Picketing Under Way in TV Writers Strike

NEW YORK (AP) The first walkout by Hollywood writers in nearly 20 years got under way Monday with noisy pickets outside the "Today" show a strike that threatens to disrupt everything from late-night talk shows to soap operas.

A giant, inflated rat was put on display Monday as about 40 people in Rockefeller Center shouted, "No contract, no shows!"

"The seven-word mantra is, `When you get paid, we get paid,'" said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America East.

The strike is the first walkout by writers since 1988. That work stoppage lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry more than $500 million.

The "Today" show is not directly affected by the strike because news writers are part of a different union. The picket was set up behind police barricades in an area adjacent to the NBC studios, where shows like "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" might be forced to play re-runs.

Writers' demands for a bigger slice of DVD profits and revenue from the distribution of films and TV shows over the Internet has been a key issue.

"They claim that the new media is still too new to structure a model for compensation," said Jose Arroyo, a writer for "Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

"We say give us a percentage so if they make money, we make money," said Arroyo.

Diana Son, a writer for "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," said she has three children and getting residuals was the only way she could take time off after giving birth.

"It's an extremely volatile industry," said Son. "There's no job security. Residuals are an important part of our income. There's no cushion. I rely on residuals from my previous work to get me through periods when I am not working."

"It sounds justifiable to me," said onlooker Dan Kelly of Bethlehem, Pa., a retired New York Police Department detective. "Look at all the fine actors from early on who never got residuals."

But Millie Kapzen of Memphis, Tenn., who watched the pickets from across the street, said she was "disgusted. ... I really think they should try harder to negotiate."

Kapzen, wearing her medal from Sunday's New York City Marathon, said she sells advertising for radio stations. "We've already had cancellations of sweeps weeks ads" by the networks.

In Los Angeles, writers also were planning to picket 14 studio locations in four-hour shifts from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day until a new deal is reached.

The contract between the 12,000-member Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer expired Oct. 31. Talks that began this summer failed to produce much progress.

Writers and producers had gathered for negotiations Sunday at the request of a federal mediator.

The two sides met for nearly 11 hours before East Coast members of the writers union announced on their Web site that the strike had begun for their 4,000 members.

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

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.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

N.Y. Public Library Gets Hepburn Papers

NEW YORK (AP) Picture this: Katharine Hepburn and her chauffeur stopped for speeding in the tiny town of Blackwell, Okla. Hepburn berates the strapping young officer as a "moron" and "dumbbell," then adds, "If I ever found an Oklahoma car in Connecticut, I would flatten all the tires."

What could be a scene from a screwball comedy is actually drawn from Hepburn's real life at least her version of it.

A typed, single-spaced account of the arrest during a 1950-51 tour of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" was in one of 22 boxes of papers from Hepburn's theater career that have been donated to the New York Public Library. They will be available to scholars and fans after they have been cataloged.

Cynthia McFadden, co-executor of Hepburn's will, said the arrest story is written in the voice of the woman she loved "impatient, funny and occasionally just a little high-handed."

"I suspect she was driving," McFadden added. "She frequently drove her driver."

When Hepburn died in 2003, the trustees of her estate chose to donate papers from her film career to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library. They decided to donate papers from her extensive though less-known stage career to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

"Miss Hepburn didn't throw away much, so there are boxes and boxes and roomfuls of material," McFadden said.

Curator Bob Taylor said the library's archivists are still going through the papers, which include scripts, photos, letters and scrapbooks.

Taylor said the materials will be indexed by early February, at which point members of the public will be able to check them out and read them while wearing white gloves in a special reading room.

Highlights from the collection were displayed last week on a table at the library.

There were fan letters from Judy Garland and from Charlton Heston, who wrote in 1981, "You have made all our hearts tremble, one time or another."

There was a speech Hepburn delivered after a May 1970 performance asking for a moment of silence in memory of the four students shot by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University.

A packet of correspondence from 1971 concerned Hepburn's use of a four-letter word in "Coco," a play based on the life of designer Coco Chanel. Her latest collection having bombed, the character utters the profanity.

With the play headed to Los Angeles, Hepburn was contractually forbidden from using the expletive.

Her letter begging to have it reinstated is an eloquent plea for free expression.

"First we have tried everything that anyone can think of to use instead," she wrote. "Nothing works the sadness the finality the clarity and the brevity of this expression coming from the lips of a highly respectable old lady who is alone and who is in tears over the total failure of her show strikes the audience as funny then as she runs up the stairway curiously gallant."

Hepburn got her way. Edwin Lester of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association responded that the letter "was sufficient for us to acquiesce, particularly if acquiescence would make you happy."

He added, "Again let me tell you how much we are looking forward to your visit with us, even though you bring that naughty word along with you."

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com