CBS fires top 'CSI' actors

LOS ANGELES — CBS is drawing a line in the sand, and "CSI" stars George Eads and Jorja Fox appear to have made a big mistake by stepping across it.

After hearing "certain veiled threats" from the actors' lawyers, CBS — which both produces and airs the show — fired them when they failed to show up for work last week.

"There comes a point where we feel a contract is a contract. . . . There comes a point where we all have to look out for the future of the network television business," said Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-COO of Viacom, CBS' parent company. "It's no secret that four of the six television networks lost money last year." (The exceptions being CBS and NBC.)

Moonves added that CBS had renegotiated Eads and Fox's contracts after the second season the hit show was on the air — giving them raises the original contracts did not call for and paying them a reported $100,000 per episode. And this year, once again, "We did offer them a raise, although we didn't have to.

"When somebody doesn't show up for work, that says to us, 'OK, they don't want to work for us anymore.' "

Well, what it probably really meant was that Eads and Fox thought they had enough leverage to get some more money out of CBS. And, while they haven't commented publicly, the firings came as somewhat of a surprise in Hollywood.

"I'm sort of old-fashioned," Moonves said. "I believe when you and I shake hands and we sign a deal, it's a deal. . . . And if by the fourth episode of the season we had decided that . . . we wanted to fire (Eads), guess what? I couldn't pick up a phone and say, 'You know what? I want to fire you. But the contract doesn't really matter so I'm not going to pay you for the other 18 episodes that I owe you.' "

He does have a point. It's just that contracts have tended to be sort of one-way — in the stars' favor.

This is a very familiar Hollywood story — young actors are happy to get a role on a network series; they sign long-term contracts; the show becomes a hit; they want more money. The big difference is that, this time, it looks like they're not going to get it.

And they're also not necessarily getting a whole lot of sympathy. Carmine Giovinazzo — a young actor who's happy he got a role in "CSI: New York (which premieres this fall), said he had an immediate, "instinctual" reaction to news of Eads and Fox's demands for a raise. "I'd be shining Mr. Moonves' shoes and caddying for him every weekend if I was making that much money."