Motion Picture Relief 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.

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.

The advent of talkies in the late twenties brought many changes to the film industry. While talkies launched many new careers, hundreds of actors, directors, and writers who had not foreseen the change to the industry or their livelihood, became unemployed. MPRF came to their aid. As more requests for assistance were made, celebrity-packed benefits were held. Celebrity balls, benefit movie premieres, polo matches, fashion shows, and card parties were all means of raising funds for MPRF with talent provided by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Will Rogers. These events raised thousands of dollars in aid, but it was not enough to keep up with the demand for assistance. Other methods of fundraising were needed.

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