Actress Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Swanson on March 27, 1899, in Chicago, the only child of Joseph Theodore and Adelaide Klanowsky Swanson. Her father's position as a civilian supply officer with the army took the family to Key West, FL and San Juan, Puerto Rico, but the majority of Swanson's childhood was spent in Chicago.
It was in Chicago at Essanay Studios in 1914 that she began her lifelong association with the motion picture industry. She moved to California where she worked for Sennett/Keystone Studios before rising to stardom at Paramount in such Cecil B. DeMille features as
In 1938, Swanson relocated to New York City, where she began an inventions and patents company which occupied her during the years of World War II. She made another film for RKO Radio Pictures in 1941, began appearing in theatre productions, and also had her own television show in 1948, but it was not until 1950 when
Swanson made only three films after
Married six times (to Wallace Beery, Herbert K. Somborn, Marquis Henri de la Falaise, Michael Farmer, William M. Davey, and William Dufty), Swanson had two daughters (Gloria Somborn and Michelle Farmer), an adoptive son (Joseph Patrick Swanson), and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren by the time of her death in New York, on April 4, 1983.
For further information on the life of Gloria Swanson, see:
Swanson, Gloria.
Quirk, Lawrence J.
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
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
Also represented is Swanson's involvement in other entertainment branches, which extended to radio (1927-1981, including
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,
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
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.
Purchase (1982) and gift (1983-1988)
Contact Assistant Film Curator for access. Original audio recordings and films are unavailable for use until preservation copies are made.
Joan Sibley, with assistance from Kerry Bohannon, David Sparks, Steve Mielke, Jimmy Rittenberry, Eve Grauer, 1990-1993
An Associated Materials List appended to this guide lists other Swanson materials available in the HRHRC. Other manuscript collections at the HRHRC which contain Swanson materials include those of Merle Armitage (Recipient), Harpers (Letters), and Mike Wallace (Miscellaneous).
Includes correspondence, with various enclosures (clippings, photographs, financial or legal documents, script proposals, etc.) from Miss Swanson's family, friends, business associates, acquaintances, and fans, 1907-1983 (bulk 1950s-1960s). This series is divided into General Correspondence, Unidentified Correspondence, Book Withdrawals, Fan Mail, and Fan Address Cards.
Arrangement of this subseries is alphabetical by name or subject, with chronological groupings within each letter of the alphabet. This appears to be the manner in which Miss Swanson's staff (chiefly Gladys Griffith) kept her papers, from the mid-1940s through the 1970s. Carbons of outgoing correspondence were generally kept with the pertinent incoming correspondence. The relatively small (and mostly unorganized) amounts of general correspondence from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1980s have been regularized into this system. Most correspondence from the 1920s and 1930s is film related and located in Series II., Career, especially in the United Artists subseries. The 1940s are most prominently represented in the Multiprises, Inc. subseries of Series III., Business Interests.
While a number of correspondence files dealing with specific topics such as film, television, theatre, business projects, etc. have been placed in more appropriate series dealing with Miss Swanson's career and business interests, this subseries should by no means be regarded as purely personal correspondence. Many relationships overlapped personal, career, business, and other interests to a great extent.
Among Miss Swanson's myriad correspondents, reflecting the wide range of her career, her business associates, her interests, and her personal relationships, are:
Other notable correspondents include business magnates Conrad Hilton and Stanley Marcus, dancer Ram Gopal, explorer Richard E. Byrd, health and nutrition advocates Robert Balzer, Michio Kushi, and Indra Devi, inventor Henri A. Coanda, photographer Edward Steichen, religious proponents Kathryn Kuhlman and L. Ron Hubbard, and royalty, such as George, Duke of Kent, Margaret Ghika, and Prince Franz Hohenlohe.
Family correspondence includes the earliest items in this subseries, that from Swanson's parents (Joseph Theodore Swanson and Adelaide Woodruff). Also present is correspondence from her children (Gloria Daly, Joseph Patrick Swanson, and Michelle Farmer Amon), and husbands (Herbert K. Somborn, Henri de la Falaise, Michael Farmer, William Davey, and William Dufty), as well as from various aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandchildren.
Correspondence with the various professionals and personnel employed by Miss Swanson frequently offers deeper insights into the details of her life and career:
The correspondence of personal intimates such as Robert Balzer, Virginia Bowker, Gladys Griffith, Ethel Helmsing, René Hubert, Beatrice LaPlante, Frances Marion, Marshall Neilan, LeRoy P. ("Sport") Ward, and Lois Wilson provide more lengthy and revealing glimpses of friendships. Correspondence from Lewis L. Bredin, Herbert Marshall, Joel McCrea, and Gustave Schirmer documents other close relationships. There is relatively little correspondence with Joseph P. Kennedy (most of it appearing in Series II., Career) and it is generally characterized by business dealings.
Among some of the more intriguing pieces of correspondence are: a letter from a twelve year old John F. Kennedy, thanking Miss Swanson for a Christmas present; a signed, self-caricature note from George Gershwin; René Hubert's voluminous, illustrated correspondence; early papers of Herbert K. Somborn's company, Equity Pictures; and the series of "hate mail" from Kenneth Anger, which arose from a lawsuit involving his book
Correspondence is separated into outgoing (1 folder) and incoming (9 folders) correspondence, and then arranged chronologically insofar as possible. Most of these are signed only with first names, or are unsigned, or illegible.
Includes 14 items of correspondence which were withdrawn from books in Miss Swanson's personal library. Her library is cataloged in the University of Texas online catalog (UTCAT), and copies of the relevant catalog cards are sleeved with each piece of correspondence.
This correspondence remains organized in the two groups in which it was found: one chronological group, the other grouped by subject, name or other category. Some fans, such as Amber Rau and Sonya Rudzinski, became friends and more of their correspondence is found in the General Correspondence files. Others, such as Aario Marist, remained unknown to Miss Swanson, but continued to send large amounts of correspondence. Many fans included sketches, drawings or other art work depicting Miss Swanson with their correspondence. Occasionally, the letters are annotated with Miss Swanson's comments or reactions, or carbons of responses are included.
Fan mail also frequently appears in files scattered through Series II. Career, in files dealing with particular film, radio, television or stage appearances.
These boxes contain fans' addresses kept on index cards. These were removed from metal file card boxes, but kept in Swanson's order of United States (A-Z) and Foreign (A-Z). Occasionally there are notes that a photograph or letter was sent, or perhaps a phone call was made. These cards were possibly used in connection with mass mailings, such as
Included in this Series are materials documenting all aspects of Miss Swanson's career accomplishments, 1914-1983. This series is divided into the following subseries: Film, Film Festivals, Radio, Sound Recording, Television, Theatre, Proposed Projects, and Miscellaneous Career Related.
The film subseries is arranged chronologically by studio, and within each studio phase, chronologically by the release date of the film. For each film, materials are usually grouped alphabetically by the format of the items.
Documentation varies widely from film to film, through most are represented by stills. The stills have been put in key-number order, i.e., the numbers assigned to each shot by the studio. Those lacking key-numbers were put as nearly as possible in the order of the plot. Any candid set shots are usually filed at the end of the stills. Due to the variable condition of the photographs, especially for the earlier films, multiple stills have been left together unless they were so numerous as to hamper efficient viewing of the folders. In those cases (
Individual actors in the stills are
Nearly all of Swanson's sixty-six films, 1914-1975, are included in this subseries, with coverage for the earliest years at Essanay Studios, Sennett-Keystone Studios, and Triangle Company being the sparsest. The Famous Players-Lasky Corp./Paramount Pictures period, 1919-1926, is more comprehensively documented with groups of stills and scrapbooks, clippings, correspondence, contracts, and publicity items. The substantial correspondence, legal, financial, and production records of the United Artists period, 1925-1933, occupy forty boxes, while only meagre files remain for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Fox Films, and Columbia Pictures Corp. to elucidate Swanson's career during the rest of the 1930s. The scattered later films with RKO Radio Pictures, Paramount Pictures Corp., Warner Brothers, Titanus-Lux Films, and Universal City Studios, Inc. complete this subseries. Of these, the fullest records exist for Swanson's famous appearance in Paramount's
Actual film footage of Swanson contained in the collection has been stored separately, and now forms a part of Series VII.
Consists of a still from one film (
Accompanying this larger group of photographs is correspondence from Ruth Cahill, who sent the photographs to Swanson after reading
Includes stills, publicity and other photographs, a poster reproduction, a program, scrapbooks, and a title card, which represent ten of Swanson's Sennett-Keystone features, the best represented of which is
This is the least well represented period of Swanson's career in this collection, with only two publicity photographs and one keyplate (showing 19 stills) from the feature
Though predominately comprised of stills and other photographs, this subseries also contains clippings, contracts, correspondence, financial information, lobby cards, music, play and story booklets, post cards, programs, scrapbooks, and title cards. All twenty-seven of Swanson's silent Paramount films, during what is obviously the most productive period of her career, are represented to varying degrees. These include films with several distinguished directors: Cecil B. DeMille (6 films), Sam Wood (10 films), and Allan Dwan (8 films). The most fully documented film is
Correspondents include Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse L. Lasky, and Adolph Zukor.
