,” he said with a chuckle, “it’s because I want people to like me.”

“Fine, don’t support me,” I said. “I completely understand.” Then I jokingly added, “But I don’t like you.”

“Yes, you do,” he said.

“Okay, I like you,” I replied. “But I’m going to pretend I don’t.”

One by one, I called people and gained support and encouragement. The last call I made was to my mother. She expressed surprise that I could become the Guild’s president and that pissed me off. I told her that I could run for SAG’s presidency if I wanted, or Congress for that matter. I sounded like I was fourteen years old.

“Then do it,” she said. “I’m behind you all the way.”

So that was it. I called Richard and told him that I would run—and do my best to win.

B
efore I officially announced my candidacy or pulled the required paperwork, I realized Anna was right. I was already facing truths about myself, one in particular: I wanted to win.

I wasn’t blinded by the fact, though. My own ego wasn’t anywhere close to becoming more important than the cause, a flaw I had observed in many politicians. But it was an interesting revelation. It brought back memories from numerous epic games of Monopoly with my brother, and competing against him on
Battle of the Network Stars
specials. I liked to win.

However, this wasn’t a made-for-TV game. I met with a circle of people whom I began referring to as my cabinet of advisors. We hired a campaign manager and then we began to raise money. There were two ways to run for office at SAG. I could either go in front of the nominating committee, which was then stacked with William Daniels’s supporters, or I could pull a petition and get it signed by Guild members in good standing. Since there was no way I would get approved by the nominating committee, I pulled a petition and organized volunteers to gather signatures.

I was already familiar with the big issues facing the Guild, including the TV/Theatrical agreement coming up for renegotiation—the collective bargaining agreement that covered all things shot for television and feature films—and the ATA franchise agreement between SAG and talent agencies (this agreement set rules and boundaries for the relationships between talent agencies and their clients, for commission percentages, etc.), which had expired. I wanted to curb productions running out of the country, especially to Canada. All of that was very important, but at the very top of my list was merging SAG and her sister union AFTRA. I saw where the industry was headed with respect to digital rights and royalties. Digital was a jurisdiction that was still up for grabs, and I knew with two unions vying for it, there was the very real possibility of a jurisdictional war—a tremendous problem, considering that forty-five thousand SAG members were also members of AFTRA. No one benefits in a jurisdictional war, as it is possible for each union to lower rates by using waivers and thereby undercutting contractual provisions—what is essentially a “race to the bottom.”

In addition, and perhaps naively, I wanted to try to rid SAG of the divisiveness brought about by the two warring factions: Restore Respect (mine) and Membership First (Valerie’s). The constant fighting blocked any chance for progress. So when I heard that Valerie Harper was going to run against me, I decided to try something bold and unconventional. I called her up and reintroduced myself (we had met when I was a kid), and although I had seen her worship at the feet of Kent McCord, I proposed that the two of us unite SAG by running together.

One of us would be president and the other would be vice president. We would work together. I even offered to let her pick which office she wanted, something my supporters would’ve freaked out about if I’d told them. (I had advisors and a cabinet, but I was still a very independent thinker.)

“I don’t care,” I said. “Let’s just bring everyone together from the top down.”

She said she had to speak to her advisors before giving me an answer. A few hours later, she called and declined my offer. She said she was already committed to the people around her. I interpreted that to mean her handlers had said no. Ironically, those same folks would later call me a puppet who couldn’t speak for myself. One of them actually said publicly that Richard’s hand was so far up my ass they couldn’t tell where his hand stopped and my mouth started.

My next task was to find someone willing to run with me, so I asked Mike Farrell to run for the board with an eye toward being my first vice president. Mike had been and still is an idol of mine; he’s the kind of guy who never backs down from his beliefs. I figured anyone as smart and savvy as he was would probably tell me to go pound sand, but he surprised me by saying yes. I could barely speak after hanging up with him, I was so elated. I turned to Bruce and said, “Holy shit! I must be doing something right.”

Bruce, who in the larger world has very different political views than either Mike or me, said, “Jesus, Melissa, that’s huge. Congratulations.”

