The David O. Selznick Collection contains records documenting every aspect of his Hollywood studio operations including script development, production, publicity, finances, and distribution. The major part of the records span the years 1916 to 1966 which correspond to film's pioneer days in New York through the heyday of the studio system in Hollywood, to the rise of television. Selznick was employed at three major studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount, and RKO. As an independent, his credits include A Star Is Born (1937), Gone With the Wind (1939), and Rebecca (1940). Selznick played out his activities against the backdrop of censorship under the Hays Office, the hardship of the Depression, the impact of World War II, and the paranoia of America's "red scare." The collection covers the years from 1904 to 1980 with most of the material dating from the mid 1930s through the mid 1950s.
The records are arranged in thirteen series based on the departmental division of the studio: Administrative, Casting, Distribution, Financial, Legal, Lewis J. Selznick (LJS), London, Music, Production, Publicity, Research, Story, Talent, and a fourteenth series, Gifts, that includes materials donated by Selznick's family. The physical order of the records was disturbed over the years and the present arrangement is an attempt to restore the materials to the original order as represented by the inventory list (Bekins list) that came with the collection.
The collection comprises all the types of materials one would expect to be generated by a film studio, including appointment books, audio recordings, awards, balance sheets, call sheets, clippings, correspondence, journal vouchers, ledgers, memos, minutes, music, notebooks, photographic prints and negatives, posters, props, realia, scrapbooks, scripts, set and costume designs, story boards, and telegrams. Through analysis of the above materials, one can trace the evolution of a film such as Gone With the Wind from story purchase through script development, casting, design, production, exploitation, distribution, and reissue. Though most of the material represents Selznick's independent career, there are also records from his father's companies, from his employment at the RKO, Paramount, and MGM studios, and materials concerning his personal affairs. There is documentation not only of the movies Selznick produced outright, but also of those he developed and sold, as well as those never realized.
The collection touches on virtually every major Hollywood person, studio, and event of Selznick's day. Persons represented in the collection include, but are not limited to:
writers, including Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gene Fowler, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Graham Greene, Ben Hecht, Sidney Howard, Aldous Huxley, Ring Lardner, Jr., Dorothy Parker, Robert E. Sherwood, Budd Schulberg, Peter Viertel, and Hugh Walpole;
musicians, including Bernard Herrmann, Oscar Levant, Miklos Rozsa, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman;
producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, Mark Hellinger, Alexander Korda, and Louis B. Mayer; directors Frank Capra, George Cukor, Vittorio De Sica, Victor Fleming, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Carol Reed, King Vidor and William A. Wellman;
and actors, including Ethel, John, and Lionel Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Montgomery Clift, Claudette Colbert, Ronald Colman, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Fontaine, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Janet Gaynor, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Leslie Howard, Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Louis Jourdan, Vivien Leigh, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Hattie McDaniel, Dorothy McGuire, Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, Basil Rathbone, Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles.
The Ransom Center also holds closely related collections of materials for Jeffrey Selznick, Lewis J. Selznick, Myron Selznick, and John Hay ("Jock") Whitney. Film media holdings include complete 35mm safety film prints of Duel in the Sun, King Kong, Little Women, Rebecca, and Notorious, as well as videotape copies of several Selznick films. Nitrate film for Gone With the Wind, Rebecca, A Star Is Born, Intermezzo, and Duel in the Sun is located at George Eastman House.
See also the extensive Gone With the Wind online exhibition, which details the book purchase, the search for Scarlett, and costumes and makeup.
| David O. Selznick Collection Finding Aid | |||||||||
| Title Page | Biographical Sketch | Scope and Contents | Organization and Access | Series Outline | Series Descriptions | Companies and Personnel List | Films Chronological List | Films Alphabetical List | Films Credits List |
Reference queries to: reference@hrc.utexas.edu
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