SAG chief Alan Rosenberg: Singing the blues

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In the early days of Alan Rosenberg’s tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild, I wrote admiringly of his commitment to challenge the status quo. People scoffed, saying the idealistic TV actor -- he even played a softhearted children’s legal advocate on ‘The Guardian’ -- was the wrong guy to run SAG during what was sure to be a critical contract negotiation with the studios.

I didn’t take the criticism that seriously. Why not an idealist? After all, Alan’s older brother, Mark Rosenberg, was one of Hollywood’s best-known student radicals turned movie executives back in the 1980s. People said Alan was the wrong guy at the wrong time, that he was the kind of self-dramatizing liberal crusader who thought he was born to lead a heroic strike against the coldblooded media conglomerates. Having him at the head of SAG would be a disaster.

Well, even though I agree with the part about the coldblooded media conglomerates, who are certainly no friend to any union, you’d still have to say that Rosenberg’s critics were right and I was wrong. Everything at SAG has to gone to hell in a handbasket, with the union having ousted its chief negotiator, Doug Allen, and marginalized Rosenberg. Has he learned anything from the experience? Apparently not. In a truly sad, self-involved interview that only a narcissistic actor could give -- reported here by The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman -- Rosenberg wallowed in self-pity, complaining that all his hard work of the past three years has amounted to nothing. As he put it: ‘My life sucks. Here I am, my partner [Doug Allen] was fired. I’m muzzled.... The liars and manipulators have won.’

Then, just to remind us all why SAG has so often been ridiculed as the kookiest union on the planet, Rosenberg broke out his guitar and literally sang the blues, crooning an original composition in a froggy rasp complete with lyrics that, well, don’t exactly evoke comparisons to Bob Dylan, much less Billy Joe Shaver or Steve Earle. (Rosenberg acknowledged that he’s no singer, though he has impressive family bloodlines -- his first cousin is Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen.)

The song is written from the perspective of a wealthy, weaselly actor who only cares about his own paycheck, not the betterment of his less fortunate guild brethren, perhaps aimed at the George Clooneys of the world who’ve opposed Rosenberg’s hard-line negotiating style. Sample lyrics: ‘We don’t care about the future, we only care about us/And if you don’t earn what I think I can earn, I will throw you underneath a bus/I sure do love my union, it gave me my pension and my health/But don’t expect me to stand up for nobody till I’ve had a chance to accumulate some wealth.’

It’s a sad end to what could’ve been a bright new chapter in guild history, with Rosenberg going out, not with a bang, but a not entirely melodious whimper. If you want to hear the song for yourself, here’s where you can listen: