The Actors Fund is a non profit, national, human services organization that was set up to provide help to individuals in the performing arts and entertainment industry. There are times when those in this industry may fall on hard times and need a helping hand to be able to make it through, though most of us normally do not think of individuals in that industry as being in that kind of a situation. We think of movie actors and those involved in acting as living far beyond the norm; however, this is not always the case. This organization works to provide essential needs during times of need.
The writer's strike that happened just this year brought about many changes in the acting industry. Many movie actors and television actors were faced with not having work during this time. It not only affected the actresses and actors, but also everyone who was working within the television and movie industry.
The Actors Fund worked to help these individuals when they were out of work and to alleviate some of the stress caused by the situation. However, some of the jobs that were lost during the writer's strike will not be returning.
The actors today really need the whip hand. They’re so lazy. They haven’t got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
—W. H. (Wystan Hugh)
The Actors Fund was founded in 1882, by Albert Marshman Palmer. It was founded largely because Harrison Grey Fiske, who was the editor of the New York Dramatic Mirror and a former student of New York University, brought attention to the array of problems that movie actors and others in the profession were facing.
In 1892, at a fair held at Madison Square Garden, this organization was able to raise money to provide families and individuals with money assistance, setting up an Actors Fund Home for those in need of a place to live and even burial plots at a cemetery in Brooklyn. In 1980, when the AIDS crisis hit the film industry, the Actors Fund attempted to bring what help they could to the thousands of affected individuals.
There are times when struggling actors and individuals who work in the TV and movie industry might need help with financial assistance, the costs of medicine and medical supplies, as well as other costs of living. This is when the Actors Fund can help movie actors and others in the industry.
All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self.... What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself—a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required.... I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)
This non-profit organization can offer help and assistance for individuals when they are not able to handle these situations on their own. Actors and those involved with the industry feel that they should take care of their own, and this organization has worked diligently to do so.
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