ONE-OF-A-KIND ARCHIVE OF DOCUMENTS IN WHICH FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AGREES TO A PROPOSED FILM ABOUT HIS LIFE
AMAZING ARCHIVE OF MATERIALS ASSOCIATED WITH A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. An extensive archive, including contracts and related correspondence for the proposed film about Wright’s life entitled ‘Master Builder’, comprising:
[CONTRACTS]. Typed document signed (“Frank Lloyd Wright,” “William Wesley Peters,” Cary Caraway,” and “Rodney Griffiths”). Chicago, 22 April 1955. 2 pages, staple-bound to a thick blue back cover page.
An agreement between the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Endowment Fund for the Endowment Fund to acquire the rights to Frank Lloyd Wright’s life story as published in his autobiography. SIGNED BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Carey Caraway with the embossed seals of the Foundation and the Endowment Fund. [With:] Typed document, with pencil emendations in an unknown hand. 2 pages, staple-bound to a thick blue back cover page. An annotated draft of the contract.
[Also with:] Two typed letters signed from Michael Ludmer of the Jaffe Agency to representatives of the Frank Lloyd Wright Endowment Fund, 1956, regarding the making of Master Builder. With four typescript copies of responses from Cary Caraway to the Jaffe Agency and John Huston. Along with a photostat copy of an introduction and synopsis for the proposed film, Master Builder, written by Meyer Levin. 14pp., 30-hole punched in left margin, bound with brads in a “Famous Artists Corporation” folder.
It appears that a film about Frank Lloyd’s life story would have to wait over 40 years when Ken Burns would produce the documentary, “Frank Lloyd Wright “ for PBS.
According to Burns, “Frank Lloyd Wright tells the story of the greatest of all American architects. Wright was an authentic American genius, a man who believed he was destined to redesign the world, creating everything anew. Over the course of his long career, he designed over eight hundred buildings, including such revolutionary structures as the Guggenheim Museum, the Johnson Wax Building, Fallingwater, Unity Temple and Taliesin. His buildings and his ideas changed the way we live, work and see the world around us.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural achievements were often overshadowed by the turbulence of his melodramatic life. In ninety-two tempestuous years, he fathered seven children, married three times, and was almost constantly embroiled in scandal. Some hated him, some loved him, and in the end, few could deny that he was the one of the most important architects in the world.”
The “Frank Lloyd Wright” documentary premiered on PBS on November 10, 1998.
Provenance : The Caraway Family
