Vicks Vaporub. That seems to be the subject on Patty Duke`s mind right now, as she advises a friend on how to treat her infant daughter`s congestion problems.
Duke is in town to play the role of Martha Washington in the CBS-TV miniseries ”George Washington: The Forging of a Nation,” shooting in the city`s historic Society Hill area. She`s dressed in full 18th-Century regalia –long hooped skirt, lace shawl, high buttoned collar–and is wearing heavy makeup that gives her the hagged-out look of Martha at age 60. But here she is, entering her trailer in anticipation of lunch, dispensing advice.
”Well, after all,” says Duke saucily to a visitor to the set, ”I am the mother of our country.”
Wife, mother, actress. Patty Duke has been a lot of things in her 30 years in show business, including both an Oscar-winner (for ”The Miracle Worker”) and Emmy Award-winner (for ”My Sweet Charlie” and ”The Captains and the King”). But last November, when the 39-year-old performer was elected to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), she took on probably the most challenging role of her already impressive career.
Wracked by ideological struggles, subject of intense media scrutiny, SAG, under the four-year presidency of actor Ed Asner, had become in some ways more entertaining and gossipy than many of the projects in which its members were working. Asner, a political liberal who consistently supported such causes as striking air traffic controllers and revolutionaries in El Salvador, was almost constantly under fire from a conservative wing in the union, led by Charlton Heston, which accused Asner of being more concerned with personal causes than union business.
This acrimony, which even led to a failed recall attempt, tended to distract the union from more basic issues: most of its members, nearly three- quarters, earn less than $2,500 a year from acting; new technologies, including cable and home video, are changing the way financial deals are structured; and there is a trend toward nonunion productions.
So, when Duke announced her candidacy, claiming that ”if I could just go in there and say, `all right, gang, why don`t we all just knock it off and play nice,` ” the SAG membership seemed ready for her approach. She won with better than 56 percent of the vote against actor Ed Nelson and became only the second female president in the guild`s history.
”It`s been a long honeymoon so far,” says Duke, as she feistily chain smokes filter-tipped cigarettes in her trailer between takes, ”When I was campaigning, I said I wanted a very dull presidency.”
Well, the best laid plans. . . . Duke may want her tenure to be dull and conciliatory, but events have conspired to make things otherwise.
The guild contract with the producers expires June 30, and even though a strike (Duke refers to it as ”that `s` word”) is not in the immediate future, serious negotiations currently are underway. In the 50-year history of the union, there have been only four strikes. The last one, in 1980, lasted more than five months.
”The working actor is a real issue this time,” Duke says, ”the people we see doing guest roles who simply cannot make a living. These are the people who may make $1,500 for a half-hour series show, but can do only three or four a season (because producers are afraid of overexposure). An enormous percentage of these people are forced into other areas to make a living, and they`re the backbone of TV. We`re also going to be talking about basic wages and working conditions, such as safety. And there`s no doubt we`re going to go around and around in circles with formulas for cable residuals (a share of the profits when sold to pay TV or home video).”
The current one-day SAG minimum is $361. The union is asking for an increase to $451. SAG also wants to create a new one-day minimum for guest stars (actors billed at the top of a show) of $1,354. Currently, guest stars are paid the $361 minimum and negotiate for anything larger on their own.
The actors also want to increase their share of residuals for pay TV and home video, while producers want to eliminate them.
Tough issues, to be sure, but Duke does not expect ”the `s` word” to become a factor.
”I don`t foresee a situation where agreements can`t be reached,” she says emphatically. ”I think it`s always been too expensive to go out on strike. It`s simply a more rational time right now.”
Rational, as in conciliatory. Beyond the bargaining issues that affect most SAG members, Duke knows that the next most important project of her presidency is to cut down on the ideological warfare.
”I`m hoping I can set the example of being a good listener,” she says,
”of allowing different opinions to be heard. I want to be the best Solomon that I can, the best parliamentarian I can be. I want to keep the integrity of my opinions, but also handle power carefully. It`s important to be able to tune in to what people are thinking or sensing.”
Duke feels that being a working actor, someone who`s out there on location hobnobbing with guild members of all stripes, helps her in her job. It may entail certain logistical problems–how do you conduct union business while you`re in Philly, for example?–but it all seems to be worth the trouble.
”There`s obviously a good deal of long-distance telephoning involved,”
she says, ”but there are lots of people on the guild board, and people paid to do guild work. We have a history of electing working actors (in addition to Asner, past SAG presidents have included Ronald Reagan, Dennis Weaver and Kathleen Nolan). Working affords me in-the-trenches experience: How are actors performing, how is management relating to actors, etc.? I hear war stories from other jobs, and that`s better than being in the office. I don`t consider myself insulated, and I hope not to become insulated.”
If nothing else, Duke feels she has assumed the presidency at a key juncture in the union`s history. Even though she is closer politically to Asner than Heston (Asner supported her in her campaign), she recognizes that her election has meant that a time for healing has arrived.
”When someone is first elected to office there`s a `show me` attitude, as well there should be,” Duke says. ”I think, however, that my timing was excellent. Everyone was ready for a conciliatory attitude.”
Duke puts down her cigarette and burst into a politically savvy grin.
”You know,” she adds, ”everyone was ready for conciliation, and I`ll probably get all the credit for it.”
