Rosenberg new Screen Actors Guild president

LOS ANGELES — Alan Rosenberg was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild on Friday, replacing former "Little House on the Prairie" star Melissa Gilbert, who decided not to run for a third two-year term.

Rosenberg will lead a famously fractious union of 100,000 actors that has been split in recent years on such issues as merging with the other major actors union and taking an aggressive stance in negotiations with producers.

He beat out fellow candidates Morgan Fairchild and Robert Conrad.

Rosenberg received 40 percent of the total 27,053 votes cast, according to the guild. Fairchild received 35 percent and Conrad 25 percent.

"I am honored that the members of this great union have placed their confidence in me," Rosenberg said in a statement. "I ran a campaign that offered a simple and straightforward promise — I will fight like hell to get actors their fair share."

The 54-year-old actor has appeared on such television shows as "ER," "L.A. Law" and "The Guardian" as well as in TV movies. He is married to actress Marg Helgenberger.

Connie Stevens was elected the new secretary-treasurer, replacing James Cromwell, who did not seek re-election. She received 68 percent of the votes over challenger Lee Garlington's 32 percent.

Voter turnout was about 27 percent for both elections, the guild said. Rosenberg and Stevens will begin serving their terms on Sunday.

Rosenberg's win is a victory for the "Membership First" faction of the union which opposed Gilbert in the last two elections.

The group has advocated a more aggressive approach in negotiations with producers and opposed the merger with the other major entertainment union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

"We have become weak as a union, giving in to a series of rollbacks and buy-outs at a time when the entertainment industry is recording record profits; profits that will continue to grow with new technology," Rosenberg, 54, said on his campaign Web site. "If we truly expect to earn our livings as actors, we need to stand up and fight for a fair and livable wage."

Gilbert supported a controversial plan to merge SAG with AFTRA to increase union clout when dealing with large media conglomerates. That plan was narrowly defeated in 2003.

Gilbert also backed a new three-year contract with producers earlier this year that won increases in pay and benefits, but did nothing to change a 20-year-old formula for compensating actors for DVD sales.

Increasing residual payments from DVD sales had been a major goal of the negotiations, but actors said they backed down in order to avoid a potentially lengthy and damaging strike.