With Arms Wide Open

By Don Livesay
Arizona Executive Director

From remarks made on April 17, 2010, at the memorial service in Scottsdale, Ariz., for Lucky Hayes, former Arizona Branch President and longtime editor of Arizona’s newsletter.

I remember Lucky Hayes primarily three ways: as editor of our newsletter, as a leader, and as a friend. 

As editor of our newsletter SAG In The Desert – Screen Actors Guild at Work, Lucky painstakingly developed a publication that spoke to us in an unmistakable Lucky style.

How can I forget her hours and hours of work, extracting columns from procrastinating contributors, and always smiling when she reminded us just one more time that the deadline was three days ago? I sensed that every issue of our newsletter was some kind of blood sacrifice for her, and she kept at it for 21 years.

Lucky caught every typo. She’d hunt down bad grammar and misspelled words like a cop checking parking meters at lunchtime in downtown Phoenix.

Lucky never let a blank space go unfilled. Typical would be her bottom-of-the-page bits like:

“Say there, Actor, have you got the smarts, to go for the jobs, the money, the parts? Start with good training and no thought of stoppin’, ‘cause keepin’ skills sharp will save you from floppin’."

And,

“An Actor’s a tireless guy, whose aspirations reach the sky. He cannot rest; he has to strive, to keep his wondrous dream alive.”

And always in the chatty, back slappin’ style of hers came, “We need to hear from you. You betcha we do!” Rumor has it the Lucky taught Sarah Palin how to say “you betcha.”

And I betcha she did.

Lucky never let a bad pun  . . . alone!  On the groan meter her puns were off the chart.
Here’s another gem from Lucky: “Well, dag nab it! I am so all-fired tired of all those ding-blasted free-loaders taking advantage of us. I mean all those non-Guild actors who work our contracts and don’t join.  If they were homeless, I could understand a helping hand, but this is preposterous!”

As a leader, she would scold her fellow members for lackadaisical attitudes about everything that mattered, especially how actors presented themselves to casting directors at auditions, to their agents and to the public. Professionalism was everything to her.

She hated non-members ripping us off by working and not joining, but she really hated pettiness, especially internal pettiness, in our national board room and between our unions. Anything that separated the people she loved from one another, she had a hard time with.

Lucky served as president of the Arizona Branch for 14 years, and she was active with AFTRA, serving on the board and as a convention delegate. She clearly was pro-merger, but that only made sense because getting people together was her M.O.  We were better when we worked together, she’d say, and she fought like crazy to see us as one union. 

Her leadership style was inclusive. With arms wide, you were always welcomed. Everyone was welcome, and more than that, you were needed. She never failed to see that hand in the back of the room, and she never let you out of the room if there was any hope in your volunteering for something.

She was a problem solver who led by example.

She gave credit where credit was due, always seizing the moment to praise people for their accomplishments. With bureaucracy, she was long suffering. I never saw Lucky lose her temper, but she’d come close if anything stood in the way of communicating with her people. And then you’d better stand back, dag nam it!

As friend to so many, she greeted everyone with that patented “Hi you!” said with a spirit that pierced your soul down deep, and once down there, you felt it whisper, “I like you.” Those two words of greeting carried so much meaning, because you heard them on the outside but you felt them on the inside. 

Lucky loved her family: her husband Hoot, her children and her mom. There was no question as to where the rest of us fit in. Family came first, but that was okay, because to have any part of Lucky was a blessing to us, and she gave it all.

She loved her agent and friend Dani Green, respecting the hard work she did every day.

She cared deeply for her fellow members in AFTRA and SAG in Arizona, on the council and in leadership positions in Branches and Locals around the country.  And she respected and supported the work of staff and told us she did. (Of course, when we messed up, she told us that, too.)

My mental image of Lucky is one of her standing in front of me, with arms wide open, smiling broadly and  saying, “Come here, you!” Lucky handed out hugs like business cards.

When her friend and ours Elayne Stein passed away last year, she wrote, “It is very hard to think of her as gone from us. I prefer to remember not that she died, but that she lived.” And that’s how we will think of you, too, Lucky. You’ll always be with us.

Always Supportive

Lucky was a great supporter of our local casting directors. Here she is with Tucson caster Kathy Conklin and SAG's Don Livesay.

Message from the Branch President

By Mark DeMichele

Serving as an alternate for our National Board Director Steve Fried, I recently attended my first SAG plenary session in Los Angeles. I learned a great deal about how our Guild operates on the national level. Specifically, I learned how a consensus can develop, one that led to the selection of SAG President Ken Howard as the chair of the Negotiating Committee, and I felt a general sense of moderation, perhaps caring, among the board members throughout the weekend.

I also learned how personal our board and council service can become from the many expressions of grief I received from both Branch and National Board members on the passing of our former Branch President Anne Lucky Hayes: Ken Howard made a point of stopping by my table on Friday night. RBD 1st Vice Chair Todd Hissong stopped the meeting for a moment of silence for Lucky. Of course the RBD members all expressed their condolences. On Saturday, the plenary session began with a reading of all the members that had passed since the last meeting, but I was perhaps most struck by former SAG President Richard Masur’s remarks to me personally about Lucky’s extended and valued service to the Guild. After lunch on Saturday and at the exact time of the memorial service in Scottsdale, President Howard called for a moment of silence in Lucky’s honor, and then a video memorial was shown in the James Cagney Board Room. The sense of loss was palpable.

