Scope and Contents
The papers include personal and professional correspondence, writings, scripts, photographs, legal and financial documents, production programs, personal memorabilia, artwork, audiovisual materials, press clippings, and other printed material documenting Geraldine Page's personal life and career as a stage, film, and television actress.
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
The materials are open for research.
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.
Box 137 (Computer media): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
The Geraldine Page Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
November 2005 acquisition: Purchased from Angelica Page on the Eugene G. O'Neill Memorial Fund, 2005.
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
Arranged into three groupings: I. November 2005 acquisition, 1865-1999. II. May 2021 acquisition, 1836-1987, undated. III. June 2022 Acquisition, 1924 - 1986.
Extent
101.84 Linear Feet ((133 boxes) + 1 cold storage, 1 record album storage, 2 broadside )
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The papers include personal and professional correspondence, writings, scripts, photographs, legal and financial documents, production programs, personal memorabilia, artwork, audiovisual materials, press clippings, and other printed material documenting Geraldine Page's personal life and career as a stage, film, and television actress.
Biographical/Historical note
Geraldine Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri in 1924, and grew up in Chicago where she acted in plays with a church youth group. Following high school she studied at the Goodman Theater School for three years, and with other students from the Goodman formed a stock theater company in which she was active for four seasons. After moving to New York in the late 1940s and working at various odd jobs, she was cast in the 1952 off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke directed by Jose Quintero. She drew wide praise for her performance, and the following year she made her Broadway debut in Mid-Summer by Vina Delmar. She went on to star in productions on and off-Broadway including The Immoralist (1954) , The Rainmaker (1954), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Absurd Person Singular (1974), Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980), Agnes of God (1982), Vivat! Vivat! Regina! (1985), A Lie of the Mind (1985,) and Blithe Spirit (1987). A student of Method acting, she studied at the Actor’s Studio, and worked with the Mirror Repertory Company and the Sanctuary Theatre Workshop, Inc.
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
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.
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-
- 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.