Court Ruling is a Start in Managing Manager and Client Relationships

My friend long-time personal manager Rick Siegel won an important victory yesterday that potentially impacts every manager/client relationship in the business of acting.

After fighting in court for several years to recover commissions owed him from a client who decided not to pay him for his alleged violations of the Talent Agency Act, Siegel decided not only to take on his former client, but to take on the system, as well.

In today's Los Angeles Times, reporter Josh Friedman writes about the history of this issue and the ruling. It deserves to be read. Here is a direct link:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-managers29jan29,1,7380326.story

I sent Mr. Friedman an e-mail this morning with some of my thoughts on the subject. In my e-mail, I wrote:


"This ruling is, indeed, a step in the right direction, (however), as a talent manager for more than 25 years, the issue and ruling currently on the table fail to address one very key issue in the landscape in which many of us conduct business, and that is: what about those actors who either can't find a talent agent to represent them or those who choose to have only a manager represent them?

Remember, whether agent or manager, it is the client who hires us. We work for them.

With about (roughly) 110,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild, tens of thousands of AFTRA members and countless of other non-union actors, there are simply not enough agents in the business of acting to represent all of the actors who seek representation.

It is this imbalance that necessitates that managers do a lot of the same (sales) work previously associated with agents alone, in addition to the 'career development' we allow 'allowed' to do.

The truth is that no actor who seeks a manager wants that manager to do anything less than everything they can do to get them and keep them working, whether or not an agent is a part of their bigger picture. The unions and the law ought to embrace our efforts. Whereas the unions earn semi-annual dues based on how much an actor earns during a given reporting period, why should they care who is involved with getting that actor work as long as the actor pays what they owe?

We are not a threat to the talent agency community. Many of us do work hand-in-hand in the representation of some clients. But many of us also work with actors who are flying solo. We all need protection on that journey: The actor needs to be secure in the legitimacy of their manager and the manager needs assurance that they will be paid for their work.

This isn't really much of an issue when an actor is young, new and/or struggling. It's when that rare commodity of success strikes that, for some of them, things can start to look a little different in that albeit often temporary light that bounces off a contract to work."


As an actor, how do you feel about this ruling?

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this issue. Post your comments here or you can reach me by e-mail at blemack@TheBusinessOfActing.com.

BL