The life and business of the union then plodded on and lurched inelegantly forward toward a united membership for the coming contract negotiations, united to work with AFTRA on those negotiations, united in the concept that SAG is a national union and united, at least for now, on the concept of a single performers union.

A Tribute to Lucky

By Francesca Jarvis
Lucky and I were best friends for 40 years. When I went to teach for Bobby Ball, Lucky was head of the school. I never met such a warm and funny person. I had to tell her that I was bi-polar, and she said that if it became a problem, we'd deal with it then.
 
After my first evening class, I was ready to drive back to Tucson. She said "No yer not. I won't let you drive alone.” And so I spent the night at Lucky’s house. Once a week for two or three years I stayed with Lucky and her family.

She arranged the SAG tribute and came down to Tucson when I was honored for my role in Lilies of the Field and also when I received a plaque at the 75th Anniversary Celebration. Those were the last times I saw our Lucky. I am bereft. She died too soon.

Goodbye, Council

On March 29, 2010, Lucky Hayes sat down at her computer to put her colleagues "in the loop” about her life. She was always careful to keep folks posted, as she always took her responsibilities seriously. Whenever Lucky said she’d do something for you, you could count on it.

Her new status, she stated frankly, was “all fun and no games.” This was as close as she came to an admission that she might be nearing the end. Her old illness had returned, and she was dragging that pesky O2 tank and “stuffing steroids.” No games.

She meant to get well and help her 96-year-old mother, Bootsie, get the most out of her remaining years. She meant to step back a bit from the duties that life had called her to, but only for a little while. “I’m not out to pasture,” she told her much-loved agent, Dani, “I’m only trying some of the greener ones.”

She promised that she would still be around and available by phone to fill in the blanks. She passed away less than two weeks later. In her letter, she said her timing had always been good. This time, we’d probably all agree, it wasn’t.

This edition is dedicated to her and is titled, Just Lucky, I Guess. Read her obituary online at our Arizona Branch webpage here.

Remembering Lucky Hayes

By Rodd Wolff

I can't say enough about my friend Lucky. She was a wonderful actress, a tireless president and editor of our newsletter for so many years – a wonderful spokesperson for our Guild. I was at the last Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall Of Fame Awards and there was Lucky as a presenter – such an articulate speaker, along with her wonderful sense of humor.

If you totally read every newsletter there were boxes containing her humor. "How to Lose an Audition" was always a hit. She always had a listening ear, and gave me the encouragement to keep writing those articles about stunt and safety.

At our 75th Anniversary Celebration held at Old Tucson, there was our Lucky with her oxygen cylinder. Nothing could keep her down, not even health issues. Her passion for the Guild and for representing us always seemed to be her priorities. For those of us who worked closely with Lucky, our appreciation goes much deeper. Truly missed, but never forgotten.

Thank You from Arizona BookPALS

By Ellen Dean
Arizona BookPALS Coordinator

Lucky Hayes was almost my first introduction to the welcoming arms of the Arizona Branch of Screen Actors Guild. In 1998, I was hired as the coordinator of the Arizona Branch of BookPALS, bookpals.net. BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools) is a volunteer literacy organization sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. BookPALS places actors, performing artists and trained community volunteers into disadvantaged schools to read aloud to classes of children.
 
Lucky herself was a BookPAL and participated in special events. She read for Doctor Seuss' birthday at the Capital to celebrate Read Across America Day; she read on the telephone story line; and most of all, she was a cheerleader for the BookPALS program. She was so proud that we had a Branch of this literacy program in Arizona, and she always encouraged actors to hone their skills and their craft by participating in BookPALS. 
 
Lucky and Don Livesay always made sure that BookPALS had a chance to make a report at the SAG meetings and had an article in the local newsletter and a space on their website to help with recruiting. It is thanks to their support that the Arizona Branch of BookPALS is the thriving, vibrant organization it is today, welcoming all actors to share their talents with the children of our community.
 
Lucky Hayes was a bright spirit, always smiling, always welcoming, always positive. We at BookPALS will miss her joyful presence. Thank you, Lucky, for all of your help and support.

Thoughts About Lucky

By Steve Fried
Arizona National Board Director

I often reflect on the words "… and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever." Did you ever stop to imagine how the House of the Lord is organized or configured? Can you imagine the number of souls that must be tended, especially if you believe in one God? While some are called because it is their time, others are called for a reason. I choose to believe that Lucky was called for a reason. There was a need for an organizer, someone to help be responsible for getting out the word, perhaps in "their" form of a newspaper. I envision Lucky now doing as she has always done for us, at least us Screen Actors Guild Arizonans, and her work nationally for the Guild, too. I see her happily providing a service to others, and I see her at peace. I see her very busy doing what needs to be done in the House of the Lord.

With all my love and in deep sorrow...

Striking a Pose

Members of SAG’s leadership strike a pose during the 2000 Commercials strike in Phoenix, Ariz.: (front row)  Linda Dowell, Margie Ghigo, Lucky Hayes, Debbie Bartelt, and Roxanne Chaisson; (back row) Richard Crenna, Don Livesay, Stephen Nathenson, Hugh Downs and Matt Kimbrough.