George Clooney Named As Potential Witness In SAG-AFTRA Suit

George Clooney Named As Potential Witness In SAG-AFTRA Suit

George Clooney, Natalie Portman and Justin Timberlake are among the potential witnesses listed by Ed Asner and the 15 other plaintiffs in the lawsuit against SAG-AFTRA over $130 million in unpaid funds.

Thursday’s filing of the witneess list comes a week and half before an Oct. 7 hearing in federal court in which the union has filed for a dismissal of the suit, which alleges extensive misconduct by the union in how it has handled foreign royalties and residuals. SAG-AFTRA has repeatedly brushed off the suit and insisted it has done nothing wrong.

The plaintiffs — who have alleged that SAG and AFTRA have not made significant efforts to locate high-profile actors to pay the royalties and residuals — have named more than two dozen highly recognizable thesps as possible witnesses including Clooney, Portman and Timberlake.

Other possible witnesses include Julie Andrews, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nancy Sinatra, Anderson Cooper, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Goodman, Helen Mirren, Carol Burnett, Taylor Hackford, Robert Plant, Michelle Phillips, Harry Connick Jr., Colin Firth, Frankie Avalon, Natalie Cole, Ozzy Osbourne and Tyne Daly.

Additionally, the plaintiffs said they plan to call representatives of the estates of more than two dozen high-profile names including Heath Ledger, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Falk, Farrah Fawcett, Cliff Robertson, Lucille Ball, Johnny Cash, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, River Phoenix, Andy Griffith, Judy Garland, Ray Charles and Katharine Hepburn.

The witness list includes notable SAG-AFTRA officials including president Ken Howard, national exec director David White, chief administrative officer general counsel Duncan Crabtree Ireland and assistant national exec director of communications Pamela Greenwalt.

Carol Lombardini, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, is named along with Directors Guild of America national exec director Jay Roth, WGA West general counsel Anthony Segall and Robert Hadl, longtime consultant to all three guilds.

The list includes former SAG president Alan Rosenberg, former national exec director Doug Allen, former SAG-AFTRA co-president Roberta Reardon and former SAG pension and health exec director Bruce Dow.

It also includes reps for the major studios and a dozen foreign collecting societies. The foreign funds began to flow two decades ago as compensation for reuse, such as taxes on video rentals, cable retransmissions and purchases of blank videocassettes and DVDs.

SAG-AFTRA has accused the plaintiffs of making “florid and disconnected allegations” and asserted that they are making a “speculative claim by no more than 17 of the 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA that they may be owed a very small amount of money.”

On July 27, Crabtree-Ireland reported the union’s foreign royalties program has distributed more than $17.5 million to performers since inception. He’s also asserted that performers would not have received any of the funds without the union’s efforts.

Asner, a former SAG president, filed the suit with 15 others on May 24, alleging the union had improperly withheld funds and stonewalled requests for information about $130 million held in trust by the union. Those funds, the suit alleges, have been collected by the union through foreign collecting societies without authorization or knowledge of union members.

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So what's George supposed to be a witness for?

Good question!

Is it about taxes? I´d want to stay out of these lists if I was him...