Welcome to my web comments on the Saturday Night Cinema broadcast of Judy from 2019.

I'm Mikayla Daniels here to share a bit more about the film.

I mentioned in my on air comments some of the difficulties Judy Garland faced as a child actor.

And for this web blog, I'm going to go into the history of the laws around child actors.

Child actors and other entertainers aren't subject to U.S.

federal child labor law protections.

So much of the law that applies to child actors is really made at the state level.

They vary from state to state and country to country.

So movie and TV productions that employ child actors have to stay current on changes in the law.

Since so much of the entertainment industry is centered in Southern California.

It shouldn't surprise you that California's laws are amongst the most plentiful and thoroughly developed.

New York's popularity as a show location has also brought many productions there as well, and the laws underage actors must follow are similar to California's.

One major difficulty with employing minors is that it is assumed by law that, due to their age, they're incapable of understanding the contents of a contract.

Therefore, under the common law infancy doctrine, codified by California in 1872, children have the right to dis affirm contracts that provide for more than just their basic needs food, clothing, etc.

this means that children have the right to break contracts, including employment contracts, without facing any legal repercussions.

The early film industry was desperate to recruit and invest time and money into young talent, but the minors right to disaffirm a contract discourage them from doing so.

By the 1920s, Hollywood was operating under the studio system, where actors receive long term contracts from companies approximately seven years and were paid millions of dollars to star exclusively in that company's films.

However, with child actors enjoying the right to disaffirm their contracts, they could just jump ship to a competitor at any given moment.

Production companies needed contracts that would prevent competitors from snatching child actors at the height of their fame and earning potential.

Fast forward to 1927, when the California legislature responded to pressure from the film industry, in addition to the California Civil Code, allowed for the removal of a minor's right to disaffirm a contract.

Once the contract was approved by the Superior Court of the county in which the minor resides.

So production companies like MGM only had to find a judge to approve the contract for the minor to be legally bound by it.

There was no standard that a contract had to reach before it could be approved, leaving children with no means of escaping them.

Of course, this was a mess, and the law's creators ended up leaving some loopholes in that law as well.

The problems with that law were exposed when one of the first and most famous child movie actors, who had grown up working under these laws turned 21.

As a young boy, Jackie Coogan was cast in the lead role of a Charlie Chaplin hit movie, The Kid.

That movie brought Jackie global stardom.

So when the news broke that it was discovered that Jackie's mother and stepfather had spent almost all of Jackie's 3 to $4 million income, leaving him financially destitute, it rocked the public's perception of fame.

In 1938, at age 23, Jackie sued his mother and stepfather and won.

But after legal fees, Jackie was left with a mere 126,000 of his original fortune.

The state of California rushed through legislation that became known as the Coogan Act, and this granted judges the discretionary power to require that a contract set aside some of a child actors income in a trust fund or savings account, only to be opened when the child reached the age of majority.

In addition to this, the money that was put away was to be taken from a child's net income.

So after the manager fees and all the other fees had been subtracted.

Now this all happened before Judy Garland's first big role, but Judy herself would find out how the Coogan act also had loopholes.

Garland's mother requested to be paid a stipend that came directly out of her daughter's salary.

In return, Judy Garland's mother promised to chaperon Judy and ensure that she obeyed the studio's demands.

And as we saw in the film, those demands were abusive and predatory.

California's Coogan Act remained unchanged for 61 years, until revisions were eventually made in 2000.

It's now necessary for a minimum of 15% of a child actor's earnings to be placed in a trust fund, no longer at the discretion of a judge.

Additionally, the 15% must come from the child actors gross income and not their net income, protecting it from being reduced by management or secretarial fees.

Finally, the income earned by a child actor is legally recognized as the child actors property.

It is no longer the property of the parents or guardians.

While these laws try to help protect the money and future earnings of a child star, what about their protection from film producers demands?

Judy ended up with a lifetime of body dysmorphia and substance abuse, due to the forced amphetamines and a strict diet of black coffee, chicken soup and cigarets imposed upon her by her Hollywood bosses.

Her workdays were also brutally long and grueling, as well.

Way too much for any child to have to deal with.

Now there is a federal law that governs the daily time a minor may work each day, and many states also impose requirements that a parent or guardian must be on set, but not all do so.

In California, child actors between the ages of six and 15 are generally required to attend school full time, with some 14 and 15 year olds allowed to work full time while school is in session.

Studios usually employ on set tutors to maximize production hours while complying with the law.

And ultimately, it's cheaper for them to do that than run afoul of the law.

So when a child actor has access to a studio teacher or tutor on set, they're only required to have three hours of instruction each day.

That's far shorter than a typical school school day, and allows them to work longer hours than child actors who are still attending school.

Child actors with tutors can work up to nine hours a day, while those in school can only work three hours a day, including time in hair, makeup and wardrobe.

The Screen Actors Guild policy requires studios to provide a tutor for any child actor who will be on set for three consecutive days or more, although they can honor any days off in the Actor's School district calendar.

My home state of Alaska allows for a waiver of the studio teacher requirement in approved cases, likely due to the potential for remote filming locations where one can't easily bring in a teacher.

I hope you enjoyed my extended comments on Judy and the history of laws surrounding child actors.

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