September 29 marks the third annual National Silent Movie Day, and to celebrate, Ken Fox, Head of Library and Archives, will be on hand to livestream a rare jewel from the Eastman Museum's oral history collection: a newly preserved 31-minute interview with one of the silent screen's biggest stars, Gloria Swanson.
Virtually unheard by the public for nearly 70 years, Swanson’s interview was recorded in 1958 by film historian George C. Pratt as part of a larger museum effort to capture the first-hand accounts of early Hollywood from some of its leading figures. Swanson’s thrilling recollections of the studio system, and the role she personally played in creating the very idea of “movie star,” will be accompanied by a slide show of suitably glamorous photographs from the Moving Image Department’s Stills, Posters and Paper Collections, curated by archivist Nancy Kauffman.
Swanson's interview is just one of many recordings recently digitized as part of the museum's Silver Voices Project, made possible through the generous support of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (grant number MA-30-19-0681-19). Launching in October, this three-year project will make freely available hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings documenting the histories of cinema, photography, photographic conservation, and the key role the George Eastman Museum has played in the development of photographic scholarship and education.
9 дек 2023
