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1951 JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ Joseph L. Mankiewicz Elected Guild President >Serves 1950-1951 First Television Contract Negotiated >The first television con- tract grants directors the right to share in revenue from filmed shows on television. Joseph Youngerman Named Guild Executive Secretary Guild Membership Reaches 900 Ida Lupino >Lupino becomes the second woman director to join the Guild. She was a pioneer of independent, low-budget features on challenging subjects, such as The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker, and later transitioned to episodic TV. "If Hollywood is to remain on the top of the film world, I know one thing for sure—there must be more experimentation with out- of-the-way film subjects." DGA.org/Lupino George Sidney Elected Guild President >Serves 1951-1959. With a second term from 1961 to 1967, he had the longest tenure of any Guild president. 1950 ➨ "Lupino was a trailblazer, not just for women, but for all directors. She took on subjects that no one else wanted to touch at that time, As a director she never played it safe. I'm thrilled that she paved the way to make art and film." —KIMBERLY PEIRCE " I got King Vidor and George Stevens and a few other past presidents and we put things together again and hired Joe Youngerman [as executive secretary]. We had some proper bylaws written which made the membership the people who would control the Guild. " >In the midst of the McCarthy era blacklist, Cecil B. DeMille's call for Guild members to sign a loyalty oath and his secret petition demanding the resig- nation of President Joseph L. Mankiewicz brought over 300 members to a hotly contested, emotionally draining seven-hour meet- ing at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Oct. 22, 1950. With some deft statesmanship by George Stevens and others, it became obvious that DeMille had ma- nipulated the Guild for his own political purposes and the mea- sures were defeated. But it was a highly polarizing meeting, turning members against one another. It is regarded as one of the most climactic—and dark- est—moments in the Guild's 80-year history. In political terms, nothing was accom- plished as far as stemming the tide of the Hollywood witch hunt, but it did help refocus the Guild on representing the collective rights of directors and not the political self-interests of a faction of members. "The impor- tant thing was bringing this group of disassociated men and great talents together to form one organization," said the Guild's next president, George Sidney. "I think we have managed to do this and solidified our organization." DGA.org/Blacklist 1950 THE BLACKLIST "The directors— all of them—went back to the busi- ness of making movies. And the Guild, by virtue of its members' courage and integrity, had found peace in its own civil war." —CLINT EASTWOOD From DGA Moments in Time 40 dga quarterly 80-YEAR ANNIVERSARY 80-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE, TOP LEFT) EVERETT; DGA ARCHIVES; AMPAS; DGA ARCHIVES; BRIAN DAVIS