Wrestlers reject AFTRA membership...in 1959

[Bix]

This got linked at KM and I thought it was interesting...

 

TV Artists Ask ‘Em To Join, But Wrestlers Deny Acting (Saturday, July 11, 1959)

By Pat Harmon

CINCINNATI – (NEA) – The National Convention of Wrestling Fans met here for two days.

There were registrations from throughout the United States and Canada.

The fans met in a hall decorated with 120 photographs of wrestlers. Doc Hughes of Cincinnati put up the pictures. Among the works of art he selected were a barefoot Antonino Rocca, turbaned Ali Pasha, a silk robed Danny McShane, a ???* Barbara Baker, a curvy ???* Stewart, and Mildred Burke with a mirror.

Doc said this was the fifth annual convention and its purpose is “to help wrestling.”

He waved a clipping from the Cincinnati Post and Times-Star writing about the American Federation of TV-Radio Artists, Chicago Chapter. The Federation wants wrestlers to join “because they are actors.”

The convention adopted a resolution condemning AFTRA’s move.

“Wrestlers aren’t actors,” said Hughes.

Marie Healion of Covington, Ky., said her favorite wrestler is Buddy Rogers, a true-blue, clean-cut spirit. She travels to matches five nights a week in three states and always cheers Rogers.

In one city Rogers had been marked a villain and he was playing the role. He sneered, strutted, barked at the customers and committed vile tricks on his innocent opponent.

Boos showered on Rogers from all the patrons but one, who insisted on cheering and applauding him. Finally Rogers stepped to the ringside and yelled: “Quit cheering me Marie. You’ll ruin my career here.”

Kathy Weiss, 27, blond and a schoolteacher, came from St. Louis. She represented the Pat O’Connor Championship Club of which she is president. The club has 1,200 members in the U.S., New Zealand, Africa, and Europe. Kathy sells photos of O’Connor for from 10 to 75 cents. The receipts pay for an annual journal about O’Connor.

Do her friends ask her if wrestling’s on the level?

“Yes. And when Harry Caray, the announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, asked me that, you know what I said to him? ‘I asked him, Is baseball on the level?’”

Pat Hawkins, 24 and blond, is a secretary for patent attorneys in Washington. She is the founder of the Verne Gagne Fan Club and spends “at least 10 hours a week, mostly nights and Saturdays” on club work. The club has 150 members.

Initiation fee in the Gagne Club is $1.00 and the club journal, issued every three months, is $1.00 a year.

“The journal has a wallet-sized photo of Verne Gagne on the cover and an 8X10 inside,” Pat said, “and storied about his matches, written by his fans in the U.S., Canada and the British Isles.”

The money from initiation and subscriptions pays for the journal, the pictures and a Christmas gift for Verne Gagne.

 

* word not legible