How Ransom Center got ‘Mad Men’ archive
Negotiations to land vintage TV collection lasted two years.
An archive of props, clothing, scripts and abandoned story lines from a TV series might not seem at first blush to embody the literary, cultural or artistic significance of the Gutenberg Bible, Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” or any number of other holdings at the University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center.
But the “Mad Men” collection, an acquisition by the humanities research library and museum announced earlier this year, is a treasure trove in its own right, with drafts of every script for the show’s 92 episodes, giving students and scholars rare insight into “one of television’s most distinctive and influential programs from initial pitch to final edit,” as the Ransom Center’s film curator, Steve Wilson, put it.
Emails and other records obtained from UT by the American-Statesman under the Texas Public Information Act offer a kind of case study of how the archive came to be donated by Matthew Weiner, the show’s creator and executive producer, and Lions Gate Television Inc., the production company.
The records reveal an exercise in generosity, appreciation,
negotiating, explaining, gentle nudging, fine-tuning and lawyering that spanned more than two years. In a twist that was never announced
publicly, the records show that the donation included, at the request of Ransom Center officials, $100,000 in cash from Lions Gate for processing and cataloging the archive.
“Mad Men,” which ran from 2007 to 2015 on the AMC network, chronicled the professional and per
sonal lives of fictional men and women in the advertising trenches of Madison Avenue during the 1960s. The series was critically acclaimed for its nuanced
portraits of human frailty and ambition, as well as for
the high bar it set for dialogue, story arc and peri
od-correct props. Weiner broached the notion of donating the mate- rials in an October 2014 email to Wilson, writing that he was “blown away” by the Ransom Center’s “Gone with
the Wind” exhibit. “It’s my new favorite place!” Weiner said of the Ransom Center.
Scores of emails ensued, with Weiner and his representatives, Lions Gate officials and Ransom Center officials working out myriad issues. The question of a tax deduc- tion for the donation, the phrasing of legal agreements governing the gifts, whether any disputes would be settled in California courts or Texas courts, the contents and tim-
ing of a press release, the line- by-line list of materials being donated, shipping schedules — all this and more had to be hashed out.
“We want to be sure we get one of the iconic grey suits,” Wilson told Weiner at one point, referring to attire worn by Don Draper, the show’s main character, who was played by Jon Hamm. The Ransom Center got the suit.
The emails were friendly, professional, never gossipy. There is no mention of news reports in 2015 asserting that Hamm, while a UT student in 1990, allegedly participated in a violent hazing inci- dent of a Sigma Nu pledge. A criminal charge against Hamm was dismissed and expunged a few years later under deferred adjudica-
tion, a lighter form of probation. Hamm left UT during his sophomore year and the fraternity was disbanded.
Documenting the creative process
The minutiae of arranging the donation occupy hundreds of pages of records reviewed by the Statesman. But there are also passages that speak more broadly to what makes the Ransom Center’s juices flow.
It’s partly the treasure trove of artifacts — Betty Draper’s medical file and pink nightgown; Ken Cosgrove’s black eye patch; Peggy Olson’s Rolodex; Stan Rizzo’s sketch pad; Paul Kinsey’s fully developed script for a make-believe “Star Trek” episode; concept boards for a Heinz baked beans ad campaign; Draper’s copy of “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and dozens more. Especially compelling from the Ransom Center’s point of view are materials that show how the writers, designers and producers cooked up the characters, plot lines, sets and dialogue.
“The Ransom Center is a museum/archive and while we collect works of art like MOMA and cultural artifacts like the Smithsonian, our emphasis is on preserving and documenting the creative process,” Wilson told Weiner in a November 2014 email, referring to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smith- sonian Institution’s museums. “While we do museum exhibits, our main focus is scholarship and access to our materials in our reading room and by long distance by students and scholars.”
Working scripts are “very interesting” and stenographic records of story conferences are “extremely interesting,” but “the holy grail for schol- ars is correspondence,” Wilson wrote, asking Weiner to consider donating not just his emails but also his computer, whose operating system and software might be needed to open files.
