Of Inestimable Value to All of Us”

In 1943, Hollywood actor Olivia de Havilland, with her union the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) as amicus curiae, sued her employer, Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., for release from her seven-year studio contract, which she had signed in 1936 and now considered fulfilled. Warner Bros., with Jack Warner as head of production, disagreed. The legal question at stake in De Haviland [sic] v. Warner Bros. (1944) was whether a California law limiting personal service contracts to seven years meant calendar years, as de Havilland contended, or time in actual service, as Warner Bros. argued. In 1944, two courts, a California superior court and then an appellate court, decided in her favor, and in 1945 the state supreme court denied Warner Bros.’ appeal for a further hearing, upholding the decisions of the lower courts. At the time and since, her legal success has been recognized as having a profound impact on employment relations in Hollywood and beyond, but the role of SAG and the contest between employer and employee over the star image have yet to be examined. This article explains how de Havilland and her union established a precedent that affected all actors under long-term studio contracts in Hollywood

Appeal · CONTEST · Hollywood · State (computer science · Studio · Supreme court · Cinema and Media Studies · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Theater, Performance, and Music History

• Claims to Fame

  Joshua Gamson•Claims to Fame•1994

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