SAG-AFTRA Honors Barbara Perry, Marsha Hunt, Norman Lloyd and June Lockhart with Founders Award

SAG-AFTRA announced today that members Marsha Hunt, Norman Lloyd, June Lockhart and Barbara Perry will be recipients of the SAG-AFTRA Founders Award for their historic contributions to the union. The special tribute will be presented Saturday during the SAG-AFTRA National Board plenary and honors early members of SAG-AFTRA’s predecessor unions, SAG and AFTRA, who have provided meritorious service to fellow members.

Said SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris, “I am so honored to recognize the extraordinary achievements of these courageous actors and leaders. Their pioneering spirit and advocacy for their union and peers in those early years was pivotal and helped to make us who we are today.”

Added Honors and Tributes Committee Chair Jenny O’Hara, “This year’s recipients are the personification of the Founders Award’s mission. All four are trailblazers in their own right and have been fearless in their fight for their fellow actors.”

Barbara Perry became a Screen Actors Guild member in 1934, one month before her 13th birthday. When she joined, she was already a seasoned professional who began her career at the age of four and by the mid-1930s was believed to be the only child performer who had appeared in concerts, stage, opera, radio, screen and television. During World War II, she served her country as an entertainer on hospital tours and performances for our troops.

Marsha Hunt joined Screen Actors Guild in 1938 and was a SAG board member from March 1945 - November 1947 under presidents George Murphy, Robert Montgomery and Ronald Reagan. In the 1950s her name appeared in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, and like many others at the time, her on-screen career came largely to a halt. She continued to get occasional work in TV and, in 1997, was a participant in the Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist event sponsored by the entertainment unions. In 2015, SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard presented Hunt with the “Marsha Hunt for Humanity Award” at the seventh annual “Kat Kramer’s Films That Change the World” event.

Norman Lloyd joined Screen Actors Guild in 1939. He played the title character in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 feature film Saboteur but is perhaps most widely known for his role of Dr. Daniel Auschlander on the 1980s TV series St. Elsewhere. In 1946, during the Conference of Studio Unions film workers’ strikes, Lloyd was one of six SAG members who gathered signatures from 350 actors, including some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, successfully petitioning the Guild to allow participants on both sides of the strike to present their views. In 2014, in recognition of his 82 years in show business, and reaching the age of 100, the Los Angeles City Council proclaimed that his birthday of Nov. 8, would be honored as “Norman Lloyd Day.” In November, Lloyd turns 104 and continues to act; he currently appears in the TV series Fly.

June Lockhart joined AFRA (which would later become AFTRA) in 1938 and Screen Actors Guild in 1940. In 1949, June and then-SAG President Ronald Reagan accepted a plaque from the Air Force honoring 32 professional entertainers who died while on tours of service in or out of battle areas in World War II, and in 1983 she supported both SAG and AFTRA’s Women’s Committees in their work to bring attention to the Equal Rights Amendment. She is best known for her work in the TV series Lassie (1958-1964) and Lost in Space (1965-1968), and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.

The Honors and Tributes Committee considers nominees who best exemplify the original founders’ pioneering spirit, dedication to the union and commitment to fellow members. Past recipients include Gloria Stuart and Olivia de Havilland, who were both founders and among the longest-tenured members of the union at the time of their commendation.

About SAG-AFTRA

SAG-AFTRA represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other entertainment and media professionals. SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform America and the world. A proud affiliate of the AFL-CIO, SAG-AFTRA has national offices in Los Angeles and New York and local offices nationwide representing members working together to secure the strongest protections for entertainment and media artists into the 21st century and beyond. Visit SAG-AFTRA online at SAGAFTRA.org.