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FILE 073 · VOL XIII · You Were the Product
She Sold Her Face. The Studio Started Using It Before She Died.
Fame can outlive the person who agreed to it. Sometimes it does not wait for her to die.
Based on: Digital Likeness and Actor Contracts
Intake record
| Recovered from | Personal files of an entertainment attorney, Century City, California; released after his retirement |
|---|---|
| Contents | A performer agreement with one clause highlighted, eleven entries from a set diary, a photograph that does not match its caption |
| Finder | Attorney's former paralegal |
| Status | Photograph withheld. The Archive could not agree on who is in it. |
| On the record | Real history is cited with numbered sources. Everything else, use your own judgment. |
Recovered file
Studios have always tried to own their stars.
In the old studio system, actors signed seven-year contracts. When a star refused a bad role, the studio suspended her without pay and then added the suspension time onto the end of her contract, so seven years could stretch toward forever. In 1943, Olivia de Havilland sued Warner Bros. over exactly that. In 1944 a California court ruled in her favor: seven calendar years meant seven calendar years. Her victory became known as the De Havilland Law, and it still limits personal service contracts in California today. [1]
The new version of forever is a scan.
Technology can now recreate a performer's face and voice convincingly. In 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story brought back actor Peter Cushing, who had died in 1994, as a digital character, with his estate's permission. [2] In 2023, the actors' union SAG-AFTRA went on strike for 118 days, and one of its central demands was protection against digital replicas: that studios must get a performer's informed consent and pay her for any digital copy of her. [3]
Consent is the whole question. Clause 14(c) is what consent looks like when you are broke.
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 073 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.