Moguls, Millionaires & Movie Stars: Hollywood Between the Wars, 1920-1940

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in partnership with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, is pleased to present this major conference exploring the history of Hollywood and the film industry in the critical decades between World War I and World War II.

The conference will be held at the Huntington Library in San Marino on Friday and Saturday, May 30 and 31. Scheduled lectures and panels will feature film and other experts discussing such topics as the ascension of the studio system; the careers and lives of moguls Joseph P. Kennedy, Howard Hughes and William Randolph Hearst; the art and architectural connoisseurship of film industry titans; the creation of the Academy; the historical and personal connections between vaudeville and early Hollywood; and a retrospective look at Citizen Kane.

Panelists and presenters include film writers Richard Schickel and David Thomson; USC professors Leo Braudy and Steve Ross; Academy President Sid Ganis; Academy research archivist Barbara Hall; and film historians Samantha Barbas, Cari Beauchamp, Taylor Coffman, Neal Gabler and Emily Thompson.

As part of the conference, the Academy will host a dinner and a screening of A Star Is Born (1937) on Friday, May 30, at 6 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. All conference registrants will be welcome to attend the dinner and screening.

Conference Program
(All daytime events held on site at Friends Hall)

Friday, May 30

8:30-9:00 a.m.
Coffee and Pastries

9:00-9:15
Welcome and Introduction
Bill Deverell

9:15-10:30
Panel 1
The Patrician Moguls: W. R. Hearst, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Howard Hughes
Taylor Coffman
Cari Beauchamp
Pat Broeske
Moderator: Patt Morrison

10:30
Break

10:45-12:00
Panel 2
Looking Westward: The New York and Vaudeville Connection
Armond Fields
Eve Golden
Moderator: Bill Deverell

12:00-1:00 p.m.
Lunch
Friends Hall Terrace

1:15-2:30
Panel 3
Imperial Hollywood: The Studios Ascendant
Samantha Barbas
Neal Gabler
Richard Schickel
Moderator: Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times

2:30
Break

2:45-4:00
Panel 4
Film Lumineux: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Introduction by Sid Ganis, President AMPAS
Barbara Hall
Emily Thompson
Moderator: Steve Ross

6:00-7:30 p.m.
Catered Dinner
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Pickford Center; Linwood Dunn Theater

7:30
Film Screening
A Star is Born (1937)
Linwood Dunn Theater

Saturday, May 31

8:30-9:00 a.m.
Coffee and Pastries

9:00
Welcome
William R. Hearst III

9:15-10:30
Panel 5
From L.A. to the World: Hollywood in Radio and in the Daily Press
Rob Leicester Wagner
Dennis McDougal
Robert Gottleib
Moderator: John Horn

10:30
Break

10:45-12:00
Panel 6
Park Avenue Gone West: Hollywood Builds and Collects
Mary Levkoff
Sam Watters
Janet Fireman
Moderator: Taylor Coffman

12:00-1:15 p.m.
Lunch
Friends Hall Terrace

1:30-2:45
Panel 7
Citizen Kane in Retrospect
Leo Braudy and David Thomson
In Conversation

2:45
Break

3:00-4:00
Wrap-up
Interwar Hollywood and California History: Where Do We Go From Here?
Kevin Starr