{"value"=>"<p>William (Bill) Harrison Gunn was an African American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker, and actor who was active from the mid-1950s until his death in 1989. He was born on July 15, 1934 and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by his parents, William Harrison, Sr., a songwriter and poet, and Louise Alexander Gunn, an actress who directed a local theater company. After dropping out of high school to join the Navy, Gunn returned to Philadelphia in 1952 and found work as a scene painter at Neighborhood Playhouse, where he was cast as an extra in <span class=\"title\">Street Scene</span>.</p> <p>Gunn moved to New York City's East Village to further pursue his acting career. In 1954, He made his Broadway debut in <span class=\"title\">The Immoralist</span>, and also appeared in the off-Broadway production of <span class=\"title\">Take a Giant Step</span>, and the television drama <span class=\"title\">Carmen in Harlem</span>, opposite Billie Allen. His later theater credits include <span class=\"title\">The Member of the Wedding</span> (1955) with Ethel Waters, <span class=\"title\">Sign of Winter</span> (1958), <span class=\"title\">Moon on the Rainbow Shawl</span> (1962), and the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of <span class=\"title\">Antony and Cleopatra</span> and <span class=\"title\">A Winter's Tale</span> (1963).</p> <p>In 1959, the Theater Guild in New York produced Gunn's first play, <span class=\"title\">Marcus in the High Grass</span>, which was followed by the <span class=\"title\">Celebration</span> in 1965 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Gunn's third play, the one-act <span class=\"title\">Johnnas</span>, premiered at the Chelsea Theatre in 1968 and was produced as a television special in 1972, earning Gunn an Emmy for Best Television Play. While Gunn expanded his career into television and film screenwriting throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, he returned to theater in 1975 with <span class=\"title\">Black Picture Show</span>, an AUDELCO Award-winning musical co-written with musician, Sam Wayman. Gunn continued to work as a playwright throughout the 1980s, producing <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone</span>, a musical based on his 1981 semi-autobiographical novel, <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone Sharecropping</span>, as well as <span class=\"title\">Family Employment</span> in 1985 and <span class=\"title\">The Forbidden City</span>, his final work in 1989.</p> <p>Gunn was a pioneer of black independent filmmaking. In 1970, he became the second black filmmaker to direct a film for a major studio with his directorial debut, <span class=\"title\">Stop</span>, which was shelved by Warner Bros due to its controversial premise and X rating. In 1973, Gunn wrote, directed and acted in <span class=\"title\">Ganja and Hess</span>, a horror film about vampires starring Duane Jones and Marlene Clark. While the film was marketed as a blaxploitation film and received a limited release in the United States, it was critically acclaimed, and selected for Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973, and later recognized as one of the ten best American films of the decade by Cannes. Gunn later directed <span class=\"title\">Personal Problems</span> in 1980, an avant-garde soap opera extensively featuring black directors, writers and actors such as Vertamae Grosvenor, Walter Cotton, Michele Wallace, and Jim Wright.</p> <p>Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Gunn also directed and produced a number of television programs, including <span class=\"title\">The Alberta Hunter Story</span>, a five-part series about legendary jazz singer Alberta Hunter for the BBC, <span class=\"title\">The Life of Sojourner Truth</span>for CBS, <span class=\"title\">The American Parade</span>, and a television special for Lena Horne produced by Bill Cosby. In addition to his extensive credits as a playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, Gunn published two novels, <span class=\"title\">All the Rest Have Died</span> (1964) and <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone Sharecropping</span> (1981).</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>The Bill Gunn Papers (1948-1994) document the extent of his career as a playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, and contain material about his acting and directing accomplishments. Included in the collection are annotated drafts and final versions of play scripts, screenplays, teleplays, novels and short stories, and related programs, reviews, flyers and clippings, and letters.</p> <p>The Personal series, ca. 1948-1994, features biographical information about Gunn, including bibliographies, interviews, and clippings, as well as obituaries and memorial programs. There are files for Gunn's parents, Louise and William Harrison Gunn, Sr., personal correspondence and writing notes, and information about Gunn's estate.</p> <p>The Professional series, ca. 1954-1986, offers a glimpse at Gunn's early career as an actor as well as his general professional endeavors beyond his work as a writer, and includes professional correspondence.