Maureen O'Sullivan

I was in an independent film called Silver Lining (1932) and it was absolutely hell to make. We worked until we dropped and then we'd have an early call. This was before the Guild and it was so awful that I started to cry. I told the producer I was too tired and that I'd only had a few hours of sleep. He said if I didn't pull myself together, I'd never work again. So under threat of that, I worked. I remember the union first being talked about in 1935. I was doing a film called Cardinal Richelieu with George Arliss, Cesar Romero and future SAG president Edward Arnold and they talked about it incessantly. The studios weren't that anxious to have a Guild, but actors had to do something about unionizing because of the horror of working without one.