Actress Melissa Gilbert late Friday won a contentious election for president of the Screen Actors Guild, defeating veteran television star Valerie Harper in a bitter contest that underscored the deep divisions plaguing the union.
Best known for her role as Laura Ingalls on the TV show "Little House on the Prairie," Gilbert, 37, takes charge of the 98,000-member guild at a time when it continues to be divided between the pragmatic moderates she represents and a more aggressive camp backing Harper.
Gilbert received 12,280 votes, or 45.3% of the 27,730 cast. Harper received 10,692, or 39.4% of the tally. Two other candidates, Eugene Boggs and actress Angeltompkins, each received less than 10%.
Gilbert's victory represents a near 180-degree turn from the past two years, when SAG was led by a coalition of hard-liners headed by actor William Daniels.
The Daniels group swept into office in 1999 promising a tougher stance in negotiations with studios and advertisers. That led to a bitter six-month strike last year against advertisers that further polarized the guild between those who argued that it galvanized the union and those who said actors were irreparably hurt financially by the walkout.
Eventually, SAG hard-liners began to lose some of their support as the economy softened. This past summer, SAG agreed to a new contract with film studios in negotiations that were considerably less contentious than the talks with advertisers had been.
Despite Gilbert's election, the results show SAG remains divided. Two of the top officers elected, Recording Secretary Elliott Gould and Treasurer Kent McCord, ran on Harper's ticket. But First Vice President Mike Farrell was a Gilbert supporter.
In an interview, Gilbert said she wanted to try to heal some of those divisions, although she acknowledged that it would be hard. "I want to embrace all the different voices in the leadership and in the membership," she said.
Gilbert won't have to negotiate any contracts with studios or advertisers because the current ones expire after her two-year term is up.
Nonetheless, she faces a daunting list of problems. One of Gilbert's first jobs will be to repair a bitter split between SAG and talent agencies. Agents are pressuring SAG to relax rules so they can allow talent agencies to attract investors, such as advertising agencies, or to make an array of investments. Under Daniels, SAG argued that any changes would open the door to possible conflicts of interest.