</p> <p>The Writing series, ca. 1959-1991, comprises the bulk of the collection and is organized into six sub-series: Novels, Short Stories, Playscripts, Screenplays, Teleplays, and General. The series encompasses the complete oeuvre of Gunn's work, demonstrating his creativity and experiences in each medium. The material includes drafts, galleys, annotated manuscripts, play scripts, and teleplays, production material, correspondence and notes pertaining to Gunn's four decades in show business, and contains both published/produced and unpublished/unproduced work. Of note are the playscripts for <span class=\"title\">Black Picture Show</span> (1975), <span class=\"title\">Family Employment</span> (1985), <span class=\"title\">The Forbidden City</span> (1989), <span class=\"title\">Johnnas</span> (1968), <span class=\"title\">Marcus in the High Grass</span> (1959), and <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone</span> (1982); and the screenplays of <span class=\"title\">Ganja and Hess</span> (1973), <span class=\"title\">I Am the Greatest: The Life of Muhammad Ali</span>, the original script of <span class=\"title\">The Greatest</span> (1977), <span class=\"title\">The Landlord</span> (1970), and the unreleased <span class=\"title\">Stop</span> (1970).</p> <p>The Collected Materials series, ca. 1969-1986, consists of screenplays, teleplays and essays by other writers and actors, including Janus Adams, Wesley Brown, Dwayne McDuffie, Joe Morton, and Anthony Regusters. Notable material includes two screenplays for <span class=\"title\">Shaft</span> by John D. F. Black and Ernest Tidyman.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Bill Gunn papers are arranged in four series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/24663#c1523469'>Personal</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1948 - 1994</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series includes files for Gunn's parents, Louise Gunn and William Harrison Gunn, who met as theatrical actors and were married for sixty years. Louise Gunn's file contains correspondence with Gunn, as well as general correspondence, her collected material, certificates and awards recognizing her financial and civic contributions to community organizations such as Zion Baptist Church and the Opportunities Industrial Center, and clippings from 1948 to 1994. William Harrison Gunn's file consists of his handwritten poetry for his wife and friends, obituaries and funeral material, and information about his military career in the Army and Navy in World War I and II, respectively.</p> <p>The series also comprises of Gunn's writing notes and personal correspondence with family, friends, and fans. Notable material includes exchanges with Charles \"Chiz\" Schultz, a producer of <span class=\"title\">Ganja and Hess</span>, and a letter to \"David\" in which Gunn articulates the importance of authenticity when portraying African Americans, a philosophy that informed his own film and theatrical and film work for nearly three decades. The Estate file features material about the establishment of a scholarship in Gunn's name by the Rockland Negro Scholarship Fund for St. Thomas Aquinas College (1990-1992), and the estate's work in assessing Gunn's literary work and other properties. Additionally, the series contains an address book and a 1950 appointment book, which served not only as a schedule and telephone directory but as a writing journal with excerpts from a story Gunn was writing in 1950.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/24663#c1523483'>Professional</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1954 - 1986</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, ca. 1954-1986, offers a glimpse at Gunn's early career as an actor as well as his general professional endeavors beyond his work as a writer. The Acting Career sub-series features a play script and programs for The Immoralist, written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz and produced at the Royal Theatre in 1954, in which Gunn made his Broadway debut as Dolit, an Arab boy. There is also a general acting folder that contains programs, residuals stubs and clippings for Gunn's other appearances in theatrical and television productions such as The Member of the Wedding, Carmen in Harlem, Sign of Winter, The Interns, and Strange Companion, including a program for The Member of the Wedding signed by co-star Richard Ward.</p> <p>There is a file of professional correspondence about Gunn's film and theatrical work as well as exchanges with people seeking advice or opportunities to work with him, and letters from the Emmy Awards, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, NPR Radio, and Writers Guild of America, East. Additionally, there is a folder containing organizational information about the Delphic Corporation, a potential film company established by Gunn, and a file with an unsigned contract with Camera News, Inc. to produce an untitled twenty-minute dramatic short film/teleplay dated 1982.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/24663#c1523488'>Writing</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1959 - 1991</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series, ca. 1959-1991, comprises the bulk of the collection and is organized into six sub-series: Novels, Short Stories, Playscripts, Screenplays, Teleplays, and General. The series encompasses the complete oeuvre of Gunn's work, demonstrating his creativity and experiences in each medium. The material includes drafts, galleys, annotated scripts, production material, correspondence and notes pertaining to Gunn's four decades in show business, beginning with his early efforts at writing novels, playwriting and screenwriting.</p> <p>The Novels sub-series, ca. 1964-1982, contains the publisher's galleys for Gunn's first novel, <span class=\"title\">All the Rest Have Died</span> (1964), and an original manuscript and typescript fragments for <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone Sharecropping</span> (1981), his second book. There are also annotated manuscripts for his unpublished novels <span class=\"title\">Amon and the Sword</span>, <span class=\"title\">Egyptian Murals (or the Further Experiences of Sam and Cleola Dodd)</span>, and <span class=\"title\">The Odyssey of the Rose</span>, as well as fragments of stories.