Women in Entertainment Resources in Library Special Collections

LSC is committed to remediating harmful description by creating and implementing an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. We aim to:

• Be clear about what we know, how we know it, and what we don't know
• Embrace baseline description as a tool to improve the discoverability of all our materials
• Demonstrate an understanding that description is a continuous and necessarily iterative endeavor

Read more about our past and current approaches to description in Toward Ethical and Inclusive Descriptive Practices in UCLA Library Special Collections.

The UCLA Library Special Collections holds a large number of primary source materials pertaining to women in the entertainment industry. This guide is intended as a starting place to point researchers to these materials and also serves as a basic orientation on using Library Special Collections holdings.

The RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Studios Collection includes payroll cards for all studio employees.

Look at the wages these women made way back then!

Here you will find information about archival collections of papers belonging to specific women in the entertainment industry.

Fanny Brice, c. 1938	Rosalind Russell	Vanessa Brown	Hedy Lamarr	Hattie McDaniel

Bette Midler with Phyllis Diller

Women comedians are represented in individual collections pertaining to a single individual as is seen in the Carol Burnett Papers, or the Phyllis Diller Papers. They can also be represented as parts of larger collections such as the Hal Goodman Papers, or the Jack Benny Papers.  For instances such as these, search the full name of the individual in quotation marks in the Online Archive of California.

Women comedians within other collections include:

Edie Adams, Gracie Allen, Eve Arden, Bea Arthur, Lucille Ball, Roseanne Barr, Nora Bayes, Joh Behar, Sandra Bernhard, Peggy Bernier, Elayne Boosler, Chelsea Brown, Sandra Bullock, Ruth Buzzi, Carol Channing, Charo, Cher, Kate Clinton, Imogene Coca, Cass Daley, Joan Davis, Sandy Duncan, Barbara Eden, Nanette Fabray, Totie Fields, Estelle Getty, Whoopie Goldberg, Valerie Harper, Goldie Hawn, Vicki Lawrence, Cloris Leachman, Mary Livingstone, Moms Mabley, Mary Mack, Shirley MacLaine, Andrea Martin, Elaine May, Hattie McDaniel, Bette Midler, Mary Tyler Moore, Polly Moran, Julie Newmar, LaWanda Page, Minnie Pearl, Zasu Pitts, Gilda Radner, Martha Raye, Joan Rivers, Rita Rudner, Lily Tomlin, Sophie Tucker, Marcia Wallace, Mae West, and Betty White.

Dorothy Jeakins

Library Special Collections holds many collections pertaining to women in design. Selections include:

         Florence Strauss

Library Special Collections holds a large amount of archival collections pertaining to women musicians. A selection of collections follow:

                                                 Paul Spitalny and his all-girl orchestra of the "Hour of Charm"