The son of two show-business parents, Barry Shipman (1912-1994) spent a lifetime in the film industry. He made cameo appearances in silent films, scripted some of Flash Gordon's and Dick Tracy's most memorable adventures, penned television Westerns, and produced technical films on the space program and Cold War weapons systems. His father, Ernest Shipman, was a theatrical producer and financier who met Barry's mother, Nell, an actress, when she auditioned for a part in one of his shows. They married on the road in 1911, settled in Southern California, and become pioneers in the emerging film industry. There Barry was born, on February 24, 1912, in South Pasadena.
When Barry was small, his mother wrote scenarios for the silent screen, but as he grew older, she began acting again, and Barry spent a good part of his childhood in the Hollywood studios or "on location," meeting many of the great stars of the silent era. Nell Shipman became a star herself, playing leading lady to the likes of William Duncan, Lou Tellegen, and Gayne Whitman, and appearing regularly in, and on the covers of, the fan magazines of the day. Nell Shipman's ambition, however, was to make her own movies, and after she divorced Ernest Shipman, Barry accompanied her on many of her filmmaking ventures. Big Bear, in the San Bernardino Mountains, was a frequent haunt. Barry spent most of 1922-1924 with Nell in Spokane, Washington, and at her ill-fated "movie camp" on Priest Lake, Idaho. His childhood adventures in the wilds of North Idaho, snow-bound in the winters, miles from the closest towns, with the colorful characters and the wild animals that made up his mother's menagerie, formed indelible impressions that he would revisit in writings much later in his life. When Nell Shipman's Idaho filmmaking venture collapsed in1925, Barry accompanied her East, to Connecticut, Florida, Spain, and Florida again, before returning with her California in 1928. Together with Nell's partner, Charles Austin Ayers, their two children Daphne and Charles Ayers (born in Spain), and good friend Dick Diaz, they set out on their cross-country automobile trek from Miami immediately after the close of Nell's stage play, "Are Screen Stars Dumb?" Barry had a major role in the play, but image-conscious Nell Shipman, hoping for a Hollywood comeback, told the press that her handsome teenaged co-star was her younger brother.
Back in California, Barry Shipman began acting and dancing and worked with the Mission Play in San Gabriel before landing small parts in film. In 1934 he married Beulah McDonald, a contract actress with Paramount, who, as Gwynne Shipman, appeared in some of the Hopalong Cassidy films of the '30s. But Barry Shipman turned his career toward the writing end of the business, instead. His first story to make it to the silver screen was
After the war, Shipman returned to Hollywood, and resumed his work writing for the studios, making his most notable mark with the
Bills, writers' strikes, and the inconsistent pay of freelance work impelled Shipman to look for steadier employment, so in 1962 he went to work as a consultant for the U.S. Navy, writing scripts for training films. Three years later he became a fulltime civilian employee of the Air Force, writing and producing films for its audio-visual service, first at Lookout Mountain, California, and later at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. He traveled extensively in that work, including trips to Vietnam and the DEW line in the Canadian Arctic. Once, while on assignment to gather information for a film on the space program, he encountered some uncooperative engineers. "Me and my little tape recorder didn't even exist until I happened to make the remark that my knowledge of space was limited to the Flash Gordon serials, some of which I had written. 'Hey!' the word went out. 'He used to write the Flash Gordons!' The young egg-heads had grown up on the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers stuff...bubbling dry ice, smoke from rocket ships drifting in space and all! From then on I had no more problems getting the information I wanted." He retired from government service in 1979.
Shipman's retirement coincided with a revival of interest in the films and career of his mother, Nell Shipman. Though long forgotten by the general public, she was fondly remembered in North Idaho, and in 1977 (seven years after her death), a point of land projecting into Priest Lake was named "Shipman Point," in her honor. Barry Shipman and his family traveled to Idaho to attend the dedication ceremonies, and he became reacquainted with many of his childhood friends and associates. Then in 1984, he received a telephone call from Tom Trusky, an English professor at Boise State University, who was investigating her life and career as part of a project to identify Idaho films and filmmakers. So began a collaboration between the two which resulted in the posthumous publication of Nell Shipman's autobiography, reconsideration of her career by academics in the U.S. and abroad, and screenings of her films at festivals from Idaho to Italy. Barry wrote extensively about his mother's career and their experiences together, particularly at Priest Lake, and he enjoyed promoting her revival. He seemed a bit bemused, however, when he himself was "rediscovered" by fans of the serials and began receiving invitations to film festivals and conferences featuring his own work. He was scheduled to take part in the Western Film Caravan in Knoxville, Tenn., in early 1994 but became too ill to attend. He died in San Bernardino on August 12, 1994, at the age of 82. At the time, he was working on a screenplay based on his experiences with Nell Shipman at Priest Lake.
