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NLA News - home June 2005 Volume XV Number 9

The J.C. Williamson Collection of Photographs
A Visual Record of Popular Theatre

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A scene from Dear Charles: with Fenella Maguire, Ellis Irving, Clement McCallin, Tony Thornton, Alexander Archdale, Sophie Stewart (on ladder), June Brown and Michael Plant, 1954
b&w photograph; 17.1 x 24.2 cm
Pictures Collection
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John Thomson reveals a treasure trove of theatrical imagery in the Library’s Collection

In 1976 Australia’s leading theatrical firm of J.C. Williamson ceased trading. ‘The Firm’ had been founded by the American actor James Cassius Williamson in 1882 and became one of the largest theatrical organisations in the world. It dominated Australian theatre for nearly 100 years, and has a major place in Australia’s performing arts history. The Sydney base was Her Majesty’s Theatre and with the theatre up for sale, the National Library negotiated to buy the contents of the office.

It is a massive collection, much of which is now housed in the Manuscripts Collection. The material includes 339 boxes of playscripts and opera libretti, financial papers (including a salary book for all J.C. Williamson Australian and New Zealand productions for 1933–1943), general correspondence, contracts and agreements with a range of artists, and technical notes, scrapbooks and career files. There is a large amount of published and unpublished music, including full sets of orchestral parts for many shows, now housed in the Library’s Music Collection. Also included was a large set of programs, which have become part of the Library’s PROMPT Collection.

Costume and set designs, and photographs of productions, are housed in the Library’s Pictures Collection. Little work however had been done on the collection of photographs since it was acquired; its contents were not well known. To remedy this, a colleague, Richard Stone, and I have been working on the Williamson photographic collection as volunteers for the past two years.

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Evie Hayes at a publicity function during the run of Annie Get Your Gun, c.1950
b&w photograph; 17.4 x 24.4 cm
Pictures Collection
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This task has involved working through the five filing-cabinet drawers of photographs—identifying the production, checking the J.C. Williamson programs in the PROMPT Collection for casts and dates, identifying all performers where possible, and giving each photograph a unique accession number to make access easier. We compiled a table containing all the information about each photograph, including details of programs that are held in the PROMPT Collection. Two parts of the Library’s Collection are therefore being linked in one record. From the compiled table, a catalogue record for each photograph will be constructed, and available through the Library’s catalogue. The digitisation of a sample 100 photographs has been completed and more will be digitised as part of an ongoing project. The J.C. Williamson photographs join an increasing amount of the Library’s performing arts material available in this form—such as an extensive collection of performance photographs by Sydney photographer Don McMurdo, a recently acquired collection on noted director and designer Robin Lovejoy, as well as all the dance material that has been digitised by the AustraliaDancing project.

The process of working through the Williamson photographs has been a long one. In most cases the productions had been kept together, but there are a few unidentified productions. Some performers are already identified on the back of the photograph, but many are not. Identification is not an easy task, and requires some inventive detective work. Photographs in programs are the best source. Occasionally newspaper reports, production scripts or other sources have been consulted. For example, trying to identify performers in the 1963 production of Noddy in Toyland caused us to read Enid Blyton’s popular children’s stories. A few times we have sent photocopies to the original performer, asking for their assistance. Changes of cast which were brought about by longs runs or tours are another problem. Altogether, My Fair Lady had five different performers playing the role of Henry Higgins, and three who played Eliza Doolittle. Often with a successful production and a long tour, the imported stars departed when their contracts ran out, and Australians then took over the leads. For example, after its eastern states’ tour with its original cast, Can Can reached Perth in 1958 with Jill Perryman and Bill Newman playing the leads. Despite our best efforts, in the end it is sometimes impossible to identify all the performers, especially in the case of chorus members.

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Hal Williamson A scene from Follow the Girls, 1946, showing (left to right): Lois Green, unidentified man, Don Nicol and Charles Crawford
b&w photograph; 17.6 x 24.4 cm
Pictures Collection
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So far, 2625 photographs of 152 productions have been processed, with approximately 60 productions remaining. There are also two filing-cabinet drawers of approximately 460 portraits of actors and actresses still to be worked on. With only 210 productions represented in the collection, it is obviously only a very small sample of the thousands of productions which Williamsons actually produced over the years. There are photographs from a range of years, with the emphasis on the later years—50 per cent are from the 1950s and 60s. So far, only one 19th-century photograph has been found—from Ma Mie Rosette (1894), starring Nellie Stewart.

