Scope and Content Note
The papers of Hume Cronyn (1911-2003) and Jessica Tandy (1909-1994) span the years 1885-2007 with the bulk of the material covering the period 1935-2000. The papers are organized into two parts with subjects, correspondents, and time periods common to both parts. The papers document the lives and careers of a distinguished husband and wife acting partnership. Separately and together the two worked in various capacities for over sixty years on the Broadway and London stages, in regional theater productions and repertory companies, in films, on television, and on radio.
Part I
Part I of the Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy Papers spans the years 1885-1994 with the majority of the material concentrated in the period 1935-1993. Part I is organized into five series: Family Papers ; Annual File; Productions and Projects ; Miscellany ; and Oversize .
The Family Papers series contains correspondence between Cronyn, Tandy, and members of their families. Cronyn retained typescript copies of much of his correspondence, which are filed with the incoming letters under the name of the correspondent. In addition to discussing family events and concerns, some of these letters offer details about Cronyn and Tandy's professional lives. Cronyn's letters to his sisters in the 1940s describe his thoughts about his early films, and his later letters to his children detail Cronyn and Tandy's activities. Cronyn and Tandy's letters to each other discuss projects that kept them apart, such as her work on the play A Streetcar Named Desire and the film The Birds and his work on the film Cleopatra. Letters from Tandy's mother written from London during World War II describe life during the blitz. Other material in this series includes legal records relating to divorces and family estates, scrapbooks on the career of Cronyn's father, Hume Blake Cronyn, who served as a member of the Canadian House of Commons, and a copy of the diary of Tandy's brother, Edward James Tandy, who was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in World War II.
The Annual File contains yearly correspondence and subject files apparently maintained by Cronyn's secretary. The bulk of these files covers the years of Cronyn and Tandy's marriage and relates to their personal and professional activities and contacts. Hume Cronyn is the main correspondent, although his letters and memoranda often describe Tandy's activities and concerns as well. Files on agents, motion picture studios, publicists, theatrical organizations, lawyers, accountants, and office staff document different aspects of Cronyn and Tandy's careers. Correspondence with friends and professional contacts is filed in individual alphabetical files for each year. Subjects include optioning one-act plays by Tennessee Williams in 1941 for fifty dollars a month, files from 1955 in which Cronyn refuted charges that caused him to be blacklisted, and Cronyn and Tandy's support for regional theater such as the founding of the Guthrie Theater and their work as the first members of Tyrone Guthrie's Minnesota Theatre Co. Prominent correspondents include Richard L. Coe, Cheryl Crawford, Sir John Gielgud, Jerome Hellman, Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Robert Whitehead, Cronyn's cousin.
The Productions and Projects series relates to Cronyn and Tandy's professional endeavors. The material is organized into sections on films, radio, television, theater, writings, and miscellaneous productions and projects. Within these sections, material is arranged by title of the work or production. Also included are “deal” memoranda which outline terms of agreements for impending film, television, and theater projects. Cronyn and Tandy's projects are filed together within each section. During the course of their careers, Cronyn and Tandy performed works from a wide range of playwrights, including Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Noël Coward, Jan de Hartog, Sean O'Casey, William Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, and Edmund Wilson. They were directed by such stage and screen directors as José Ferrer, Sir John Geilgud, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Mike Nichols, and Alan Schneider.
The largest section in this series relates to theatrical productions and contains files on plays in which Tandy and/or Cronyn performed as well as those which Cronyn directed or produced. On some projects Cronyn worked in more than one capacity, and these responsibilities are reflected in the files. For example, The Gin Game contains business and legal material relating to his work as coproducer as well as scripts and performance notes relating to the couple's work as actors. Foxfire files document the development of this play by Cronyn and Susan Cooper, the efforts to get it produced, and the collaboration between Cronyn and Tandy in performing it. There is material on all ten of the Broadway plays in which Cronyn and Tandy appeared together. Under miscellaneous plays are playbills for Jessica Tandy's early stage appearances in England.
Although it is not comprehensive, the television section documents Cronyn and Tandy's work on live dramatic anthology programs in the early years of the medium as well as their work in later years on televised film specials. There is an extensive file on their own series, The Marriage, which aired first on radio and then briefly on television. Hume Cronyn's writing projects include treatments of two Alfred Hitchcock films, Ropeand Under Capricorn. Another section in the series consists of scripts considered or read but apparently not produced. They include stage plays and screenplays, some of which relate to successful films and stage productions. Files on Tandy's work are less extensive than Cronyn's.
