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Gloria Swanson

Coming out of the archives

September 25, 2017 - Ann Cvetkovich

Coming Out of the Archives is a selection of materials curated by students in my spring 2017 Queer Archives class. The materials can be seen in the Ransom Center’s Stories to Tell exhibition that features rotating highlights from the collections. [Editor’s note: the items are no longer on view, as the display cases have rotated] [Read more…] about Coming out of the archives

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Gertrude Stein, Gloria Swanson, Radclyffe Hall, Stories to Tell, Undergraduate

Meet the Staff: Archivist Joan Sibley

September 24, 2015 - Sarah Strohl

Joan Sibley catches up with J. Frank Dobie at "Philosphers Rock" at Zilker Park.

Meet the Staff is a Q&A series on Cultural Compass that highlights the work, experience, and lives of people at the Harry Ransom Center.

Joan Sibley has filled a variety of roles during her 25 years at the Ransom Center. Now, as Senior Archivist, she is responsible for the completion of retrospective conversion cataloging of manuscript collections, grant writing, and management of grant projects. [Read more…] about Meet the Staff: Archivist Joan Sibley

Filed Under: Cataloging, Digital Collections, Meet the Staff Tagged With: collections, Gloria Swanson, J. Frank Dobie, Joan Sibley, Louis Bayard, Meet the Staff, Pforzheimer, Project REVEAL, Sir Walter Raleigh, The School of Night, The University of Alabama

Here lies Gloria

April 28, 2015 - Apryl Voskamp

Paper found underneath sugar, with Yiddish word shalom. Photo by Pete Smith.

One of the most unusual items in the Ransom Center’s collections resides within the Gloria Swanson archive, and it’s as challenging as it is amusing. The “sugar coffin,” as it has become known, was given to Swanson by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger, in response to a lawsuit filed by Swanson against Anger.

 

A little backstory: When Anger wrote his salacious tell-all-book Hollywood Babylon he included a chapter on the death of Lana Turner’s boyfriend, mobster Johnny Stompanato, who was killed by Turner’s daughter. In the chapter, Anger mistakenly quotes Swanson as saying Turner was “not even an actress… she is only a trollop.” Anger was apparently unaware that when it was first printed by Hollywood gossip columnist Walter Winchell, Swanson had the quote retracted.

 

When Swanson was alerted to Anger’s use of the false quote she filed a libel suit against him and his publishers, but before the verdict was handed down, Swanson began receiving hate mail from Anger, including voodoo dolls and mutilated photographs with pins stuck through them. Anger knew Swanson was a serious health fanatic (William Dufty, her sixth husband, wrote the book Sugar Blues), so he filled a green, foot-and-a-half-long coffin with sugar, writing Hic Jacet (Here Lies) Gloria Swanson on its lid.

 

For the Ransom Center, the challenge was how to preserve a coffin full of sugar? The Center’s Curator of Film wanted to keep the object in its original form, so the coffin was encapsulated in Mylar to prevent the sugar from spilling out. After many discussions we decided to remove the sugar and place it into several polypropylene bags.

 

Unbeknownst to us, Anger had another message for Swanson. As I was removing the sugar, I noticed there was a word in Hebrew printed on a piece of newsprint that translated as “shalom.” No one at the Ransom Center had seen this before or knew that it was there.

 

Consequently, I encapsulated the newsprint in Mylar, placed the polypropylene bags with the sugar inside the coffin, and constructed housing for the object, an amazing item to have in the Ransom Center’s care.

 

Read related Preservation Week 2015 posts.

 

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Click thumbnails to view larger images.

The sugar-filled coffin prior to its housing treatment. Photo by Apryl Voskamp.
The sugar-filled coffin prior to its housing treatment. Photo by Apryl Voskamp.
Removed sugar from the coffin and bagged in polypropylene. Photo by Pete Smith.
Removed sugar from the coffin and bagged in polypropylene. Photo by Pete Smith.
Paper found underneath sugar, with Yiddish word shalom. Photo by Pete Smith.
Paper found underneath sugar, with word “shalom.” Photo by Pete Smith.

Filed Under: Conservation Tagged With: Conservation, Gloria Swanson, housing, Kenneth Anger, Lana Turner, preservation, preservation week, preservation week 2015, Sugar Blues

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