The University of Iowa Libraries
Special Collections and University Archives
Finding Aid
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Marion Meade Woody Allen Research Files Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research. Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department. Copyright: Please read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished Materials. Use of Collections: The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement. Acquisition and Processing Information: Gift of Marion Meade, 2006. Photographs: Box 3 |
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Scope and Contents
Files created by Marion Meade in writing The Unruly Life of Woody Allen (New York: Scribner, 2000), this collection includes transcripts of interviews; tapes of interviews; correspondence with people in Allen's life and people at Scribner's preparing the book; chapter notes; a copy-edited manuscript of the book; and various other files relating to the creation of the book. For the most part, these folders have been left in the order in which Meade delivered them to us and with the labels she created.
Biographical Note
Marion Meade's previous biography subjects include Eleanor of Acquitane, Madame Blavatsky, Victoria Woodhull, Dorothy Parker, and Buster Keaton. (The Special Collections Department also has the research files for Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase.) Meade studied at Northwestern University and holds a Master's degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She has contributed articles to The New York Times and The Village Voice, in addition to writing two novels. She lives in New York City.
J. Roethler, August 2007
Box Contents List
Box 1
Series I: The Films of Woody Allen
Film critic interviews. Transcripts/logs of author's taped personal interviews with John Simon, Roger Ebert, Stanley Kauffmann, et al.
Clippings, notes, and miscellaneous other materials for each of Allen's films, filed chronologically
Pussycat/Tiger Lily
Check It Out
Take the Money and Run
Bananas
Play It Again Sam
Everything You Always Wanted to Know. . .
Sleeper
Love and Death
Annie Hall
Interiors
Manhattan
Stardust Memories
Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
Zelig
Purple Rose of Cairo
Hannah and Her Sisters
Radio Days and September
Another Woman
Broadway Danny Rose
New York Stories and Crimes and Misdemeanors
Alice
Shadows and Fog
Husbands and Wives
Manhattan Murder
Bullets Over Broadway
Mighty Aphrodite
Everyone Says I Love You
Deconstructing Harry
Celebrity and Antz
Wild Man Blues (A film about Allen by Barbara Kopple)
Fall project/jazz film, 1998 -- 1999 (Swee and Lowdown)
Books Meade used and marked in her research
Series II: The Life of Woody Allen
“Woody Allen Timeline”—blue notebook chronicling subject’s life events, beginning with family history pre-1935 to 2000.
Chronological folders, 1935 (birth) to 2000 (book publication date). Years 1935 -- 1979 in Box 1
Some years include copies of correspondence, for example:
1963 -- Woody to Alvah Bessie (blacklisted screenwriter)
1964 -- Woody to Rogers Whittaker, New Yorker magazine editor
1967--Woody –Groucho Marx correspondence; Margo Howard (see also interview in “Women/Louise Lasser” folder)
1971 -- Woody Allen to Roger Angell (New Yorker magazine editor)
1973 -- Woody to Reginald Rose (television writer, producer)
1979 -- Correspondence for Bob Hope interview, arranged and conducted by Sue Terry
1986 -- Woody and Mia Farrow to Vladimir and Wanda Horowitz
Box 2
Chronological folders, 1980 -- 2000
Series III: Interviews
Clippings of Woody Allen published interviews, by decade:
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990
Marion Meade personal interviews. For a list of people Meade interviewed, see Interviewees for Woody Allen biography
“Interview Log” -- orange notebook, listing names of interviewees and dates of interviews
Two boxes of audio cassette tapes
Box 3
Celebrity Address List
Author correspondence with interviewees
Transcripts, logs, notes. Certain transcripts, however, are filed separately under Subjects. For example:
“Tamiment Playhouse” folder includes interview transcripts for Mary Rodgers (composer), Jane Connell (actress)
“Childhood/ Brooklyn” includes correspondence and interview logs for Allen’s boyhood friends.
