A Reality Check in a Make-Believe Town

In a city where it often appears history is razed as quickly and expertly as faces are lifted, there remain hardy protectors of those paths to the past.

One such priceless repository lies hidden in a particularly unlikely place. Neither museum nor university archive, it sits ironically enough amid the false fronts and the magic mirrors and lenses powering the Hollywood dream machine; where history is often looked at as a dramatic tool, as nothing more than something from which to extrapolate.

Down a couple flights of stairs in a bunker-like space on 20th Century Fox’s crowded West L.A. back lot, Lisa Fredsti presides over the thousands of books, ephemera and various special collections that make up the holdings of the William Fox Research Library. It is one of the oldest research libraries still owned and operated by the studio that houses it.

Despite its venerable status, Fredsti says few are aware of its presence: “People say all the time: ‘We wondered what was down here.’ ”

Fredsti, 37, and her staff of four have set out to raise the profile of one of the studio’s and the city’s most precious assets--these eclectic, quirky links to a textured past.

From carefully cataloging old U.S. license plates and yellowed movie posters and lobby cards to making weekend forays to swap meets and antique stores, Fredsti refuses to half-step. And although the library isn’t open to the general public, academics engaged in serious inquiry can, without charge, request a visit to the stacks to step back into time, naming their period or field of passion. Perhaps England in the 18th and 19th centuries. Or simply kitsch cultural milestones such as unearthing the name of Marilyn Monroe’s poodle.

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On any given day, Fredsti fields about a dozen or so requests for any number of film or TV projects in production: “What were the right colors of U.S. mailboxes in 1964 (and was Mr. Zip emblazoned across them or not)?” “What’s on a Santeria altar?”

Sometimes it’s crucial technical details: “How do you make plastic explosives?” Still others are a little more oblique and open to interpretation: “Photos of young women in sensual poses” or “Lobotomy: How to perform one?”

Fredsti and staff put their heads together, answering any and all to the letter. Even though popular thought might suggest otherwise, this business isn’t strictly about make-believe.

“It’s about having the right sword for the right era.” she says.

“Now this is something that really excited me!” shouts Fredsti, pausing over a page of a binder-sized research book compiled by her staff and crammed with illustrations of artifacts for the upcoming remake of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

“This is a two-hole toilet--a Colonial privy! I got so excited when I found it.”

Someone has to.

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And since the Cecil B. DeMille studio hired retired actress Elizabeth McGaffey in 1916 to head the first motion picture research library, someone has.

In 1923, the then-Fox Film Corp. acquired what is the heart of the present library from George Ingleton, another retired actor who stepped out of the spotlight and into the role of studio librarian. Ingleton’s collection was considered to be one of the “most complete private collections of rare books in America.” And filling out the holdings of international magazines and reference books were clip files that “covered every important event in modern history,” says Fredsti, quoting vintage Fox PR.

Books from the 1700s rest in archival boxes; pieces of L.A. history, old hotel labels and Cold War Soviet propaganda round out the library’s 60,000 offerings for curious searchers delving for missing pieces connecting various eras.

The library’s purpose, according to a 1925 letter written by then-scenario editor Edwin G. Hill, would be to “prove a great saver of time and a nervous force to the technical department, the directors, their assistants and the writers . . . [and would contain] a vast amount of practical and useful information concerning every country on the globe, every race of mankind, and most of the habits and manners of humanity generally.”

In its modern incarnation, Fredsti says, “I would feel pretty confident about saying that we are the only studio library that is operating on this premise today. And that’s what makes us different.”

Through a succession of competent librarians, the repository has survived it all--earthquakes, downsizing, new regimes, the death of the studio system--with its integrity intact.

While providing on-the-spot assistance throughout the production process--from development and location scouting to phone-in requests and, lately, online services--Fredsti and staff have resurrected comprehensive research books to provide a “visual bible” for more complex productions such as “The Crucible.”

“The studio hadn’t done this full production research breakdown for about 25 years, since ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’ and ‘Patton,’ ” Fredsti explains. “It became somewhat of a lost art. And so in our process of researching the books to see how it was done, we came up with this one for ‘The Crucible.’ ”

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It was the library’s first. What would have taken contracted independent researchers months to do (at $75 an hour), the studio facility did in a week--a 500-plus page breakdown. That included everything from details of period wardrobe and documentation of the interior and exterior of jails to a chapter on McCarthyism to provide political context.

They’ve been able to help others in a pinch, in other historical endeavors. A professor working on a biography about Evelyn Nesbit, a Gibson girl, called on the studio for any possible original information in their archives. The 1955 Fox film “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” told of the 1906 scandal surrounding Nesbit, whose millionaire husband Harry K. Thaw murdered famous architect Stanford White, her former lover. The library was able to dig through old research books and other boxed materials to assist the professor.

“Good stories come from authenticity,” says Alan J. Adler, director of the Fox Archives, who works hand in hand with Fredsti. “And the best films come from authenticity. And we can provide that here at a fraction of a cost the production companies would be able to provide it on their own.”

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For Fredsti, it’s a chance to not only provide rote fact and ensure continuity (and thus credibility), but to also be a part of the creative process. “I’ve done quite a lot of work on projects that are in development,” she says, “and that’s really exciting because you are working with a writer who is giving you some broad, general outlines. . . . So you really get a chance to contribute.”

Like their civilian brethren, libraries behind the gates haven’t been impervious to change. Warner Bros. donated its library to the Burbank Public Library system and RKO’s library went to Francis Ford Coppola. Fortunately, the Fox library didn’t suffer the fallout of a broken home.

“The decline of the studio system in general is what led to the decline of the libraries,” Fredsti says. “In the old days, they were little cities and as the studios declined, they started out-sourcing more. Then television caught on. That was the point that the libraries bit the dust or were neglected.”

But both Fredsti and Adler see evidence that such thinking is changing, as rumors circulate about studios building their own libraries from scratch. Implicit in that decision is a small victory in the lives of research librarians of all stripes.

“This is a period in which the executives we are working with see that it is smart to build upon the past,” Adler says. “You couldn’t buy this collection for all the money in the world. There are just things that don’t exist anywhere else.”