UNLV preserving Howard Hughes’ Hollywood archives
Long before he was an aviation magnate, a casino owner or a world-famous recluse, Howard Hughes was a fixture in Hollywood.
Now the archives from his movie career, which included producing the controversial hits “Scarface” and “The Outlaw” and his ownership of RKO Pictures, are being preserved at UNLV.
A $271,580 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been designated for “Inventing Hollywood: Preserving and Providing Access to the Papers of Renegade Genius Howard Hughes.” The project, a joint effort by UNLV University Libraries and the UNLV Department of Film, will preserve, catalog and organize the collections so they can be accessed on site and online.
“This extensive collection contains the traces of a unique and perhaps unrivaled pattern of inventive energy that had a lasting impact on the evolution of Hollywood,” Heather Addison, chairwoman of the UNLV Department of Film, said in a statement.
According to UNLV, the records span from the late 1920s through the mid-1970s and focus on the art, technology, economics and social impact of American cinema.
UNLV University Libraries already has digitized more than 1,700 items from its Hughes archives that can be accessed online here.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on Twitter.