Abstract
The Charles Vanda Photograph Collection, approximately 1960 to 1988, contains black-and-white and color photographic prints with some corresponding negatives of Charles Vanda with colleagues and friends from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The images depict Vanda at UNLV sporting events, graduation ceremonies, and other campus events. Also included are some images from fellow musicians, entertainers, and producers associated with Vanda.
Finding Aid PDF
Date
Extent
Related People/Corporations
Scope and Contents Note
The Charles Vanda Photograph Collection, approximately 1960 to 1988, contains black-and-white and color photographic prints with some corresponding negatives of Charles Vanda with colleagues and friends from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The images depict Vanda at UNLV sporting events, graduation ceremonies, and other campus events. Also included are some images from fellow musicians, entertainers, and producers associated with Vanda.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish. Some transcripts do not exist in final form, therefore any editing marks in a transcript (deletions, additions, corrections) are to be quoted as marked.
Arrangement
Materials remain as they were received.
Biographical / Historical Note
Charles Vanda (1903-1988) was a writer, director, and producer of television and radio programs. Born June 6, 1903 in New York City, New York, Vanda began his professional career as a press agent in the 1920s. In 1935, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Radio New York appointed him to oversee all Hollywood, California radio originations. During World War Two, Vanda served in Army Intelligence; he is credited with co-authoring the plan to create the Armed Forces Radio Services (AFRS). In 1942, he directed the first five episodes of the AFRS program, Jubilee, which was designed to present African American artists and their music to armed forces personnel of the United States and allied nations around the world.
In 1946, Charles Vanda moved to Los Angeles, California and began writing and directing television programming, including Abbott and Costello and Rogues Gallery. During this period he also served as the president of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in Hollywood. In the mid-1950s, Vanda worked for Philadelphia's WCAU-TV, where he produced live series; he returned to California in 1958 as the J. Walter Thompson Company's agency producer for the Jack Benny, George Gobel, and Milton Berle Music Hall shows.
Retiring in 1966, Charles Vanda moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he served as an adviser for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), director of the Western Alliance of Arts Administrators, and executive producer of the St. Jude’s Ranch for Children's annual event Night of Stars. In 1975, then University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) president, Donald Baepler asked Vanda to serve as director of Concert Hall Programming; here he developed and directed programming for the long-running and highly successful Master Series of classical music at the Artemus Ham Performing Arts Center. In 1980, Marjorie Barrick asked Vanda to select the speakers for the newly endowed Barrick Lecture series at the university; using his connections and talents, he brought figures including Walter Cronkite, James Kenneth Galbraith, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Carl Sagan to the campus. Charles Vanda died on June 5, 1988 and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Sources:
"Charles Vanda Is Dead; Television Writer, 84," The New York Times Archive, accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/07/obituaries/charles-vanda-is-dead-television-writer-84.html
"Charles Vanda; Ex-CBS Program Chief," Los Angeles Times, accessed February 14, 2019, http://articles.latimes.com/1988-06-11/news/mn-4160_1_charles-vanda
"Charles Vanda Honorary Concert," University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Performing Arts Center, accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.unlv.edu/pac/master-series
"Barrick Lecture Series," University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Performing Arts Center, accessed February 14, 2019," https://www.unlv.edu/pac/barrick
Eugene Moehring, The University of Nevada, Las Vegas: A History, (Reno, University of Nevada Press, 2007), 127-129.
Preferred Citation
Charles Vanda Photograph Collection, approximately 1960-1988. PH-00227. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated in 1988; accession number 88-142.
Processing Note
In 2020, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, James Howard wrote the finding aid and entered the data into ArchivesSpace.