By Anthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --A judge has dismissed a bid to stop renewed negotiations by the Screen Actors Guild with producers after noting errors in the emergency petition.
Attorneys representing SAG President Alan Rosenberg, an ally of the union’s ousted negotiator Doug Allen, had petitioned a judge to grant a temporary restraining order against further negotiations. A complaint filed Tuesday morning alleges that many of SAG’s 71 board members were not contacted about the motion to remove Allen last week.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant denied the petition after noting several errors and ordered Rosenberg’s attorneys to amend the claim. One of his attorneys, Sonia Y. Lee, said she will amend the complaint and seek a hearing Thursday morning.
SAG attorneys appeared at Tuesday’s hearing and pointed out some of the problems with the complaint. They declined comment afterward.
The complaint claims the board needed to approve the action by a two-thirds margin, but that only 53 percent of the board’s members agreed. It claims that “irreparable harm” could occur to SAG members if a new negotiating team strikes a deal.
The union canceled a negotiation meeting with producers that was scheduled for Tuesday morning because of the court action. The union has been in a bitter internal struggle over negotiations with producers. Its members have been working without a contract since June.
The petition also was filed on behalf of Anne-Marie Johnson, SAG’s first executive vice president, actors Kent McCord and Diane Ladd. Among the dozens of board members being sued are actors Adam Arkin, Morgan Fairchild and Kate Walsh.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More