EXCLUSIVE (updated)
George Clooney and the Screen Actors Guild are working together on a plan to raise enough money to reverse the planned closure of the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s hospital and long-term care facility, TheWrap has learned.
The plan involves seeking major donations from wealthy actors at a fundraiser that might well be a Clooney roast. But it is not clear that the fund would accept donations that are specifically aimed at saving the hospital and long-term care.
(Also read: "SAG's Johnson Rescinds MPTF Donation.")
The fund announced in January 2009 that those facilities would close because of their high cost. The fund has had its normal, annual fundraisers, while continuing with plans to close the two essential facilities.
Asked about the efforts of Clooney and SAG President Ken Howard, MPTF CEO and President Bob Beitcher said, “The Fund has not been directly contacted by any of these parties. We are open to talking to any potential donors who are willing to step in and assume the ongoing funding of the MPTF Long Term Care unit.”
That statement suggests that the fund is uninterested in one-time donations, and will only discuss a longterm commitment -- which may not be on the table at this time.
Insert: The Screen Actors Guild national board of directors has not taken an official position on the matter. But the board voted in July 2009 to support "stopping the closure of the MPTF Long Term Care facility, and the eviction of the elderly Residents who helped build the motion picture and television industry."
Clooney is among a growing number of prominent actors who are determined to see an end to the unresolved situation at the fund, with 60 elderly, sick people and their families declining to be removed from the facility, and the underinhabited facility continuing to bleed money.
In an email to TheWrap from a movie set in Hawaii, Clooney wrote that he was concerned about the ongoing standoff between the fund’s administration and the families of remaining residents. The closure was announced over a year ago, but their state remains in limbo because of the refusal of some families to leave.
“I've been talking with Ken Howard about a way to help raise funds to keep the motion picture home afloat,” Clooney wrote. “I think there's a good way for the wealthier members to help out.”
Howard told TheWrap that they had explored other options in their conversations, such as imposing a sort of MPTF tax on actors who earn over $1 million, but that this raised legal problems.
“The other way is with big donations,” said Howard. “It more than puts the ball in their court. We’re saying: This is the way this is supposed to function.”
Howard has suggested an A-list celebrity roast of Clooney as an MPTF fundraiser, but the actor has not yet accepted. “He’d do it, to help the cause, and I think that’s the way,” Howard said.
