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Robert B. Aldrich Award
Robert Butler
The one memory that sticks out in Robert Butler's mind is that fateful day when the Guild went on its first strike for three hours and five minutes in 1987.
"I ran the Strike Services Committee - the physical side of the strike," Butler said. "I remember the tremendous devotion that the members had and the great support they showed. On strike day, there were a lot of high-level people on their hands and knees in a parking lot stapling signs with the DGA's logo and reading 'On strike' onto wooden slats. We were all just trying to make the damn thing work. It was quite a bonding experience.
"We had the water, the hats, the sun screen, first-aid, and we figured out all the logistics and we just did it. We got it done. That's the way the DGA is in everything: We are well organized, well supported. That was quite a fond experience for me because it showed me what I knew all along."
It was only one of Butler's many DGA roles. For that service, he is being recognized with the Robert B. Aldrich Award. It will be bestowed to both he and director Tom Donovan (see related story) on March 10 at the DGA Awards ceremony.
Butler served as an alternate member on the DGA National Board of Directors beginning in 1985, was elected a National Board of Directors member in 1987, and was elected as Fifth Vice President in 1995, a position he held until 1999.
One of the things Butler's learned through his varied positions is that "The DGA is so capable of altering and broadening its goals and sights. It's pretty clouded and complex out there, but our heritage is to stand in the rain until we get the work done. That's our work ethic. We have a feeling that we can redirect and dodge and punch whenever we have to change."
Butler currently serves as an Alternate member of both the National Board and the Western Directors Council. They are only the latest posts in his life devoted to labor.
Butler joined Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians fresh out of high school. He played trombone on the radio and for recordings, primarily in the youthful band selected to back up Hoagy Carmichael on the airwaves' Something New.
In the 1950s, he became a stage manager in live television and joined the Los Angeles ranks of the primarily New Yorkbased Radio and Television Directors Guild (RTDG), which merged with the Screen Directors Guild (SDG) in 1960 to form the DGA. He stage managed many installments of such shows as Playhouse 90, Studio One and Climax! for such renowned directors as John Frankenheimer, Delbert Mann, Franklin J. Schaffner, Alex Segal and Arthur Penn.
He became a director in the 1960s and guided episodes of such time-honored series as The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey and others, including one of the last Playhouse 90s called "The Experiment" with Michael Douglas in one of his first roles. Butler eventually became known for his direction of pilots. His hit list includes such acclaimed series as Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Lois & Clark and Remington Steele, which he also created. Butler's latest pilot, The Division, aired in January on Lifetime.
Butler's directing career includes the theatrical films Turbulence with Ray Liotta, Night of the Juggler with James Brolin and Up the Creek with Tim Matheson, and his movies for television include the The Blue Knight with William Holden and Lee Remick, Dark Victory with Elizabeth Montgomery and Anthony Hopkins, Death Takes a Holiday with Yvette Mimieux and Myrna Loy and In the Glitter Palace with Barbara Hershey and Chad Everett.
During this prolific career, he's always found time to give back to the Guild. "Through the years, the Guild has come to my aid, mostly in scraps over money," Butler said. "The Guild is there for me and every member, and they support our creative rights. Some people don't know how a show works, that you need only one captain. They get a little crazed and try to go around the director and make kind of a big mess.
"The director has creative rights - it's not about being arrogant. It's about being adherent to the process. 'Captaincy' is a word I like to use a lot. It's a big part of the job, being in charge, to just get the damn ship through the shoals. And that's what they pay you to do, aside from the creative aspects. It works better when there's one person in charge. It eliminates mixed messages and confusion. It's a concept as old as the early silent movies - there is a captain who gets the story told."
When Butler first began joining Guild committees, he was impressed by the captaincy of some of the seasoned hands with whom he was carving out policy.
"I served on a committee with George Stevens and John Sturges and their leadership and strength and decency left a lasting impression on me," he said. So did this award's namesake.
"Robert Aldrich said, 'We all need to pay something back,'" Butler recalled. "I served on committees and boards with him. I had immense respect for his force. He was direct, blunt and no-nonsense. He was long and strong on captaincy.
"The DGA stands for a generic brand of decency, and its tremendous honor and integrity comes from the people at the top. They are really tenacious in being fair and truthful and relentless about whatever objective is at hand. That comes from the original group who founded the Guild in the 1930s," he says.
"We are a working organization in sun or rain," Butler continued. "We get the tasks accomplished on those committees and boards. The overall decency of the DGA is terribly valuable and rare in this industry."
-Jerry Roberts
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