In July, we began the campaign, which consisted largely of speaking at gatherings people hosted at their homes, sending e-mails to SAG members, and taking out ads. My day began at five in the morning and lasted late into the night. I relied on Mike, Kevin, Richard, Amy Aquino, and other allies in Hollywood. In New York I had the Pauls and Eileen Henry, to name a few, and in the Regional Branch Division I had Cece DuBois and Mary McDonald-Lewis, among others.

The hours were long, the work was hard, and all of it was exciting. Sometimes it was even fun, like the time Paul Christie conjured up a wise shaman from a drainpipe in his building who advised our tribe. The drainpipe, or DP, also gave us tribal nicknames. Mine was Fullpinttalkslikepauls because I cussed like the Pauls in New York.

The election, as the
Los Angeles Times
described it, was basically “a referendum on the Daniels regime,” though I tried to inject my own vision by emphasizing the need to negotiate, using a strike as a last resort, and trying to unify the divisions that were hurting the union. My supporters included Debra Messing, Tobey Maguire, and my former beau Rob Lowe. Valerie boasted Marty Sheen, Gregory Peck, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

In the meantime, the national board met one more time, this time to decide whether or not to hire Bob Pisano as our new national executive director. The meeting, as usual, went on and on for needless hours as people discussed the pros and cons of hiring Bob. In the end, Bob was hired. His first day of work was to be that coming Tuesday. It would turn out that Bob’s first assignment on that day would be to close the New York office.

Bob’s first day was September 11. The events of that day changed the country and the world, and they changed my campaign into one about banding together and perseverance.

I got up that morning at six o’clock to read my e-mails. I had just clicked on a news alert on my AOL homepage about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center when Bruce came downstairs for breakfast. We turned on the TV minutes before the second plane crashed into the other tower. Like everyone else in America, we spent the rest of the day glued to the TV, in a state of shock and disbelief, crying and holding on to each other and watching the replays and reports over and over again. I thought for sure there would be strikes in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Our house was normally in the flight path out from Los Angeles International Airport. Planes taking off flew over our house all day and night as they climbed out across the ocean and made the sweeping turn back toward land. But in the hours and days after the 9/11 attacks, planes were grounded. There wasn’t a sound in the sky. When I went outside to smoke a cigarette, I didn’t hear anything but an eerie silence. That was the scariest part. Life had changed.

I had speaking engagements scheduled, but I didn’t want to go; I just wanted to crawl into a shell and wait for the next disaster. Mike Farrell talked me out of canceling them by explaining that the point of terrorism was to terrorize people, cities, and an entire country to the point where they ceased to function. If I canceled, he said, they would win.

I more than understood and pushed through my fear, working harder than before while adding a message about working together through difficult situations. I hoped it would resonate to ordinary people who had felt the same way I had. I was disappointed when Valerie refused my invitation to debate the issues. Instead, she and her camp attacked me as a traitor for violating rule one when I had made
Ice House
with Bo in 1989. They also accused me of owning a Canadian production company named after a daughter I supposedly had. Insanity!

I went to Dave McNary at
Daily Variety
about the first charge, explaining I had starred in my former husband’s movie out of love for him and ignorance of the rules. Not only had I been punished a decade earlier, I had chaired the Young Performers Committee to ensure other child actors turning eighteen didn’t repeat the same mistake. As was typical, I was misquoted and Mr. McNasty made it sound like I had intentionally violated rule one because “we all do foolish things when we are in love.” It wasn’t the first time I had been a victim of yellow journalism and it wouldn’t be the last.

My skin turned out to be pretty thick. I was worried, though, that the combination of inaccurate press and the attacks from “the Valiban,” as we dubbed my opponent’s team, would damage my credibility with the SAG membership. Fortunately, her bitter campaign didn’t seem to register with members. On November 2, I captured 45 percent of the vote, versus the 39 percent my opponent received. It was a clear and convincing victory, which we celebrated late into the night.

