The Dawn Wells thread makes me wonder. Many if not most people have the idea that anyone appearing on TV or the Silly Screen are automatically millionaires. This ain't true by any means; Dawn for example. I cannot remember seeing her anywhere but Gilligans Island. And the studios are as tight-fisted as any business.

I know that there is a Motion Pictures and Television Actors Guild hospital (my best man works there) but who is that available to, if not exclusively the members of the Guild?

Depends a lot on what is in their contracts. I saw an interview with Don Adams one time. He said he was offered a choice for Get Smart. Either  high salary with no stake in the show, or a low salary with an ownership stake. He gambled on owning a piece of the show and said it was the best bet he ever made.

I've seen reports that some of the fairly well-known actresses who earn their living in Lifetime movies make several hundred thousand per year.  And they are the headliners in those movies.  The average annual salary for the other folks in those movies is apparently around 50-60K.

$87

Probably not nearly as high as one would think

Every dingbat that has ever gone to acting school and a trillion other dingbats that have never gone to any school are fighting for $500 a pop commercials alone

Bet there are a lot of people making the guild unions minimum out there on shows you have watched

I think people are much more astute now too.

A lot of the actors and actresses used to get completely ripped off by their studios and management.

It still happens, just not as often.

Here you go.

A friend from my high school days works as an actor in New York.  He told me he makes a living and works a lot but mostly as extras and very minor rolls.  He's been on many TV shows and movies big and small but always as an non talking extra.  He's just happy to be working as actor.

Just like musicians most make scraps and a small handful stack that cheddar.

Acting <> good money sense.  

Robert De Niro doesn't keep making shitty movies because he wants to.  He does it because he's spent it all before the first camera rolled.

Screen Actors Guild average salary is $75,000 a year.

Return of the Jedi supposedly never made any money. The actor who played Darth Vader never saw any residual money on a hugely popular film because of the shady accounting practices.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/245134/

Well if you suck Harvey off you get double, and asked back.

Actually, Dawn Wells isn’t a good example of what you are getting at.  She was the only one who was smart enough to negotiate back end residuals into her contract, reportedly to the tune of around $30+ million dollars.  So part of the reason why she didn’t work much is because she didn’t have to.

That is why I always pick her whenever the ‘Ginger’ vs ‘Mary Ann’ debat comes up; she is pretty, smart, and rich (the full trifecta).

LOL.  Well played.

Mega actors, the real top billing ones, seem to pull in the millions on movies and TV contracts.  Everyone else, not so much.

Recently Geoffrey Owens, who was on The Cosby Show back in the day, was shown working in a Trader Joe's.  He has a pretty rich IMDB history, but it must get lean at times.

Knock the very small number of movie and TV stars paid tens of millions out of the pool and that number would drop substantially.

I had always heard that as well.

However, according to the other thread she's about $200k in debt and started a Go Fund Me to move to a retirement home.

Funny just watched a documentary on Gilligans island today.

The actors on that show got fuck on sydication royalties.

Basically they didnt get them hence dawns sitiation

You know what I do, is I can get a young actress a job making up to five thousand dollars a day.

But we will need a demo tape

That's pretty deceptive when 10 actors make a billion, and he other 87,000 make $500....

Ginger/Tina Louise the smart one got snookered by Sherwood Schwartz the originator and producer of Gilligan's Island. Louise had a very promising acting job, and Schwartz convinced her to leave that job(she had to buy out her contract) and do Gilligan's, when it came time to deliver, Louise discovered she was lied to. Louise never recovered from this mistake, and this is the reason she never did any Gilligan Island reunions etc

ETA: BTW If you read Bob Denver's book, "return to Gilligan's Island" Universal tried to screw them as much as possible(this happens quite often in Hollywierd). In one part, they ask the actors to wade into the pool of brackist water on the Universal Backlot, Denver the only actor with any clout asked them to drain and refill the pool. This is the same pool they used to film "McHale's Navy."

