Harry Shearer Speculates Over Donald Trump’s SAG Status

Bill Carter, writing about the return of writers to the returning Letterman and Ferguson shows in today’s NYT, asserts, in passing, that Donald Trump “is not” a member of the Screen Actors’ Guild.

That’s relevant, because, as a supposed non-member, Trump would have easily crossed the picket line to be Letterman’s first guest had the WGA not reached an agreement with Worldwide Pants.

Except that, as a member of SAG since the tender age of 7, I’ve always understood it to be union policy, in LA and NY at least, that you got one paid gig and thirty days (the so-called “Taft-Hartley exemption”) before you had to join the union and do any more paid gigs for union shops, like networks.

 

 

This was true even if said performer was also a producer of the show involved, the case in point as a precedent always being Cecil B. DeMille and the “Lux Radio Theater.”

So, did I have it wrong all these years, or does Carter? Or has Trump been disingenuous about his SAG membership?

Author: Harry Shearer

Source: The Huffington Post