GLORIA STUART AND DON BACHARDY IN CONVERSATION AT THE SANTA MONICA PUBLIC LIBRARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date:       February 16, 2006
Contact:  Susan Annett, Principal Librarian, Public Services, (310) 458-8640

Gloria Stuart and Don Bachardy are featured in a special program at the Santa Monica Public Library on Saturday, February 25 from 2 to 3:30 p.m., in the Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium, 601 Santa Monica Boulevard.

Best known at home and abroad as actor and artist, Stuart and Bachardy are an integral part of literary and cultural circles in Southern California.  Moderated by Sara S. Hodson, curator of Literary Manuscripts at The Huntington, they will each talk about their life, work and collaborations.

Both Stuart and Bachardy also have long-standing ties with Santa Monica and its library. Born in Santa Monica, Gloria Stuart served as the model for the “Moving Picture Industry” panel that is part of the library mural cycle completed by Stanton Macdonald-Wright in the mid-1930s. Off view for forty years, the Santa Monica Public Library Mural has been conserved and re-installed in the new Main Library as part of a loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Santa Monica Canyon home of artist and author Don Bachardy, together with his partner, author Christopher Isherwood (whose book, The Berlin Stories, was the 2004 Santa Monica Citywide Reads selection) provided an important environment where many artists, literati and celebrities gathered. Don Bachardy is the first subject of the library’s new oral history program, which is currently under development.

For more information about this free public program, contact the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600; or visit the Library’s web site at www.smpl.org.

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This page was last updated on 02/16/06.