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As 3rd vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, Steve Fried ’58 oversees the 20 braches of the region branch division within the three divisions of the guild. Fried ensures that the guild’s needs are met by its paid staff.
“I am involved in streamlining the administration to assure that its membership achieves the personal support needed,” he says. “My government and law training worked for me because it helped me develop administrative skills.”
He also heads up meetings of the elected leaders of the 20 braches and settles any disputes that cannot be handled on a local level.
Fried notes that the Screen Actors Guild is important because it touts fairness for the working person.
“In the entertainment industry we protect people from themselves, because most people would perform at the drop of a hat for free. We insure that people are paid properly,” he says.
Fried has been working in commercial real estate since leaving the military in 1977. He joined his current firm, SAF Investments, in 1984.
He admits that as a student, he didn’t foresee the future benefits of his time at Lafayette.
“In retrospect, when I was there I didn’t realize the value my education was going to have later in life,” he says. “I studied government and law, but I never went to law school. But the irony of it is that in government when we discussed labor unions, I wasn’t a fan of them,” he says.
Fried appreciates his dramatics professor, the late Minott Coombs, director of theater.
“He taught me to watch my diction because my New Jersey accent was very heavy at the time,” he explains.
Any free time Fried has is spent traveling with his wife.
“We travel the world, my wife and I,” he says. “We’ve been to Mongolia, Easter Island, and the Galapagos Islands.”