Fox Opens Up Archives to Benefit Motion Picture & Television Fund

LOS ANGELES, December 22: Twentieth Century Fox has opened
up its archives and donated more than 200 rare documents, including signed
contracts and internal memos, to be sold at auction to benefit the Motion
Picture & Television Fund (MPTF).

MPTF was founded in 1921 to help those in the entertainment
industry who had fallen upon hard times. Today it provides healthcare and
childcare, retirement care and charitable social services through the its
Country House and hospital, five health centers, Samuel Goldwyn Foundation
Children's Center, and through financial assistance and community outreach
programs.

The auction, entitled From the Twentieth Century Fox
Archives: Documents from the Golden Age of Hollywood, is scheduled for January
25 at Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. Proceeds from the sale will
directly benefit the MPTF insurance fund that provides health insurance for
actors.

"Fox's heritage reflects Hollywood itself and our well
maintained document archives are a Tut's Tomb of movie history," said Fox
Filmed Entertainment Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman. "These papers are so
cool that, as a fan of that history, I will have to restrain myself from
bidding on each item. This donation is intended to get the past out of file
cabinets into the hands of film lovers and let it serve the present through the
MPTF. We also hope this auction might inspire other studios to follow suit."

Documents include a 1946 memo advising that Norma Jean
Dougherty's professional name be designated as Marilyn Monroe; Humphrey
Bogart’s first studio contract in 1930; Cary Grant’s 1948 contract for I Was
a Male War Bride, and a three-film studio
contract signed by Clark Gable in 1954.