Glamor belongs to only part of Hollywood

LOS ANGELES - "Jeopardy!" writer Andrew Price lives in a modest home, makes mortgage and car payments and describes himself and fellow scribes as "meat and potatoes people."

Movie art director Sean Duggan, 38, rarely wears a tux and leads a life that's more regular than regal. "When they roll out the red carpet, they call me to do it," he says.

To most of the world, Hollywood is all about glitz and glamor and beautiful people — some behaving badly. But Price and Duggan belong to what might be called the real Hollywood: its industrial other half, where folks live paycheck to paycheck, drive Toyotas and stay out of trouble.

The current Writers Guild of America strike has cast a rare, international spotlight on this workaday culture of behind-the-camera jobs — known as "below the line" in production parlance.

Most WGA members lead far from glamorous lives, and seldom earn beyond five figures each year. Yet like their colleagues who build sets, apply makeup and lay cable, they're the ones who keep Hollywood cranking the content.

Or not.

Since it began Monday, the writers strike has shuttered nearly a dozen TV shows, including such popular series as "The Office," "Desperate Housewives" and "24." The feature-film pipeline could be next.

"The stars are who they are ... as a function of all those people who are unknown and keep the system going," said Elizabeth Currid, a professor at University of Southern California who studies art and culture in Los Angeles. "Stars wouldn't define Hollywood if there weren't these regular people doing their jobs behind the scenes, day in and day out."

The average salary for entertainment industry employees is $73,000 a year, a handsome income that's 80 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2006 study by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Yet most workers in Hollywood earn far less — when they even have jobs — because the MPAA's average includes multimillion dollar salaries paid to executives.

Most of the 6,000 carpenters, welders, set decorators and prop masters represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 44 earn $50,000 to $80,000 a year, said secretary-treasurer Elliot Jennings.

It's "decent money" that allows for a middle-class lifestyle, he said. But work is spotty and 10 to 15 percent of the membership are not regularly employed — a situation worsened by the increasing loss of film and television shoots to foreign locations, and now the writers strike.

"Most of our members work paycheck-to-paycheck. They get eight months of work in a 12-month period," he said. "The amount of money we make doesn't afford most members to keep their wives home from work. We're middle-class people who get up and go to work every day and can't afford not to."

Having a Screen Actors Guild card isn't necessarily a ticket to Hollywood success, either. Members can spend more time hustling gigs than working them. That's why so many have side jobs tending bar or waiting tables.

"They're not living in mansions," said USC business professor S. Mark Young. "They're probably living in modest apartments."

Writer Diana Ljungaeus was lured by the glamor of Tinseltown when she moved from her native Sweden. Yet she quickly learned Hollywood is a place where "everyone is something else."

"You take a cab and the taxi driver is really a director and the cashier is really an actor, just doing this to get over a poor stretch," said Ljungaeus, 48, who works two jobs to support her playwriting pursuits. "Very few people can live off the arts of TV, theater and film. It's a few that can and they live well. The rest of the hopeful are just struggling."

Glitz and glamor elude even those industry workers who do draw a reliable salary.

Bruce Grayson has been a Hollywood makeup artist for nearly 20 years. He lives in a condo, not a mansion. He has one car, not a fleet. And he wears some designer duds, "but the articles are few and far between."

After two decades in the business, Grayson said he's still "amazed" by the level of wealth and luxury the industry provides to the stars who put a face on Hollywood for the rest of the planet.

"It's not my world," he said. "It's their world."

And they know it.

"The difference between the upper echelon in our business and the lower echelon is so striking," actor William H. Macy said as he walked the picket line with writers this week. "It's tough for me when I'm on set. It makes me feel bad when (the studios) are being so stingy with craft services (catering) people and writers, when they're trying to cut costs on that level."

Ricky Blitt straddles both sides of Hollywood. A writer of television shows such as "Family Guy" and feature-length screenplays, he's successful enough that he doesn't have to look for jobs like many in the industry, but not so successful that he routinely rubs elbows with A-listers.

His lifestyle is "100 percent opposite from `Entourage,'" he said, referring to the HBO series about the entertainment business.

"This is my Hollywood glamor life: getting up early, writing, petting my two cats and watching NHL sports packages on TV," said Blitt, who works from an office at his Hollywood Hills home. "Nobody quite knows who you are or what you do. You can afford certain privileges, but there's nothing exciting about it."

Broadway strike may darken theaters

More than two dozen Broadway plays and musicals were set to go dark Saturday in the crucial run-up to the lucrative holiday season as stagehands prepared to strike, a person familiar with contract negotiations.

The work stoppage was to begin at 11 a.m., affecting an early matinee of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical," said the person, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

A union spokesman declined comment. Lisa Linden, a spokeswoman for the League of American Theatres and Producers, said the group had not heard from Local One regarding the job action. "It would be shocking if they would hurt the theatergoing public by shutting down Broadway without notice," she said.

The League and Local One have been in negotiations for more than three months, wrangling over work rules and staffing requirements, particularly requirements governing the expensive process of setting up a show.

