Show Biz Icons With Little to Show for It

Some kind of demonstration was blocking traffic near Madelyn Pugh Davis’ Los Angeles home one recent afternoon, so she turned on the television in search of an explanation. What came on instead was an episode of “I Love Lucy,” the one where they all go deep-sea fishing and Lucy and Ethel bet Ricky and Fred that they can catch the biggest tuna.

Seeing the 1950s show in relentless reruns is a point of pride and frustration for the 79-year-old Davis who, as one of television’s first female comedy writers, co-wrote every one of the series’ 180 episodes.

“I Love Lucy” is said to be on the air somewhere in the world 24 hours a day, but Davis and her partner, Bob Carroll Jr., haven’t received a dime in residuals since sometime around 1957, when they got a check for $3,000.

Under contracts negotiated by the industry’s guilds years ago, television shows and motion pictures made before 1960 get little or nothing in the way of residuals. Thus, the landslide profits from the lasting popularity of old sitcoms and classic movies such as “From Here to Eternity,” “Casablanca” and “Sunset Boulevard” have largely eluded the writers, directors and actors who made them.

Talks within the industry to resolve this lingering dispute have reached a stalemate, with the companies asserting they are under no obligation to deviate from contracts bargained in good faith.

But now, a group of aging icons is turning to Congress for the second time in three years to help them win compensation for work that has proved unexpectedly enduring in media unforeseen in their day. Relief may not come in the form of actual legislation, but in the subtle flexing of political muscle--a well-placed phone call, a gentle reminder of Hollywood’s reliance on protections provided by the federal government in the Information Age--to persuade the studios to be more generous to their industry’s legends.

Studios Keep Revenue Figures Under Wraps

Entertainment companies rarely divulge the revenue earned from works shown time and again. While some, like “Lucy,” have generated millions over the years for the companies that own the rights, other seldom-shown works might bring in very little.

On average, one film industry executive estimated, paying residuals on older works to artists or their heirs would cost each major corporation about $1 million over the next 20 years--an amount the executive characterized as “peanuts.”

But that is hardly what it would mean to Sandy Sturges, widow of famed screenwriter and director Preston Sturges, whose 100th birthday was recently commemorated by the re-release of many of his works by Universal Studios. The tapes of such classics as “Sullivan’s Travels” and “The Palm Beach Story” sell for $14.98 each, of which Mrs. Sturges gets nothing.

“I don’t want to present myself as sitting in destitute poverty where 10 cents would help me buy water. I’m getting by,” she said. “But I watch it to the penny.”

In Washington, even the most irreconcilable differences can be finessed if the heartstrings of Congress get plucked. Indeed, lawmakers can be putty in the hands of Golden Age legends whose works many grew up watching. When “King Kong” star Fay Wray and “Casablanca” screenwriter Julius Epstein made a surprise appearance at a House hearing in 1997 to make the case for residuals, a roomful of lawmakers and policy wonks erupted in a standing ovation.

Congress passed an amendment encouraging the two sides to bargain a compromise and return if the effort failed. It did. So those pushing for a change in the residual deal are coming back.

“These are the movies and TV shows we all remember,” said Margaret Cone, a lobbyist representing the newly formed Committee for a Fair Deal, a group of artists, agents and lawyers who support the effort. “The studios deserve and have reaped millions in profits from these works. But there would be no profits if not for the work of the people who created them in the first place.”

Financial Potential Often Underestimated

Hollywood has a history of underestimating the financial potential of new media. The current strike by actors in television commercials--the first work stoppage in Hollywood in 12 years--hinges on residuals for ads that appear on cable and the Internet.

The issue has its roots in a collective bargaining deal sealed 40 years ago, when actors, writers and directors gave up residuals on old motion pictures and won an industrywide health and pension plan. A series of separate agreements limited residuals for most vintage TV shows; many, like “Lucy,” stopped paying residuals decades ago.

At the time, virtually no one foresaw the value of what had been given away, with cable, videocassettes, DVD, the Internet and other technology on the horizon. Those were the days when most movies ran in the theaters and went into mothballs; few could imagine a lasting market for reruns.

The companies that now own classic works--Time Warner, Universal, MGM and others--contend a deal is a deal and that the artists were represented by strong unions when they agreed to the contracts.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, likened the dispute to a land deal in which one party buys the mineral rights and then strikes oil. “I get the royalties because you sold them to me. Would you come and say, ‘You are making all this money, that’s not fair’?”

But the artists argue that a technological explosion changed the game--that they did not sign away the rights to media that did not then exist.

“In 1960, we agreed motion pictures broadcast on television would not be paid residuals,” Cone said. “We never gave away the rights to videocassettes, the Internet, foreign releases or any other markets.”

Furthermore, they argue, Congress gave the studios a windfall in 1998 when it extended copyright protection for only the second time since 1900. Movies and television shows that would have gone to the public domain to be used freely by anyone were suddenly eligible for an extra 20 years of exclusive ownership by the companies.

“Why not throw a little out to the people who created the work? . . . If I had five dollars for every time ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ is shown. . . ,” said Frank Mazzola, a film editor and actor whose career of bit parts hit its zenith when he was cast as a teenager in the role of Crunch, opposite James Dean in the famed 1950s film.

Last year, several studios offered to pay residuals for post-1940 films, beginning in 2016. The guilds turned it down, noting that the oldest artists, the ones who arguably need the income most, would be dead before they saw a dime.

Dan Taradash, Academy Award-winning screenwriter for “From Here to Eternity,” would have to live to be 127 to receive his first check. “Casablanca’s” Epstein would be 108.

Time is working against these and other veteran film and TV artists. Epstein and Wray were persuasive voices when they came to Washington in 1997. But both are now 92. He suffered a stroke and is in a coma; she is too frail to make the trip again.

While some of Hollywood’s legends live in comfortable retirement, others have died broke. Bill Ludwig, who wrote “Love Finds Andy Hardy”--the 1930s film that introduced Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Lana Turner--was paid $74 for his work. He died in a nursing home last year.

“Some are doing well and some are not. They certainly are not living like [Disney CEO] Michael Eisner, I’ll tell you that,” Mazzola said.

Some industry officials questioned whether residuals on old works would amount to much for the artists. “ ‘King Kong’ is not a big seller,” said Valenti. “No matter what you gave Fay Wray, it’s not going to be enough to let her buy a new house.”

Fundamentally, the dispute comes down to dollars and cents. But for artists like Davis, it is more personal than that. While she and Carroll went on to write and produce other shows, such as “The Mothers-in-Law” and “Alice,” “Lucy” was their crowning achievement.

Many of the episodes were derived from their life experience, drawn from years of walking around Hollywood with notebooks, jotting down ideas later read at Schwab’s over coffee.

Take Episode No. 81, where the Ricardos give a party and the men pay too much attention to a fashion model who shows up. That happened to Davis at a dinner party in Shelbyville, Ind.

Or Episode No. 56, where Lucy keeps changing her mind from lamb chops to spaghetti to steak while ordering at a restaurant. That was Davis exasperating the waiter at the old Brown Derby on Vine Street during lunch with Carroll and producer Jess Oppenheimer.

“We didn’t think about breaking ground. We had a script to write. We knew the ratings were good,” Davis said over tea at the Peninsula Hotel with Carroll, still her partner after 53 years. “We didn’t go in and say let’s write a classic today. We took them kind of for granted. We hadn’t ever done television before.”