|
The papers of actress Gloria Swanson (ca. [18--]-1988, bulk 1920-1983, 620 boxes)
document
her career accomplishments, her business ventures and her various interests, as well
as her
childhood, family, personal relationships, and private life. Included are correspondence,
photographs, scripts, production records, financial and legal records, publicity materials,
clippings, scrapbooks, published materials, film, audio recordings, music, writings,
art
work, and artifacts. |
|
In the foreword to her autobiography, Swanson explained her eighty year accumulation
of
"files and scrapbooks and photographs and films and letters and documents" with the
statement "I never throw anything away." Also a diligent custodian, she shepherded
records
from California to New York, installed state-of-the-art mechanical filing cabinets
in her
office in the 1950s, and even hired an archivist to order her papers after they were
"ransacked" during the writing of Swanson on Swanson. This process
was begun in 1980 by Raymond W. Daum. |
|
The collection is now arranged in seven Series: I. Correspondence (1907-1983, 85 boxes),
II. Career (ca. 1914-1983, 118 boxes), III. Business Interests (1921-1982, 76 boxes),
IV.
Other Interests (1923-1983, 51 boxes), V. Biographical/Personal Papers (ca. [18--]-1983,
110
boxes), VI. After Death (1983-1988, 1 box), and VII. Formats (1889-1983, 147 boxes).
Though
these groupings represent a comprehensive structure never realized during Swanson's
lifetime, they continue, to some extent, the arrangement process begun in 1980. Internal
files document various surveys of the papers, 1980-1982 (see folders 16.4-17.8). |
|
As many files as possible have been placed in the context of their original creation,
left
in their original order, and grouped together in the appropriate series. Materials
which had
apparently been separated for research or otherwise segregated (such as "VIP"
correspondence) have been reintegrated into the collection. Other parts of the collection,
which were so chaotic as to be virtually unuseable (i.e., United Artists, Health and
Nutrition subseries, clippings, photographs, etc.), have had order imposed upon them. |
|
The collection contains extensive records (including numerous film stills) of Swanson's
career in motion pictures, encompassing sixty-six films, ca. 1914-1975. Her film career
spanned the early days of slapstick two-reelers, the peak of the silent era, and the
transition to sound and other technological developments. Her role as one of the first
women
to independently produce her own films at United Artists, 1925-1933, is traced by
the
records of her production companies. These companies produced six of her films, including
the controversial Sadie Thompson, and the legendary Erich von Stroheim
fiasco Queen Kelly, as well as her first "talkie," The Trespasser. Swanson's watershed role of later years, that of
Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), is also
well documented. |
|
Also represented is Swanson's involvement in other entertainment branches, which extended
to radio (1927-1981, including The Gloria Swanson Show, 1951),
television (1944-1981, including The Gloria Swanson Hour
broadcast during the "stone age" of television in 1948), and theatre (1937-1977,
including three Broadway productions, Twentieth Century, Nina, and
Butterflies Are Free). |
|
Numerous scripts, synopses, stories, and treatments, representing writers such as
Zoë
Akins, Jay Presson Allen, Lenore J. Coffee, James Ashmore Creelman, Lilyan Kemble
Cooper,
Laura Hope Crews, Delmer Daves, William Dufty, Laurence Eyre, Allan Jay Friedman,
Leonard
Gershe, Forrest Halsey, Ben Hecht, Harold J. Kennedy, Alan Jay Lerner, Josephine Lovett,
Clare Boothe Luce, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, Richard Matheson, Preston
Sturges,
C. Gardner Sullivan, Erich von Stroheim, and Billy Wilder, are also present in the
collection. |
|
The film stills and other numerous photographs in this collection include the work
of many
photographers, among them Ernest A. Bachrach, Edward O. Bagley, Russell Ball, Cecil
Beaton,
Marcus Blechman, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Harold Carter, Irving Chidnoff, William Eglinton,
Eliot Elisofon, G.L. Manuel Frères, Maurice Goldberg, Ellen Graham, Philippe Halsman,
George
Hoyningen-Huene, George Hurrell, G. Maillard Kesslere, Donald Biddle Keyes, Roddy
McDowall,
Jack Mitchell, Nickolas Muray, Alexander Phillips, Melbourne Spurr, Edward Steichen,
Karl
Struss, Stig Svedfelt, and others. |
|
Swanson also kept extensive records of her efforts as a businesswoman, which included
cosmetics, a fashion line, hosiery, an inventions and patents company, a travel agency,
and
writing assignments. Included are the records of Gloria Swanson Enterprises, Inc.
