Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Did you know? - how we came to be known as "Equity"?

I was reading through Performance of the Century, by Robert Simonson, about the first 100 years of American Equity, and found the following, describing the genesis of AEA.


In desperation, a few actors decided to give the organization another chance. On January 13, 1913 – less than a month after the death of the Actors' Society of America, which had tried unsuccessfully for sixteen years to negotiate with the producers – William Harcourt, Charles D. Coburn, Arthur Byron, Milton Sills and Frank Gillmore gathered […] to decide "upon a uniform form of contract that would be alike acceptable to the fair-minded engager and the fair-minded actor."
And from a subsequent meeting on February 4…


William Courtleigh, a Canadian-born actor […] deserves a place in [the union's] history for suggesting "Equity" as a name. The motion was unanimously carried.
Well, whaddaya know?! 

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