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"I have great faith in the sense of justice inherent in my fellow player. I believe he wants to and will fight to correct any injustice so long as he feels confident that this fight will be waged cleanly and in keeping with the high calling of his profession." |
Broadway actor and rights activist Ralph Morgan finally took up a stronger acting career in Hollywood after a few silents and shorts before 1925. In 1931, he officially moved to California, where the actors' rights have been already less than desirable. The Depression was already weighing heavily on Hollywood and there was an influx of stage actors that demanded better treatment and wages. That same year, Boris Karloff had already had the worst 25 hours on set on "Frankenstein" wearing that heavy suit which would cause him to have back surgery and pain for the rest of his life, resulting in filing a complaint to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 1933, FDR was inaugurated as the President of the United States and issued an emergency bank holiday. Unfortunately, The Association of Motion Pictures Producers found this a perfect time to cut 50% of studio employees' salaries including actors. A few months later, Academy member Kenneth Thomson and his wife, actress Alden Gray, hosted a meeting inviting Morgan as well as other actors he had formed the Actor's Equity Council with including actors Grant Mitchell and Berton Churchill. With Equity's West Coast Representative, Charles Miller, this group that met on March 7, 1933, agreed that it was time that a new kind of organization of film actors had to be made. The as yet named union would have open membership and be self-governing.
About a month later on June 30, the Screen Actors Guild was created and Ralph Morgan was sworn in as its first elected president in July. By September there were 54 members. The roster kept growing thanks to the protest of FDR's National Recovery Administration's Motion Picture Code of Fair Competition. Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor, Ann Harding among many others joined by early October. But the founders of SAG agreed and it would make more sense for the bigger stars with more influence to have as many Board seats as they can. Law graduate Frank Morgan would give up his seat to Eddie Cantor, who actually knew President Roosevelt which resulted in SAG's favor. FDR suspended the more objectionable provisions after a visit from Cantor.
While the first few years would not give voting rights to extras although members, Morgan spent his second tenure as president in 1939 with his focus on the lesser credited actors as he was one of them. By the late '30s, Morgan was mostly in B-pictures after having been pigeonholed in villain roles which probably had prompted this interest. Two years later he would yield his presidency to Edward Arnold and in that same year, SAG began an autonomy plan for the extra actors Morgan had fought for.
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