(Film critics are filed in Box 1 along with film folders)
(There are no audio tapes for Helen Gurley Brown, Kitty Carlisle Hart, or William Buckley, Jr. -- only written notes made during phone conversations.)
Genealogy
Series IV: Subject Folders
Tamiment Playhouse
Residences, childhood to 2000, including some photos. 2 folders
Comedy
Theater/TV -- including extensive material on Allen’s stage play Central Park West, (1995), and correspondence/interview with director Michael Blakemore
Literary -- His humorous writings, mostly pertaining to his work for The New Yorker and including correspondence with editor Roger Angell
Making films
New York filming
Other filmmakers
Music -- information on his career as clarinetist
Clippings
Odds and Ends about Woody Allen
Women -- wives Harlene Rosen and Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Soon-Yi Previn
Bobby Zarem (publicist) and Elaine Kaufman (restaurateur) -- individuals in Allen's inner circle
Sports
Allen Film Company business files, with transcripts of interviews with executives at various production companies, such as Orion, Tristar, etc.
"Rosebud " -- author analysis of subject
Jean Doumanian -- Allen’s closest friend, producer
Box 4
Woody and Blacks
Woody’s Judaism
"Sixty Minutes” CBS-TV program, including author interview, etc. with Steve Kroft
Woody’s Writers
Allen character, personality, psychology
Brooklyn -- including interviews with boyhood friends Jack Victor, Jack Freed, Elliott Mills, Alan Lapidus, et al.
Family
Woody and Women
Series V: Author Correspondence
Interview request letters, some with clippings and research material attached
Accordion folder containing written responses from those who received interview requests. Including, for example, Swedish actor Max von Sydow and American actor Tony Roberts.
Folder labeled Mel Brooks, Pat Boone, Lee Israel. Includes letter from biographer Lee Israel.
Blue Folder and Yellow Folder labeled “Inner Circle” -- contains author correspondence with Woody Allen; his producer, Jean Doumanian; his former assistant, Jane Martin; his friend, Marshall Brickman.
New York Times Book Review: responses to published author’s query
Series VI: Research files
Acknowledgements
Author’s working notebooks
Books and articles to get
Box 5
Filmography
Newsreels
Notes, schedules, lists, memos
Photocopied book -- Diane Jacobs’s But We Need the Eggs: The Magic of Woody Allen (New York: St. Martin’s Press, c1982). With highlighting and notes by Meade
Research operations (A file on the art of biography)
Research files. Diskettes
Copy edited manuscript
Series VII: Videos and books
Books: Copies of The Unruly Life of Woody Allen, US (Scribner, 2000); UK (Weidenfeld & Nicolson); paperback (Cooper Square Pr.); audio (Blackstone) editions; German edition; French edition
Box 6
TV interviews with Mia Farrow
"Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story” (Fox Tuesday Night Movie, 1995)
CBS-TV “Sixty Minutes” interview with Allen, November 22, 1992
Copies of selected Woody Allen films
Series VIII: Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow biographical material
Notes, interviews, memos, clippings. 3 folders
Farrow family
Kristi (Groteke) (Mia biographer) and mini series
Previn
What Falls Away (Mia's autobiography)
Legal. 3 folders
Box 7
Allen v. Farrow custody proceeding, 1993. 2 folders
Series IX: Scribner editorial and production files
Original book proposal -- including memos on publishers who turned down the idea
Correspondence with editor Jane Rosenman
Home office wall art
Working Chapter Files (may be slightly different than chapters in published book) -- includes background clippings, author’s notes and memos, notes to author from various biographers (Carl Rollyson, Amanda Vaill, Ben Yagoda, et al).
Production files
Permissions -- text
Series X: Post Publication Files
Book publicity, including, meetings, tapings, appearances
Publicity schedules
Publicity speeches
Book party
Comps
Reviews
Readers' letters
Clippings 2000 -- 2006