Once again, all is not well in Angel Land.
"Touched by an Angel" star Della Reese, locked in the latest Hollywood salary battle, has gone public with her demands and her complaints. She called a press conference in Los Angeles earlier this week to air her grievances.You may recall that, earlier this year, "Touched" star Roma Downey made some noise herself about wanting a big raise. That's common practice for actors when their show becomes a hit, and "Touched by an Angel" is not only a top-10 show but it's the most-watched series on CBS.
According to Reese, Downey's raise amounted to 100 percent of her previous salary. And Reese said that she had only received a 12.5 percent increase, despite CBS promises that her salary increases would match Downey's.
(Not only does CBS broadcast "Touched," but CBS Productions produces the program.)
"I'm trying not to believe it's because I'm black 'cause I was black when they hired me," said Reese (as reported by the Associated Press). And she also questioned whether her age - she's 66 - played a factor in the salary negotiations. "They knew what age I was. . . . I don't know what it is."
Not surprisingly, Reese did not reveal how much she's making. However, industry reports have pegged her salary at $40,000 per episode, with CBS offering her a raise to $50,000.
The folks at CBS seemed taken aback by Reese's comments. The network released a statement saying, "We are frankly puzzled by Della Reese's comments, and by her decision to make her negotiations public. For the record, we have continued to honor her requests to reduce the number of hours she works, enabling her to rest and devote more time to her ministry on the weekends. We have also responded to her demands to renegotiate with an offer to raise her salary by a significant percentage."
Indeed, Reese is now working a four-day week so that she can spend more time in Los Angeles. CBS maintains it has offered the actress a 25 percent pay increase - an offer it says she spurned.
In reality, none of this is particularly unusual. Contract negotiations go on between networks, production companies and actors all the time - it's just a bit out of the ordinary to have the actor call a press conference.
The fact is that contracts in Hollywood aren't like contracts anywhere else, except, perhaps, in the sports world. What Reese is asking is to have her contract ripped up and rewritten.
Not that that's unusual. Not that that's any different from what the network did for Downey.
But the tone of Reese's comments is at least a bit troubling. The issues of race and age seem irrelevent.
For one thing, the highest-paid actor on CBS is Bill Cosby.
For another, if there's a network that doesn't deserve to be accused of ageism, it's CBS. We're talking about the home of Cosby and Dick Van Dyke and and Bob Newhart and Danny Aiello - all of whom are looking in the rearview mirror at 50. (And some of them have to squint pretty hard to see it.)
Even if Reese was simply responding to a question about whether race and age factored into the stalled negotiations, she should have answered differently.
In her press conference, Reese called upon her fans to support her in her quest for more money. Now, I think that she is both a fine actress and a fine person. And I have had a couple of encounters with Reese in which she was gracious, charming and nothing short of wonderful.
But asking fan support in her contract negotiations seems a bit much.
We're talking about someone who is paid more in a week than a lot of us make in a year. Someone who makes more in one TV season than most of us will make in 20 years. More than some of us will make in our entire lives.
Again, it's sort of like pro sports. Is it fair that Karl Malone makes in the neighborhood of $5 million a year when Michael Jordan pulls down $36 million? Absolutely not.
But should Malone come whining to the fans about it? He's not going to get much sympathy from someone who makes, say, $50,000 a year and would only have to work for 100 years to match what the Mailman makes in a single season.
So, by the same token, it's hard to work up much sympathy for an actor - any actor - who is pulling in magnificent sums of money.
Let's just hope that this tempest will blow over, that Reese and CBS can come to some sort of an agreement and the relationship between the two smoothed over.
I'd hate to see Reese leave "Touched by an Angel." But I'd sure love to try to make ends meet on her present salary.
IN DECLINE? Speaking of "Touched by an Angel," this past weekend's episode left a lot to be desired.
The show has been headed in a troubling direction - instead of the people learning from their errors and turning themselves around with help from the angels, the angels descend, get really preachy and solve all the problems in a flash. And Sunday's episode was a particularly bad example of that.
That may be easier to write, but it's bad story-telling.
MALONE VS. OSTERTAG: And speaking of Karl Malone, he may have taken some (thinly veiled) shots at teammate Greg Ostertag last week, but a lot more people saw Ostertag on "Touched by an Angel" Sunday than will see Malone when he appears on "The Tony Danza Show" next week.
"Tony Danza" is bombing.