Behind the Scenes of SAG Strike

Robert Amico has seldom used his acting talents better than when he starred as “The Mole” during the Screen Actors Guild strike against the advertising industry.

The actor and novice strike captain earned his nickname with performances that included impersonating a Texaco official on the set of a nonunion commercial for the oil company. His most convincing prop: his gasoline credit card stuffed into a plastic name tag holder.

“I was James Bond,” he said.

One week after an agreement was reached to end the longest strike in Hollywood history, details such as Amico’s adventures are finally emerging that for the first time fully tell the story of how a disorganized group of actors used these kinds of guerrilla tactics to virtually shut down commercial-making in Los Angeles and harass advertisers nationwide. Reminiscent of the kind of dirty tricks that have long been the staple of politics, the tactics were the major reason commercial producers picked up their cameras and fled Los Angeles for other areas, causing an estimated $125 million in lost production to Southern California.

Despite being out-gunned and out-strategized by a solidified advertising industry that easily shifted nonunion productions to Canada and Europe, the actors hung together longer than the advertising industry, and even some of their own officials, expected. That was long enough to eventually win crucial negotiating points in settling the strike, blunting what for months had been looking like a full-scale rout.

“If the goal was to drive production out of Los Angeles, to a certain extent they were successful. It had a significant impact on commercial production in Los Angeles,” said Steve Caplan, senior vice president with the Assn. of Independent Commercial Producers.

Actors return to work today for the first since going on strike May 1 after board members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists approved the new contract during the weekend, which actors are expected to ratify by the end of November.

So too will commercial makers, frustrated and annoyed by a strike that often forced them to spend much of their time trying to stay one step ahead of the picket lines. Indeed, permits issued in Los Angeles to make commercials in public places plunged by about 75% during the strike, according to the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., which issues permits.

“There were delays and reshoots. It was certainly a disruption,” Caplan said.

Painful as it was, the commercial strike is only a warmup. With the longest strike in Hollywood history now under their belts, actors next spring will square off with networks and studios over new contracts for movies and TV shows. They are less naive, better organized and perhaps even a bit fearless.

Now, as the six-month-long strike fades, the stories are unfolding that show how both the talents and resourcefulness of the actors were tested. Until now, union officials had been reluctant to talk about many of the specific tactics they used for strategic reasons.

Amico, a lean New York-born actor with a thin mustache, infiltrated the annual meeting of the Assn. of National Advertisers at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point by impersonating a sculptor commissioned to do a piece of artwork for the hotel grounds.

Then there was the time he talked rangers at Griffith Park into identifying the field where a nonunion commercial would be shot. Amico scattered 100 pounds of seed across the field that night. Thousands of birds and their droppings greeted crew members when they arrived at dawn, disrupting the shoot.

In addition to Amico, other actors went undercover. A one-legged stuntman, posing as a disabled Vietnam vet, talked his way onto a commercial set so he could slip a copy of a shooting schedule into his pocket. With the schedule, the union could identify the advertiser so it would know who to picket.

At the sweltering Buick Open pro golf tournament in Grand Blanc, Mich., in August actors handed out fans to people trying to cool off that read, “I’m a golf fan” on one side with “. . . and I’m teed off!” on the other, listing SAG’s complaints against advertisers such as Buick.

In Dallas, actors arranged for a machine to spew out so many bubbles into the camera’s sight that the director of a nonunion ad gave up.

The ad industry maintains that despite the harassment and picketing that drove production out of Los Angeles, it nonetheless succeeded in producing about 10,000 commercials during the strike, many in such areas as Toronto and Vancouver to escape the picketers.

“If the industry hadn’t been able to produce commercials, this would have been a very short strike,” chief industry negotiator Ira Shepard said. “I would have gotten a call within seconds saying: ‘What are you doing? You need these people. Settle this contract.’ ”

The kind of passions that drove Amico and others to chase down any commercial they could find can be traced to a single proposal put forth by the two major trade groups, the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies and the Assn. of National Advertisers, that negotiate with actors.

Since the 1950s, the industry had paid actors each time commercials ran on network TV. But as the TV audiences fragmented with the growth of cable TV and smaller networks, it took more and more airings to reach the same number of people. Why not just pay a flat fee as they did when ads ran on cable? The industry proposed eliminating residuals altogether for network ads.

That set in motion a head-on collision with actors. At SAG, a more militant leadership led by Emmy-winning actor William Daniels swept into office in November on the promise of tougher negotiations.

Actors labeled the industry proposal a “rollback” and demanded that they be paid residuals for cable ads.

“The membership was waiting to be galvanized,” said Chuck Sloan, part of SAG’s inner leadership. “If they’d cut the deal they had in half and took the rollback off the table, we’d never have struck.”

Said Shepard: “Our goal was to explain it to them. But they used it as a battle cry to keep members together.”

As the strike started on the morning of May 1, SAG’s strikers were still amateurs. Strike captains were still being educated about the myriad legal rules that have to be followed, from where picketers can stand on a line, to the wording on signs and even the thickness of the doweling used on signs so they can’t be used as weapons.

“The night before the strike, I didn’t sleep much. We hadn’t struck in so many years. I was terrified. I didn’t eat,” said strike chief Todd Amorde.

SAG even had trouble agreeing on the color of T-shirts picketers would wear. Strike leaders preferred white, figuring members who didn’t have an official strike shirt handy could always dig up a white T-shirt. But some actors didn’t like the color because it didn’t look good on camera.

In most strikes, a specific plant can be picketed. But commercial shoots can occur just about anywhere. So Los Angeles actors launched a cat-and-mouse game, trying to find out the locations of nonunion commercials being shot. They relied on leads from film permits filed publicly, “shoot sheets” describing commercial activity that often showed up anonymously at SAG’s headquarters and more than 200 calls a day to the union.

As the strike dragged on, SAG hit its stride in making life miserable for commercial producers. When a camera crew was spotted working around town, members would approach posing as star-struck tourists to ask what was being shot, and summon picketers with cell phones if it turned out to be a commercial.

Stuntmen who were expert drivers followed automobiles to obstruct shots. In one Pasadena neighborhood, SAG members volunteered to mow lawns for free so they could rev the engines of the lawn mowers as loudly as possible. At Pepperdine University, students volunteered to carry picket signs when strikers were barred from campus to picket a shoot. Amico once convinced a catering company that a shoot had been postponed so crews had no coffee when they arrived.

Nationwide, similar tactics were being used. In Maryland, a shot of a train pulling into a station was ruined when actors persuaded the conductor to plaster strike signs over the train windows. In Chicago, one actor drove through McDonald’s restaurants, holding up traffic by endlessly asking questions about every product on the menu.

The cease-fire came on Oct. 22, at the Millennium Hotel in New York. Both sides had already dropped their demands to restructure the payment system. Advertisers agreed to significantly bump the flat fee actors get for cable ads and include ads made directly for the Internet in the contract. Actors agreed to a three-year deal and some other measures.

As for Amico, 48, he’s now free to start auditioning for ads and hopes to get enough work to pay down the $20,000 in credit card debt he piled up during the strike.

He did get one offer as a direct result of the strike, but it has nothing to do with acting.

“It’s a detective job,” he said.