Local One, which has been working without a contract since the end of July, was told Friday by its parent union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, to begin the walkout on Saturday.

Eight Broadway shows will not be affected by the strike, as they are playing in theaters with separate Local One contracts. They are "Young Frankenstein," "Mary Poppins," "Xanadu," "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," "Mauritius," "Pygmalion," "The Ritz" and "Cymbeline." Off-Broadway shows will also keep running.

On Thursday, after two days of contentious negotiations, the local got its parent union's permission to strike.

November has been an exceptionally busy month for Broadway, with the opening of such plays as Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll," "Cyrano," starring Kevin Kline, and "Young Frankenstein." Still to come before Christmas are such productions as "The Farnsworth Invention," by Aaron Sorkin, Disney's "Little Mermaid" and a revival of Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming." Broadway traditionally does well in December, particularly in the week between Christmas and New Year's, normally the busiest of the year.

In March 2003, more than a dozen Broadway shows went dark after musicians went on a four-day strike, costing the city millions of dollars in lost revenue. Earlier this year, the musicians agreed to a new three-year contract.

The 3,000-member stagehands union, which has between 350 and 500 members working on Broadway at any given time, contends it could find employment for many of its people in television or film if a work stoppage occurs.

Hollywood writers set strike for Monday

Film and TV writers prepared to go on strike Monday for the first time in two decades to break what has become a high-stakes stalemate with the world's largest media companies over profits from DVDs and programming on the Internet.

Writers Guild of America board members voted unanimously Friday to begin the strike at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time (3:01 a.m. EST) unless studios offered a more lucrative deal with a bigger cut from video sales and shows sold or streamed over the Web.

"The studios made it clear that they would rather shut down this town than reach a fair and reasonable deal," Patric Verrone, president of the western chapter of the guild, said at a news conference.

The union said it would stage its first pickets in New York and Los Angeles after strike captains meet Saturday to finalize details.

Both sides agreed late Friday to meet with a federal mediator on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to avoid a strike. The meeting will take place at a neutral location to be determined, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said.

Earlier in the day, J. Nicholas Counter, president of the producers' group, called the writers' strike "precipitous and irresponsible" in a prepared statement.

Producers believe progress can be made on other issues but "it makes absolutely no sense to increase the burden of this additional compensation" involving DVDs and the Internet, he said.
Last year alone, members of the western chapter of the guild were paid $56 million in additional compensation from DVD residuals, he said.

Counter declined a request by The Associated Press for further comment.

Among other media giants, the alliance represents CBS Corp.; NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; and The Walt Disney Co., owner of the ABC network.

The negotiations began in July and were joined this week by a federal mediator.

"We are committed to seeing this through and are willing to engage in any further discussions if the studios so desire," Verrone said.

The first casualty of the strike would be late-night talk shows, which are dependent on current events to fuel monologues and other entertainment.

"The Tonight Show" on NBC will go into reruns starting Monday if last-ditch negotiations fail and a strike begins, according to a network official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person lacked authorization to comment publicly.

Garth Brooks and Tommy Lee Jones were the scheduled guests.

Comedy Central has said "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" would likely go into repeats as well.

A message left seeking CBS comment on plans for "The Late Show with David Letterman" in New York was not immediately returned Friday evening.

During the 1988 writers strike, Letterman, then host of NBC's "Late Night," and longtime "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson initially went off the air but later returned as the walkout dragged on for 22 weeks and cost the industry about $500 million.

Daytime TV, including live talk shows such as "The View" and soap operas, which typically tape about a week's worth of shows in advance, would be next to feel the impact.

The strike will not immediately impact production of movies or prime-time TV programs. Most studios have stockpiled dozens of movie scripts, and TV shows have enough scripts or completed shows in hand to last until early next year.

There could be widespread disruptions in Hollywood as other unions support the writers.
Officials with the Screen Actors Guild have told members they must report for work but encouraged them to join picket lines during their off-time.

A similar message came from the head of a local Teamsters union. However, those workers were told they were protected by law from employer retribution if they honored strike lines.

John Bowman, chief negotiator for the writers guild and the producer on an upcoming TBS show "Frank, TV," said he would not cross picket lines, even if it cost his job.

"Unfortunately we have to inflict as much damage as we can as soon as possible in order to get this thing over," he said.

The economic impact of a strike is hard to estimate because not all production will be halted at once, economists said.

"There definitely will be pain," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

The entertainment industry contributes about $30 billion a year to the Los Angeles economy, or about $80 million a day, he said.

Talks between writers and producers will likely impact upcoming negotiations between the studios and unions representing actors and directors.

All those unions believe revenue from content offered on the Internet, cell phones and other platforms will grow tremendously in the years ahead, even though it's now minuscule compared to DVD sales.

Consumers are expected to spend $16.4 billion on DVDs this year, according to Adams Media Research.

By contrast, studios could generate about $158 million from selling movies online and about $194 million from selling TV shows over the Web.

The strike was first announced Thursday night at a meeting attended by 3,000 union members whose moods ranged from defiant to somber.