"Our main reason for being is to assist people in the arts professions that might need temporary or even permanent help," says Barnard Hughes, an award-winning film, stage, and TV actor, who is speaking as the president of the Episcopal Actors' Guild of America Inc.
The group's formal name is somewhat of a misnomer, for the Episcopal Church neither supports it, nor is it a guild, in the official sense. It is a 75-year-old charitable organization dedicated to supporting actors and arts professionals of all religious and ethnic backgrounds, and its history dates back to a time when prejudice against actors was so strong that they were not welcome in many places of worship.
The guild is also a social group that hosts performance events for its members twice a month in its home, Guild Hall, in "The Little Church Around the Corner" at 1 E. 29th St. Anyone can join the guild, but performers pay a discounted membership fee.
The organization has nearly 600 members, and its council includes some of the most respected members of the performing arts community. Along with Hughes, they include Sam Waterston, Arthur Anderson, Kay Arnold, and Susan Willis, and advisory board members Cliff Robertson, Joan Fontaine, Roscoe Lee Browne, Zoe Caldwell, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., William Hutt, Swoosie Kurtz, Jason Robards, and Jean Stapleton.
Council members, along with Executive Secretary Mart Hulswit, decide on the designation of personal grants to performers in need. The guild does not just give money away: It has to be an emergency and the performer has to seek help from his or her union and the Actors' Fund before he or she comes to the guild. Hulswit gave an example of how the guild helps performers: "People who come to us are about to be evicted. They go to the Actors' Fund and they get a partial payment of rent. If they only pay a partial, it doesn't keep them from getting evicted, so we pay the difference, and it makes all the difference."
The guild also has a special AIDS program, and last year it reached 54 people with HIV/AIDS. The guild often steps in to help people living on disability, whether due to HIV/AIDS or any other illness. When living on a fixed income, performers may incur an unexpected expense, so they don't have money to eat at the end of the month. The guild also helps them get new air conditioners, pay a vet bill, or pay medical bills. If performers are too sick to work, and no longer qualify for union insurance, the guild may help them pay health insurance premiums.
According to Hulswit, the guild recently helped a nine-year-old musical genius whose parents, former performers, both have AIDS. Because they were both on disability, the parents were unable to afford new clothing for their daughter. The guild replaced her clothing and, two days later, the girl got a full scholarship to Juilliard.
Come On By, We're Expecting You
For the fiscal year of April 1, 1998, through March 31, 1999, the guild's Aid and Relief Program provided $79,879 in emergency aid and relief to 188 individuals, and ongoing assistance totaling $27,081 to 12 others. Help went to members of all the major performers' unions, including Actors' Equity Association (AEA), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
All the Episcopal Actors' Guild's work is confidential. Only Hulswit knows the performers' names, and only the grants committee is informed of a performer's situation. Hulswit will reveal the story of one specific performer, however, but only because it "assumes mythical proportions." When they were still young, struggling performers, Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele, came to the guild for help. They were each given $250. And when Fred made it big, he sent back $500 a year, every year, for the rest of his life.
The guild has helped many young people who later became successful, and who, like Astaire, paid back the money they were given several times over, or left the guild bequests in their wills. In this way, the guild's endowment has grown to almost $3 million. The guild can use the interest and dividends from the endowment to pay for all the overhead costs of running the charity, but one-third of the money the guild gives away must come from the outside world. As a registered non-profit organization, contributions to the guild are tax-deductible and the guild is tax-exempt.
It is always difficult to ask for help, but Hulswit said he tries to make it easier. "To folks who come to me, I say, "This fund was created by people who were in your shoes. They knew what it's like; how difficult it is to sustain a career; they knew that you would need us some day, whether you realized it or not. So, don't feel badly, because, in a very real sense, we've been expecting you, you just didn't know it.' And that's when people burst into tears."
Aside from its location, in an Episcopalian Church, and its name, the guild is truly ecumenical; members come from all religious backgrounds, and performers are helped regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. "We close our doors to nobody," Hughes said. And Hulswit added humorously, "We even help bomb-throwing atheists; we just ask them not to bring their bombs."