Now that Dawn Wells is broke who do you pick

There is a reason why many of them wait tables....

It is not much.

If you are SAG, you have some good available benefits and the bottom rung is still OK.  The problem is getting enough work.  Most opportunities are not SAG.  But they usually pay less.  The other issue with SAG is in most of the country, there are few to no SAG opportunities.    While you can work non SAG if you are SAG, SAG’s first rule is “thou shall NEVER work non SAG.”    You can find yourself on the shit end of a blacklist if you step out on SAG.  For an understanding, pretty much anyone you have ever heard of is SAG.  So is (ultimately)most  everyone who wants to be someone you have heard of.

You really have to live in LA or NYC  to make a long term go at it.

You can show up in movies and TV shows with a line here and there, a few times a year, and not make an average wage at it.

There are a lot of non performance income opportunities in orbit around the industry.   There are some personal appearance opportunities.   There are some writing, editing, production, whatever opportunities.   If you are SAG, and have a lot of years of small work, the royalties can help. Especially if something you did is in constant reruns.

There is some money in commercial work.  A national commercial can solve your income problem for part of a year.  A local commercial can solve your income problem for that day.

If you ever had a small part in something big, like a guy who had a line in a Star Wars movie, you can make a fair living just on cons.   If you ever played a mythical character or voiced one. (A horror or scifi thing). You get to be famous twice, in the sense that you are that thing and you are you who was that thing.  Again, if you are willing to hustle the appearance opportunities, there is a living to be made in that.

But the vast majority of people that get the occasional small role in film and tv are not making a good living doing that.  A lot of them have other normal jobs.

If you are a regular on a TV show that keeps getting renewed, you really aren’t “small”.  You are making a fair to fantastic living with good to amazing “other” income opportunities.   You may not be making 7 figures but you are making at least low six figures.

SAG rate sheets for theatrical releases.

Was watching a documentary on the Friday the 13th series and I paused it when an actor's contract came up on the screen,  $798 dollars for a week's work.

Horror is often really low paying.  It is also not always SAG.  However if you were ever a main horror character, (like Jason from Friday the 13th) you can be set for life if you are willing to hustle hard on the appearance circuit.

People like Robert Englund (Freddy) and Doug Bradley (Pinhead) grind out a good living one con at a time.

My brother in law had parts in many tv shows (Twilight Zone, Land of the Giants, Yancy Derringer, and MASH to name a few). He finished his career playing Doc Baker on Little House on the Prairie.  I wouldn't say he was "wealthy", but he wasn't hurting for bucks.

Knowing the median salary would be quite interesting.

I was paid $2k for two appearances on Animal Kingdom.  nameless bad guy

One of my coworkers has dabbled in acting. She has said the same about LA or NYC. In Cleveland opportunities are limited. She has a lot of friends in the local acting community, they get by doing local commercials, corporate training videos, local theater, whatever they can get.

I loved LHotP as a kid and could picture your BIL's face the second you mentioned the role.  Very cool.  Sorry to hear he passed.

Still her.  Desperate has its own kind of appeal, you know.

Yeah. Commercial work and theater.  That is what you do outside of LA or NYC.

What does happen is when Hollywood comes to town, they do not always bring actors for every role.   If they need a guy to play a waiter and say “here is your check.” Or someone to be a doctor and say few lines, they will dip into the local talent pool.  Some people start a career that way.  Some cities are far better than others. Such as Austin, Miami, Nashville, Boston....  the issue gets even more complicated because of SAG.

Most metro areas have people (often fully or quasi government) that have the job to attract films and TV shows to the area.  Huge incentives and tax breaks are often offered.    Many states have funds to give out.  Canada has really stepped up its game for this.  (Also filming in Canada has a lot of benefits)

But there comes a point that if you want to keep getting work, you have to be in LA or NYC. (And that is just to have the chance to get more work)

I got $25 and a lunch for 8 hours of work as an extra in a movie back in 1994.
I had some free time at that time in my life, and I had a good paying job. The $25 was just extra cash, but the fried chicken lunch was nice.

