Expanding a Field of Dreams

Ken Scherer, his shoes slightly soiled from the strawberry field he aims to replace some day with homes for retired show-business workers, was feeling good about his likely place in Hollywood history.

The film producer, television marketing veteran and experienced fund-raiser may eventually be remembered best for improving health services for the entertainment industry and helping seniors find a place to live.

“That’s not a bad legacy,” Scherer, the new head of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation, said with a squinty-eyed smile recently.

The easygoing Scherer, 47, took over the nonprofit fund’s leadership development and money-raising arm about three months ago.

Already, he and other fund activists hope to begin nailing down specific plans for their 20-acre strawberry field and generating money for the project. Although any groundbreaking remains years away, the group is clearly eager to help seniors who now face a sometimes 10-year waiting list for fund homes.

Their effort--which local homeowners insist must preserve the area’s natural, open space--starts as the fund celebrates its 75th anniversary of addressing the needs of show-business workers of all ages.

The milestone anniversary, along with Scherer’s hustling, is expected to raise millions of dollars not only for senior housing but also for lesser-known services such as child care and emergency financial assistance.

Yet the fund, despite its several new health and children’s centers in Los Angeles and Toluca Lake--with another one to open in Santa Clarita in May--continues to be known mainly for its Mulholland Drive retirement home and hospital, which sit quietly between the strawberry field and the Ventura Freeway.

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Since its construction in the early 1940s, the 21-acre, tree-lined site has attracted visits from a seemingly endless list of show business luminaries such as Bob Hope, George Burns, Kirk Douglas, Debbie Reynolds, Charlton Heston, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

Today, the community features a 256-bed hospital with an Alzheimer’s unit called Harry’s Haven, the Country House with 62 small cottages for independent living, and the Frances Goldwyn Lodge, a 64-bed facility for seniors who need some assistance with daily tasks. All together, about 400 people stay at the facility at any time.

The elderly residents are retired from their careers as mostly anonymous actors or behind-the-scenes workers like cameramen, costumers and technicians. Some pay their own way, depending on their assets, while others who are financially needy stay at the facility for free. They all are at least 65 years old and have devoted 20 or more years to the entertainment industry.

One resident, Hal Riddle--his neat white hair and mustache looking like a screen test might be on the horizon--moved into an efficiency cottage about a year ago.

“I just feel totally, completely a part of the family,” said Riddle, 76, who spent his career acting in small parts in movies, commercials and plays, as well as modeling. “As it turned out for me, this is home.”

Still, even at the Mulholland Drive facility, there are far more services available than many movie and television types bother to use. Health insurance offered through the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) and most other entertainment industry unions, for example, entitle members to use the center’s clinic, inpatient hospital and physical therapy program.

One recent afternoon, actress Wendy Davies was at the hospital for a physical therapy session on her weak, painful knees.

“I’m very pleased,” said Davies, 41, of Tarzana, who has done voice-over work and stand-in work for films. “I’ve had a wonderful relationship with the motion picture hospital. It’s first-rate.”

Peter Mark Richman of Woodland Hills, a member of the fund’s board of trustees and for many years one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors, said the organization is proud of what it does, but also knows it always needs to do more.

Richman said the waiting list for senior housing is a shame, but that the reasons are complex. Building new homes would be a start, but ongoing expenses, including food and medical care, add to the overall cost, he said.

“The waiting list is horrifying. We have people 85 years old waiting to get in,” he said. “But where are we going to put them? You don’t just throw them in a room and say, ‘Good luck.’ ”

In addition, the fund must think about its neighbors. Disagreements about expansion have erupted in the past with compromises generally featuring plenty of landscaping to maintain the look and feel of surrounding homes.

Among the obvious concerns would be the elimination of open space and vegetation, increased traffic and parking needs, and the construction of unsightly buildings, said Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization.

“We’re concerned that they’re taking the ambience away,” said Murley, whose organization has about 1,300 members. “They’ve been reasonably good neighbors. If they do it right we have no problems.”

Fund officials, including Scherer, said any development would be in line with the existing campus in Woodland Hills.

But both Scherer and William F. Haug, the fund’s president and chief executive officer, insisted that expansion remains down the road.

The immediate goal is to persuade people--especially young industry workers--to view the organization as more than a way for old people to reminisce about their youthful escapades, they said.

A key reason Scherer, who lives in Tarzana, was hired to run the foundation was because of his extensive experience in collecting contributions. His background includes raising $150 million while managing Georgetown University’s capital campaign efforts, and helping to raise millions of dollars for the United Negro College Fund and the American Film Institute.

In his new job, Scherer will be instrumental in organizing the fund’s “Diamond Jubilee” activities this year. A major advertising campaign will lead up to a September grand finale at the Universal Amphitheater.

Haug said the belief by many inside and outside the entertainment industry that money comes easy is a myth.

He said some high-profile entertainers who are millionaires help the fund regularly. But far more members of the industry are struggling to make ends meet between jobs, he said.

Also, Haug said, there are many interests competing for donations. AIDS activists and politicians, for example, often turn to the entertainment industry for support, he said.

In the meantime, the fund’s operating expenses continue to climb as it offers more services. In 1990, operating expenses were $34.3 million. But by 1994, the most recent year available, expenses had reached $47.7 million.

About 37,000 industry workers, roughly one-third of those eligible, currently make donations through payroll deductions, officials said.

Such numbers do not bode well for today’s generation, several industry veterans said.

The purpose in establishing the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1921 was for the industry to take care of its own. Founding movie pioneers--among them Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith--intended the fund to help with immediate needs and look ahead.

Many veterans wonder whether enough of that foresight exists today. In some ways, the camaraderie and easy contact generated by the old studio system is lost with today’s emphasis on independent work, they said.

Riddle, who waited seven years to be admitted to the retirement home, said he remembers always agreeing to spend 1% of his paychecks on the fund over the years. It seemed like the right thing to do even as a young man, he said.

“When you’re young, nobody’s thinking really about getting old or what’s going to happen to them when they get old,” he said. “I’ve always been philanthropically minded. This is spiritual insurance for me too.”