Russell Hartley 1922–1983

Abstract

Russell Hartley, curator of the Archives for the Performing Arts, died in a San Francisco hospital October 4, aged 61. Thus his unique confluence of personal artistry, a passionate devotion to Bay Area theatrical history, a fund of personal anecdote and experience, and his single-minded devotion for the perpetuation of a collection commenced forty years ago, passes into its own special historical niche with Russell's death. When Russell Hartley was a boy, his father used to tell him stories about supplying the hardware for the eccentric Mrs. Winchester whose continual building of a never-to-be-completed house is preserved for public view today in San Jose as the Winchester Mystery House. As an adult, Russell translated this fascination with local folklore into the amassing of a collection which, in 1979, comprised 2000 books, 8000 periodicals, 4000 slides, 5000 negatives, 10,000 pieces of sheet music, 2000 posters, 250 phonograph records, many of them 78s, 25,000 historical photographs, 10,000 stills from the San Francisco Ballet, 10,000 movie stills (many from the Sid Grauman Collection), 12,000 theatrical prints, 500 artifacts; 250 costumes and 90 cartons of then unsorted material. Prime among the Archives accomplishments were 50,000 newspaper clippings assembled into binders to chronicle the daily life of San Francisco's theatrical history from 1849 onward. Richard E.