Join the Academy Museum for a book signing and conversation with author Neal Gabler in honor of opening day of the Academy Museum’s exhibition, Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital. Academy Museum Director and President Jacqueline Stewart and Associate Curator Dara Jaffe will be in conversation with cultural historian Neal Gabler, distinguished author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. The conversation will provide insight and context to the exhibition, exploring the origins of filmmaking in Los Angeles with a spotlight on the Jewish studio heads who built Hollywood.   

4:30–5:30pm – Book Signing | Lower Level 1 Ted Mann Lobby 
Meet author Neal Gabler for an in-person book signing of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. 

6:00–7:00pm – Conversation | Ted Mann Theater SOLD OUT. Advance tickets no longer available; standby tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis.
 Join historian and writer Neal Gabler in conversation with associate curator Dara Jaffe. Moderated by the Director and President of the Academy Museum, Jacqueline Stewart.

A portion of the conversation will include a screening of an original short-form documentary, From the Shtetl to the Studio: The Jewish Story of Hollywood (30 minutes), that delves into the nuances of what makes the founding of Hollywood a Jewish immigrant story, characterized by both oppression and innovation. Narrated by Ben Mankiewicz, the documentary features archival imagery and film clips, illustrating the larger global context at the turn of the 20th century as well as personal narratives of the predominantly Jewish founders of the Hollywood studio system.
 
Bios
Neal Gabler is a distinguished author, cultural historian, and television commentator who has been called “one of America’s most important public intellectuals.” His first book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History and the Theatre Library Association Award for the best book on television, radio, or film. A recent poll in The Hollywood Reporter named it the sixth best book ever written about the film industry. His second book, Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named the non-fiction book of the year by Time Magazine. His third book, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, was used in college courses across the country to examine the convergence of reality and entertainment. His fourth book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, a New York Times best-seller, was named the biography of the year by USA Today and won Mr. Gabler his second Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was also the runner-up for the prestigious Kraszna-Krausz Book Award in England. His fifth book, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity and Power, published by Yale University Press as part of its Jewish Lives series, was called “a spirited and entertaining cultural appreciation” by the New York Times. The first volume of his two-volume biography of Edward Kennedy, Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, was called “one of the truly great biographies of our time” by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, and Publishers Weekly called the second volume, Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, “magisterial” and “comparable to Robert A. Caro’s profile of Lyndon Johnson in Master of the Senate.” 

Dara Jaffe is a film historian and associate curator at the Academy Museum. She joined the museum in 2013, where she assisted on the Hollywood Costume exhibition (2014– 15) and the multifaceted project From Latin America to Hollywood: Latino Film Culture in Los Angeles 1967-2017 (2017). For the Academy Museum’s inaugural exhibition Stories of Cinema, Jaffe curated Director’s Inspiration: Spike Lee and The Art of Moviemaking: The Wizard of Oz, as well as spaces dedicated to Oscar Micheaux and Citizen Kane.  Since the opening of the Academy Museum, Jaffe has curated Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital, as well as a gallery dedicated to Casablanca.  She co-curated John Waters: Pope of Trash. In her spare time, Jaffe is a visual artist, whose liquid light projections have been featured at historic Los Angeles venues such as the Troubadour and the El Rey Theater, as well as the LA Pride Festival. Jaffe holds an MA in film studies from Wesleyan University, where she previously received her dual BA in film studies and American studies.   

Jacqueline Stewart is the Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. She is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, where she founded the South Side Home Movie Project.  She is the author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity, and co-editor of L.A. Rebellion:  Creating a New Black Cinema and William Greaves:  Filmmaking as Mission.  Stewart is Chair of the National Film Preservation Board, host of “Silent Sunday Nights” on Turner Classic Movies, and a 2021 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.   

If you have any questions or need assistance planning your visit, please email museumeducation@oscars.org.