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1953 1954 1957 George Sidney (center, with shovel) and members break ground for the new headquarters at 7920 Sunset Blvd. in 1954. " It was a mandate from the membership to me, a demand saying 'build the theater.' They didn't want to know how to build it, or where to build it, or why to build it, or how to pay for it. They just gave me this order to build it. " GEORGE SIDNEY King Vidor Receives the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award DGA.org/Vidor The Guild Gives First D.W. Griffith Award (Later renamed the Lifetime Achievement Award) >Initiated to heal wounds from the divisive Loyalty Oath meeting and raise the prestige of directors. Cecil B. DeMille is the first recipient. Best Director for Television Award >Robert Florey and AD Bruce Gowler win the Guild's first Best Director for Television Award for The Last Voyage. Groundbreaking for Screen Directors Guild Headquarters he DGA-Producer Pension Plan was born out of the Hol- lywood labor strife of the late 1950s over the reuse of fea- ture films on television. The DGA was preparing to enter negotiations in early 1960 when Republic Pictures broke a 12-year moratorium on exhibiting films on television without negotiat- ing a residual payment to any of the Hollywood guilds. SAG and WGA struck the industry in early 1960 over this issue. SAG settled its strike and under the leadership of its then-president Ronald Reagan, negotiated a new deal with the producers in April in which significant contributions were made to the actors' pension plan in exchange for release of residu- als claims on post-1948 feature films shown on television. At the same time, directors were dissatisfied with the mini- mal coverage of the Motion Pic- ture Industry Plan, with limited benefits that were based only on hours spent on set, not time in pre- or postproduction. Recognizing the rising value of a pension plan vs. the dimin- ishing value of post-'48 films, on May 1, 1960, the DGA accepted the SAG deal, giving directors and their assistants their own pension plan and establishing future residu- als for directors on post-1960 feature films shown on television. The DGA agreement expanded on the SAG deal in two significant ways: first, the new pension plan covered not only directors and ADs of feature films but also expanded pension benefits to television di- rectors and ADs who shot films made for television. Second, in addi- tion to establishing employer contributions to the Basic Pension Plan to serve all members, the DGA negotiated an additional, separate plan funded by both employer and member contributions to further support individual members in retirement. Now called the Supple- mental Plan, this plan was the first of its type in the industry and was revolutionary in that these supplemental contributions would follow individual members throughout their lifetime and are made available to the member in a lump sum upon retirement. PENSION PLANS ESTABLISHED NEW HEADQUARTERS 1955 dga quarterly 41 PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE, TOP LEFT) DGA ARCHIVES (2); PHOTOFEST; DGA ARCHIVES; AMPAS 1960 DGA-Producer Pension Plan Established >55 years later, the pension plans combined have as- sets of more than $3 billion and annual contributions from employers of nearly $110 million as of 2015. T