</p> <p>The Short Stories sub-series, ca. 1967-1970s, consists of annotated manuscripts of published and unpublished short stories, including <span class=\"title\">The Bedlamite</span>, <span class=\"title\">Loneliness</span>, <span class=\"title\">Passion</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Somehow the Amnesia Victim Stumbles Upon a Familiar Face As I Stumbled Upon Your Love</span>.</p> <p>The Playscripts sub-series, ca. 1959-1991, consists of annotated drafts and play scripts of Gunn's produced plays <span class=\"title\">Black Picture Show</span> (1975), <span class=\"title\">Family Employment</span> (1985), <span class=\"title\">The Forbidden City</span> (1989), Johnnas (1968), Marcus in the <span class=\"title\">High Grass</span> (1959), and <span class=\"title\">Rhinestone</span> (1982), as well as related production notes, programs and promotional material, clippings, reviews, and correspondence arranged alphabetically by title. The sub-series also features annotated drafts and play scripts of Gunn's unproduced plays, including <span class=\"title\">The Caftan Caper</span>, T<span class=\"title\">he Celebration, Doubleganger, Father: The Harmer Street Communion (An American Story)</span>, <span class=\"title\">Games: A Play with Music, Lebensbilder (Pictures of Life)</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Owlight (or The Communion)</span>, <span class=\"title\">Prayers at the Foot of the Alter: Two One-Act Plays</span>, <span class=\"title\">Renaissance</span>, <span class=\"title\">Samba of Roses</span>, <span class=\"title\">See Naples and Die (Vedi Napoli e Poi Mori)</span>, and <span class=\"title\">That's Gustavo (A Love Story)</span>, in addition to related notes and correspondence arranged alphabetically by title.</p> <p>The Screenplays sub-series, ca. 1967-1991, contains annotated drafts, screenplays and shooting scripts for Gunn's produced films <span class=\"title\">Ganja and Hess</span> (1973), <span class=\"title\">I Am the Greatest: The Life of Muhammad Ali</span>, the original script of <span class=\"title\">The Greatest</span> (1977), <span class=\"title\">The Landlord</span> (1970), and the unreleased <span class=\"title\">Stop</span> (1970) arranged alphabetically by title. Related material includes production notes, correspondence, contracts, clippings and reviews. Of note is a copy of the screenplay for <span class=\"title\">I Am the Greatest: The Life of Muhammad Ali</span> signed by Gunn, who would go uncredited in the final version of the script,<span class=\"title\"> The Greatest</span>. The sub-series also includes treatments, annotated drafts and screenplays of Gunn's unproduced films, such as <span class=\"title\">Doubleganger</span>, <span class=\"title\">Egyptian Murals</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Go-Between</span>, <span class=\"title\">Home Again, Home Again</span>, <span class=\"title\">The House of Flowers</span>, <span class=\"title\">Jeanne Duval</span>, <span class=\"title\">Kristine</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Last Cruise of the Spitfire</span>, <span class=\"title\">Marcus in the High Grass</span>, <span class=\"title\">Men of Bronze</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Owlight</span>, <span class=\"title\">Prancer</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Territory</span>, as well as fragments of screenplays and related correspondence, arranged alphabetically by title. Many of the screenplays are based on Gunn's other novels, play scripts and teleplays.</p> <p>The Teleplays sub-series, ca. 1975-1981, features annotated screenplays of <span class=\"title\">The Alberta Hunter Story</span>, a five-part miniseries co-written with Chris Albertson, along with notes and research. The series also contains Gunn's annotated script for the \"Sojourner Truth\" episodes of <span class=\"title\">The American Parade</span> (1975), and material for <span class=\"title\">Personal Problems</span> (1980), including a synopsis, correspondence, reviews, and research and notes. The sub-series also includes synopses, treatments, annotated drafts and teleplays of Gunn's unproduced television series, such as <span class=\"title\">Bessie</span>, based on the book by Chris Albertson, <span class=\"title\">The Big Apple</span>, <span class=\"title\">Bring It All Home</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Caftan Caper</span>, <span class=\"title\">Change at 125th Street</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Harmer Street Communion (An American Story)</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Lena Horne Show</span>, <span class=\"title\">Manhattan Serenade</span>, <span class=\"title\">Men of Bronze</span>, <span class=\"title\">Oye Willie</span>, and <span class=\"title\">WBLK</span>, as well as related correspondence, research and notes.</p> <p>The General sub-series, ca. 1970s-1980s, contains general material related to Gunn's writing career, including teaching material for his term at Indiana University's Department of Afro-American Studies in 1984, research material, and notebooks for project ideas.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/24663#c1523587'>Collected materials</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1969 - 1986</div>\n</li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}