Word: bioff
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...responsibility for this must be squarely laid at the door of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, one of our most arbitrary and unsavory unions. Its leaders are a colorful crew, to say the least. Take Uncle Willie Bioff, for example, whose name has been connected with three labor murders, who has been charged with accepting a one hundred thousand dollar bribe, and convicted of pandering in Chicago. But the union is not only shady--it is dictatorial. Controlling all the Boston theatres except the Repertory, which now shows only movies, it forces producers to accept its inordinate demands...
Astonished by the smitch of dust from their own files, Prosecutor Courtney's lawyers wired Hollywood police to snatch Convict Bioff from his Hollywoodland palace on Santa Monica Boulevard, head him back toward prison. Cried Willie Bioff, now rich and 46: "I made mistakes as a boy. I had to come up the hard way. . . . Pegler . . . goes back 18 years for dirt to smear me with, is running interference for his plutocratic friends in Hollywood who are attacking me because I am fighting for the little fellows in the picture studios...
What made this retort timely was that Willie Bioff had just tied Hollywood producers into knots. On behalf of 1,900* A. F. of L. studio workers, Tsar Bioff had ordered the companies to up wages 10% ($360,000 a year). Likely to be demanded later if he got this much were more raises for many more workers. If the cinemoguls refused, said Willie Bioff, he would not only strike Hollywood studios but through his close connections with unionized projectionists would close 15,000 movie houses throughout the U. S. Although...
...Willie Bioff took Hollywood into camp four years ago, when he arrived as the representative of the A. F. of L. stagehands' potent President George Browne (TIME, Aug. 21). Known and printed was Willie Bioff's record as a Chicago hoodlum, his rise as George Browne's bodyguard and mainstay. Now Willie Bioff hobnobs with a Hollywood plutocrat. His dealings with Producer Joe Schenck were the subject of a court investigation last May, are under scrutiny of the U. S. Department of Justice. Said Mr. Schenck last week, replying to Willie Bioff's talk about...
...Bioff grandiosely announced...