Film and Theater

From Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures) to Louis B. Mayer (MGM) to Cecil B. DeMille to David Selznick, and from the Marx Brothers and Paul Muni to Sid Caesar and Lauren Bacall, Jews have been essential to the fantasy worlds of the stage and the silver screen, from vaudeville to Hollywood. The creation and shaping of Hollywood was a substantially Jewish enterprise as Jewish film producers, directors and actors created “an empire of their own,” in the words of film historian Neil Gabler.
Closeup of the proposed building site

From Woody Allen and Stephen Spielberg to Cary Grant and Paul Newman, from Barbra Streisand to Goldie Hawn, this tradition has been carried forward to the present day.

The Museum’s film and theater department will offer an exhibition of memorabilia, computer listening terminals at which visitors may listen to passages from their favorite old radio shows, and viewing booths in which scores of vintage television shows and significant cinematic performances can be enjoyed. Related Programs will include film and theater festivals that sweep through a century of cinematic accomplishments, and centuries of significant drama, from the tragic to the comic.