- unitid
-
{"value"=>"*T-Mss 1993-019", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1906-1991", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1906/1991"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Kay Brown Barrett papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"4.87 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"12 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.</span><div class=\"address\"> <span class=\"addressline\">New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center</span> <span class=\"addressline\">40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Kay Brown Barrett (1902-1995) was an American talent scout and agent working in Hollywood and in New York, most famous for suggesting Margaret Mitchell's novel <span class=\"title\">Gone With the Wind</span> to producer David O. Selznick. The Brown Barrett papers document her professional life with scripts, photographs, correspondence, notes, and publicity materials. This collection also includes professional files on Brown Barrett's daughter, actress Laurinda Barrett."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Kay Brown Barrett papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Brown Barrett, Kay, 1902-1995", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Kay Brown Barrett (known professionally as Katherine Brown, or Kay Brown) was born Derek Granger Katherine Brown in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York on December 7, 1902. Her father, Henry Collins Brown, one of the founders of the Museum of the City of New York; and mother, Kate Ross Brown were listed on the New York Social Register, as was their daughter.</p> <p>Kay Brown Barrett attended Wellesley College to study English, graduating in 1924. Her first job in show business was at the Mary Arden Theater School in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In 1926, the school's owners, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., and Guy Currier took over a film company in which Kennedy had held an interest for the previous few years, the Film Booking Offices of America (FBO). The new heads of FBO offered Brown Barrett a position as Eastern Story Editor. Her responsibilities consisted of reading scripts and other properties submitted to the studio, assessing their potential for feature adaptation, and acquiring the rights for the chosen properties.</p> <p>In 1928 FBO merged with the Keith Albee Orpheum (KAO) theater circuit, and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), to form one of the five major motion picture production companies in the United States at that time, RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures. Kay Brown Barrett stayed with the company through all these shifts, and was instrumental in acquiring a property which would prove to be one of RKO's greatest early successes. Edna Ferber's novel, Cimarron, was adapted into an successful film, which won the 1931 Academy Award for Best Picture.</p> <p>The producer David O. Selznick, who had worked with Brown at RKO, formed his own production company in 1935. He hired Brown Barrett as his Eastern Story Editor, which would prove an instrumental move for both of their careers. When the galleys for an unpublished novel crossed Brown Barrett's desk, she saw tremendous potential in the story and eagerly passed it on to Selznick so he could secure the rights. The novel was Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, which became a phenomenon as a novel and later as a Selznick film.</p> <p>Brown Barrett's other achievements during her Selznick years include persuading key talents to sign with Selznick, such as Laurence Olivier, Ingrid Bergman, and Alfred Hitchcock. Brown Barrett also discovered the Daphne du Maurier novel, Rebecca, which would be Hitchcock's first American picture.</p> <p>She was promoted to Eastern Representative and worked for Selznick until 1942. She left to become a theatrical agent at MCA, and later at International Famous Agency, which later became International Creative Management (ICM). Some of Brown Barrett's prominent clients at ICM included actors Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison, Fredric March, and Montgomery Clift; and authors Lillian Hellman, Isak Dinesen, and Arthur Miller.</p> <p>Kay Brown was married to James Barrett until his death in 1967. They had two daughters, Laurinda and Kate. Kay Brown Barrett died in Hightstown, New Jersey on January 18, 1995.</p> <p>Kay Brown Barrett's daughter, Laurinda Barrett, was born in New York City, on September 3, 1931. She is an actress and her Broadway appearances include The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1964), I Never Sang for My Father (1968), and Equus (1974). Off-Broadway appearances include Miss Julie (1956), at the Phoenix Theatre; A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden (1957), at the Cricket Theatre; Ah, Wilderness! (1984), at the Haft Theater; and The Boys Next Door (1987), at the Lamb's Theatre. She has also appeared in films, such as The Wrong Man (1956), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968), and A Perfect Murder (1998).</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Kay Brown Barrett papers document the professional life of the American talent scout and agent with scripts, photographs, correspondence, notes, and publicity materials. Client Files contain materials from Brown's career as a theatrical agent in New York from the 1940s to the 1990s, such as scripts; photographs; clippings; contracts; and correspondence with publishers, employers, and journalists. Brown Barrett's clients included Ingrid Bergman, Arthur Miller, and Laurence Olivier.</p> <p>The bulk of production materials concern Gone with the Wind, the blockbuster film that Brown Barrett discovered, recommended, and procured for producer David O. Selznick. Materials pertaining to the original film include Brown Barrett's correspondence with professors and journalists regarding articles on her involvement with Gone With the Wind, and the film itself, and its popularity; a scrapbook of clippings on the film and Brown Barrett's role in its development; scripts; and photographs.</p> <p>Brown Barrett also collected materials on the various stage adaptations of the novel and film. There are scripts; correspondence; productions shots; programs; and publicity materials, such as posters, flyers, and clippings; documenting all of the versions of a stage adaptation that went through several incarnations. The project began in 1966, as a 9-hour, two-part Japanese play by Kazuo Kikuta. This play was musicalized by Broadway songwriter Harold Rome, and whittled down into a 4-hour musical which opened in London in 1972, in Los Angeles in 1973, and toured major cities in the American South in 1976, but never made it to Broadway.</p> <p>Also present are scripts, outlines, contractual negotiations, correspondence, and press coverage on a proposed continuation of Gone With the Wind by biographer Anne Edwards. (This is not the continuation Scarlett, which was later authorized, as a novel and television film by the Margaret Mitchell Estate.) There is also a 1972 proposal for a Gone With the Wind theme park. Other productions, documented with scripts, include The Family and On Borrowed Time. There is a scrapbook, notes, programs, magazines, and photographs documenting early 20th century New York theatre. Personal items include clippings, interviews and biographies of Brown Barrett; and personal and family photographs.</p> <p>This collection contains professional files on Kay Brown Barrett's daughter, stage and screen actress Laurinda Barrett. It is not clear if these files were maintained by Laurinda Barrett herself, or by her mother. Laurinda Barrett's acting career is documented with scripts, programs, congratulatory telegrams from friends and collogues, and scrapbooks, that contain productions photographs, clippings, and press releases. The productions covered include Too Late the Phalarope (1956), The Miracle Worker (1962), Prometheus Bound (1967), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1967), and Equus (1976).</p> <p>Also present are audiocassettes containing interviews with Brown Barrett and recordings of live performances of the musical adaptation of Gone With the Wind. Audio/visual materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>This collection is arranged into: Client Files, Productions, Personal Files, and Laurinda Barrett Files.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Laurinda Barrett and Kate R. Barrett in 1993 and 2001.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Some collections held by the Dance, Music, Recorded Sound, and Theatre Divisions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are held off-site and must be requested in advance. Please check the collection records in the NYPL's online catalog for detailed location information. For general guidance about requesting offsite materials, please consult: https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/lpa/requesting-archival-materials Audio/visual materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>For permission to publish, contact the Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1906
- keydate
-
1906
- date_end
-
1991
- date_inclusive_start
-
1906
- date_inclusive_end
-
1991