Barry and Beulah Shipman had three children, a daughter Nina, born in California, and twin sons, Michael and Noel, born in Virginia during Barry Shipman's military service in Quantico. An amateur inventor as well as a writer, Shipman held several patents, including one for a sun-tanning device known as the "Sun Tan Tree." Professionally, he was a member of the Screen Writers Guild and Writers Guild of America and was active in both. In his retirement, he billed himself as a "Media Imaginist" on his personal letterhead. Reflecting on his mother's and his own life experiences, he sometimes mused on the financial difficulties that creative artists so often faced. Nevertheless, he wrote in 1987, "I'd rather be the author, playwright, conceiver of a good show than be the owner of six downtown parking lots."
Note: Quotations above come from a letter to Douglas Bankson dated May 11, 1987, found in the collection (Box 13, Folder 9)
The collection includes scripts, scenarios, and story outlines for motion pictures, serials, and television programs, particularly Westerns and adventures, many written for Republic Pictures; together with correspondence, reminiscences, memorabilia, and research files, relating chiefly to Shipman's screenwriting career and the career of his mother, silent filmmaker Nell Shipman. Motion pictures represented include
Forms part of the Idaho Writers Archive.
The collection is arranged in ten series: 1. Biographical and personal papers; 2. Subjects; 3. Correspondence; 4. Nell Shipman; 5. Photos; 6. Video and tape recordings; 7. Works for television; 8. Screenplays (motion pictures and serials); 9. Story outlines, short stories, and scripts; and 10. Air Force and Navy scripts.
Collection is available for research.
Gifts of Mr. Shipman, San Bernardino, Calif., 1989-1991, and of the Shipman family, 1995-2005; supplemented by gifts by Julian "Bud" Lesser and Mike Newton.
See also:
[item description], Barry Shipman Papers, Box [number] Folder [number], Boise State University Special Collections and Archives.
A long list of Barry Shipman's film credits is found in Box 1, Folder 3 (Resume, film credits). Other notable items in this series include brief biographical essays (Recollections) covering specific incidents in Shipman's life and career (particularly some of his childhood experiences with his mother, Nell Shipman, in California, Spokane, Washington, and at Priest Lake, Idaho); rough drafts of federal employment applications, with a detailed record of his education and work history; various publicity news clippings over the years; and papers relating to Shipman's patents (particularly the Sun Tan Tree), his World War II military service, and the Western Caravan film festival in Knoxville at which he was to be honored in 1994. The "Screenwriting" files include letters, reviews and other papers relating to his well-received screenplay, "Stranger at My Door" (1956), as well as studio correspondence revealing Barry Shipman's role in the writing of the "Lone Ranger" serials for Republic Pictures in the 1930s. Among the many poems Shipman wrote are three that offer a wry look at the experiences of extras and other lesser actors in the Hollywood studios in the 1930s (Box 2, Folder 1).
Papers in the subject files include notes, articles, and clippings on people and topics of interest. They reveal Shipman's early interest in both metaphysics and hard science, family history, and the careers of some of his colleagues. Files relating to Nell Shipman are found in Series 4.
Barry Shipman's correspondents include members of his large extended family, lifelong friends, colleagues from the film business, and researchers interested in his career and that of his mother's. Most of the correspondence preserved in the collection dates from Shipman's retirement years (after 1979), though there are a few letters from earlier dates scattered throughout. Quite a few, if not most of the files, contain reminiscences of his life and work, the most extensive of which are the letters exchanged with Mike Newton (Box 6), a fan of the serials, who peppered Shipman with questions about the making of the cliffhangers, and Tom Trusky (Box 9), the Boise State professor who was instrumental in Nell Shipman's "revival." Both sides of the correspondence are represented, as Shipman kept not only the letters he received, but copies of his own letters as well, which he churned out at a prolific rate on his word processor in the study of his San Bernardino home.
Among the correspondents represented are his lifelong friend Dick Diaz, who joined the Nell Shipman entourage as a teenager in the 1920s in New England and accompanied them to Florida and California; Barry's half brother and sister, Charles Douglas Ayers and Daphne Ayers Feldman, children of Nell Shipman and Charles Austin Ayers; his half-brothers on the Shipman side of the family, Robert and Ernest Shipman, Jr., with whom he did not become acquainted until he was an adult; Priest Lake friends Lloyd Peters, Dorothy Winslow Overmyer, and Loie Pierson (his school teacher); World War II Marine Corps colleagues Frank Adreon and Julian "Bud" Lesser; Linda Stirling (who starred in many of the cliffhangers) and William Witney (who directed many); and a host of other friends, associates, film fans and scholars. Correspondence with Douglas Bankson, relating to their collaborative screenplay about Nell Shipman, is located in Series 4.
