Deep Rifts Exposed by SAG’s CEO Debacle

The letter began innocently enough. “We are delighted that you have agreed to take on the challenge of leading the Screen Actors Guild.”

But the nine actors who wrote this letter to John F. Cooke ignited a controversy that prompted Cooke to back out of the job Thursday, 10 days after accepting it, leaving the fractious union without an executive director.

In short, the letter stated that the national executive director’s job could not be easily expanded, a key element in Cooke’s agreement to take on the challenging job.

It’s another setback for a union that endured last year’s bruising six-month strike against the advertising industry and nearly a year of tense speculation in anticipation of a guild strike against Hollywood producers.

It comes just as the fractious union was hoping that its new Hollywood contract would show it was turning things around for itself.

Cooke’s decision underscored deep rifts within the guild, and no one is sure what will happen next.

“Everyone is taking a break to see what’s in the best interest of SAG,” said Daniel Margolis, spokesman for Korn/Ferry International, which conducted the executive search.

“Truthfully, I feel that we were too circumspect in describing [SAG’s] problems,” said Nat Benchley, a member of the SAG board and executive search committee.

But full disclosure was out of the question. “I don’t know how we could go out and tell the truth and say just how vitriolic [SAG] is,” Benchley said. “That would have opened up all of the wounds. And we made a point that we weren’t going to bleed all over a candidate before they got the job.”

Cooke declined to be interviewed for this story. In a written statement Thursday, he said, “It would be inappropriate for me to accept the Screen Actors Guild position without clear authority to act on all the issues that are before the SAG management and organization.”

The former Disney executive did not want to simply be SAG’s top staff member, lobbying instead for the powers and title of a chief executive. He wanted sweeping authority to hire, fire, make financial decisions and revamp the guild.

The SAG national board approved the change as part of the motion to hire Cooke after much debate about the process of changing the group’s constitution.

“This wasn’t even about Mr. Cooke. We didn’t oppose the changes, and we didn’t oppose him,” said Paul Reggio, a SAG board member who voted for Cooke yet also signed the June 27 letter. “This was about this new position. This was simply a constitutional question about our governing documents.”

Benchley and eight other SAG members--mostly members of the board or alternates--sent their letter to Cooke two days after the SAG national board voted unanimously to install Cooke in the $390,000-a-year job.

Cooke received the SAG members’ letter June 28 and read it the following evening, said two sources close to Cooke who declined to be named. He was troubled by the letter because several of the authors were board members, and he worried because their concerns clouded his authority, they said.

However, he waited six days before announcing that he would not take the job out of concerns that the fallout would be a distraction as the guild negotiated a new contract with the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The two sides agreed on a tentative three-year pact Tuesday.

SAG President William Daniels said in a prepared statement Friday that he was “truly dismayed and baffled by what has transpired.”

Daniels criticized the actors for sending the letter and Cooke for his “extreme reaction to what I believe was a relatively simple matter with an identifiable solution.”

Daniels continued, “The problems facing the guild and the politics within SAG were no doubt known to John since he was a highly placed Hollywood entertainment executive for many years, and our search committee thoroughly discussed our problems and politics with John on several occasions prior to his accepting an offer to lead our union.”

Six of the nine letter authors interviewed Friday said they weren’t trying to force Cooke out or diminish his authority.

“We were hoping to relate our enthusiasm for his hiring and our respect for the democratic process,” said Amy Aquino, an actor who lives in Los Angeles.

“We thought that we were simply stating the obvious, that our constitution should have been amended before he was hired.”

Anni Long, a member of the San Francisco SAG branch, said, “In a move of solidarity and unity, we decided to vote for this gentleman, and we were going to address the necessity of changing this language as a separate issue.”

Some members were upset that Daniels called the June 25 (Monday) morning emergency meeting to vote on Cooke’s hiring at 3 p.m. the Friday before (6 p.m. on the East Coast). About half of the 107 board members attended in person or by phone. Some sent alternates. There was much debate about the expanded job duties. But instead of voting on the issue separately, it was rolled into Cooke’s contract.

“All we were asking was just for a little time to make the language legal,” Benchley said.

Commercial voice-over actor Keri Tombazian, who also signed the letter, echoed those sentiments. “I was really quite bewildered. We like the guy. We voted unanimously for him. Everyone who signed the letter was very excited about Mr. Cooke coming.”

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Times staff writer James Bates contributed to this report.