ACTOR TAKES ON BIGGIES IN BID TO SUSTAIN PAY

During its 11 p.m. news show on May 6, KCBS-TV did a brief feature on the effects of television violence on young viewers. To dramatize the points being made, the station showed 23 seconds worth of violence from the movie “48 HRS.”

Sonny Landham, a 44-year-old character actor who played one of the cop killers in “48 HRS.,” was surprised to see himself on TV that night and came to a quick conclusion. If he was going to be portrayed as corrupting the minds and morals of America’s youth, he ought to at least be paid for it.

“I called the station and said, ‘Excuse me, but where’s my money?,’ ” Landham said. “They said, ‘Huh?’ ”

KCBS-TV is not saying “Huh?” anymore. Landham, who sees himself as playing David to an ensemble Goliath composed of CBS Inc., KCBS-TV and the Screen Actors Guild, won a $506 judgment in small claims court in July and seemed to be ahead on points when KCBS-TV’s appeal ended Friday before Superior Court Judge Leonard S. Wolf.

The original issue between Landham and KCBS-TV was whether the station, through its parent company, CBS Inc., was a signatory to the 1983 SAG contract.

If so, KCBS-TV’s position was that Landham’s claim belonged in arbitration, not in small claims court.

Landham said he didn’t want to file for arbitration because he had already been told that the guild considered KCBS-TV to be a signatory and therefore protected by a provision that authorizes the free use of clips within news programs.

Friday, the issues broadened dramatically when SAG executive secretary Leonard Chassman, who was subpoenaed by Landham, acknowledged in court that there is no signed SAG contract. There hasn’t been since 1977.

Nobody--not the studios, not the networks, not the Screen Actors Guild--has signed a contract. There is merely an agreement, Chassman said, that both management and the guild have been following for two years (the 1983 agreement was negotiated from the provisions of the unsigned 1980 agreement).

For the moment, whether KCBS-TV would be a signatory if CBS Inc. were is moot.

Chassman, a labor negotiator for 25 years, testified that it is not uncommon for an uncomplicated labor contract like SAG’s to be implemented without signatures while minor issues are being worked out.

The judge openly doubted that, and the question quickly went from whether KCBS-TV is a signatory to whether anyone is. And if not,there will be a lot of other actors waiting for Wolf’s decision . . . and watching the news.

“I think I may have opened up a can of worms here,” Landham said.

KCBS-TV attorneys said that even if the SAG contract weren’t an issue, the station’s right to use film clips in news programs is protected by the First Amendment.

Wolf, who went from a case involving a leaky roof to this one, said he’d consider both the First Amendment question and the legality of the unsigned SAG contract if KCBS-TV decides this week to assert that argument and provide legal precedent to the court.

KCBS-TV and CBS Inc. have refused to discuss their reasons for appealing the earlier judgment, or any other part of the case, with The Times.

The station had two lawyers and a news producer at Friday’s trial. Just before it began, KCBS-TV offered to settle out of court. Landham said the terms included payment of the $506 (the $6 covers Landham’s small-claims filing fee), plus a guarantee that SAG would accept his case for arbitration.

There was also a clause, Landham said, that would have prohibited him from discussing the settlement with the media and other outside parties.

Landham, who hasn’t had that many good speaking roles in his career, said he hadn’t come this far just to be paid what was owed him four months ago.

“I told them, ‘You bought the tickets to this dance, now you’re going to dance,’ ” he said.

Landham has been fighting what he considers the unauthorized use of his work for years, and with some financial success.

One time, a news show took footage from a TV movie on Elvis Presley. There was Landham, who worked as a stunt man on the film. He threatened to sue and the station paid him $500.

Another time, a national news program did a story on how soap operas have changed, and showed a scene from “Ryan’s Hope” where a gorilla was carrying off a woman. Inside the gorilla suit was Sonny. He called. They paid him $2,000.

“Why should they be able use actors without paying us?,” Landham says. “They use violence to spice up the news and make more money, so why don’t they share it?”

Landham, who portrayed a psychopathic Indian named Billy Bear in “48 HRS.,” said the KCBS-TV news show was particularly offensive because the footage showing him and another actor (James Remar) shooting it out with police had nothing to do with the story it was dramatizing.

The news segment was shown in court Friday and seemed to support Landham’s argument. The story was about violence on television, and other than a title superimposed over the picture, there was no mention of “48 HRS.”

When the clip was shown in May, the movie had been available to TV viewers only through pay TV or videocassette.

Landham said he offered to settle out of court himself a few weeks ago. He asked CBS and SAG to consider clarifying the news-exception provision of the contract and to give actors screen credits at the end of the news programs.

They refused, he said, so he dug in for wherever the case takes him.

“I want to see Goliath dance,” he said.

COFFEE, TEA OR DENOUEMENT?: John Huston’s critically acclaimed “Prizzi’s Honor” is now being shown on airplanes, but anyone who happens to see the movie in the air won’t be able to give away the ending. It’s been edited out.

Most movies get hacked up pretty good for airline viewing, on the understandable assumption that a captive audience is less likely to be tolerant of graphic sex or violence. But what’s the point of showing any movie if you can’t show the outcome?

Huston, who is in London acting in a TV movie being directed by his youngest son, Danny, said he had nothing to do with the airline version of “Prizzi’s Honor.”

“They called me and told me what they wanted to do,” he said, in a telephone interview. “I said, ‘They’re (the cuts) awful and I want nothing to do with it.’ ”

Did Huston happen to get “Prizzi’s Honor” on his flight to London.

“No; no, I didn’t,” he said. “If I had, I wouldn’t have looked.”