August 20, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  John Pavlik - (310) 247-3000

Beverly Hills, CA - A collection of more than 10,000 negatives, slides and transparencies from the career of photographer Phil Stern has been donated to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library.

The collection is housed in 10 record-storage boxes and covers Stern's "special photography," behind-the-scenes shots on sets and locations from the 1940s through the 1980s.

"I can't give a definitive number of items in the donation until we've completed an inventory," said Academy Photograph Curator Robert Cushman, "but it's an extraordinary collection from an extraordinary photographer." Cushman said it will take approximately two years for archival re-sleeving, striking of new proof sheets and the creation of a detailed inventory to be completed.

Among the dozens of motion pictures represented in the Phil Stern Collection are "The Defiant Ones," "The Magnificent Ambersons," "Sergeant York," "True Grit," "West Side Story" and "Witness for the Prosecution," while personalities such as Lauren Bacall, Jack Benny, Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood are also represented.

Stern's entrance into photography evolved from his job as a teenager during the Depression sweeping up, mixing chemicals and loading film holders in a New York photo lab. In the late 1930s, he shot photos for the Police Gazette and joined Friday magazine in 1939, becoming its Hollywood bureau chief in 1941. When the publication folded, he became a free-lancer for Life, for whom he worked for the next four decades. As an independent photographer, he also shot photos for Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post, Time and Newsweek.

A book of his photographs, "Phil Stern's Hollywood," was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1993.