By the next morning, though, the papers announcing my election also reported the elections committee, loaded with Valerie Harper supporters, was calling for a new election, citing irregularities in the voting process. Apparently, ballots mailed to New York members didn’t have the same signature line as the ballots sent to members in Los Angeles. The elation I felt the night before after winning turned to anger. It took a while before a new election was officially approved and set for early March 2002. By then I was livid about the whole thing. Having heard Fred Savage from
The Wonder Years
refer derisively to me in a board meeting as “the maybe president” made my skin crawl. Soon after the election, I came into work and sat down at my desk in my SAG office at union headquarters to prepare for an ATA meeting when I saw John McGuire, the associate national executive director, walk by. I called out to him and asked if he had a minute to talk. He came in and shut the door.

A lawyer with movie-star looks, John was like the institutional memory of SAG. He represented the union internationally. He was a calm, reasonable man who rarely lost his temper, and when he did, it was for good reason.

“They’re rerunning my election,” I said. “What the hell? What is this about?”

I ranted for a few minutes, unloading a truckload of anger, frustration, and confusion while John sat across from me and nodded. When I finally paused for a breath, he asked, “Are you done?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re going to win,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Then he stood up and walked out of my office.

I
focused on work. While helping to negotiate the ATA agreement between SAG and agents, which, if passed, would allow limited investment by advertising companies in agencies in exchange for putting money in SAG’s health and pension fund, and a commitment to fight the exodus of productions from the United States, I was notified that Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to President George Bush, was coming to Los Angeles to meet with the heads of the entertainment industry.

He wanted to discuss ways that Hollywood could help assist the country’s mood as it recovered from the 9/11 attacks.

The secret meeting took place at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Attendees included chiefs from all the studios, networks, and agencies, as well as legendary titans like agent–power broker Lou Wasserman. It also included the presidents and national executive directors of the unions, including Bob Pisano and me. The room was somber and serious as Rove led the discussion. Ideas were floated from every corner. Jeffrey Katzenberg offered to send
Shrek
DVDs to families who’d lost loved ones in the attacks; other studio chiefs promised similar gifts to our soldiers. Then I offered the Screen Actors Guild’s support and participation.

There was an awkward silence. Of course, everyone in the room was aware of my reelection situation; even the CNN news crawl informed viewers of the battle between Half Pint and Rhoda. Then Rove said, “Thank you very much for that input, Ms. Gilbert.” Then, with a puckish smile, he added, “Also, if you need a good election attorney, we have one.”

His reference to Bush’s contested victory over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election turned the room upside down with laughter. I was the only one who didn’t find it hilarious. I thought about how much I hated the people who had embarrassed my union.

At the end of the year, Elliott Gould, who had been elected SAG’s recording secretary, decided to have a kumbaya conference call with all of the candidates running for president, secretary, or treasurer. In addition to Valerie and me, the roster included law professor and labor activist Eugene Boggs, and Angel Tompkins, an actress who changed her name to Angeltompkins so she would be listed first on the SAG ballot, which presented candidates in alphabetical order. There was also Kent McCord, Kevin Kilner, and Amy Aquino, who were running for secretary and treasurer.

On the call, Elliott tried to set some ground rules for the campaign to keep it from spiraling down into the gutter. Valerie didn’t help matters by jumping in and saying she didn’t think I should be showing up at events and representing myself as the Screen Actors Guild president because, as she claimed, I wasn’t really the president. She recited a laundry list of don’ts. She also had the audacity to claim I was giving out awards to performers with disabilities and appearing at other events merely to get myself elected. I countered by saying I was, in fact, the president, as the board had agreed, until the rerun election told us otherwise, and so for the next three months I was going to act accordingly.

I was professional on the line but I was in tears when I hung up the phone. I called Kevin Kilner right after the conference call and bawled into the receiver. Not very presidential, I knew. But tough. I could not believe the blatant questioning of my integrity. I would maintain my duties, but I made it very clear that the opposition candidates should steer clear of me until the election was over. I hung up and told Bruce it was too hard. Then I went upstairs to tuck Michael into bed. My six-year-old noticed my eyes were red.

“Mommy, have you been crying?” he asked.