In 1925, Swanson accepted a proposal from United Artists to become a partner and produce her own pictures. Due to Paramount contract obligations, however, she was not able to pursue her role as producer until 1926. This subseries consists of the records of her various production companies, 1925-1943:
Due to the overlap of operations of these corporate entities and the various films in different stages of production, Correspondence, Financial Records, and Legal Documents have been arranged chronologically. Production records are filed chronologically by production title, i.e.
Correspondence in this subseries, spanning 1925-1942 (bulk 1925-1933), occupies four boxes and all authors and recipients have been included in the Index to this collection. Prominent correspondents include Pierre A. Bedard, Virginia Bowker, Walter Byron, Charlie Chaplin, Lenore Coffee, Grace Crossman, Andre Daven, Cecil B. DeMille, E. B. Derr, Laurence Eyre, Douglas Fairbanks, Blanche Frederici, Elinor Glyn, Samuel Goldwyn, Edmund Goulding, D. W. Griffith, Texas Guinan, Will H. Hays, Lance Heath, Buster Keaton, Arthur W. Kelly, Joseph P. Kennedy, Henri de la Falaise, Josephine Lovett, Clare Marafioti, Louis B. Mayer, Thomas A. Moore, Conrad Nagel, Condé Nast, Bertram S. Nayfack, Dennis F. O'Brien, Albert Parker, Mary Pickford, Harry Poppe, Joseph M. Schenck, C. J. Scollard, Charles E. Sullivan, Constance Talmadge, Norma Talmadge, Erich von Stroheim, Irving R. Wakoff, Raoul Walsh, Jack Warner, and Lois Wilson. Most later correspondence (1938-1942) comes from United Artists and concerns the destruction of various prints of films.
Eighteen boxes contain financial records, 1926-1943. Present, in varying degrees over the years, are accounts payable, accounts receivable, audit reports, balance sheets, bills, budgets, checks (cancelled, carbons), certified accounts, disbursement vouchers, insurance, notes, production costs, production payrolls, purchase orders, reconciliations, taxes, trial balances, unfinished picture costs, and voucher registers. Though Swanson's association with United Artists ended in 1933, financial records, chiefly due to foreign receipts records, continue through 1943. Also present are United Artists financial statements, 1931-1932. Since there was apparently also some degree of overlap between Swanson's corporate and personal finances, the personal financial records in Series V. may provide further elucidation.
Legal documents encompass two boxes of corporate records and contracts for the period 1925-1934. The records within these folders have been described at the item level. Most items concern Swanson's companies and the various productions, though some concern other owned, but unproduced properties. A protracted financial dispute with director Albert Parker is also documented.
The films themselves are represented by a wide range of production records, 1926-1943: art, call sheets, cameraman's daily reports, cost sheets, clippings, costume plots, cutting scripts, daily developing reports, daily print reports, daily production reports, daily script notes, delivery reports, dialogue notes, director's projecting reports, editors notebooks, equipment inventories, extra talent plots, film shipments, location notes, music, negative orders, permits, photographs, post cards, preview cards, production reports, promotional items, props, posters, publications, publicity, research, schedules, scene plots, scripts, set notes, sound reports, stage logs, stills, title cards, titles, wardrobe notes, and worksheets.
A glance at the folder list of surviving production records for the films will show that documentation of the films varies considerably. Swanson's controversial
The following works were written using the United Artists subseries as primary source material and may provide a convenient introduction to these records:
Includes contracts and publicity photographs (some with Irving Thalberg), ca. 1930-1934. Swanson never actually made any pictures with MGM, though
Music and photographs, ca. 1934, represent
Correspondence (primarily with Harry Cohn, ca. 1937-1940) and contracts evidence Swanson's efforts to continue her film career. Folders 26.5-26.6 (Hawks-Volck Corp., 1934-1939) provides additional information concerning this association.
Includes clippings, a contract, correspondence, photographs, and publicity releases for Swanson's 1941 comeback film,
Includes files kept while Miss Swanson made public appearances as a Paramount spokesperson for
Files for
The substantial documentation for
Correspondents in this subseries include Virginia Bowker, Edith Head, Billy Wilder, and Adolph Zukor.
Includes contract, correspondence, photographs, promotional tour files, and scripts for the 1952 feature
Miss Swanson's files concerning
Documenting Miss Swanson's final feature film appearance in
Contains a small group of photographs, both stills and publicity, which have not yet been identified with a particular film.
Swanson's attendance at various film festivals, several of which honored her work, is documented through booklets, brochures, clippings, correspondence, invitations, photographs, posters, press releases, programs, receipts, schedules, and speeches. The files are arranged chronologically (1954-1982) and include A Tribute to Gloria Swanson at George Eastman House in 1966, a Cinémathèque Française Retrospective in 1974, and the Festival Canadien des Films du Monde, 1977.
