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had a guaranteed outlet for any of their motion
pictures. It was a devastating blow for the
movie moguls.
Worse was to follow for the moguls when
just a year later, the full impact of an entirely
separate legal case – that had its origins in
1943 – adversely affected a key element of the
studio system.
Olivia de Havilland was under contract
with Warner Bros. and, much to this serious
actress's chagrin, was often cast alongside
the swashbuckling Errol Flynn as his "love
interest". However, when she was loaned out
by the studio, first to MGM for
Gone with the
Wind
(1939) and then to Paramount for
Hold
Back the Dawn
(1942), both her performances
garnered her Academy Award nominations.
This was proof to de Havilland that the maudlin
films she was forced to appear in at Warner's
were holding her back as a dramatic actress.
However, her continual request that she be
given better scripts with top rate directors fell
on deaf ears. She had been suspended several
times during her eleven-year tenure at WB for
refusing some of the mundane roles offered to
her. But after completing the hopelessly trivial
Princess O'Rourke
(1943), she refused to report
to the studio. She was informed by the studio
legal department that her contract would be
extended for aggregates of the lay-offs and her
non-attendance period. Foreseeing years of
endless suspensions and extensions that would
shackle her to WB for the rest of her acting life,
she hired a first class attorney to get her out of
her contract. Invoking California's ancient anti-
peonage law, that limited seven calendar years
as the maximum in which an employer could
enforce a contract against an employee, her
attorney filed for declaratory relief from Miss de
Havilland's studio contract. After many months
of endless hearings, the Los Angeles Superior
Court finally found in her favour.
Her legal triumph (still known today in US
legal terms as "The de Havilland Decision") sent
shock waves throughout Hollywood, as movie
employee contracts were at the very heart
of the studio system. A furious Jack Warner,
head of WB Studios, immediately blacklisted
de Havilland, threatening any other studio who
wanted to hire her with a lawsuit if they did
so. Consequently, Miss de Havilland was not
offered any film work for three long years.
This unfair punishment alarmed the majority
of contracted movie stars, who decided it best
to maintain the status quo. But when James
Stewart, a former lover of Miss de Havilland's,
returned to Hollywood after the war, in which
he had served as a bomber commander in the
US Air Corps, he too decided to take his case
to court. This was in regards of the term of
suspension being added to his contract whilst
serving his country in the armed forces. Studio
boss Louis. B. Mayer threatened the actor
with "...you'll never work in this town again".
To which Stewart replied, "You know what Mr.
Mayer? I don't know that I even want to be an
actor anymore".
When the judge ruled in Stewart's favour,
MGM did not challenge the decision. Stewart
eventually signed up with the MCA agency
and Lew Wasserman took over as his personal
agent. In 1949, Wasserman negotiated with
Universal studios to finance two motion
pictures starring his client. The deal was
that the actor would take no up-front fee
but instead share a percentage of the net
profits. If the films were successful it would
earn Stewart a lot more than he might have
otherwise been paid. The first of these two
pictures,
Winchester '73
(1950), became a
massive box office hit and this one movie alone
would go on to deliver over half a million dollars
into Jimmy Stewart's bank account.
Olivia de Havilland's action against Warner
Bros. rewrote motion picture history as a stand
against the ruthless exploitation of movie
stars by the studios. And James Stewart's
arrangement with Universal established a
precedent for points, or percentage deals, that
would eventually break the studio's firm hold
on employees' long-term contracts.
The "old style" movie industry was now in
total turmoil, with the moguls desperately
trying to regain control of their moneymaking
machine. But the mass production of an
invention – whose full development had been
held up by the war – would soon deliver the
final and fatal blow to the Hollywood studio
system.
To be concluded...
...you'll never work in
this town again
Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn in The
Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
The actress
would co-star with Flynn in no less than eight Warner
Bros. "historical adventure movies".
Olivia de Havilland's
make-up test
shot for
Princess
O'Rourke
– the film
that prompted her
to sue Warner Bros.
over contract rights.
Publicity shot of James Stewart in
Winchester 73 (1950)
NEWS
EXTRAS
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