Title: Perry Miller Adato Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1940-1974

Creator:

• Adato, Perry Miller

Call Number: U.S. Mss 181AN; Audio 741A; AB 773-778; CA 574-575; DC 810-811; GA 073; SCA 001-217

Quantity: 0.6 cubic feet (2 archives boxes), 228 cans of film, and 3 tape recordings

Repository:

Housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives and Museum Collections; owned by the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

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

Abstract:

Papers, 1940-1974, of Perry Miller Adato, a female producer-director of television documentaries for NET and WNET. Included are outtakes, dailies, soundtracks, and shot lists from Dylan Thomas, the World I Breathe (1968), which won an Emmy Award; Eames at MoMA (1973), The 40's: The Great Radio Comedians (1972), and other titles by Adato or with which she was associated. For Radio Comedians there are progressive script drafts and transcripts of interviews with Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Jim Jordan, and Arch Oboler.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0181an

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Perry Miller Adato, producer/director of documentary films, was born in Yonkers, New York. She began her career as a film consultant to the United Nations Department of Social Affairs. In 1954 she joined the staff of CBS where she worked as a film coordinator on such documentaries as Adventure, The Seven Lively Arts, and Odyssey. After ten years she left to join public television (NET). While there the subjects of her documentaries included Dylan Thomas, Gertrude Stein, Charles and Ray Eames, Mary Cassatt, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Her 1968 film on Thomas (Dylan Thomas: The World I Breathe), which was broadcast as part of the NET Festival series, received an Emmy. Her latest work on painter Georgia O'Keeffe, was the first in a PBS series on seven female artists made by Adato and by other filmmakers under her supervision. As part of this series, Adato is currently (1979) working on a documentary about abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler.

The collection provides fragmentary documentation of Adato's career as a filmmaker and consists of biographical information, production files, tape recordings, and films. Coverage is most extensive for The '40s: The Great Radio Comedians and includes transcripts, paste-ups (transcripts arranged in film sequence and annotated with production notes), logs, notes, correspondence, and a final script. Transcripts of interviews Adato conducted with Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Jim Jordan (Fibber McGee), and Arch Oboler (a radio writer) are included as are transcript excerpts from Allen's Alley, the Fred Allen radio program. The collection also contains a folder of shot lists for Eames at MoMA.

The AUDIO RECORDINGS relate to Adato's film on Dylan Thomas. Included are an interview with British writer Pamela Hansford Johnson (Lady Snow) in which she recalls her friendship with Thomas and a tape containing excerpts of Thomas reading his own poetry.

FILMS include excerpts, outs, and miscellaneous footage from such productions as Women's Film Festival, Dylan Thomas: The World I Breathe, and The '40s: The Great Radio Comedians.

Perry Miller Adato Papers (MSS00001) at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Acquisition Information

Placed on deposit by Perry Miller Adato, New York, New York, 1974. Accession Number: MCHC74-25, MCHC74-119

Processing Information

Processed by Christine Rongone, March 1979.

U.S. Mss 181AN Box   1 Folder   1a	Series: Biographical Information
	Series: Production Files	⇧
	The '40s: The Great Radio Comedians (WNET, New York, May 1972) Note: Broadcast as part of the series Playhouse New York.
Box   1 Folder   1b	Correspondence, drafts, undated
Box   1 Folder   2	Miscellany, undated
Box   1 Folder   3	Notebooks of tiny trims, undated
Box   1 Folder   4	Production Notes, undated
Box   1 Folder   5	Stills Logs, undated
	Fred Allen
Box   1 Folder   6-7	Allen's Alley, scripts, undated
Box   1 Folder   8	Paste-ups, undated
Box   1 Folder   9	Jack Benny transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   1	Edgar Bergen, transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   2	George Burns, transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   3	Bing Crosby, transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   4	Jim Jordan, transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   5	Arch Oboler, transcript and paste-up, undated
Box   2 Folder   6	Script, annotated, by Stu Hample, undated
	Eames at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, 1973)
Box   2 Folder   7	Shot List, circa 1973-1974
Audio 741A	Series: Audio Recordings	⇧
	Pamela Hansford Johnson Interview, circa 1968
741A/1 Time   0:01	The most productive period in Dylan Thomas' career
Time   3:20	Johnson's first meeting with Thomas
Time   6:35	Johnson's correspondence with Thomas and the topics they discussed
Time   8:20	Concerns and themes Thomas expressed in his poems
Time   8:80	Ethical attitude of Thomas
Time   9:75	Thomas: “instinctive man” vs “intellectual man”
Time   10:85	Johnson's dominant impression of Thomas
Time   11:75	Their exchange and criticism of each other's work
Time   12:50	Thomas' aim for obscurity in his poems
Time   13:30	Thomas' opinion and criticism of Johnson's literary work
Time   15:15	Thomas' changing moods and Johnson's attitude toward them (e.g., morbidity, depression)
Time   17:40	Johnson's first impression of Thomas at their first meeting
Time   18:70	Johnson's impression of Dylan Thomas, the person
Time   19:95	The publication and critical response to Thomas' first book, 18 Poems
Time   21:35	Johnson's opinion of Thomas' stature and ability as a poet
Time   22:64	Origin of 18 Poems
Time   23:10	Johnson's knowledge of Thomas' method of writing poetry
Time   24:90	Thomas' increasing difficulty in writing
Time   26:50	End of tape
741A/2 Time   0:55	Beginning of tape
Time   1:30	Thomas' ideas about literary infertility
Time   3:45	Thomas' health
Time   5:40	Thomas' obsession with the idea of death
Time   6:70	Thomas' attitude toward Swansea (his childhood home), Wales, and London
Time   16:05	Johnson's impression of what caused Thomas' early death (discusses drunkenness and overwork)
Time   17:85	Comparison of Dylan Thomas the legend with Dylan Thomas the person
Time   20:15	Thomas' contribution to poetry
Time   21:80	The last time Johnson saw Thomas (, 1948)
Time   22:85	How and why Johnson and Thomas drifted apart
Time   23:30	End of tape
	Dylan Thomas Readings, undated
741A/3 Time   0:25	Thomas reading a poem (“Fern Hill”?) which describes his childhood
Time   4:90	Thomas describing his early poetry before an audience
Time   8:78	Thomas reading a poem, unidentified
Time   13:45	End of tape
	Series: Film	⇧
AB 773-774	Paris 1900 [excerpts], 1946 Note: Producer unknown. Director: Nicole Vedres.
AB 775	Clay: Origin of the Species, 1964 Note: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University. Director: Eliot Noyes Jr.
AB 776	Calendar [excerpt], 1960s? Note: CBS.
AB 777	[Norman Corwin Radio Drama] [excerpt], 1972 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
AB 778	The Great Radio Comedians [outs], 1972 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
CA 574-575	Paris La Belle, 1959 Note: Argos Films. Director: Pierre Prevert.
DC 810-811	Man with a Movie Camera [music track]
GA 073	[Warsaw Ghetto], [circa 1940] Note: Producer unknown.
SCA 001-130	An Eames Celebration [soundtracks], 1974 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
SCA 131-185	An Eames Celebration [dailies], 1974 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
SCA 186-191	Women's Film Festival [miscellaneous footage], 1972-1973 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
SCA 192-215	Dylan Thomas - The World I Breathe [miscellaneous footage], 1968 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.
SCA 216-217	Eames at MoMA [miscellaneous footage], 1973 Note: WNET, New York. Director: Perry Miller Adato.