Robert W. Bergstrom papers 1924-1999, bulk 1959-1970.

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Robert W. Bergstrom papers 1924-1999, bulk 1959-1970.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/71301767

Case files, exhibits, and testimony regarding People of the State of Illinois vs. Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb (1924), and several civil suits of Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. vs. Levin, et al. When Meyer Levin published his fictionalized account of the murder and trial in 1959, Leopold sued Levin, the book publishers (Pocket Books, and Simon and Schuster), and the movie industry and theatres that produced and showed the movie version. (Loeb had been killed in prison in 1936 by another inmate). The latter series of case files cover the progression of suits heard in the Circuit Court of Cook County, in U.S. District Court, and Supreme Court of Illinois from 1959 to 1970. Bergstrom took Leopold's complete deposition in November, 1960, and the transcript for that deposition is in the Illinois Supreme Court's Record on Appeal, Vol. II-A. Exhibits to the case include correspondence, publicity for the book and movie, contracts, screenplays, and books. The exhibits are in paper and microfilm format; the exhibits on microfilm are more extensive and include more correspondence between those involved in producing the motion picture Compulsion. After the legal files there are some miscellaneous files of research material and other items that might have been used as exhibits in the suits. These include newsclippings, the screenplay adaptation of Compulsion, and two articles written by Leopold on crime and imprisonment.

8 cubic ft. (12 boxes, 1 oversize box, and 4 microfilm reels)

Newberry Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 8081471

Newberry Library

Related Entities

There are 10 Entities related to this resource.

Newberry Library

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The Newberry was founded on July 1, 1887 and opened for business on September 6 of that year. The Newberry’s establishment came about because of a contingent provision in the will of Chicago businessman Walter L. Newberry (1804-68), which left what later amounted to approximately $2.2 million for the foundation of a “free, public” library on the north side of the Chicago River, if his two children died without issue. After the deaths of Mr. Newberry’s daughters and then, in 1885, of his widow, t...

Midwest manuscript Collection (Newberry Library)

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Darrow, Clarence S. (Clarence Seward), 1857-1938

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67q9pzg (person)

Clarence Seward Darrow, prominent Chicago trial lawyer, was born in Kinsman, Ohio on April 18, 1857. He attended Allegheny College, after which he studied one year at the University of Michigan Law School. He then worked as a lawyer in Youngstown, and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1878. He practiced in Ohio for nine years, before moving to Chicago, where he practiced privately before being appointed assistant corporation counsel for the City of Chicago. For four years he served as Chi...

Simon and Schuster Inc

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xh3m1d (corporateBody)

Simon and Schuster had been a publisher of English translations of Werfel's works in the 1920s and 1930s (by the time of this correspondence, those rights had been transferred to Viking Press). Richard Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster were the founders and heads of the company, which was based in New York City; they maintained a personal friendship with Werfel and Alma Mahler. Howe was an editor at Simon and Schuster. From the description of Correspondence with Alma Mahler and Franz Wer...

Leopold, Nathan Freudenthal, 1904-1971

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p27xn2 (person)

Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), often referred to as "Leopold and Loeb", were privileged and wealthy teenage University of Chicago students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 in a desire to commit the “perfect crime,” and were sentenced to prison for 99 years plus a life term. Leopold was paroled in 1958 and spent the rest of his life in Puerto Rico, dying of heart failure in 197...

Pocket Books.

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Levin, Meyer, 1905-1981

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Loeb, Richard A., 1905-1936

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Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.

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American distribution and production corporation of motion pictures. From the description of Pressbooks, 1977-1978. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122391955 American film producing and distributing corporation formed by the merger of two companies in the early half of the century. In 1915 William Fox began the Fox Film Corporation; and in 1925, he bought controlling interest in the then largest theater in the world, the Roxy Theater of New York, N.Y. The Roxy boasted a seati...

Bergstrom, Robert W

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68m09c5 (person)

Chicago lawyer. Robert Bergstrom was born in Chicago in 1918. In 1940, he was admitted to the Illinois bar and began his practice in Chicago, specializing in representing entertainment corporations. In 1959, Bergstrom took a case representing Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Darryl F. Zanuck Productions, and fifty-seven motion picture theaters that had exhibited the film Compulsion. The film was based on the book of the same name by Meyer Levin, which was a fictio...