Sunday I went to the Autry National Center of the American West Museum in LA and saw the BBM shirts and postcard!
It was a very moving experience. I will post my pictures later.
After I got back I E-mailed the Autry Center to ask about an upcoming October panal discussion that I read about in their BBM press release:
"The Autry Center of the American West is currently in negotiations to house the archives of the International Gay Rodeo Association, and an October panel about what it means to be gay in the West is also in the works."
They will be letting me know more about the panal when it is finalized. They also sent a link to an event they had recently to inaugarate the display of the shirts. It has many photos of the event:
http://www.abelpix.com/Events/Autry/Brokeback-Mountain-Exhibit/9246743_55KvQ#617377962_9xd7MThey also E-mailed me the program for the event and a press release (copied below):
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Brokeback Mountain Shirts Installation Celebration
Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 10amA celebration of the installation of the two intertwined shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the film represent struggle between heritage and acceptance in gay cowboy culture. The shirts are on display as part of a reinstallation of the Contemporary Westerns case in the Autry’s Imagination Gallery.
The Western movie genre is an American art form that has played a crucial role in the development of American popular culture. Putting the Western into a larger historical context, the Imagination Gallery shows how the genre has evolved over the last one hundred years in response to social and cultural changes taking place in America. The iconic shirts are at the center of the Contemporary Westerns case highlighting Brokeback Mountain’s significance in keeping the genre alive and thriving in the new millennium.
10 a.m.
Arrivals and Reception in Museum Lobby
10:15am
Program begins in the Museum of the American West Imagination Gallery
Welcome by John Gray, Autry National Center President and CEO
Stephen Aron, UCLA professor and Executive Director, Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry
Jeffrey Richardson, Autry National Center assistant curator for film and popular culture
Gregory Hinton, author and filmmaker who brought the collector and the museum together and originated the idea for the gallery display
Tom Gregory, noted film memorabilia collector who acquired the Brokeback Mountain shirts in a charity auction and has generously loaned them to the Autry National Center.
11am
Program ends. One-on-one press interviews.
Visitors are welcome to meet and greet the speakers in the gallery and reception area.
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Yadhira De Leon
323.667.2000, ext. 327
[email protected]For Immediate ReleaseIconic Shirts From Brokeback Mountain
on Display in Autry’s Imagination GalleryTwo intertwined shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the film
represent struggle between heritage and acceptance in gay cowboy culture
On display starting July 28, 2009
Los Angeles (July 27, 2009) —The Autry National Center is proud to announce the installation of
the two intertwined shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Focus Features 2005
groundbreaking film Brokeback Mountain, also starring Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway.
The shirts will be displayed as part of a reinstallation of the Contemporary Westerns case in the
Autry’s Imagination Gallery. Directed by Oscar winner Ang Lee, the film is adapted from the
short story by Pulitzer Prize–winning author E. Annie Proulx in her Close Range: Wyoming
Stories collection. The shirts are on loan from collector, producer, and sociopolitical commentator
Tom Gregory.
The Western genre is an American art form that has played a crucial role in the development of
American popular culture. Putting the Western into a larger historical context, the Imagination
Gallery shows how the genre has evolved over the last one hundred years in response to social
and cultural changes taking place in America. The iconic shirts are at the center of the
Contemporary Westerns case in order to highlight Brokeback Mountain’s significance in keeping
the Western genre alive and thriving in the new millennium, and also to spotlight the LGBT
community’s struggle for safety and inclusion in the rural, Western communities from where
many originate yet often feel forced to abandon.
Noted author Gregory Hinton conceived the idea of displaying the iconic shirts at the Autry while
doing research for his fifth novel, Night Rodeo. “I noticed they were missing,” Hinton told
Gregory when he tracked him down on his website on New Year’s Day 2009. Mr. Gregory, owner
of the iconic shirts, won them in a 2006 charity auction. At their first meeting, Mr. Gregory
confessed to Mr. Hinton that after he bought them, he had assumed he would be hearing from
museums offering to display the shirts. No one called until Mr. Hinton did, three years later.
“My feelings were hurt,” Mr. Gregory admitted. “Not for me, but for the shirts, for what they
represent,” he said. On July 28, 2009, six months after the idea was first presented to the
Autry, the intertwined shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal will be displayed at the
museum.
Accompanying the shirts in the case are mannequins of Steve McQueen from the historical epic
Tom Horn (1980) and Jeff Bridges from the revisionist Western Wild Bill (1995), along with the
gun belts and revolvers worn by Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short in the comedy
¡Three Amigos! (1986). A special section devoted to the career of actor-director Clint Eastwood
includes mannequins from Pale Rider (1985) and Unforgiven (1992).
