Local News in Brief : Tense Day on Picket Line

Striking scriptwriters and supportive actors surrounded the sprawling NBC-TV studios in Burbank Friday in a show of solidarity after the writers rejected the latest contract offer by movie and television producers.

“The bottom line in the movie business has always been money--for them,” veteran writer and director Richard Brooks said of the producers.

The three hours of picketing followed the Writers Guild of America’s vote Thursday night to reject a deal offered by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end the 16-week-old strike.

The mood became tense when pickets spotted reporters interviewing Lionel Chetwynd, a leader of the dissident Writers Coalition, a guild group that supported the deal.

“I just want reporters to know you’re not talking for the majority,” a picket yelled at Chetwynd, who responded that he had a right to his opinion and that the dissident group would not cross picket lines.

“I just wonder what side you’re on,” a heckler said.

“I have been very clear that I am not scabbing and that no one I know is scabbing,” Chetwynd replied.

Brooks, who wrote or collaborated on such films as “Key Largo,” and “In Cold Blood,” said the splinter group does not understand “the history of the guild, or the history of the people who poured their guts into this thing.”