(1959-1977) and Swanson-Dufty Enterprises, Inc. (1977-1981), as well as the papers
of
Multiprises, Inc. (1937-1951), which financed and exploited various inventions by
a group of
four World War II refugee inventors from Austria and Germany. Her fruitful and long
lived
association with Puritan Fashions Corp. (1951-1982) is captured in the archive, as
are
numerous writing projects, culminating in her popular autobiography, Swanson on Swanson (1980). |
|
Additionally, the collection also contains evidence of Swanson's varied personal
enthusiasms: art (original art and sculpture by Miss Swanson, including a design for
a
United Nations Postal Administration stamp issue commemorating the Decade for Women,
1980);
fashion (in addition to costume designs and the records of her commercial clothing
line,
there are associations with designers such as Coco Chanel, Edith Head, René Hubert,
Givenchy, Pauline Trigere, Adam Werlé, and Valentina); health and nutrition (an early
enthusiast of organic foods, her papers document a tireless crusade against chemical
additives, inorganic pesticides, and pollution, her efforts in the passage of the
so-called
Delaney Bill in 1958, and participation in the Independent Cancer Research Foundation,
the
Committee for Independent Cancer Research, and the Patients' Aid Society); music (she
sang
on film, television, and stage, and numbered George Gershwin, Rosa Ponselle, and Jascha
Heifetz among her friends); psychic phenomena and religion (her proclivities as a
spiritual
seeker are indicated in materials concerning such organizations as ESP Research Associates
Foundation, the United Church of Religious Science, and the University of Science
and
Philosophy); politics (her campaign activities for Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey,
and
Ronald Reagan are included); science and technology (including visits to Bell Helicopter
and
to NASA, from which she cherished an autographed picture and drawings by Werner von
Braun);
and travel (England, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Russia, and Sweden,
represented chiefly through photographs). |
|
Swanson's childhood, family life, and personal life are further documented through
such
personal papers as address books, appointment books, photographs, and various personal
financial, legal, and property records. |
|
There is a wide range of correspondence, located primarily in Series I., but also
scattered
through the other series due to the inevitable overlap of personal, career, business,
and
other relationships. Among Miss Swanson's correspondents are family, friends, business
associates, acquaintances, and fans, spanning many notables from numerous fields of
endeavor: Michelle Amon, Kenneth Anger, Robert Balzer, Vilma Banky, Beverly Bayne,
Henry G.
Bieler, Earl Blackwell, Virginia Bowker, Charles Brackett, Lewis L. Bredin, Harry
A. Bruno,
Carol Burnett, George Bush, Francis X. Bushman, Richard Evelyn Byrd, Walter Byron,
James
Cagney, Eddie Cantor, Carol Channing, Charlie Chaplin, Maurice Chevalier, Ronald Colman,
Noel Coward, Fleur Cowles, Joan Crawford, George Cukor, Gloria Daly, Marion Davies,
James J.
Delaney, Cecil B. DeMille, Indra Devi, Thomas E. Dewey, Marlene Dietrich, William
Dufty,
Allan Dwan, Nelson Eddy, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, Harlan Ellison, Douglas Fairbanks,
Douglas
Fairbanks, Jr., Michael Farmer, José Ferrer, Allan Jay Friedman, George, Duke of Kent,
George Gershwin, Margaret Ghika, Lillian Gish, Hubert de Givenchy, Elinor Glyn, Samuel
Goldwyn, Ram Gopal, Edmund Goulding, D. W. Griffith, Gladys Griffith, Alec Guiness,
Edmund
Gwenn, Forrest Halsey, Oscar Hammerstein II, Helen Hayes, Will H. Hays, Edith Head,
William
Randolph Hearst, Ethel Helmsing, Katharine Hepburn, Conrad Hilton, Prince Franz Hohenlohe,
Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Edward Everett Horton, L. Ron Hubbard, René Hubert, William
Bradford
Huie, George S. Kaufman, Buster Keaton, Edward Moore Kennedy, Harold J. Kennedy, John
F.
Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy, Rose Kennedy, Jean Kerr, Edward I. Koch, Henri de la Falaise,
Beatrice LaPlante, Henri Langlois, Rod LaRocque, Jesse L. Lasky, Evelyn Laye, Vivien
Leigh,
Alan Jay Lerner, Mervyn LeRoy, Clare Boothe Luce, Joel McCrea, Roddy McDowell, Frances
Norton Manning, Arlette Marchal, Stanley Marcus, Frances Marion, Gene Markey, Herbert
Marshall, Somerset Maugham, Louis B. Mayer, James Michener, Condé Nast, Marshall Neilan,
David Niven, Richard M. Nixon, Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, Albert Parker, Louella
Parsons, Mary Pickford, Zasu Pitts, Harold Prince, Ronald Reagan, Charles Revson,
Carroll
Righter, Ginger Rogers, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joseph M. Schenck, Else Schiaparelli, David
O.
Selznick, Ted Shawn, Eunice Shriver, Herbert K. Somborn, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Barbara
Stanwyck, Edward Steichen, Preston Sturges, Ed Sullivan, Joseph Patrick Swanson, Joseph
Theodore Swanson, Constance Talmadge, Norma Talmadge, Bess Truman, Valentina, Erich
von
Stroheim, Raoul Walsh, Barbara Walters, LeRoy P. Ward, Jack Warner, Clifton Webb,
Orson
Welles, Dan Werlé, Billy Wilder, Lois Wilson, Sam Wood, Adelaide Woodruff, Florenz
Ziegfeld,
Adolph Zukor, and others. |
|
An extensive index of correspondents (which also includes photographic subjects, prominent
photographers, and some topics) has been created in order to locate materials which
are
dispersed through the collection. The index is selective and should by no means be
considered exhaustive. Persons and subjects were selected for their own intrinsic
importance, as well as their quantity and importance within the collection. Individual
actors in the stills are not indexed. However, a Film
Credits List is included in this inventory which lists the individual cast members
for each
of Swanson's films. |
|
Though this collection is substantially complete, it is probably weakest in the area
of
personal materials for the 1920s through the mid-1940s. The permanent move to New
York in
the late 1930s, the arrival of long-time staffers such as Gladys Griffith in the 1940s,
and
the longevity of these arrangements seem to have contributed to a more stable and
consistent
climate in which the more comprehensive papers of the 1950s through the 1970s were
created.
Items not present in this archive include the bulk of Miss Swanson's film holdings,
which
were acquired by George Eastman House in 1967. For further information on those materials,
see folders 201.1-201.8. For the disposition of certain other items after her death
in 1983,
see box 441. |
