Curtain to lift on Norman Jewison Archive at U of T

A vast collection of material related to Toronto-born filmmaker Norman Jewison's career will be made available at the E.J. Pratt Library in Toronto when the Norman Jewison Archive opens on Thursday evening.

Jewison, 82 and currently serving asVictoria University's chancellor,will be on hand to unveil the archive, which consists of material he donated to his University of Toronto alma mater three years ago.

When thepublicity material, correspondence, shooting scripts and schedules primarily for films Jewison directed or produced between 1975 and 2003 arrived at the university , it took up10 metresof shelf space.

The collection, which includes material related to projects he considered but rejected,took three years to catalogue.

There are alsoabout 1,600 photographs, some of which will be on display at the E.J. Pratt Library until Nov. 7 in an exhibition titled Norman Jewison: A Career in Pictures.

Jewisontalked toCBC News on Thursday morning about several photos in the collection that depict different stages in his life and career, such as a picture of himself as a boy with his mother in front of Kew Beach School in Toronto's Beaches district, close to where his parents ran a store.

"That was a time when I just wanted to paddle a canoe and stay in the Boy Scouts forever," he said.

Jewison graduated from Victoria College, University of Toronto in 1949. He went on to make feature films such as Fiddler on the Roof, And Justice for All, A Soldier's Story and Moonstruck.

He described photos taken during his years at CBC-TV, in U.S. tevevision and at E.P. Taylor's home, Windfields Estate in Toronto, which would become the home of the Canadian Film Institute.

He also talked abouta photo taken on the set of the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, a film he directed about race relations at the height of the American civil rights movement. It showshim whispering into actor Sidney Poitier's ear.

The Jewison material will join a list ofdistinguished collections at the E.J. Pratt Library thatincludes the work ofNorthrope Frye and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, among others.