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Rare
and colorful movie posters from the storied Hollywood career of Will Rogers, handsomely
organized and displayed at the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore,
Oklahoma, has been featured and exhibited nationally by the Kansas City
firm of Smith Kramer Fine Art Services.
"Will
Rogers: A Reel Retrospective" features seventy-two framed original posters
and lobby cards from the Gordon Kuntz Collection and was loaned to the
Will Rogers Memorial, where the famed humorist is entombed.
Smith Kramer, the most respected name
in travelling exhibitions, contracted with the Memorial to handle
the collection and booked it into major museums and galleries across
the United States.
"The posters and lobby cards colorfully
expose the powerful stardom of Will Rogers and the historic impact of
his 71 movies," says Joseph H. Carter, former director of the Will
Rogers Memorial.
Rogers starred in fifty silent films between 1918
and 1928 and then made twenty-one "talkies" before his death in an
airplane accident on August 15, 1935, at the age of fifty-five.
Kuntz is a native of nearby Tulsa who now lives
in Minneapolis and works as an Internet strategist. He is referred to
by Carter as "the premier assembler of the finest and most extensive
contemporary collection of original and authentic 1918-1935-era
Will Rogers movie posters and cards."
The Kuntz collection contains more than 400
posters and movie-related items. Kuntz is continually searching and
adding to his impressive harvest.
In Hollywood's halcyon days, studios shipped
their movies to theaters all across the country accompanied by 27x41-inch
display posters and 9x11-inch lobby cards. As was the practice of the
day, the promotional material then traveled with the reels as the motion picture
moved from city to city.
Many of the posters and cards, printed in eye-catching
colors and designs, have outlived the black-and-white celluloid of the
movies they heralded. And it is those surviving posters and cards that
Kuntz has been collecting and protecting since 1992.
"All the posters were considered very
temporary; they were something you used and then threw away," Kuntz
says. "They were never meant to be given to the general public.
The fact that they survived at all is just a miracle."
Kuntz discovered most of the posters through
trade auctions, often by telephone or through the mail. He specifically
targeted Rogers' posters because of his Oklahoma heritage. But that
wasn't the only reason.
"Will Rogers is somebody I personally
have a lot of respect for," Kuntz says. "And with a couple
of children myself, I wanted someone they could look up to."
Included in the Kuntz collection is an eighty-three-year-old
lobby card from Rogers' first movie, Laughing Bill Hyde,
and a poster from his first sound movie, They Had to See Paris.
"These are truly beautiful posters
depicting the exceptional antique art of the 1920s and 1930s,"
Carter says.
And
Kuntz the collector heartily agrees. "The depth of the artwork
is incredible," he said.
Kuntz
described much of the painstaking work of the stone lithographers of
the day.
Each
portion of a poster was engraved into fine-grain limestone, which was
used as a printing plate. Each color had to be done on a separate stone,
he said. Some posters easily contained ten or more colors.
 
 
Of
course, movies represented but one side of the multifaceted persona
of Will Rogers. He rose from trick roper in wild west shows to become
the top star in vaudeville. He eventually became a prized commentator
on radio and a syndicated columnist in hundreds of newspapers.
No
media of his day escaped his singularly masterful touch. He was the
voice of the common man.
All
facets of his career were remembered as "Will Rogers: A Reel
Retrospective" moved through the nation's galleries. Eight storyboards,
touching upon various segments of his personal and professional life,
were included in the exhibition. So, too, were twenty-five framed quotes for which
Rogers is best remembered, such as:
"I
don't tell jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
"I'm
not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat."
"All
I know is what I read in the papers."
But
it is Rogers' movie career that takes center stage in the exhibition
"Will Rogers: A Reel Retrospective."
He worked for the top studios and for
the legendary directors. In rarefied salute to his stature and his reputation,
the name Will Rogers always was listed above the title of the movie.
In the 1930s, he was at the top of Hollywood's box office credits and
was the industry's highest paid actor.
The
Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma, is open daily year-round.
So is the Will Rogers Birthplace and Ranch, twelve miles north of the Memorial
near the town of Oologah. For information about the Memorial and/or
the Birthplace, telephone (800) 324-9455 or (918) 341-0719.
A
good source of information on Will Rogers is the book Never Met
a Man I Didn't Like: The Life and Writings of Will Rogers, by
Joseph H. Carter, former director of the Will Rogers Memorial. The book is
available through the Will Rogers Memorial Gift Shop, (918) 343-8115.
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