Frank "Junior" Coghlan

In 1932 I made a serial for Nat Levine of Mascot Pictures, who was called "King of the Shoestring". At sunset, he was too cheap to bring lights and generators to the set, so he'd hold magnesium flares over our head and the fine powdery dust would come down on us. I worked in a movie at Paramount, and we kids worked from 8:00 a.m. to half past midnight. That would be impossible now. When SAG came in, they enforced the rules to make it a financial penalty if the studios didn't give us meal breaks and hours off between calls. In 1937 I was 21 and knew that a new union was being formed for actors, so I lined up at the old Hollywood Legion Stadium during that crucial strike meeting, paid my $15 initiation fee and walked away a member of SAG.