A Century-Old Connection
The history of the guild is intricately tied to The Little Church, officially called The Church of the Transfiguration. The story of how it became known as the Little Church Around the Corner begins in 1870 with Joseph Jefferson, a famous actor best known for his 40-year stint as Rip Van Winkle. When a fellow actor and friend, George Holland, died, Jefferson offered to make the funeral arrangements. He went to a nearby church where Holland's wife worshipped and the Reverend William T. Sabine welcomed Jefferson. Sabine offered his condolences and began to take down the necessary information for the funeral arrangements, but when he realized that Holland had been an actor, he suddenly burst out: "Oh, well, I'm afraid we don't do that sort of thing for actors here."
According to Hulswit, Jefferson recalled the incident in his memoirs, claiming Sabine did not even realize he had insulted Jefferson. Jefferson considered just leaving on the spot, but instead, turned at the doorway and asked, "Well sir, in this dilemma, could you perhaps point me to a church that would do this sort of thing for actors?" The priest, realizing he had offended Jefferson, nervously replied, "There is a little church around the corner where it might be done." Jefferson said, "Then I say, Sir, God bless that little church around the corner!" He went to that church, where the burial was accepted without question.
Jefferson held a news conference, and soon editorials started springing up in newspapers across the country, including one by a young Mark Twain. Twain argued that actors do a lot more toward the making of better human beings than priests do, and concluded his editorial with a powerful, exceptionally long sentence: "Was it not pitiable, that spectacle? Honored and honorable old George Holland, whose theatrical ministry had for fifty years softened hard hearts, bred generosity in cold ones, kindled emotion in dead ones, uplifted base ones, broadened bigoted ones and made many and many a stricken one glad, and filled it brim full of gratitude, figuratively spit upon in his unoffending coffin by this crawling, slimy, sanctimonious, self-righteous reptile!"
While the attacks on Sabine continued, the outreach toward the Little Church was immense. Among those who joined and supported the church was Edwin Booth, the founder of The Players. Booth has been immortalized, as Hamlet, in one of the church's huge, ornate stained glass windows.
Hulswit, a veritable expert on the church's history, revealed that after the Sabine incident, "The theatre community adopted this church, in gratitude for having accepted an actor for burial when another church had turned it down . . . regardless of what their religion was, they pledged to support this church. And whenever the church needed money, actors would form a benefit performance for the church and send them money."
The Episcopal Actors' Guild was born out of the Actors' Church Alliance, which was founded in 1889 by William Bentley, a young priest who had previously been an actor. The alliance published a pamphlet of actor-friendly places of worship all over the country, and distributed it to touring actors. But soon, the ecumenical organization began to break apart, as first the Catholic, and then the Jewish actors formed separate organizations. By the end of the World War I, only a few members of the original organization remained, including Bentley, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and George Arliss, all of whom happened to be Episcopalian.
The remaining few decided to form the Episcopal Actors' Guild, and Bentley went to the Little Church to ask the rector, Father Randolph Ray, for help. Ray, a cousin of Tallulah Bankhead, agreed to house the guild in Guild Hall, even though Bentley insisted that the guild remain entirely ecumenical (welcoming all religions). Hulswit said, "We are called the Episcopal Actor's Guild, but even Father Ray said: "Strictly speaking, the name implies that the Episcopal Church supports it, but it doesn't; it is its own entity.' " Only about 20% of the guild's members are Episcopalian, Hulswit estimated.
Former officers, council members, advisory board members, and supporters have included Steve Allen, Fred Astaire, Tallulah Bankhead, David Belasco, Lloyd Bridges, Oscar Hammerstein II, Helen Hayes, Gertrude Lawrence, Sir Laurence Olivier, Will Rogers, and Jessica Tandy.
Hulswit urges people of all religions to join. "It is a chance to meet some really fine performers and people who care. The real star of the whole thing is the guild itself; the guild is a thread that holds together the last century of actors and this century."