Does SAG Know About This?

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?

Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[chimezatmidnight]

You can see Harry at around age 13 whenever TVLand shows the pilot of Leave It To Beaver. (He's at least as good as both Richard Deacon and the Beav in it -- and much better than the actors who were quickly replaced as Ward and Wally.)

[3fingerbrown]

How was it possible for Trump to star in his reality show for all that time without a union card? Does SAG/AFTRA make special exemptions for performers with no class, taste, or talent?

[larry278]

Why does this not surprise me? The Donald values truth above gold. He is unwilling to use the truth or gold unless he can borrow it on favorable terms.

[President]

I keep hearing in 1988 writers strike, Johnny Carson could write his own monolog because he wasn't a member of the Writers Guild. Why wasn't he? Johnny Carson was a writer for Red Skleton's TV show.

Union rules don't apply to everyone.

[truth101]

Age 7 is pretty young -- everyone wants to know if any of your performances are on youtube or elsewhere. Were you a little rascal? Star of Lassie? Did you work with Shirely Temple?
...as for the Trump thing, it would seem that if NBC has been broadcasting one of its top peforming shows and its producer/ star is not in SAG someone somewhere should obviously be fired.

[MadMoll]

AFAIknew, SAG lets you do three paid SAG gigs before Taft-Hartley goes into effect, and I thought his show was non-Union or AFTRA jurisdiction
HARRY RESPONDS: As far as I know, there are no "non-union' shows on NBC or the other networks. If you get paid for appearing, you better be in either AFTRA or SAG, and either union (though they have their differences) would have had problems with members crossing a WGA picket line to appear on Letterman.

[shortgirl]

I believe this is the correct link to Bill Carter article in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/arts/television/31late.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

[shortgirl]

Happy New Year Harry!

Check your link to NYT.