poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (01/11/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Tue 8 Jan 85 Volume 5 Number 3
Contents: Non-Union Actors for Inauguration
Nuclear Winter on PBS
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Date: 8 Jan 1985 19:32-PST
Sender: GEOFF@SRI-CSL
Subject: Help Wanted: Attractive, clean-cut, all-American types -- for free.
n074 1658 07 Jan 85
AM-INAUGURAL
Plan to Use Non-Union, Unpaid Actors Protested
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
c.1985 .Y. Times News Service
NEW YORK - The committee planning President Reagan's inaugural is
seeking non-union actors to perform without pay at the ceremony and
various festivities.
The performers should be ''attractive, clean-cut, all-American
types,'' according to an advertisement placed last week in Backstage,
an entertainment trade newspaper. They are to be paid only their
expenses for eight days of work.
This plan, a departure from the practice of decades, has raised
protests from labor unions in the performing arts and from the
AFL-CIO, both saying it violated minimum wage statutes. The union
leaders also charge that the casting call for ''all-American types''
amounts to racial and ethnic bias.
''There's a minimum wage of $3.35 an hour,'' said Murray Seeger, the
director of information for the AFL-CIO. ''You get it for frying
hamburgers at McDonald's and you ought to get at least that much for
dancing for the president.''
John Buckley, the deputy press secretary of the Presidential
Inauguration Committee, said that the committee's $12 million budget
was ''too tight'' to allow it to pay the 200 actors. He said that
they would receive great professional exposure from singing and
dancing at the parade, ball and parties. Some 2,000 members of the
inaugural committee are working as volunteers for the ceremony and
related festivities Jan. 21, Buckley said.
The inaugural committee is, however, paying the minimum union scale
to such performers as Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor
and Diana Ross, as their contracts with entertainment unions require,
Buckley said.
The inaugural committee is also paying minimum scale or above to 25
orchestras that will play at parties and to the singer Jerry Lee
Lewis, the soul band Kool and the Gang and the country singer Johnny
Lee, who will all perform at ''young people's concerts.''
Buckley added that the phrase ''attractive, clean-cut, all-American
types'' was not meant to rule out members of racial or ethnic
minority groups. ''I think it speaks for itself,'' he said of the
wording. ''I think what it means is someone who's cheerful and
outgoing.''
The Presidential Inaugural Committee is a private body that raised
its $12 million by selling tickets to the inaugural parade and balls,
commemorative coins and advertising time on the ABC-TV broadcast of
the inaugural gala on Jan. 19, Buckley said. Michael K. Deaver, the
White House chief of staff, is serving as general chairman of the
committee as one of his last tasks before returning to private life,
and Buckley said relations between the inaugural committee and the
White House were close.
It is not uncommon for major performers to appear without pay in
inaugural events, but union officials said they could not recall a
previous instance when an inauguration committee did not pay
subordinate performers or a time when it required that performers not
belong to a union.
''I've been around since Roosevelt,'' said Sanford Wolff, the
president of AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists, ''and I can never remember anything like this.''
''Never, never,'' added Willard Swire, the executive consultant to
Actors Equity Association, the union of theater actors.
Buckley acknowledged, ''I don't know of any such incident'' in
previous inaugurals. He said the inuaguration committee placed the
advertisement for non-union actors after finding it too difficult
over Christmas vacation to recruit high school students to perform.
Alan Eisenberg, executive secretary of Actors Equity, is to ask the
union's governing body Tuesday to adopt a resolution denouncing the
inaugural committee's plans.
Wolff of AFTRA said that he was seeking legal advice on filing a
complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, contending that
the non-payment of actors violated federal minimum wage laws. The
third major performers' union to protest the plan is the Screen
Actors Guild, of which Ronald Reagan once was president.
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The dispute arose late last week when the advertisement appeared in
Backstage, announcing a casting call on Jan. 4 at the Radio City
Music Hall. About 100 actors had auditions, Buckley said.
The advertisement, sometimes using capital letters, said that the
inaugural committee was ''seeking NON-UNION musical theater
performers.''The advertisement also included the
''all-American'' description. It said actors would travel to
Washington on Jan. 13, rehearse Jan. 14 to 18, perform Jan. 18
through 21, and return home on Jan. 22.
The inauguration committee will pay for transportation, meals and
housing in a hotel or government building, the advertisement said. It
added: ''As every possible expense will be paid for during your stay
in Washington, D.C., A FEE WILL NOT BE PAID FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION.''
Annie Korzan, a New York actor who has appeared in the films
''Tootsie'' and ''Rent Control,'' objected to the advertisement.
''For a president who used to be an actor to ask actors to work for
nothing is unbelieveable,'' she said.
But Buckley maintained that performers would be accepting the unpaid
work willingly. ''We're essentially asking them to be volunteers,''
he said. ''No one forced them to audition.''
As for the former president of SAG, Ronald Reagan, an assistant
White House press secretary, Mark Weinberg, said: ''If you ask me if
he knew in advance the wording of the ad, I'd have to say 'no.'''
nyt-01-07-85 1955est
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Date: 10 Jan 1985 14:49:36 PST
Subject: Film on effects of nuclear war: "Threads"
From: David Booth <DBOOTH@USC-ISIF.ARPA>
THREADS
Turner Broadcasting System and Lionheart Television proudly present the
American debut of THREADS, a deeply moving, honest and realistic
account of a worldwide nuclear war and its devastating aftermath.
