Motion Picture & Television Fund

The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources. Its mission is to enrich the lives of people in the Southern California entertainment community by continuously evolving to meet their health and human services needs.

History

The need for a fund to benefit colleagues who fell on hard times was seen by many in the early days of motion pictures. It began with coin boxes at studios, where industry workers would drop their spare change for their colleagues. The MPTF was created by such industry luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Conrad Nagel, Milton Sills, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and D. W. Griffith. In 1921, the Motion Picture Relief Fund (MPRF) was incorporated with Joseph M. Schenck as first president, Pickford was vice president and the Reverend Neal Dodd (who portrayed ministers in more than 300 films) as administrator, each with a benevolent spirit intent on providing assistance to those in the motion picture industry who were in need. The original Board of Trustees included prominent names in Hollywood such as Charles Christie, Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., William S. Hart, Jesse L. Lasky, Harold Lloyd, Mae Murray, Hal Roach, Donald Crisp and Irving Thalberg.

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey Fowler KBE (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor, film director, producer, and comedian. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), and an Academy Award for Best Actor for midlife crisis-themed drama American Beauty (1999).

His other starring roles have included the psychological thriller Seven (1995), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the drama Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction-mystery film K-PAX (2001), and the role of Lex Luthor in the superhero film Superman Returns (2006).

He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London since 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. For his role as Underwood, he has won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and two consecutive Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.