Actors' Fund of America Records 1880-2005

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Actors' Fund of America Records 1880-2005

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/wag_036/wag_036.html

Founded in 1882, largely through the leadership of Harrison Grey Fiske, the Actors’ Fund of America is a human services organization that makes available aid to professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry. In general, the Actors’ Fund acts as a safety net, offering a range of social and health-related services for members of the performing arts community who are in need or crisis. The Fund maintains a home for the elderly with an extended care nursing facility, runs the Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic in New York City, and directs a number of other programs and initiatives, including the Actors Work Program, the AIDS Training and Education Project and the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative. Over the years the Fund has raised money to support its programs through annual galas, benefit performances of theatrical productions, fairs, bazaars, auctions, and fundraising drives. The collection includes minutes, annual reports, and general subject files of the Actors’ Fund from its founding to 2005. There is substantial documentation of fundraising activities, including files on the planning of benefit performances and lavishly illustrated souvenir programs. A series of scrapbooks, comprised mostly of clippings and printed ephemera about the Actors’ Fund and its benefit performances, also includes obituaries of theater professionals and memorabilia collected by individuals associated with the Fund. The collection also contains records entrusted to the Fund by individuals or families and material produced by related organizations, for example, the Basil Rathbone Family Papers and records of the Catholic Actors Guild and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. NOTE: This collection is housed offsite and advance notice is required for use.

37.25 linear feet; (40 boxes)

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6331798

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Related Entities

There are 33 Entities related to this resource.

Hayes, Helen, 1900-1993

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f58g3r (person)

Helen Hayes Brown was born in Washington, D.C. on October 10, 1900. Her parents were Frank and Catherine “Essie” Brown. With her mother’s encouragement, Hayes made her stage debut at the age of five and began performing both in amateur productions as well as the stock company, The Columbia Players. While performing in a recital for Miss Minnie Hawke’s School of Dance, Hayes was spotted by Lew Fields. Fields, half of the Weber and Fields comedy team, as well as a producer, recognized Hayes’s tale...

Mostel, Zero, 1915-1977

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Actor and artist Zero Mostel was born Samuel Joel Mostel on February 28, 1915 in Brooklyn, N.Y. He attended Seward Park High School and earned a B.A. in art from the City College of New York in 1935. After a series of jobs, he worked with the WPA art project teaching and lecturing at museums. His lectures were so entertaining that he was often booked at union halls, Catskills hotels, and various benefits. It was at one such event that radio director and producer Hyman Br...

Actors' Equity Association

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n33r00 (corporateBody)

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Keeler, Ruby

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Logan, Nedda Harrigan

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Shaw, Rosette.

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Dewhurst, Colleen

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Simon, Neil, 1927-2018

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Neil Simon (b. Marving Neil Simon, July 4, 1927, Bronx, New York-d. August 26, 2018, Manhattan, New York), American playwright, screenwriter and author....

McGlinn, Frank

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Simon, Louis

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Catholic Actors Guild of America.

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Lester, Edwin

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Henderson, Florence

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Reynolds, Debbie

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Abbott, George, 1887-1995

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m90d2c (person)

American theatrical producer and director. From the description of George Abbott letter to William Work, 1953 Mar. 4. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 502306264 ...

Wolfington, Iggie

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wz3fwq (person)

Rathbone, Basil, 1892-1967

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ww7pn9 (person)

British stage, screen, and radio actor; b. in Johannesburg, South Africa. From the description of Basil Rathbone collection, 1924-1950. (Boston University). WorldCat record id: 70925636 Actor. From the description of Reminiscences of Basil Rathbone : oral history, 1959. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 122512788 Huxley was an English novelist and Rathbone an English actor. Rathbone played a character in The giaconda smil...

Cooley, Hollis.

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Swayd, Lester.

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Munsell, Warren P.

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Nichols, Mike, 1963-

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Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (U.S.)

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Frohman, Daniel, 1851-1940

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cc1bdx (person)

American theatrical producer and early film producer. From the description of Daniel Frohman letters and autograph, [manuscript], [1893], undated. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 648015588 American theatrical manager. From the description of Autograph letters signed (7) : New York, 11 February [1910?, and n.d.], to [Harry Harkness] Flagler, [1910?] Feb. 11 and n.d. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270577558 From the description of Autograph n...

Tompkins, Don

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Dillon, Tom

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Epithet: Secretary, Waterford Savings Bank British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000440.0x00016b Epithet: of Stowe MS 203 Title: Viscount Dillon British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000440.0x00016e ...

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (Organization)

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Rathbone, Ouida Bergere, 1887-1974

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Actors' Fund Home (Englewood, N.J.)

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Sponder, Wanda.

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Williams, Percy, 1908-1982

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Hughes, Bernard

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Fiske, Harrison Grey, 1861-1942

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6349b14 (person)

Biographical Notes Minnie Maddern Fiske 1865, Dec. 19 Born Marie Augusta Davey, New Orleans, La. 1868 First stage performance, as the young Duke of York in Shakespeare's Richard III 1880 Appeared on New York st...

Actors' Fund of America

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60p4tjb (corporateBody)

The Actors’ Fund of America was founded in 1882 largely through the efforts of Harrison Grey Fiske, the owner of a theater trade publication, the New York Dramatic Mirror. The Fund got off to a rousing start, fueled by Fiske’s enthusiasm; by the “instinctive generosity of show people” (Simon, p. 3); and – most important – by the backing of the nineteenth-century theatrical elite, the actor-managers who owned and operated the theaters and from whose ranks the Fund’s officers and trus...