In a rough analogy to the pitches that Draper made to compete for new advertising accounts, the Ransom Center asked the donors of the archive for money to under- write the cost of cataloging, preserving and otherwise processing the archive.
Emails leave the impression that raising funds to cover those costs was essential for the Ransom Center to accept the archive.
In a January 2015 email to Weiner, Wilson noted that the policy of the Ransom Center’s director, Stephen Enniss, on all new acquisi- tions “is that we have the necessary resources to make the collection accessible as quickly as possible.” Wilson added, “I don’t know if Lions Gate would be open to supplementing the dona- tion with funds, or if you or others might be in a position to help us with the costs of taking this on.”
Weiner’s reply: “Lions Gate is, um, frugal. Let’s get a number or a guess. I’m optimistic it can be surmounted.”
Later that year, in an email to Lions Gate officials, Enniss mentioned the Ransom Center’s proposal that the production company help out with funding. The com- pany wound up donating $100,000, the amount bud- geted by the Ransom Center for processing the archive.
5,000 DVDs of screen tests, extras
An “acquisition agree- ment” between UT and a company called Dinosaur Robot Inc. essentially allowed UT to clean out Weiner’s stor- age unit in Los Angeles. The California secretary of state’s office lists Weiner as the CEO, chief financial officer and secretary of Dinosaur Robot, which is based in Encino.
The goods included scripts and drafts thereof; notes; set designs; costume designs; “look books” of period fashion and style; casting mate- rials; magazines from the 1960s; characters’ statio- nery and business cards; and about 5,000 DVDs with “born-digital” materials, screen tests, gag reels and trailers — all told, 145 banker boxes of materials. Wein- er’s emails and computer weren’t included.
Under the agreement, any lawsuit between the par- ties must be filed in Travis County. And if the Ransom Center ever “deaccessions,” or removes, an item from its holdings, the item is to be returned to Weiner.
A donation agreement between the university and Lions Gate lists dozens of props, knickknacks, clothing and other items that have been conveyed to the Ransom Center. A clause states that the donation is a char- itable contribution and that UT will sign off on an Inter- nal Revenue Service form confirming receipt.
UT officials emphasized that they aren’t appraisers and can’t give tax advice. But in one email marked “for internal record purposes only,” Enniss wrote that, “based on my experience I would estimate that a quali- fied appraiser would assign a value in excess of $100,000 dollars on the recent Weiner donation of Mad Men production materials.”
Discussions on how the agreements would be worded apparently stalled at times. Ransom Center officials cited “a log jam somewhere” in an April 2016 email to Lions Gate. Three weeks later, a company official replied, “Sorry for the delay in response,” and offered word- ing for the legal agreement to make it clear that $100,000 would be donated.
Late last year, as Lions Gate was getting ready to ship its materials to UT, the Ransom Center’s associate director for acquisitions and administra- tion, Megan Barnard, invited the company to send “a 1-2 sentence quote from Lions Gate about how this gift will ensure the future study of this groundbreaking television series. We will send you a draft of the press release to review before we issue it.”
Lions Gate didn’t donate everything in its “Mad Men” holdings to UT. A sizable portion of paraphernalia from the show was put up for auction on screenbid.com, including Draper’s dark red 1964 Imperial Crown Chrys- ler convertible from Season 4 and assorted manual type- writers.
It e ms still for sale in recent days included Drap- er’s white-and-blue-checked shirt for $383.25, a rubber prop double to his roulette wheel cigarette holder for $546, and an empty can of period-correct B&M baked beans for $42.
Meanwhile, the materials donated to UT are being cata- loged, and the collection likely will open for research in 2018, officials told the Statesman. Several boxes are already accessible for research in the Ransom Center’s reading room. And some items are on view in the Ransom’s galleries through July 16, including Draper’s “condi- tions for employment” memo, make-believe ad campaign proposals for Hershey’s and Philip Morris, and Weiner’s production binder, including cast and crew lists, shooting schedules and correspondence, for the “Marriage of Figaro” episode, whose scenes include a child’s birthday party with Mozart’s opera playing in the background.