James Cassius Williamson’s personal taste was for popular entertainment to be enjoyed by everyone—rather than theatre which was a forum for debate on moral, political or social issues. This philosophy lasted throughout The Firm’s long history. Nearly half the photographs are of musicals, operettas, variety shows and comedies. Musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Oklahoma! and Fiddler on the Roof are represented. These shows were enormous successes for Williamsons, and ran for several years, touring all around Australia and New Zealand. Most successful of all was My Fair Lady, which opened in Melbourne in 1959. After 15 months with its popularity showing no signs of waning, Williamsons took the unprecedented step of mounting a complete second production for Sydney. Touring all round Australia and New Zealand, and with return seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, it ran for a total of five years. Light comedies represented in the Williamson photographic collection include Beekman Place (1965), Arsenic and Old Lace (1943–44), Born Yesterday (1948–49) and Move Over Mrs Markham (1971–72).

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S.J. Hood
The Band of the Royal Australian Artillery leads the Band of His Majesty’s Grenadier Guards into Martin Place, Sydney, for a ceremony at the Cenotaph, 8 November 1934
Pictures Collection
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The majority of the photographs in the collection are black and white, and most are posed photographs taken during final dress rehearsals. They were used primarily for publicity, and displayed in cases outside the theatre and in the foyer—as evidenced by the pinholes left in them. There are also proof sheets and photographs that have various marks on them to indicate cropping and editing for use in programs and other publications. There are a small number of rehearsal shots, and shots of staged publicity events, audiences and theatre interiors. With the large number of productions, cast changes and other publicity needs, The Firm provided a lot of business for photographers in various cities, including well-known practitioners such as Sam Hood, Athol Shmith and Laurence Le Guay.

When Williamsons bought the rights to a production, it usually included the whole package to put on the show—including sets, costumes, imported director and ‘stars’. There are many examples of photographs of overseas productions, including 12 photographs of the 1966 Broadway production of Mame, which was a star vehicle for Angela Lansbury. The Australian production starred Gaylea Byrne. On Broadway the melodrama The Great Sebastians starred the celebrated American husband-and-wife team Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The 1958 Australian production starred Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott—and with photographs of both productions in the collection, it is possible to compare sets and costumes. There are also photographs of Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford in the 1945 film version of Blithe Spirit, which were perhaps used as reference for The Firm’s production of the drama.

There are also several examples in the collection of photographs for which no Australian production can be found: for instance there are nine photographs of the lavish 1903 New York production of Babes in Toyland, but no evidence has been found that Williamsons ever presented this show in Australia. In 1964 The Firm decided to mount a production of Lerner and Lowe’s musical Camelot. There was criticism of the design of the American production, and it was decided to start from scratch for the one in Australia. The design was given to a promising young Australian designer, John Truscott, who produced a spectacular production. So successful were his results that when Robert Helpmann was engaged to direct the show in London, he chose to use Truscott’s designs. Truscott subsequently went on to design the Hollywood film, for which he won two Academy Awards. This milestone for Australian theatre designers is represented by 37 photographs of Camelot in the Williamson collection.

J.C. Williamson himself initiated the policy of importing top overseas performers and the best of entertainment for the enjoyment of Australian audiences. The practice continued throughout the history of The Firm, although there was often criticism of the quality of some of the ‘stars’. Portraits of some undoubted stars in the collection include Victor Borge, Maurice Chevalier, Victoria de los Angeles, Joyce Grenfell, Cicely Courtneidge, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Handl and Ralph Richardson. Companies such as the Ballet Folklorico Mexico (1972), the Great Moscow Circus (1965, 1971), the Black Theatre of Prague (1964, 1976), Luisillo and his Spanish Dance Theatre (1956, 1976), the Jacques Loussier Trio (1974), the New York City Ballet (1958), and the Band of His Majesty’s Grenadier Guards (1934) all toured to Australia under the Williamson banner, and all are represented in the collection.

The photographs in the J.C. Williamson collection are an invaluable part of Australia’s performing arts heritage. With the work being done, and the use of new technology, they are becoming more accessible and provide a rich visual record of Williamson productions seen and enjoyed by millions of Australians.

JOHN THOMSON is a former arts librarian. He is currently a consultant on ephemera and performing arts resources

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