Includes correspondence, scripts (also synopses and story outlines), photographs, music, clippings, and legal and financial records which document Swanson's radio appearances, 1927-1981. The types of programs include interviews, radio plays, serials, patriotic appeals during World War II, commercials, and talk shows.
Most of the material is arranged chronologically by program, 1934-1977. These files typically contain a script, synopsis, or story outline, plus any related correspondence or other items. The correspondence files, 1927-1981, generally represent programs for which no material other than correspondence exists.
It was not always possible to distinguish proposed shows from actual performances using surviving documentation, thus no attempt has been made to differentiate the status of the programs.
Of particular interest in this subseries are
Only a small amount of material, consisting of a catalog, correspondence, notes, and royalty statements, represents Swanson's activities in the field of sound recording, 1933-1974.
Several commercial recordings by Swanson are among the Audio Discs included in Series VII.
Includes correspondence, scripts (many annotated), call sheets, shooting schedules, contracts and other legal documents, financial information, photographs, music, publicity, clippings, and notes relating to Miss Swanson's appearances or proposed appearances on television, 1944-1981.
The papers have been kept in their original categories of Appearances (1944-1981), Mexican Television (1950-1954), and Proposed Television (1949-1979). Files for appearances and proposed television are arranged chronologically while the Mexican Television files are arranged topically.
The files concerning individual shows, almost 8 boxes, make up the largest part of this subseries. Included are documentation of the
Other files in this subseries concern television shorts shot in Mexico and proposed ideas or appearances.
Correspondents include Steve Allen, Richard Chamberlain, Dick Clark, Ralph Edwards, Eva Gabor, Hedda Hopper, Gypsy Rose Lee, Edward R. Murrow, Marshall Neilan, Zasu Pitts, and Aaron Spelling.
Includes correspondence, scripts (many annotated), contracts, financial information, photographs, music (both manuscripts and sheet music), playbills, programs, publicity, reviews, schedules, designs (costume, production, and set), and notes which document Miss Swanson's theatrical appearances, 1937-1977.
Files on the seventeen shows, which are arranged chronologically, occupy about eighteen boxes of this subseries. The remaining two boxes contain correspondence and scripts for proposed theatrical performances, 1937-1976, and a small group of unidentified theatre photographs.
Notable are files on three Broadway productions,
Of special interest are files concerning Miss Swanson's proposed musical version of
Correspondents include Eve Arden, Richard Banks, Vilma Banky, Beverly Bayne, Marcus Blechman, Virginia Bowker, Walter Byron, Ruth Chatterton, Indra Devi, William Dufty, Michelle Farmer, José Ferrer, Ram Gopal, Helen Hayes, Dick Hughes, Danny Kaye, Harold J. Kennedy, Henri de la Falaise, Rod LaRocque, Alan Jay Lerner, Frances Marion, Elsa Maxwell, Marshall Neilan, Mary Pickford, Ted Shawn, Richard Stapley, and Lois Wilson.
Chiefly correspondence and scripts, synopses, and treatments, related to proposed film, radio, television, and theatre projects under consideration by Swanson, ca. [192-]-1982.
These papers have been left as they were found, generally separated into correspondence (arranged chronologically) and scripts (arranged alphabetically by title). Some scripts also included associated correspondence, financial information, and clippings, which have been kept with the appropriate script. Where available, authors and dates have been transcribed in the folder list.
Several scripts date from Swanson's early United Artists days (
Prominent screenwriters whose work is represented in this subseries include Zoë Akins, Jay Presson Allen, Lenore J. Coffee, Delmer Daves, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, Richard Matheson, Preston Sturges, and C. Gardner Sullivan.
Correspondents include Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Behanna, Francesa Bertina, George Cukor, Evelyn Laye, Jean Dalrymple, Dorothy Farnum, and Don DeFore.
Includes brochures, clippings, copyright information, correspondence, legal documents, membership cards, photographs, and printed and promotional materials from organizations relating to Miss Swanson's career, 1929-1982. These include actors' groups, film and television organizations, libraries, museums, and universities.
Material is arranged alphabetically by the name of the organization, or in a few cases, by film title.
The largest group of files included here center around the later records of
Also included are files containing repository agreements and correspondence concerning Miss Swansons's personal film collection at The Museum of Modern Art (ca. 1944-1967) and George Eastman House (1967-1982).
The actors' organization files, especially the Screen Actor's Guild, contain some limited financial information, i.e. income, residuals, etc.
Correspondents included in this segment of the collection include Michelle Farmer Amon, Walter Byron, James Card, Richard Griffith, Edith Head, René Hubert, Jacob K. Javits, Joseph P. Kennedy, Edward I. Koch, Henri Langlois, Viola Lawrence, Mervyn LeRoy, Ed Sullivan, Jack Valenti, and Erich von Stroheim.