Laura Ingalls vs. Rhoda Morgenstern

Melissa Gilbert gained fame playing a frontier girl in "Little House on the Prairie." Valerie Harper caught the public's fancy as the wisecracking pal on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Now the two actresses are competing for a far different role: union boss.

Observers say both politics and celebrity are factors in the election for president of the Screen Actors Guild, which represents more than 98,000 movie and television performers nationally.

Harper and Gilbert are running at a tense time, in the aftermath of a lengthy commercial actors' strike and an averted walkout by movie and TV actors under one-term SAG President William Daniels ("St. Elsewhere," "Boy Meets World").

The ballot deadline is Wednesday with results to be announced by Nov. 5, the guild said. Voters are choosing a treasurer, recording secretary and board members as well as new top leadership. Two other candidates, Angeltompkins and Eugene Boggs, also are seeking the presidency.

In this union race, fame and personality count: Candidate Web sites include glamour shots of the sort unlikely ever to make a Teamsters campaign poster.

"Because we're an actors' union, we want the name with the biggest visibility," said actor and attorney Eugene Feldman, an independent candidate for the board. "Actors are as celebrity-driven and influenced as the average person."

"Big names win," agreed actor-singer Steve Blackwood, a regular on the NBC daytime serial "Days of Our Lives" and a SAG member.

Past guild presidents include Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston and Patty Duke.

When it comes to issues, member discord over the strike and Daniels' stewardship are the most potent elements, with the actresses and those aligned with them taking sharply opposing views of the state of the union.

Harper praises the record established by Daniels, who decided against seeking another term. Gilbert is critical of the union's direction and is calling for change.

AP

Valerie Harper

Both the commercial and theatrical contracts were overwhelmingly approved by SAG members, Harper noted. She praised the commercial pact for blocking rollbacks sought by producers in some areas of residual payments. (Residuals are paid to actors for rebroadcasts of their work.)

In contrast, Harper said, there was disapproval of deals reached under the previous SAG president, Richard Masur, who served twterms. Daniels, promising a tougher guild, unseated Masur ("Forget Paris," the HBO film "61") in an extremely bitter 1999 election.

With emotions running high, shouting matches have broken out among members passing out election fliers at sites including the guild credit union in Studio City.

"A lot of people who were active in the strike are resentful of people saying the strike was not necessary," said Feldman. "That's why this is so bitter. There are lots of recriminations."

It is the guild's atmosphere as much as specific issues that drew Gilbert and others supporting her into the election, said Mike Farrell, who is running for first vice president.

"The primary thing I'm concerned about is the attitude in leadership," said Farrell. "What this (Daniels) administration has specialized in is the position of 'You are with us or you are a traitor.' That word literally is used. I have found that to be both offensive and troubling."

Farrell, who starred in the TV series "M-A-S-H" and is in the NBC drama "Providence," was coaxed into the election by Gilbert. She was unavailable for an interview, her publicist said.

Farrell questions whether the commercial actors strike, the longest in guild history, was necessary. At the least, he said, it was painfully prolonged by guild intractability.

"If it had been handled differently, it probably would have resulted in the same gains we got without the ruinous six-month duration," Farrell said.

The strike against commercial producers cost actors undetermined millions of dollars and the Los Angeles area at least $125 million in lost production as it drove commercial work abroad.

Subsequent negotiations, for movie and film actors, were handled in a "more thoughtful, professional way," he said, crediting SAG negotiator Brian Walton.

Harper, 61, is a four-time Emmy winner who had her own 1974-78 series, "Rhoda," and whose Broadway resume includes a current role in "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife."

Besides "Little House on the Prairie," which aired from 1974 to '83, the 37-year-old Gilbert has been featured in many TV movies, among them "Sanctuary," "Switched at Birth" and "Choices of the Heart," which co-starred running mate Farrell.

By LYNN ELBER
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