Robert De Niro to help celebrate 65th anniversary of UT-Austin's Ransom Center

AUSTIN, Texas - The 65th anniversary of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin will be celebrated with a star-studded gala called "A Celebration of Film" and one of the attendees will be Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro.

The event takes place September 24 at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center.

A new endowment will also be created called the De Niro Curator Film in appreciation of De Niro's continued dedication to the Ransom Center and its mission.

"It is a privilege to welcome Robert De Niro, a great friend of the Ransom Center and ardent supporter of the arts, to Austin as we celebrate 65 years of archiving important American cultural history," said Harry Ransom Center Director Stephen Enniss in a news release. "This endowment will support the ongoing work to preserve film history and inspire the next generation of filmmakers."

The gala will celebrate filmmaking and film history and highlight the impact and legacy of film archival history. It will also benefit the Ranson Center's film collection and research mission. It will generate critically needed funding for the new endowment to preserve and expand the collection.

"I strongly believe in and support what the Harry Ransom Center does to open the creative process of filmmaking to students and the community," De Niro said. "The Center has done a remarkable job curating a breadth of collections underscoring the history of the art form and the business."

The Ransom Center’s film archive tells the stories of significant Hollywood producers, directors, writers, and actors from the silent era and the Golden Age of Hollywood through the rise of independent studios and into the age of blockbusters and the new millennium. 

De Niro donated his archive documenting his cinematic career in 2006 with additional contributions of materials through the present, adding to the Ransom Center’s vast collection of records and objects related to landmark films in American culture.

Covering many aspects of filmmaking, from scripts and production records to costumes, props, film, and video, the Robert De Niro Papers are unlike any other film archive. It is a significant collection in the Center's holdings related to Hollywood filmmaking of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Scholars and students can follow the development of films from the printed page to the screen by exploring the vast collection.

For more information about the gala or to purchase tickets, you can go here.