Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild voted to declare its opposition to the planned closure of an historic motion picture home where many well-known actors have spent their last days.
SAG’s national board voted by a 3.5-percent margin on Saturday to oppose the closure of the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s long-term care facility and hospital in Los Angeles’ Woodland Hills neighborhood.
SAG has no role in administering the home — that’s the fund’s job — and no official say in its future but many of its members financially support the home through fund contributions. The vote from the divided 69-member board, plus two officers, served to highlight the controversy swirling around the issue.
Actors such as Mary Astor, Norma Shearer, “Gone With the Wind” Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel and “Tarzan” star Johnny Weismuller once lived at the home, which opened in 1948.
The fund announced in January that it planned to close the home this year to save on overhead costs because the facility was running a $10-million deficit that could eventually bankrupt the fund. Payments from the state’s Medi-Cal program weren’t keeping pace with expenses, the fund said.
That outraged some actors who felt it would destroy a legacy. Critics also include some of the 300 hospital workers who would lose their jobs and relatives of those staying at the home — who argue that fragile patients might not survive being moved to other facilities.
About 200 people picketed the fund’s headquarters earlier this year, and opponents created a group called “Saving the Lives of Our Own” that vigorously challenges the fund’s contention that it can’t afford to maintain the facility.
The SAG board vote followed presentations by both the motion picture fund and opponents of closing the home.
“Our board voted to oppose the closing and did so to try and preserve the legacy of the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Long Term Care historic commitment, in honor of the screen actors who founded it,” SAG National President Alan Rosenberg said in a statement.
The vote was disappointing, the fund said in a Sunday statement.
The long-term facility is losing nearly $1 million a month and if the fund doesn’t transfer its 84 residents to other nursing homes, “the fund will go bankrupt within five years,” said Frank Mancuso, the board’s chairman and the former chairman of Paramount Pictures and MGM.
“We cannot and will not compromise the best interests of SAG’s membership and the rest of the 60,000 people we serve every year by keeping it open,” he said in the statement.
The closures won’t affect the 185 residents of independent- and assisted-living facilities and the fund’s six area health centers that serve 60,000 industry workers.
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The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More