The Miscellany series contains a number of small sections relating to various personal and professional matters. Financial material includes records on corporations and theatrical productions in which Cronyn invested, and office material contains files maintained by office staff. Among personal files is material relating to Tandy's life prior to her marriage to Cronyn, including personal correspondence, fan mail relating to her stage performances in the 1930s, and a small amount relating to her relocation to the United States and search for employment. Residence files include records on the purchase of an island in the Bahamas, building a home there, and the construction of another dwelling years later in New York. Other sections contain material relating to the theater and over twenty-five years of correspondence between Cronyn and Tandy and their friends William H. Wright and Greta Wright.
Part II
Part II of the collection spans the years 1909-2007, with the majority of the papers concentrated in the period 1942-2000. The papers supplement files in Part I and pertain principally to Cronyn and Tandy's career in film, television, and theater. Part II is organized largely according to the arrangement of Part I and includes seven series: Family Papers ; Correspondence ; Annual File ; Productions and Projects ; Scrapbooks and Photograph Albums ; Miscellany ; and Oversize .
The Family Papers series complements the material in Part I. Included is correspondence, legal and financial papers, and school records.
The Correspondence series includes condolence letters on the death of Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn's special correspondence, and fan mail primarily relating to Jessica Tandy's performance in Driving Miss Daisy. The condolence letters include typescript copies of Hume Cronyn's acknowledgments as well as a letterbook of condolences selected by Cronyn. The bulk of this series is special correspondence comprised of unbound letters and six letterbook volumes. The letterbooks were created by Hume Cronyn and appear to have been selected from the unbound correspondence. There is an accompanying index for each letterbook volume. Though these indices are somewhat inaccurate, they provide a comprehensive list of the correspondents as well as an overview of the extent of the correspondence. Hume Cronyn used the special correspondence while writing his autobiography, A Terrible Liar, and researchers are encouraged also to consult writings by Cronyn in the Productions and Projects series. In some instances letters from the special correspondence have been removed and placed in scrapbooks. Although any removals are usually noted within the letterbook, it is recommended that researchers consult the index for oversize scrapbooks in the Scrapbooks and Photograph Albums series. While the correspondence is almost entirely Cronyn's, there are a few letters from Jessica Tandy including a letter to Marlon Brando written during the run of A Streetcar Named Desire. Notable correspondents in these letterbooks include Conrad Aiken, Alec Guinness, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Elia Kazan, Mike Nichols, Sean O'Casey, Sir Laurence Olivier, Eli Wallach, and Tennessee Williams. Notable correspondents in the unbound letters include Ludwig Bemelmans, Marlon Brando, Jan de Hartog, José Ferrer, John Gielgud, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Thornton Wilder. Researchers should also consult the Annual File series in Part I and Part II for additional correspondence.
The Annual File in Part II contains yearly correspondence and subject files relating chiefly to Cronyn's and Tandy's personal and professional activities and contacts. Prominent correspondents include Alec Guinness, Zoë Dominic, Roddy McDowall, Mike Nichols, Charles Nelson Reilly, Lynn Slotkin, and Sigourney Weaver.
The Productions and Projects series complements and mirrors the arrangement in Part I. This series includes Cronyn and Tandy's film, radio, television, and theater contracts, correspondence, costume sketches, playbills, publicity materials, and shooting schedules. There are photographs for almost every production. The series also includes comprehensive material relating to the development and writing of Cronyn's autobiography, A Terrible Liar, including background material, correspondence, drafts, and photo layout.
The Scrapbook and Photograph Album series spans the years 1935-1991 with the bulk of the material from 1954 to 1988. While the subjects include awards and professional portraits, these scrapbooks are largely personal in nature covering Cronyn and Tandy's 1965 safari in Kenya, vacations in the Bahamas, and family weddings. For scrapbooks featuring Cronyn and Tandy's professional endeavors, researchers should consult the Part II: Oversize series. This Scrapbook and Photograph Album series also includes an index for the oversize scrapbooks. This index provides a detailed account of the material for every page of each scrapbook. Researchers are encouraged to consult this index in conjunction with the indices for the letterbooks in Part II: Special Correspondence.
Subjects in the Miscellany series include awards and honors, finances, memorials, and residences. The series includes professional photographs and the planning materials for Jessica Tandy's memorial in 1994. The photographs in the office file are organized as received.
The majority of Oversize material consists of scrapbooks documenting Cronyn and Tandy's careers in film, television, and theater. The scrapbooks contain a wealth of anecdotes from rehearsal and performance as well as correspondence, photographs, reviews, telegrams, and other ephemera. Scrapbook N for A Streetcar Named Desire includes correspondence to Hume Cronyn from Tennessee Williams regarding casting Jessica Tandy as Blanche and a disagreement with Tandy over a Thomas Hart Benton painting of the cast. Scrapbook DD for the 1965 John Gielgud-directed production of Hamlet, contains several pages of notes from Gielgud to Richard Burton on his performance of the title character. Also in Oversize are photographs documenting various productions and professional portraits by such photographers as G. Maillard Kesslere, Tony V. Hauser, and Editta Sherman.