Get to Know Your Leadership

Kim Renee
SAG-AFTRA Nevada Local President

Originally from Niagara Falls, New York, I moved to Las Vegas when I was a teenager. It was at Valley High School that I discovered my love of the theater. While still in school, I worked the midway at Circus Circus. That job led to a career as a trapeze artist, working as part of the Flying Dell-Steel’s aerial act in Vegas. After high school, I performed and traveled with the European Circus.

In 1975, I returned to Las Vegas and appeared nightly at the MGM Hotel and Casino as a swimmer with the dolphins in their Hallelujah Hollywood show.

Two years later, I was called to be the stunt double for Lynda Carter in the Wonder Woman series. That job is what led me to join legacy SAG in 1977. In 1978, I transferred my SAG membership to Nevada.

In 1995, Diane Thorne and I were successful in creating the SAG Conservatory in Nevada. For many years, I sat on the Young Performers Committee and contributed to the Young Performers Handbook.

As a member of SAG and SEG, and as the stunt representative for Nevada’s committee on stunts, I attended meetings regularly and my interest and participation in SAG increased. I successfully lobbied to reduce insurance costs for stunt professionals and proposed a health coverage plan for aging performers that was instituted in 2017 as part of the merged plans.

Over the years, I have sat on many wages and working conditions committees and worked on many movies. From 2015 to 2017, I proudly served as vice president for the SAG-AFTRA Nevada Local. Now, as local president, my goal is to institute change to benefit all SAG-AFTRA Nevada Local members.

Riley G. Matthews Jr.
SAG-AFTRA Nevada Local Vice President

I was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and attended the first voluntarily integrated magnet high school, Booker T. Washington (class of 1978). There I studied art, theater and TV production. 

After traveling and working in Europe and other parts of the United States for seven years, I moved to New York City to join the NYPD. While there, I joined AFTRA, as I was doing principal work on radio and TV shows and attending HB Studios. 

In 1999, I joined SAG, as I had feature film work and a steady gig on the series Law & Order, followed later by Law & Order SVU, 100 Centre Street and as a reoccurring principal actor on the short-lived TV series Big Apple. 

In 2005, I pulled up stakes in New York City and moved to Las Vegas. It is now my hope to get more local members cast in principal actor, stunt and background roles.

This item was originally featured in the November 2017 local newsletter.