Bill Yarbrough Wins Election To SAG-AFTRA National Board By A Single Vote In Nashville

David Robb
·4 min read

The power of a single vote was on full display yesterday in Nashville, where actor and stuntman Bill “Bilbro” Yarbrough defeated his nearest rival by a single vote to win a seat on the guild’s national board of directors.

The voting there also shows the power of apathy, with only 213 (15%) of the Nashville local’s 1,422 eligible members casting ballots. Yarbrough defeated Bob Bailey, his nearest rival, by a vote of 78 to 77. A third candidate, Evans Donnell, received 56 votes.

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Yarbrough is now the first candidate elected to the national board that was supported by the dissident faction led by Maya Gilbert-Dunbar, who’s running against incumbent president Fran Drescher. Peter Antico, Gilbert-Dunbar’s running mate, is squaring off against incumbent secretary-treasurer Joely Fisher.

An earlier version of this story said that “Yarbrough is now the first candidate elected to the national board as part of the dissident faction led by Maya Gilbert-Dunbar.” But after the story appeared, Yarbrough called to say he’s not a part of any faction, even though his official campaign statement that appears in the SAG-AFTRA voter guide that accompanies ballots urges members to “Vote Gilbert-Dunbar*Antico nationally.”

Yarbrough, who acknowledges that he’s “not very technically savvy,” says he got assistance from his friend Chuck Slavin, a Dunbar/Antico ally, to help write his campaign statement “to meet a deadline while I was drivin’ down the road.”

“I’m an independent,” he says. “I asked Chuck to do my candidate statement, like he did back in 2019, but he put the ‘vote Dunbar/Antico’ thing on it, and it was too late to get it off. I didn’t authorize it. Chuck wrote that and I didn’t see it until it was in print. But I still respect Chuck and really appreciate him. And I like Dunbar and Antico. They speak for a segment of our union.”

Slavin emailed Deadline this morning with the news that Yarbrough had won the board seat in Nashville, writing: “Gilbert-Dunbar•Antico independent win Nashville. Backed by Pete and Maya and vice versa he supports Pete and Maya – first NB [National Board] election win of season!!”

“I’ve got to get Chuck to slow his roll,” Yarbrough laughed. “Chuck is going a little too fast for me. I’m a peacemaker. I want us to win this strike. I don’t want to be a stick in a pile of shit stirrin’ stuff up.”

Yarbrough wouldn’t say who he’s going to vote for nationally. “I listen to everybody and weigh what they say. I still haven’t made up my mind 100%. I’m probably gonna vote a split ticket, but if people don’t quit pushin’ me, I’m probably not gonna vote at all.”

Yarborough and Antico, who is also a longtime stuntman, have been friends for years, and at one point shared the same agent. “I respect Pete. I’ve known him long time. He’s a good friend,” he said. “I have listened to what Pete says,  but I also listen to everybody else.”

Winning election by one vote, he said, “has been quite a whirlwind.”

Drescher and Fisher are part of a Unity slate that was formed earlier this year when the guild’s ruling Unite for Strength faction and the opposition’s MembershipFirst faction decided to put aside their differences and join forces in the lead up to the guild’s ongoing strike, which started on July 14.

https://unionmembernews.com/voter-guide

And here are all the candidates running on the Unity slate’s ticket:

https://www.unity2023.com/candidates

The guild’s national elections won’t be decided until September 8, when ballots will also be counted for the Los Angeles and New York local races. But many other local races have already been decided.

Running unopposed, Amanda Melby has been elected president of the Arizona-Utah local; Shelley Waggener has been elected president of the Missouri Valley local; Casey E Lewis has been elected president of the Twin City local; Carla Christina Contreras has been elected president of the Nashville local, and Deborah Horne has been elected president, and Rik Deskin has been elected to the national board, representing the Seattle local.

In contested races that have already been decided, Andrea Lyman has been elected president of the New England local, and Talia Pura has been elected president of the New Mexico local.

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