Employing a balanced and scientifically factual approach to its
subject, THREADS focuses on the human tragedies of a nuclear attack on
Great Britain as a result of a full-scale nuclear war between the
United States and the Soviet Union.
A co-production of Western World Television, The British Broadcasting
Corporation and The Nine Network of Australia, THREADS was filmed
entirely on location in Sheffield in northern England. The motion
picture, distributed by Lionheart Television for BBC Enterprises
Limited, aired on the BBC in late September 1984.
From the LA Times, Calendar, Tuesday Jan. 1, 1985:
"The story of 'Threads' is a personal one, centering on the
devastation of two Sheffield families -- the working-class Kemps
and the middle-class Becketts. They are watched from a month
before Sheffield is devastated and followed for 13 years. Unlike
ABC's overly sentimental portrayal ['The Day After'], however,
"Threads" is much more docudrama than movie. It is laced with
facts about the impact of nuclear war, including some that were not
known when ABC was preparing its movie."
WHAT: "Threads"
WHERE: Simultaneously, nationwide, on any cable system carrying the WTBS
Atlanta SuperStation, including Group W (channel 23) in Los Angeles.
WHEN: Sunday, January 13, 5:00-7:00pm PST, and
Wednesday, January 23, 8:05pm-10:05 PST, and
Sunday, January 27, 11:30am-1:35pm PST*
*"On The 8th Day" immediately follows the January 27 showing.
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Date: 10 Jan 1985 14:52:05 PST
Subject: Nuclear Winter film; Soviet-American panel discussion
From: David Booth <DBOOTH@USC-ISIF.ARPA>
ON THE 8TH DAY
The far-ranging effects of nuclear war, with its resulting "nuclear
winter," are examined by leading experts and scientists in ON THE 8TH
DAY, a BBC documentary special making its U.S. cable television
premiere on SuperStation WTBS in January.
ON THE 8TH DAY focuses on the global, ecological and atmospheric
consequences of a nuclear holocaust, linking important experiments on
these areas to form a computer model of the world after nuclear war.
The conclusions of scientists interviewed in the program on these new
developments bring into question the basis for much of today's military
and civil defense plans.
The program offers an extensive look at a "nuclear winter," a condition
in which clouds of smoke, dust and fallout from nuclear explosions
would infiltrate the atmosphere and block sunlight from reaching the
earth. The northern hemisphere would be plunged into darkness, making
it almost too dark to see, even at midday. Temperatures would fall
drastically and remain below freezing for months, covering the ground
in snow and ice. Even the southern hemisphere would not escape, as
monsoon-like winds would blow the thick clouds across the equator,
bringing winter to the entire world.
For all practical purposes, agriculture would cease to exist. Any
survivors would have to face hunger and starvation. Many species of
plants and animals, especially in the fragile tropics, would be lost
forever.
ON THE 8TH DAY uses research gaathered from the space-probe Mariner 9,
which recorded a sudden drop in the Martian surface temperature
coinciding with dust storms; climatic studies of dust clouds from
volcanic eruptions of Mount St. Helens and El Chicon; reports from a
recent investigation that sun-blocking dust clouds, caused by the
impact of a meteorite colliding with Earth, brought about the
extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago; and other
experiments conducted specifically for the program.
Scientists interviewed in ON THE 8TH DAY include Carl Sagan, Professor
of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Cornell University; Brian Toon,
atmospheric scientist, NASA Ames Research Center; Richard Turco, R&D
Associates, Marina del Rey, CA; Tom Ackerman, climatologist, NASA Ames
Research Center; and Vladimir Aleksandrov, Director of Climate
Modeling, U.S.S.R. Computing Center for the Academy of Sciences.
Other top experts on the program are Stanley Thompson, atmospheric
scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Mark Harwell,
ecosystems research center, Cornell University; Michael Kelly, slimatic
research unit, University of East Anglia (United Kingdom); David
Pimentel, agricultural scientist, Cornell University; and Georgiy
Skyabin, general scientific secretary, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.
ON THE 8TH DAY, narrated by John Hedges and writen/produced by Michael
Andrews, is a production of The British Broadcasting Corporation, and
is distributed by Lionheart Television.
WHAT: "ON THE 8TH DAY"
WHERE: Simultaneously, nationwide, on any cable system carrying the WTBS
Atlanta SuperStation, including Group W (channel 23) in Los Angeles.
WHEN: Monday, January 14, 5:00-6:00pm PST, and
Thursday, January 24, 8:00-9:00pm PST, and
Sunday, January 27, 1:35-2:40pm PST*
Soviet-American Panel Discussion Follows
A live panel discussion from the United Nations featuring proponents
and oponents of nuclear weapons will immediately follow ON THE 8TH
DAY. The panel, hosted by Sandi Freeman, will include Carl Sagan,
co-author of a book defining the nuclear winter theory; Admiral Noel
Gayler; and two Russian scientists.
*"Threads" immediately precedes the January 27 showing.
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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