Here's a smidgen of Hollywood history — a news report on the ratification vote that ended the very long Writers Guild strike of '88. As I think I've written here before — I've written this in many places — I believe this strike was unavoidable and necessary even if the ultimate contract wasn't all that it should have been. In the 1985 negotiations, the WGA splintered and folded, taking maybe the worst rollbacks in the history of Hollywood labor. The 1988 strike therefore became inevitable as we had to break the pattern of getting slaughtered at the bargaining table and having to go on strike every three years just to keep our underwear.
I voted against the contract but I certainly understood why a majority voted yes. I suppose I knew and maybe hoped it would pass but thought it would be better for the WGA for it to pass by a narrow margin. Assuming the Screen Actors Guild takes something close to the weak offer currently on the table, as I assume they will, they will come to a similar imperative. Which is not to suggest a certainty that they'll be able to achieve the kind of solidarity necessary to rebound.
The meeting seen in this video clip was a surreal experience. It was held on a Sunday morning at the Hollywood Palladium. That Sunday was the last day of that year's Comic-Con in San Diego so I checked out of my hotel on Saturday before noon, spent the rest of that day at the con and the evening at dinner and parties…then left for Los Angeles, for reasons I still do not understand, at about three in the morning. I think I did a minimum of 80 mph all the way (with cars passing me, left and right) and made what is usually a three-hour drive in less than half that time. Got to bed by 5 AM, got up at 9…and on the way to the Palladium, I stopped in at a McDonald's for a Sausage Biscuit With Egg and ran into two writer friends who'd just driven back from San Diego for the vote. It was important enough to make that kind of effort.
This footage is interesting to me because of all the other friends I see in it. The first man you'll see at the podium is not identified but that's the late George Kirgo, who was then the president of the WGA. He intros Brian Walton, who was then our Executive Director and Head Negotiator. Walton did, I believe, a masterful job of holding the Guild together through trying times, pacifying the inevitable dissidents and, most importantly, driving some crafty wedges into the solidarity of the producers who opposed us.
I think (but am not 100% certain) that the bald gent you'll see saying, "Hello, Paul, how are you?" is the late Don Segall. It looks like him but doesn't sound like him. Don Segall was a lovely gent who went from writing comic books (he did the first story of The Creeper with Steve Ditko) to writing and producing TV shows. There's a shot of Harlan Ellison walking in for the strike vote, a quick interview with Francis Moss, a shot of Worley Thorne counting ballots and even a fast chat with Pat McCormick, who we've just been talking about on this page. I see other pals in the background…and once again, I've taken up more of your time to annotate the clip than it's going to take you to watch it…