The letters in the folders marked with an asterisk (*) relate mainly to Nell Shipman's life and career. Many of those correspondents are also represented in the Tom Trusky papers (MSS 99). Barry Shipman's own extensive correspondence with his mother, dating back to 1933, is found in the Nell Shipman collection (MSS 81). Many of those letters he received from his mother, and some he sent her in return, have been published in
This series contains material about Nell Shipman written or collected by Barry Shipman. It includes memorabilia from the dedication of Nell Shipman Point, 1977; letters and other papers (1993-1994) chronicling the discovery that the Doctors' House museum in Glendale, California, was once the home of Nell Shipman; papers about Nell Shipman film screenings, especially ones Barry Shipman attended; and various writings by Barry about Nell in the form of play scripts, film treatments, proposals, and the like. There is a large body of correspondence back and forth between Barry Shipman and his childhood friend from Spokane, Douglas Bankson, who collaborated on a screenplay (never produced) called "Nell." The earliest Nell Shipman-related proposal ("Nell Shipman Presents," Box 12, Folder 14) is dated about 1936, for a series of films based on her works. There is also documentation of a one-woman multi-media play based on Nell's life presented in Boise, Idaho, by Jenny Sternling in 1993. Like one of Barry's own works, it was entitled "Between Pictures." Barry's version of "Between Pictures" was produced in Hawaii in 1991 and starred Nina Shipman as Nell. A videotape of the production is in Series 6.
The general correspondence files (Series 3) also contain much correspondence relating to Nell Shipman.
There are fewer than 100 photos in the collection, most of which are miscellaneous snapshots, publicity photos for Barry Shipman's invention, the "Sun Tan Tree," and photos from his work for the Air Force in the 1960s and 1970s. Photos of Barry and his mother Nell can be found in the Nell Shipman collection (MSS 81).
This series contains videos of motion pictures and serials scripted by Barry Shipman, several other motion pictures featuring his wife Beulah (as Gwynne Shipman), and videotapes of an appearance by Barry Shipman on the "Our World" television interview program in 1987, among others. It also includes a videotape of a production of "Between Pictures," the story of Nell Shipman by Barry and Nina Shipman, and a tape recording of Nell Shipman reading the story "Doraleen," also by Barry and Nina Shipman. (Scripts for "Between Pictures" and "Doraleen" are located in Series 4 and Series 9, respectively.) A notable addition to the collection in 2009 was a somewhat blurry but still viewable VHS copy of "Lady Marines," a World War II film produced by Barry Shipman while serving with the Marine Corps Photographic Section. It features a voiceover by his mother, Nell Shipman.
These videos (in VHS format) are also individually cataloged in the Library's catalog.
This series contains scripts (teleplays) and story outlines written for television by Barry Shipman. The name of the television series is listed first, followed by the name of the particular episode. Unless otherwise indicated, a script is represented; story outlines and other papers (correspondence, etc.) are identified when they occur. While a few of the scripts are Barry Shipman's own typewritten versions, most are mimeographed shooting scripts prepared by the studio. Barry Shipman did not copyright these scripts in his own name; they became the property of the studios when accepted for production. The earliest work in the series is the script for a pilot for a proposed Hoosier Hot Shots television series, 1949 (Box 25, Folder 3); the latest are scripts for the Lassie series.
The screenplays in Series 8 are scripts and treatments for both feature films and serials. As in the case of the television scripts, a few (including Dick Tracy, Episode One, 1937) are Barry Shipman's own typewritten versions, but most are duplicated shooting scripts prepared by the studios. Several films are represented by more than one version of the script. The dates following the names of the scripts are the dates on the scripts themselves, and not necessarily the dates the films were released.
Barry Shipman's most acclaimed film,
The shooting schedule for the Durango Kid serial episode,
With one exception, the works in this series are not known to have been produced or published. They include short stories, story ideas, radio plays, proposals and scripts for feature films, documentaries, and television, and other works of an unidentified or miscellaneous nature. Almost all are in typescript form. The earliest works in the series appear to be two short stories, "And So to Bedlam" (written in 1930, when Barry was 18), and "The Personal Adventures of a Guinea Pig," which may be even earlier. Other early works include stories coauthored with his mother, Nell Shipman, in the 1930s, and some written for producer Nat Levine. Television proposals in this series include story ideas pitched to the producers of the Bonanza, Cheyenne, and Jetsons series. One of Shipman's unfulfilled projects attracted press attention. The
The one work in this series that is known to have been produced is the musical fantasy "Doraleen," which Shipman wrote with his daughter, Nina Shipman. It was produced by Nina Shipman at the University of Hawaii Hilo in 1986.
Included in this series are scripts and production papers for films Barry Shipman wrote, directed, or produced while working as a consultant with the U.S. Navy (1964-1966 ) and as a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force (1967-1979). Many of the scripts are shooting scripts, with camera directions as well as dialogue. Production papers may include memos, travel schedules, shooting schedules, and commendations. The titles, particularly those on early script versions and production papers, may not be those under which the film was released. A number of the films relate directly to the Vietnam War; some films relate to aircraft piloting.