Meet one of America’s newest union leaders: Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields has taken over America’s stage actors’ union at a moment of crisis.

While show-goers have flocked back to concerts and sporting events, live theater attendance still lags pre-pandemic times, sidelining the industry longer than others shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The storied Actors’ Equity Association union, representing 51,000 stage actors and managers from Broadway to San Francisco, is also fighting a high-profile battle for its first contract for Disneyland Resort performers in Anaheim, Calif. And there’s an ongoing strike against theaters for higher pay for shows in development. Plus, the union’s top legislative priority is to get Congress to rewrite tax policy so that unreimbursed business expenses are tax deductible again, a 2017 change that hit the industry hard.

“It’s usually money that is the factor that gets us shafted,” Shields, 59, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “What I have come to see is that those that can [afford it] really seem to give the least at times.”

It may seem surprising that the model and actress would step up to take on such a demanding unpaid position. Indeed, Shields won the union’s highest office in May, beating out two more seasoned union activists. But she says she plans to use her celebrity to put money into actors’ pockets, saying that the position “was something that I could give my energy to more than anything,” especially as her two daughters left home for college last month.

Shields has been in the spotlight for nearly half a century, first becoming a card-carrying union member with the Screen Actors Guild around age 11, during the filming of the controversial film “Pretty Baby.” More recently, she has starred in a top Netflix movie, launched a hair-care company, written books and been the subject of a Hulu documentary chronicling her experience of sexual objectification as a child and teenager.

Since 29, Shields has appeared in five Broadway musicals. She replaced leading actors as Betty Rizzo in “Grease,” Roxie Hart in “Chicago,” and Morticia Addams in “The Addams Family” - “It wasn’t a popular idea,” Shields recalls, but Actor’s Equity backed her through it. She’s also had roles in regional theater and off-Broadway productions.

This spring, fresh off last year’s strike victories for Hollywood screen actors and writers, Shields ran for the newly open president’s seat, hopeful that she could use her platform to “ask for more for the members.”

“I felt that [our union] needed to be … seen as formidable,” Shields said. “I can respectfully shout out things that need to change. … There has to be good value for [fame]. Otherwise you’re probably just getting a table at a restaurant.”

The years leading up to the pandemic shattered records for attendance and earnings on Broadway, with blockbusters hits like “Hamilton” and “The Lion King” grossing more than $100 million in a season. But the pandemic reversed those fortunes, with many Actor’s Equity members still unable to meet their pre-pandemic working hours or qualify for health insurance.

“A lot of people still have not recovered from the pandemic,” Shields said. “We have people with [medical] treatments that they need to be continuing. … So they’re forced to have two and sometimes three jobs. A salary on Broadway is almost impossible to live on in today’s New York City … and you’ve got regional theater all over the country that has to be heard.”

Shields’s rise to the top of the union comes as major labor leaders like United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien have drawn national attention for their ambitious plans to revive America’s labor movement. Last year, Hollywood actress Fran Drescher, who is the president of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents screen actors, went viral for a fiery speech beginning a strike alongside a screenwriters work stoppage that paralyzed the show business for months.

Shields’s top legislative priority is getting a bill passed to make non-reimbursed business expenses tax deductible again, which would help stage actors’ ability to keep more money that goes to things they need to do their job, like voice lessons and agent fees. That Trump-era tax policy change has meant some actors owe thousands of dollars in taxes each year, they have said. She will also lobby to raise the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities to the Senate’s recommended $209 million for the 2025 fiscal year.

Shields plans to spread the message that arts and entertainment are an economic driver, not only in big cities like New York and Chicago, but also in much smaller cities like Birmingham, Ala., and Grand Rapids, Mich.

“When it comes to politics, it’s always interesting to me how the arts and education are the easiest ones to cut,” Shields said. “We can’t lose sight of that, otherwise we become the type of country we don’t want to be.”

Shields faces many battles at the bargaining table. The union is negotiating its first contract for California’s 1,700 Disneyland performers. The union plans to meet with management in October to demand better pay, safe and sanitary workplaces, and job security. Meanwhile, stage actors paused all developmental work - the workshops and readings of plays and musicals before they hit the main stage - in a strike that began in June against the Broadway League, the trade industry for the theater industry. The top sticking point is fair compensation.

This month, Shields will travel to Washington to unveil her agenda and meet with congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Shields acknowledges that she doesn’t have much experience running a union. She compares her first few months in the role to “going to college again.” (Shields attended Princeton University.) But last year, when the union’s longtime president announced her decision to resign, Shields saw it as “the most authentic opportunity for me to give back to a community that has truly embraced me when nobody else was.”

“I look at unions as parents,” Shields said. “When your voice isn’t necessarily strong enough or going to be heard, they can step in and speak for you. I’ve been a member since I was a little girl. And my mom would say, if I can’t help you, we can go to [the union], and they will.”