SAG 31st Awards Show Honoring Jane Fonda…and Gene Hackman
4 min readMar 2, 2025
For the second time ever the SAG awards were being aired solely on Netfix this year. We were fortunate to be with our friends across town last year as we hadn’t a Netflix subscription at the time. We made it an evening and a half with attending a movie (One Love, biopic of Bob Marley) first, then going back to their house to take in the 30th SAG Award Show.
This year however, well, we’d like to say that our evening of viewing the 31st SAG Awards was…but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Verizon had just upgraded us to a new router and for the life of us, we couldn’t get the ID and password to work our Netflix feed. Who woulda thunk that a silly glitch could prevent us from viewing the awards LIVE! Of course, that brings to mind that an actor who’s strapped for funds and can’t afford a Netflix subscription, is in the same boat.
Part of the evenings events featured a tribute to honor Jane Fonda. Miss Fonda was awarded the 60th Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Jane is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, producer, author, activist and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes more than 50 films and significant contributions to political causes such as women’s rights, Native Americans’ rights and environmental protection. She is a seven-time Golden Globe® winner and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021. She accepted The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Most recently, in April of 2024, Fonda accepted the TIME Magazine Earth Award.
It was a fine evening as I saw the next day online here & there. But, you know, this was the 2nd time the awards were on Netflix solely and regardless of ability to watch…the presentation wasn’t half a good as the first viral award showing on Youtube. It was a whole different and exploratory vibe. They took chances, things were absolutely more casual & free, less rehearsed, no commercials (altho, can’t say for sure) and you felt as though you were a part of the evening. Check it out with the 29th SAG Awards
On the home front
We were fortunate to be cast in a spot for an 85 year family owned HVAC business in upper New York State. I had been doing their VoIP voicing for years alongside their jingle. They wanted to continue that image with their Podcasts. Click to listen
We had a bit of good fortune as well just a little bit due south of us in Greenville, South Carolina. EISS, a European salon supplier wanted an British accent featured for all their VoIP work. They wanted a more stylish sound when European callers checked in… Giv-a-Call at: 843.552.7600
It is with great sadness we deliver the news that Gene Hackman, a fellow union member, passed away in New Mexico, yesterday. He was 95 years old. We had featured Mr. Hackman only last month as the voice-over to the “Fly the Friendly Skies of United” commercial some years back.
There is a coincidence and uniqueness part to this, in that it comes with a recent revelation that it was my step dad who coined that inimitable phrase in the United voice-over …amongst some other cool phrases. The revelation, keeping in mind that it means; a surprising and previously unknown fact) is that it came with the surprising news that my birth mother was still alive and had married this phrase-maker! The uniqueness is, it all came about as a result of being reunited recently with my birth mother after all these years! Oh, back to the coincidence part: we’re all UNITED now as a family!
Segueing back to Gene Hackman; there’s no better welcoming these days than those four wonderful words of my step dad he spoke; FTFS of United Airlines. Gene made you feel as though he was saying ‘Fly the Friendly Skies of the United States’. The fact that it’s literally carved in stone and sewn together to the tune of Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ for me, makes it hard pressed to find a more patriotic slice of time. And nobody says: Baggage the way Gene Baby can. We’ll miss you and hope that you and Peter are able to have that “espresso”!
by:+Tom Clifford, VoiceOver & Creative Services
FaceBook Business Page
tomcliffordvo@gmail.com
