Meryl Streep and George Clooney Lead Donation Campaign for Striking Actors
Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/business/media/clooney-streep-actors-strike-donations.html
Hollywood actors have now been on strike for nearly three weeks. They have walked picket lines in broiling heat, orchestrated noisy rallies and flooded social media with cris de coeur. Harrison Fords stunt double lit himself on fire (safely) at a protest in Georgia. The president of the actors union, Fran Drescher, spoke on Tuesday about greed-driven studios at a New York City Council meeting.
But some people have been puzzled about one missing element. As Variety, the entertainment trade magazine, put it in a July 24 headline, Why Havent A-List Stars Joined the SAG-AFTRA Picket Line? As it turns out, some megastars Meryl Streep and George Clooney, in particular have contributed in a different way.
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation, a charity that provides financial assistance to workaday performers, said on Wednesday that Ms. Streep and Mr. Clooney had helped lead a donation campaign that had raised more than $15 million over the last three weeks. The pair each gave $1 million and then started to lobby Hollywoods other top-earning stars for contributions. A Google Doc was created to keep track of who was leaning on whom.
Eight more stars (Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey) gave $1 million or more, along with two star couples: Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
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Solidarity!