The papers of Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987) span the years 1740-1987, with the bulk of the material dating from 1906 to 1987. They document the life and work of this innovative stage and film director who interacted with major figures in the arts and entertainment of the twentieth century. Mamoulian's Armenian heritage and his contacts with other Armenians is also well documented. The papers are primarily in English, but also contain material in Russian and Armenian. The collection is organized into the following series: Family and Personal File, Diaries and Diary Notes, General Correspondence, Productions and Projects, Speeches and Writings, Subject File, Miscellany, Oversize, and Artifacts.

Family papers are a significant part of the Family and Personal File. Much of the material relating to Mamoulian's parents is written in Russian or Armenian. Included in the family correspondence are letters in Russian from Rouben to his parents during his early years in the United States. His mother, Virginie, was an actress and director of the Armenian theater in Tiflis, Georgia. Later, his parents were active members of the Armenian community in California. The Virginie Mamoulian files contain information on her life and career as well as material she compiled relating to her son. Included in her notebooks are her autobiography and notes on Rouben's life. Items relating to Mamoulian's wife, Azadia, concern her work as a portrait painter as well as her life with Rouben.

Personal files provide information on the Mamoulians' home, the cats that featured prominently in their household, and their social life. Files pertaining to his employees contain correspondence from personal secretaries describing household activities and business conducted in his absence. Address books and party guest books list Mamoulian's extensive personal and professional contacts. Notes on his book collection are also in this series.

A series of Diaries and Diary Notes covers over sixty years in Mamoulian's life, but the material varies from extensive personal and office diaries to listings of appointments and engagements to jotted notes. A few diaries appear to have been maintained by secretaries. Some of the most extensive coverage dates from the 1950s and 1960s.

The General Correspondence series documents Mamoulian's relationships with friends and colleagues from the theater and motion picture industries as well as a wide variety of artists, writers, publishers, conductors, publicists, attorneys, and admirers. Correspondents include filmmakers from around the world and people who shared his Armenian heritage. The most extensive correspondence, spanning sixty years, is with the author Paul Horgan. Articles by Horgan describing his impressions of Mamoulian at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s can be found in the Subject File.

The Productions and Projects series documents the range of Mamoulian's professional career, though the quantity of material pertaining to each production varies. Scripts for many of his productions have been signed by the cast. Scrapbooks devoted to multiple productions are located in the Miscellany series.

Files focusing on Mamoulian's work as a film director span from the early days of sound when he made his first film, Applause , a musical, until 1961, when he resigned as director of Cleopatra . He is credited with innovations in sound, camera technique, and the use of color in film. Among the actors and actresses that Mamoulian directed in films were Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Linda Darnell, Marlene Dietrich, Irene Dunne, Greta Garbo, William Holden, Miriam Hopkins, Ida Lupino, Jeannette MacDonald, Fredric March, Tyrone Power, Mickey Rooney, and Randolph Scott, Elizabeth Taylor, and Gene Tierney. Mamoulian's attention to every aspect of his films and his conflicts with movie studio executives is evident in the papers. Cleopatra is the film with the largest amount of material, although much of the focus of these files is not reflected in the finished film because the script, sets, costumes, and lead actors were replaced after he resigned.

Files relating to Mamoulian's stage productions span from 1922 to the 1950s. Mamoulian's association with the Theatre Guild is well documented, starting with his first Broadway hit, Porgy , and including George Gershwin's folk opera based on that play, Porgy and Bess , as well as the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960) musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel . Among the Porgy and Bess material is a scrapbook containing letters from George Gershwin, telegrams, and press clippings, and a copy of Gershwin's score. Other files on the Theatre Guild are located in the Subject File. Mamoulian directed four stage productions with African-American casts, Porgy , Porgy and Bess , St. Louis Woman , and Lost in the Stars . Correspondence and stage managers reports from the latter production describe the racial segregation encountered while touring the country. Among the actors and actresses who appeared in Mamoulian's stage productions are Pearl Bailey, Richard Bennett, Jan Clayton, Alfred Drake, Todd Duncan, Bette Davis, Nanette Fabray, Georgette Harvey, June Havoc, Elissa Landi, Alfred Lunt, Nazimova, John Raitt, and Joan Roberts.

Mamoulian's collaborations with Maxwell Anderson included developing a film version of Carmen that never came to fruition and writing a script for a modern-day version of Faust called Devil's Hornpipe that was later sold and adapted for the film Never Steal Anything Small . Files related to these works are located in the “various other projects” grouping in the Productions and Projects series. Also in this grouping are projects that Mamoulian considered but did not undertake. A section of miscellaneous scripts and stories contains scripts by Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, William Saroyan, H. G. Wells, and Tennessee Williams, among others.

The Speeches and Writings series contains articles and essays with titles such as “The World's Latest Fine Art,” “Treatment of Light and Color in Films,” “Bernhardt versus Duse,” and “Stage and Screen;” book files for Mamoulian's two published books, as well as an autobiographical project entitled, “The Art of Gods and Monkeys,” that he did not complete; and poems written in Russian and in English. Among the notes and jottings section are notebooks containing notes in Russian on the theater and texts of letters written when he was living in London. Speeches, lectures, and remarks cover topics such as D. W. Griffith, Hamlet , critics, and his films.

The Subject File focuses on people, organizations, and topics of interest to Mamoulian. One of the largest of the files pertains to Mamoulian's participation in the Directors Guild of America starting with its founding. Files on the Eastman School of Music document Mamoulian's earliest activities in the United States. Included is extensive press coverage of his direction of operas, operettas, and stage productions for the National American Opera Company and his founding of the Eastman School of the Dance and Dramatic Action at the school. Additional material on some of these productions is in the Productions and Projects series. A subject category titled “screenings, film festivals, and other engagements” treats Mamoulian's participation in film festivals and retrospectives of his work in the last decades of his life. A file on the USSR highlights Mamoulian's connections with the film industry in the Soviet Union, and other files contain his notes and writings on topics central to his work.

In the Miscellany series is an autograph book containing comments and drawings from the 1930s from a wide range of prominent individuals. Memorabilia from Mamoulian's life from childhood through the 1940s is included in two scrapbooks. Loose scrapbook material supplements these volumes. Other scrapbooks pertain to his film and stage productions, primarily from the 1930s. The volume relating to his films from 1931 and 1932 contain the most substantive material. Mamoulian's creativity is evident in two volumes he prepared for his wife. One features poetry, photographs, and portraits of Azadia made from collages of items such as flowers, stamps, and playing cards. His hobby of pressing flowers is represented with a sample of the flowers and leaves that were pressed in Mamoulian's books, magazines, and other printed matter. He used some of the pressed flowers to create the portraits of Azadia. Framed flower portraits and magazine articles depicting them in Mamoulian's home are included. Also in this series are originals of historic documents concerned mainly with slavery, Benito Mussolini, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Walt Whitman.

A small group of artifacts includes keepsakes from Applause and Carousel and a cigarette case given to him by Marlene Dietrich.