Accession No. TRI.2025.0046: Tom Clareson, 2020 April
[identification of item], Tom Clareson Collection of Hollywood Actress Stock and Promotional Photographs, SPEC.TRI.0121, Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, Ohio State University
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Processed by: Sierra McGee, 2025 October; Finding aid written by: Sierra McGee, 2025 October
As of 2025, Tom Clareson is the project director of Performing Arts Readiness and a Senior Consultant for Digital & Preservation Services at LYRASIS. In both of these roles, he gives consultations on preservation, digitization, and advocates for arts and cultural organizations.
With the introduction of sound in movies in the 1920s, the Golden Age of Hollywood began. By the 1930s, the movie industry was one of the largest businesses in the United States. This led to the idolization of Hollywood actresses, and Hollywood gained a reputation of affluence and fame. Hollywood actresses modeled designer clothes and jewelry for magazines to advertise certain brands and promote themselves to movie studios and executives. Once an actress signed a contract with a movie studio, they starred exclusively in that studio's movies for a fixed period. Photographs of a movie’s leading actor and actress were used as promotional materials for the movie and the movie studio.
The Tom Clareson Collection of Hollywood Actress Stock and Promotional Photographs contains 44 black and white and color photographs of Hollywood actresses, dated 1939-1971. More than half of the photographs have captions that includes the name of the actress, the name of the movie, the studio that produced the movie, and a description of the scene depicted in the photograph. Actresses identified in these photographs are: Paulette Goddard, Danielle Darrieux, Dolores del Rio, Rita Moreno, Lilli Palmer, and Cybill Shepherd.