Scope and Contents
Correspondence with family members (including her parents and her husband, the actor Rip Torn), friends, and professional colleagues (including Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, Sissy Spacek, and others), as well as fan mail dates from the 1920s through 1987. Scripts for stage, film, and television include annotated scripts for productions in which she performed as well as scripts sent to her and her husband for review, some accompanied by cover letters. Photographic material includes family portraits and candid photographs, head shots, and production photographs from stage and film productions including Summer and Smoke, Sweet Bird of Youth, Agnes of God, The Trip to Bountiful and others. Her work is further documented by press clippings and other printed material.
Records relating to the production of the films Sweet Bird of Youth and Nasty Habits include contracts, casting call sheets, script pages, and photographs. Also included in the papers are records regarding her work with the Actors Studio, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The New Dramatists Committee and other organizations.
The papers also include artwork by Page and others, and personal items including address books, date books, stationery, and articles of clothing.
Dates
- 1836-1999, undated
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Boxes 78, 87-88, 128 (Audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Box 89 (Cold storage): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Box 90 (Record album): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
May 2021 acquisition: Purchased from Imaginal Life LLC on the Sinclair Lewis Fund and the Adele Gutman Nathan Theatrical Collection Fund, 2021.
June 2022 acquisition: Purchased from Imaginal Life LLC on the Sinclair Lewis Fund and the Adele Gutman Nathan Theatrical Collection Fund, 2022.
Arrangement
Extent
101.84 Linear Feet ((127 boxes) + 1 cold storage, 1 record album storage, 1 broadside folder )
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Overview
Biographical/Historical note
Page’s film work included Hondo (1954), film versions of Summer and Smoke and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), The Day of the Locust (1975), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and The Trip to Bountiful (1985), for which she won the Academy Award for best actress. On television she appeared in numerous series and television movies, and won Emmy awards for A Christmas Memory (1966) and The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967), both based on stories by Truman Capote.
In addition to the awards mentioned above, Page received numerous nominations for her film and stage work and was the recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award, the British Academy Film Award, and the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress.
Page was married to the violinist Alexander Schneider from 1954 to 1957. She married the actor Rip Torn in 1963, and they had three children, Angelica, Jon and Tony. She died in New York City in 1987.
Processing Information
This collection is comprised of materials formerly classed as Uncat MSS 817. These materials received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and minimal organization.
Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Actors -- United States
- Actors Studio (New York, N.Y.)
- Actresses -- United States
- Actresses -- United States -- 20th Century
- Audiovisual materials -- United States -- 20th Century
- Crawford, Cheryl, 1902-1986
- Kazan, Elia, 1909-2003
- Motion picture actors and actresses -- United States
- Motion pictures -- Production and direction -- United States
- Page, Geraldine
- Photographs -- United States -- 20th Century
- Scripts (documents) -- United States -- 20th Century
- Spacek, Sissy, 1949-
- Television -- Production and direction -- United States
- Television actors and actresses -- United States
- Theater -- United States
- Torn, Rip, 1931-
Creator
- Title
- Guide to the Geraldine Page Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- by Beinecke staff
- Date
- 2007-05-21
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.