Hollywood Boss

Glamor girl Zsa Zsa Gabor picked up her telephone in Paris one night last week and put a call through to Hollywood. At the other end of the line was Roy M. Brewer, 43, staid, stolid boss of the powerful International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees (A.F.L.), protector of Hollywood labor and militant antiCommunist. Zsa Zsa was upset. There was talk that Jules Dassin, director of her new picture, Public Enemy No. One, was not politically reliable. Should she make the picture and jeopardize her career? As usual, Roy Brewer had an answer. "I did make it clear," he said later, "I wasn't telling her whether she should go in the picture or not. But I did answer her question." Yes, Director Dassin has been identified in sworn testimony by Hollywoodians as a member of the Communist Party, and had not made himself available to congressional committee subpoena. In the end, Zsa Zsa was spared the necessity of withdrawing from the cast; Director Dassin himself was replaced.

Magnificent Response. Such experiences for Union Boss Brewer are as common as Hollywood sunshine. It was Brewer & Co. who were responsible for the public affirmations of anti-Communism by Moulin Rouge's Director John Huston and Actor Jose Ferrer last December. Says Brewer: "[Huston] was confronted with an intelligent, anti-Communist approach and he responded magnificently . . . He thought all anti-Communists were devils. When he saw we were trying to help rather than hurt Ferrer, he was profoundly impressed."

Brewer is currently pushing a new kind of fight on behalf of his union. This is the battle of the "Eighteen-Monthers"--people who take advantage of present income tax laws by staying in foreign countries for a year and a half and keeping all the money they make. (Such shrewd businessmen as Gary Cooper, Gene Kelly and John Huston have been busy in recent months in such places as Mexico, England, France and Italy.)

Useful Information. Brewer, up from a job in his home town (Grand Island, Neb.) as a movie projectionist, labor organizer, and finally, as an official with the War Production Board, contends that U.S. movie production abroad, using foreign labor, costs his A.F.L. members money and jobs--and he has friends in Congress who agree. Last week Treasury Secretary George Humphrey asked the Senate Finance Committee to repeal the "Hollywood clause," and at week's end it appeared the request would be granted. (The House is already studying two such bills.) Not too far behind the scenes was Boss Brewer, who said modestly: "I think that some of the information I was able to supply was useful ..."

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