Title: Emmet Lavery Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1925-1962

Creator:

• Lavery, Emmet, 1902-1986

Call Number: U.S. Mss 60AN; Audio 338A

Quantity: 2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes, 2 packages, and 1 oversize folder) and 1 tape recording

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives / Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Contact Information

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of Emmet Lavery, a stage, screen, and television writer, including scripts, collected articles and letters, clippings, Lavery-edited copies of The Screen Writer, and a subject file on Vassar College's Federal Theatre Project. Scripts present either in manuscript or mimeographed form relate to his stage, television, and film work. Most thoroughly documented is The Magnificent Yankee, his 1946 play based on the life of Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The collection contains particularly useful information about the Hollywood film community and the Screen Writers Guild, which Lavery served as president, 1945-1947, and in which capacity he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0060an

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Emmet G. Lavery, the son of James and Katherine Gilmartin Lavery, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on November 8, 1902. He received his law degree from Fordham University in 1924, and was admitted to the New York State bar in 1925, While he was at Fordham University he worked as the court reporter for the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. Between 1925 and 1935, he practised law in Poughkeepsie, and was the city editor of the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier. From 1929 to 1933 he was the president of the board of aldermen in Poughkeepsie.

Mr. Lavery has been writing for stage and screen since 1935. Among his best known works are The First Legion (1934; United Artists, 1951), which has been translated in fourteen languages; Hitler's Children and Behind the Rising Sun (RKO, 1943); The Magnificent Yankee (1946; MGM, 1950; Hallmark Hall of Fame, 1965, 1966); The Gentleman from Athens (1947); the opera Tarquin (1950), in collaboration with Ernst Krenek; Bright Road (MGM, 1953); The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (Warner Brothers, 1955), in collaboration with Milton Sperling; Fenelon (1956); and Hail to the Chief (1958), also titled The Indispensable Man.

In 1940, Mr. Lavery received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to head the Vassar drama department's research staff for Hallie Flanagan's history of the Federal Theatre. He was the resident playwright at Smith College on another grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1942, when he did the research for his play The Magnificent Yankee, based on the life of Chief Justice Holmes.

Mr. Lavery was the founder of the National Catholic Theatre Conference (1937); the director of the National Service Bureau of the Federal Theatre (1937 to 1939); the chairman of the Hollywood Writers Mobilization (1944 to 1945); vice-president of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences (1946); and the president of the Screen Writers Guild (1945 to 1947), in which capacity he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. In 1951, he won an important lawsuit against Mrs. Lela Rogers. A full account of the trial is given in Mr, Lavery's pamphlet Trial by Jury, 1951.

Mr. Lavery received the Christopher Award in 1953 for Bright Road; an Academy Award nomination in 1955 for The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell; and the Gavel Award from the American Bar Association in 1965 for The Magnificent Yankee.

Mr. Lavery was married to Genevieve Drislane Lavery and lived in Los Angeles; he died in 1986.

The Emmet Lavery Papers are arranged in six series: Scripts, Articles and Letters, Federal Theatre Project, The Screen Writer, Clippings, and Miscellaneous Materials.

The scripts, which are arranged alphabetically, are subdivided into plays, and television and film scripts. Some of the scripts are in manuscript form, others are mimeographed. Programs are included with the scripts where they occur. Also in this series is a recording of the 1965 telecast of The Magnificent Yankee starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

The second series is a mimeographed collection of articles and letters, written by Mr. Lavery between 1934 and 1962. Autobiographical material is found in this series, as well as valuable information about Hollywood, the Screen Writers Guild, and the case of Lavery vs. Rogers (1951).

The Federal Theatre Project series contains information about this government-sponsored program prepared both by the Federal Theatre Project and the Bureau of Theatre Research of Vassar College. Materials in this series include: articles about the Project; an inventory of Federal Theatre Project personnel, equipment, and available venues; a complete list of plays produced by the Project between 1936 and 1939, arranged alphabetically by state; news surveys (clippings) of the productions; production photographs; a manuscript copy of The Flexible Stage (1940), an unpublished book about the Federal Theatre by Mr. Lavery; and miscellaneous statistics about the Federal Theatre. The latter two were compiled by the Vassar College Bureau of Theatre Research.

