Good behavior becomes contractual promise

Monday, Nov. 19, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

The history of morals clauses is colored by the Black Sox and the Red Scare.

Morals clauses began popping up in the entertainment industry and sports in the 1920s after the Black Sox scandal, said Keith A. Rowley, a professor at UNLV's Boyd School of Law who is on leave while teaching at the University of Alabama.

"I'm fascinated by the whole aspect of the 1919 White Sox, who threw the World Series for payment from gamblers," said Rowley, a self-described Black Sox geek. "I try to include in my contract class how poor behavior by both the team and the players contributed to what happened. One of the things that came out of that in sports was the introduction of morals clauses into agreements with athletes."

Others trace the clauses to the scandal involving "Fatty" Arbuckle. In 1921, the silent screen star was accused of raping a starlet and crushing her to death under his own weight. A jury cleared him, but public outrage prevented Arbuckle from working again in the film industry.

Both events created a public outcry that eventually led to the widespread use of morals clauses in contracts.

"Historically, morals clauses in entertainment contracts talk about public standards of decency," Rowley said. "What are those now?

"If you think about Victorian 19th century public morality, it probably wouldn't have occurred to anybody to put a clause in a contract that says behave because they sort of assumed they would do that, not that they did. The bad behavior just wasn't as well publicized. They lived in a much smaller, less connected world."

The most infamous use of the morals clause took place in the '40s and '50s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities tried to ferret out communists in the film industry. The hearings led to blacklisting of writers, actors, directors, musicians and other entertainers.

Since then, Rowley said, screen directors and writers have negotiated the clause out of their contracts with studios but not with advertisers whose products may be endorsed by the celebrity.