British Actors' Equity Association
Encyclopedia
Equity is the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 for actors, stage managers and models
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It was formed in 1930 by a group of West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 performers.

Equity was the last of the closed shop
Closed shop
A closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed....

 unions in the UK. This was criticised in 1981 and made illegal in 1988 - it is now no longer a requirement that a professional actor be a member of Equity.

Equity requires its members to have unique professional names.

History

Like many other British trade unions, Equity operated a closed shop policy - it was not possible for someone to join unless they had had sufficient paid work, and most jobs were reserved for Equity card holders. In order to allow new members to join, there were a limited number of non-card holding jobs on regional productions. Whilst working on these productions, actors held a provisional membership card, and, on completing the requisite number of weeks, could apply for full membership, and therefore work in the West End, or on film and television.

In 1976, Equity introduced a policy of refusing to sell programming to the South African Broadcasting Corporation
South African Broadcasting Corporation
The South African Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.-Early years:Radio broadcasting began in South Africa in 1923...

, an action that led to a virtual blackout of British television in apartheid South Africa.

As a result of the Conservative reforms of trade unions in the 1980s, and the introduction of European legislation, closed shop unions became illegal in the UK, and Equity discontinued this policy. However, in order to join, evidence must be provided of sufficient paid professional work.

General Secretaries

  • 1931 to 1939: David Henley
  • 1939 to 1940: C. B. Purdom
    Charles Purdom
    Charles Benjamin Purdom, usually credited as C. B. Purdom , was a British author, drama critic, economist and editor of an English periodical called Everyman. Everyman covered books, drama, music and travel and featured articles by renowned authors such as Ivor Brown, Arthur Machen, G. K....

  • 1940 to 1946: Llewellyn Rees
    Llewellyn Rees
    Llewellyn Rees was an English actor.Television Roles include: Doctor Who , The Brothers, Inspector Morse, Doomwatch and Coronation Street....

  • 1946 to 1958: Gordon Sandison
  • 1958 to 1973: Gerald Croasdell
  • 1973 to 1991: Peter Plouviez
  • 1991 to 2005: Ian McGarry
  • 2005 to present: Christine Payne

Presidents

  • 1932 to 1940: Godfrey Seymour Tearle
    Godfrey Tearle
    Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential Englishman on stage and in both English and US films.-Biography:...

  • 1940 to 1945: Lewis Thomas Casson
    Lewis Casson
    Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC was a British actor and theatre director and the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike.-Early life:...

  • 1946 to 1948: Beatrix Lehmann
    Beatrix Lehmann
    Beatrix Alice Lehmann was a British actress, theatre director and author.She trained at the RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. As well as her extensive theatrical career she appeared in films and on television...

  • 1948 to 1949: Leslie Banks
    Leslie Banks
    Leslie Banks, CBE was an English theatre and cinema actor, director and producer, now best remembered playing gruff, menacing characters in black and white movies of the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...

  • 1949 to 1969: Felix Aylmer
    Felix Aylmer
    Sir Felix Edward Aylmer Jones, OBE was an English stage actor who also appeared in the cinema and on television.-Early life and career:...

  • 1969 to 1973: Ernest Clark
    Ernest Clark
    Ernest Clark was a British actor of stage, television and film.-Early life:Clark was the son of a master builder in Maida Vale, and was educated nearby at St Marylebone Grammar School. After leaving school he became a reporter on a local newspaper in Croydon...

  • 1973 to 1975: André Morell
    André Morell
    André Morell was a British actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s...

  • 1975 to 1978: Hugh Manning
    Hugh Manning
    Hugh Manning was an English film and television actor. He is best remembered as the Reverend Donald Hinton, in the soap opera Emmerdale, a role he played from 1977 until 1989.-Early life:...

  • 1978 to 1982: John Barron
    John Barron (actor)
    John Barron was an English actor.-Biography:Born in Marylebone, London, Barron was interested in acting from an early age. For his 18th birthday his godfather paid his entry fee to RADA. After serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, he returned to stage acting...

  • 1982 to 1984: Hugh Manning
    Hugh Manning
    Hugh Manning was an English film and television actor. He is best remembered as the Reverend Donald Hinton, in the soap opera Emmerdale, a role he played from 1977 until 1989.-Early life:...

  • 1984 to 1986: Derek Bond
    Derek Bond
    Derek William Douglas Bond MC was a British actor.-Life and career:Derek Bond was born 26 January 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. He attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hampstead, London. He saw active service with the Grenadier Guards in North Africa during the Second World War, for which he...

  • 1986 to 1992: Nigel Davenport
    Nigel Davenport
    Nigel Davenport is an English stage, television and film actor.- Early life :Davenport was born Arthur Nigel Davenport, however he goes by the first name of Nigel. Davenport was born in Shelford, Cambridgeshire, the son of Katherine Lucy and Arthur Henry Davenport. Davenport's father was a bursar...

  • 1992 to 1999: Jeffrey Wickham
    Jeffrey Wickham
    Jeffrey Wickham is a British film and television actor. He is the father of the actress Saskia Wickham.-Selected filmography:* Before Winter Comes * The Breaking of Bumbo * Waterloo...

  • 1999 to 2002: Frederick Pyne
    Frederick Pyne
    Frederick Pyne is an actor best known for his role as Matt Skilbeck on the ITV soap Emmerdale Farm from 1972–1989....

  • 2002 to 2008: Harry Landis
    Harry Landis
    Harry Landis is a British actor. He has had a long career in British television and film and is known for playing cockney-Jewish roles....

  • 2008 to 2010: Graham Hamilton
  • 2010 to present: Malcolm Sinclair
    Malcolm Sinclair
    Malcolm Sinclair is a British stage and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as 'Assistant Chief Constable Freddy Fisher' in the television series Pie in the Sky , although he has an extensive number of film, television and theatre roles to his credit...


See also

  • United States - Actors' Equity Association
    Actors' Equity Association
    The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...

    , the Screen Actors Guild
    Screen Actors Guild
    The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

    , and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
    American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
    The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is a performers' union that represents a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, as well as radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording artists , promo and voice-over announcers and other...

    .

External links

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