The Screen Writer series contains eight issues (1946 to 1948) of this publication which Mr. Lavery edited. The issues contain articles by Mr. Lavery. Other issues of The Screen Writer, not containing articles by Mr. Lavery, are located in the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library.

The Clippings series contains clippings pertaining to the following plays by Mr. Lavery: Monsignor's Hour, The First Legion (play and film version), and The Magnificent Yankee (play and television version); and photostatic copies of clippings pertaining to the Billy Mitchell trial (1925), on which Mr. Lavery based his screen play The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell.

The Miscellaneous Materials series contains articles and pamphlets, some of which were written by Mr. Lavery, on varied topics; book-jackets from some of his published plays; photographs of Mr. Lavery and production stills from some of his plays and films; the complete transcript of his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee; oversize photographs; and sketches of Mr. Lavery's play, Fenelon.

Acquisition Information

Placed on deposit by Emmet Lavery, Los Angeles, California, April 12, 1965. Accession Number: MCHC65-41

Processing Information

Processed by KW, October 27, 1966.

U.S. Mss 60AN	Series: Scripts
	Plays
Box   1	Dawn's Early Light, revised, 1959 June Note: Commissioned by the state of Oregon; premiere performance at the University of Oregon.
Box   1	Fenelon, German version Note: Performed at the State Theatre in Basel, Switzerland, 1956.
Box   1	The Gentleman from Athens, German version Note: German title: Der Herr aus Athen. Written in 1947, German translation 1953, not produced in Germany as of February 1965.
Box   1	Hail to the Chief Note: Produced in the State Theatre, Saarbrucken, 1958, under the title of The Indispensible Man. Program included.
Box   1	The Ladies of Soissons, program Note: Produced at the Pasadena Playhouse, 1964. Program included.
Box   1	The Magnificent Yankee, revisions and program Note: Research for play undertaken on Rockefeller Foundation grant, 1942-1943; play first produced in 1946.
Box   1	Second Spring, adaptation, 1963 Note: First written in 1938; adapted in 1963.
Box   1	Tarquin, program, 1941 Note: Opera by Emmet Lavery and Ernst Krenek, first performed at the Experimental Theatre of Vassar College, 1941; subsequently performed at the Cologne Opera House, 1950. Program included.
Box   2	The World's My Oyster, 1961 Note: A play with music, based on the life of W.C. Fields.
Box   2	Yankee Doodles, 1964 Note: A play with dancing for Children's Theatre.
	Television and Films
Box   2	Behind the Rising Sun (RKO), annotated, 1943
Box   2	Caesar and Cleopatra, second revision, 1959 February 19 Note: Produced on television starring Maurice Evans, 1959.
Box   2	The Magnificent Yankee, MGM Version, 1950
	The Magnificent Yankee, Hallmark Hall of Fame Version, 1965 Note: Rebroadcast February 3, 1966.
Box   2	Script, 1965
338A/1	Tape Recorded Telecast, 1965
U.S. Mss 60AN Box   2	Series: Articles and Letters, 1934-1962	⇧
	Series: Federal Theatre Project	⇧
Box   3	Articles
Box   3	“The Flexible Stage,” manuscript of unpublished book
Box   3	Inventory of Federal Theatre Project personnel and equipment
	News Surveys
Box   3	1937-1939
Oversize Folder	1938
Box   4	Play list, 1936-1939
Box   4	Production photographs
Box   4	Miscellaneous theatre statistics
Box   4	Series: The Screen Writer, 1949 July-1948 July	⇧
	Series: Clippings	⇧
Box   4	Regarding Monsignor's Hour, 1936; The First Legion, , 1950-1965; The Magnificent Yankee, , 1965
Box   4-5	Regarding the Billy Mitchell trial, 1925
	Series: Miscellaneous Materials	⇧
Box   5	Articles and pamphlets
Box   5	Bookjackets and program for Song and the Scaffold
Box   5	Photographs and production stills from Monsignor's Hour, Hitler's Children, Behind the Rising Sun, The Gentleman from Athens
Box   5	Transcript of Emmet Lavery's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1947 October 29
Package   1	Oversize Photographs
Package   2	Pencil sketches of Fenelon