I went to University of Toronto. Tons of tv and film production happened on the campus because the interesting Victorian architecture makes for nice exterior shots. It was amazing to see evidence of the production companies. Monday morning, nothing going on. Tuesday morning, St. George street is packed from Bloor to College with trucks, trailers, generators, cables, lights, dollys, etc. Wednesday and Thursday, the same deal. Friday morning, the street looks like nothing ever happened.

In case anybody is curious what a 3 picture deal for a supporting role for a non experienced child actor is.

$15,000 for the first
$55,000 for the second
$115,000 and options for the third.

Those were the numbers for my contract in the 1980s

Wound up being replaced at the last minute by someone who went on to become one of the most iconic child/teen faces of the 80s and early 90s, got chewed up by the Hollywood machine (his name comes up in the child molestation accusations that pop up from time to time) and died basically broke of a drug overdose.

I thought if you had a line in a movie you had to have a SAG card.   How do production companies get around following the union rules?

I found the current SAG pay rates here:

https://abspayroll.com/sag-rates-2018/

You can work on a SAG film without being SAG.

However, the work you do can make you SAG eligible and start the clock ticking.  Details aside, you can qualify for SAG after three full (cumulative) days of extra work or a speaking part.

Yep.  Kane Hodder (Jason parts 7,8,9,10) has made a good living off of cons and other Jason related stuff the past 20 years.  He just had a documentary about himself come out a month or two ago.  He's always busy pimping Jason.  And we love him for it.

Maybe there are more of those than I think, but your description doesn't really seem vague, if that was what you were going for.

All I can say about the money is that I recall when that black dude that was on The Shield, and a few other shows, killed his wife, he had what looked like a plain suburban two or three bedroom house. Nothing fancy, but not too bad, either.

I know or knew Sean William Scott. Or knew him before he left to become Stiffler. He came around a few times after American Pie. I know before American Pie he was not even making $30k a year. I think he cleared around $15k for the first American Pie, and like $2 million for the the sequel. He has built a monster house up here. But I have not talked to him since just after American Pie came out.

I have not looked into where he lived but keep in mind, in LA, such a home could be worth a few million.

You have to be really well off to look like it (total package, house, cars, clubs...) in LA.  You can make a fine 6 figure income and look like the middle class to people from other places.    A Midwest doctor can have a mansion, exotic cars and run with the richest people in town. That guy in LA has to budget.

I work about how your friend does except most probably not as much. I am retire and made my money already. I do not see who would think there is a future working as an extra.
No money, no kind of benefits and no steady income. I do it for play money. Too many people do it and a bunch would do it for free. (I was in the Purge this past Tuesday. Was wearing a tuxs with about 100 other people at a party.)

I actually planned to mention in my post that it was an LA place, so probably considerably more expensive than it looked, but it seems I forgot. Burger lethargy.

I have a friend that you probably see on TV every day.. usually commercials but he does but parts in TV shows too.  He just finished a job on grays anatomy for example.  He has a regular job as a bartender.  He has a nice car and travels with his wife and kid a few times a year, but definitely a normal middle class home and home life.

I did make some money when I worked as part of the crew for 2 movies last year. It was a step above an extra as a stand in and photo double. Better food , money and treatment.

Friend of mine that I worked an office job years ago quit one day and told us he was going to stunt man school this was about 15 years ago, we thought he was stupid.

He's worked steady since here, Tyler Perry stuff, Walking Dead, Marvel, Hunger Games, Fast and Furious and so on, shits booming here. Does a lot of stunt driving and has been numerous zombies on Walking Dead and has gotten to kill off a few of the main characters

He's had enough on screen stuff and lines and is a member of the SAG, pulling in a solid $150-200g a year, has a nice house, single, bought an old swat team van and turned it into an RV pockets all the money he gets for food/lodging stays in his swat van.

Better than the $50k a year office space/cubical farm he was working....