Reagan 'GE Theater' Tapes Restored, Go to Presidential Library

Written by Jeff Wilson, Associated Press Writer Thursday, 18 March 2010 20:46

SIMI VALLEY, CA (AP).- All 208 episodes of television's "General Electric Theater," hosted by then-actor Ronald Reagan, are being delivered to former first lady Nancy Reagan on Wednesday as part of the two-year celebration of the late president's 100th birthday. The 1954-1962 "General Electric Theater" tapes, most believed to be damaged or lost, were recently uncovered in the General Electric/NBC Universal archives. They were restored to broadcast quality for use in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Reagan traveled the nation as GE's goodwill ambassador to its plants during the 1950s.

"The opportunity to represent GE back in the 1950s, and the encouragement he received from the employees he met along the way, really launched Ronnie's career in public service," Mrs. Reagan said in a statement released Wednesday. "I know he would be honored by this tribute."

GE CEO Jeff Immelt plans to deliver the tapes to Mrs. Reagan at the library Wednesday evening. General Electric is sponsoring the Ronald Reagan Centennial festivities with $15 million.

The GE gift includes $10 million in cash, advertising and promotion to support the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration, including money for a museum refurbishing that will be unveiled on the eve of the president's birthday. Reagan was born Feb. 6, 1911.

It will include a new General Electric Theater that will focus on Reagan's career in radio, television and film.

The remaining $5 million goes to the Reagan Presidential Foundation to launch and support the GE-Reagan Scholars Program. It will provide 200 four-year college scholarships over the next decade to deserving students who embody the vision and values personified by Reagan.

"President Reagan helped our company expand its reach during a golden age of American technological progress," Immelt said in a statement. "He embodied the optimistic and innovative spirit of our company, and later successfully carried those qualities with him to the White House." autrec, as well as artists and writers such as Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. This controversial beverage, celebrated for its almost hallucinogenic effects and feared because of its addictive properties, was the subject of Edgar Degas’ L’absinthe, the first Impressionist picture sold at Christie’s, bought in 1895 for £189 and now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The drink was seen by many as a fount of creativity, and featured again and again in Picasso’s own work, from his Absinthe Drinker of 1901 now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg to his 1914 sculpture, Le verre d’absinthe, now in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Angel and Picasso twice shared studios in Barcelona, the second time being during the 1903 trip when Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto was painted. This was the same studio in Riera de Sant Joan that Picasso formerly shared with his friend and fellow artist Carles Casagemas, whose suicide had partly inspired the Blue Period. Immersed again in these surroundings and these friends, Picasso’s Blue aesthetic flourished, culminating in portraits such as Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto which introduced a revolutionary, subjective psychological quality. Many of the oil portraits of Picasso’s friends painted during this stay in Barcelona are now in museum collections: his Portrait of Sebastià Junyent is in the Museu Picasso, Barcelona; Sebastià Junyer Vidal and a Woman in a Café is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Portrait of Señora Soler is in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich; Portrait of Benet Soler is in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; and The Soler Family is in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Liège

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~