Richard Stellar

  • Just the MPTF Facts, Ma’am

    Last week, we received word that the Teamsters have joined SAG in standing up against the closure of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Long Term Care facility. Our momentum in ramping up the heat is moving faster than the spinning dial on my bathroom scale.     Still, in the afterglow of this momentous…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Not Even YouTube Can Make the MPTF Decision Palatable

    Another public relations attempt by the MPTF looks like it is crashing and burning at this very moment.   Hawk Kock, the dapper yet grizzled self-appointed spokesperson for the fund, has taken to YouTube to broadcast yet more of its message of doom.   This ‘tour de farce’ that is making the rounds of the various unions…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Hey, Mr. Mancuso, the Number Is More Than 84

    Immediately following SAG’s vote to denounce the closing of the Motion Picture Home’s Long Term Care Center, the MPTF issued a press release from Frank Mancuso that read, in part: "It would be a disservice to our community to force into bankruptcy this indispensable organization simply because family members of the 84 people living in…

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    Richard Stellar

  • You Say You Want a Revolution …

    For over six months — once the families of the residents received that fateful letter from the MPTF — we’ve been fighting tooth and nail to keep the long term care center of the Motion Picture Home open, and to elicit support from the entertainment community. We’ve written letters, we’ve attempted contact with Jeffrey Katzenberg,…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Spielberg’s Torah

    Usually, the donation of a Torah to a religious facility is a mitzvah. Or as the Torah explains — an act of human kindness. In this case, however, I look at it as an abomination, or an averah — a moral transgression. What I’m addressing is the donation of a Torah to the Motion Picture…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Michael Douglas … How Kirk Must Be Ashamed of You!

    Michael Douglas has had such an illustrious career in the entertainment business. It’s like I grew up with him. "Streets of San Francisco," the producer of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" — hell, Gordon Gekko, playing opposite Glenn Close and Demi Moore in those hawt films.   "Falling Down" — fantastic! "An American President"…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Elders Shock the Annual MPTF Board Meeting

    Had they been able to stand, Mary Stellar and Rosemary Quinn would have been more active and able to properly protest the planned closing of the Motion Picture Home’s Long Term Care Facility at Tuesday’s poorly attended Board Meeting at the luxurious Saban Center. As it was, the ladies were enjoying the beautiful weather with…

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    Richard Stellar

  • The Mental Waterboarding of Our Elderly

    There was a song, I think in the ‘80s, called “Farm on a Freeway,” by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. It was a bittersweet rocker, the lament of a poor American farmer who allowed his family’s heritage to be bulldozed over to make way for a ribbon of concrete. "They say they gave me compensation …That’s…

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    Richard Stellar

  • MPTF: The Fish Stinks From the Armpit

    It seems that the entire motion picture and television industry is hanging onto every development concerning the fate of the Motion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF) elderly and infirm residents. Our advocates have advanced our cause to the pages of this esteemed website, and in other traditional and digital media worldwide.   On Monday, thanks…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Does Katzenberg Even Know What ‘First Class’ Means?

    If you had driven down Sunset Boulevard on the night of Feb. 21, just outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel, you might have easily run over one of us. We were over 200 strong, wielding signs of protest and wearing masks in effigy for the elderly residents who face eviction at the Motion Picture Home. …

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    Richard Stellar

  • MPTF Home: A-Listers, Stand Up and Be Counted!

    Since my kid was a little boy and fascinated with movie making, we loved playing the Kevin Bacon version of Six Degrees of Separation. Now there is another version, and it’s not so much fun. His grandmother, along with all the other residents at the Motion Picture and Television Fund long term care center, is…

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    Richard Stellar

  • Motion Picture Home Plucking the Elderly

    It’s evident that with the planned closing of the Long Term Care facility at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Home that the continuum of care for industry workers is now history. The beauty of the Motion Picture Home is that there is a "continuum of care." It’s the final resting place for those who…

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    Richard Stellar