The Autry seeks to explore all the peoples of the American West, and the exhibition of the shirts
is part of a larger attempt to examine the LGBT community’s contribution to the West and the
Western genre. The Autry is currently in negotiations to house the archives of the International
Gay Rodeo Association, and an October panel about what it means to be gay in the West is also
in the works.
Brokeback Mountain Partial List of AwardsAt the end of its theatrical run, Brokeback Mountain ranked eighth among the highest-grossing
romantic dramas of all time.
Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, Academy Award.
Most nominations (eight) for the 78th Academy Awards.
BMI Film Music Award, BMI Film & TV Awards
Best American Film (Bedste amerikanske film), Bodil Awards
Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role-
Jake Gyllenhaal, David Lean Award for Direction, British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Supporting Actress-Michelle Williams,
Critics Choice Award
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Directors Guild of America
Outstanding Film - Wide Release, GLAAD Media Award
Best Director- Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Original Song- Motion Picture,
and Best Screenplay- Motion Picture, Golden Globe Award
Best Director, Best Feature, Independent Spirit Awards
Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award, Producers Guild of America
Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival
Best Adapted Screenplay, Writers Guild of America
About Tom GregoryLos Angeles-based entertainment and sociopolitical commentator Tom Gregory’s passion for
classic Hollywood movies and collectibles reaches back to his childhood. At age four he acquired
his first autographed Hollywood portrait photo, and he has since amassed one of the foremost
collections in the world. Along with that passion is Gregory’s core belief that the great, golden-era
films have timeless values and plentiful examples of keep-your-chin-up grit that would well serve
21st-century viewers. By way of his presence as a media personality, and his thoughtful pieces on
current events, social justice, and great entertainment, Gregory is a persuasive voice in connecting
the dots between these ideas.
Gregory’s ongoing media forums include his website,
www.showbiztom.com, his regular
Huffington Post column, and radio dispatches for Leeza Gibbons’s internationally syndicated
program, Hollywood Confidential. He also has been featured on CNN, E!, and Fox News, among
other outlets, and is the face of OVGuide.com, the Internet’s premier source for indexing online
video content. Recently, Gregory expanded his reach to the Great White Way with his debut as a
Broadway producer on the 2009 revival of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theatre.
About Gregory HintonThe son of a country newspaper editor, Gregory Hinton was born in Wolf Point, Montana, on the
Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Raised in Cody, Wyoming, Hinton graduated from the University of
Colorado at Boulder, which he attended on a creative writing scholarship. He is the author of four
critically acclaimed novels, including Cathedral City (2001), Desperate Hearts (2002), The Way
Things Ought to Be (2003), and Santa Monica Canyon (2007). All of his books are endorsed by
the American Library Association’s Booklist, among other national reviews.
Hinton is also an independent filmmaker whose credits include It’s My Party (1996), which
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and Circuit (2003), which received international
theatrical distribution.
For his fifth novel, Night Rodeo, Gregory Hinton has just completed a 2009 Spring Residency at
the prestigious Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. To assist him in the completion of Night Rodeo,
Hinton was awarded an honorarium by the Cody Institute of Western American Studies. Hinton
recently spoke at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art
Summer Art Lecture Series. The title of his lecture was “Waiting for a Chinook: Searching for
My Father—AWyoming Country Editor.”
About the Autry National CenterThe Autry National Center is an intercultural history center dedicated to exploring the experiences
and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West. The Autry celebrates the cultures of
the American West through three institutions on two Los Angeles campuses: the Southwest
Museum of the American Indian in Mt. Washington; the Museum of the American West in
Griffith Park; and the Institute for the Study for the American West, which comprises the Braun
Research Library and the Autry Library and is headquartered in Griffith Park.
The Autry National Center’s hours of operation at its Griffith Park location have changed. The
new weekday hours for the Autry’s Museum of the American West are Tuesday through Friday,
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum store’s new weekday hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday hours for the museum and the museum store are 11 a.m. to
5 p.m. On Thursdays from July 1 to August 31, hours for the museum and museum store are
10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The museum and museum store will continue to be closed on Mondays.
Admission is $9 for adults, $5 for students and seniors 60+, $3 for children 3–12, and free for
Autry members, veterans, and children 2 and under. Admission is free on the second Tuesday of
every month.
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Museum of the American West 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027 • T 323.667.2000 • F 323.660.5721 • AutryNationalCenter.org
Southwest Museum 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90065 • T 323.221.2164 • F 323.224.8223 • SouthwestMuseum.org
