The Academy’s efforts to record filmmakers’ stories began in 1948 when Film Curator Howard Walls interviewed a number of silent film pioneers such as J. Searle Dawley and Blanche Sweet. In 1989, the Academy established its Oral History Program. The program was based around recording audio interviews, with edited transcripts bound into volumes and accessed through the Margaret Herrick Library. These in-depth and long-form interviews take a detailed look at the careers of more than 70 individuals, including such visionaries as Haskell Wexler, Theadora van Runkle, and Frank Pierson. To bring these efforts into the future and to support the needs of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Oral History Projects department was established in late 2012. The goal is to unify and manage all forms of oral history at the Academy, from recording, to collection, curation, and preservation.


For more information about the Howard Walls and Oral History Program collections, visit the Collections page.