Scope and Content Note
The papers of Sam Jaffe (1891-1984) span the years 1915-1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1925 to 1984. The collection includes correspondence, writings, and miscellaneous material relating to the life and work of an actor whose career on stage and screen lasted over six decades.
A major portion of the papers consists of correspondence between Jaffe and fellow actors, artists, writers, directors, composers, and other friends and coworkers from the 1920s until his death in 1984. Jaffe’s wives, the actress and singer Lillian Taiz, and the actress Bettye Ackerman, who costarred with him on the television series “Ben Casey,” also feature prominently in the letters. Correspondents include James Cagney, James T. Farrell, John Garfield, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Philip Loeb, Ferenc Molnár, Zero Mostel, Erwin Piscator, Max Reinhardt, Edward G. Robinson, Ezra Stone, and Thornton Wilder. Several letters from Zero Mostel are illustrated with self-portraits. Among the correspondents are entertainers accused of being communists and blacklisted in the 1940s and 1950s. Drafts of Jaffe’s letters are often written on the back of script pages.
Jaffe’s writings include tributes to his lifelong friend, Edward G. Robinson, an account of rehearsing a play with Max Reinhardt, and an analysis of William Shakespeare’s character Shylock. Among the miscellany are files on Jaffe’s experience as an actor blacklisted by the film industry after receiving a subpoena from the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and material about the Equity Library Theatre which he founded with George Freedley in 1943. Also included is an appraiser’s inventory of Jaffe’s papers compiled while the material was still in the possession of Bettye Ackerman Jaffe. Not all of the items inventoried were received by the Library of Congress.