GUIDE TO THE CHARLES SCHNEIDER COLLECTION

COLLECTION NUMBER:
C105.

COLLECTION TITLE:
Charles Schneider Collection.

CREATOR(S):
Charles R. Schneider.

DATES OF MATERIAL:
1941-1991, bulk 1950s-1960s.

EXTENT:
ca. 20,000 items (chiefly negatives, transparencies, and photographic prints): b&w and color; 11 x 14 in. or smaller.

LOCAL CONTROL NUMBERS:
Negatives: 93:18923/0-591 and 93:18923A/1-24.
Photographic prints: 2001/22/1-42.

REPOSITORY:
San Diego History Center
Booth Historical Photograph Archives
P.O. Box 81825
San Diego, CA 92138
1-619-232-6203

ACQUISITION INFORMATION:
Gift of Charles R. Schneider, 1993 (2001/022).

RESTRICTIONS:
Open for research.

COPYRIGHT:
For permission to reproduce or publish, contact the curator of the Booth Historical Photograph Archives of the San Diego Historical Society. Reproduction or publication of any part of this collection must include the following information next to the image(s) or in a special section of credits: Charles Schneider Collection, San Diego History Center, Booth Historical Photograph Archives.

GENERAL NOTES:
Arrangement: (1-9) negatives and corresponding proofs, 4 x 5 in. or smaller; (10-11) negatives and corresponding proofs related to entertainment; (12) negatives and corresponding proofs, 5 x 7 in., plus appointment books; (13-14) transparencies; (15) photographic prints, oversize transparencies, clippings, and letters. The collection was numbered and arranged by the photographer, with caption, subject, and date penciled on the envelopes containing negatives and corresponding proofs, and on the verso of most photographic prints. It also includes appointment books, newspaper and magazine clippings, and some letters. Forms part of: San Diego History Center Negative Collection.

BIOGRAPHICAL OR HISTORICAL NOTE:
Born in New Jersey in 1916, photojournalist and commercial photographer Charles R. Schneider graduated from the New York Institute of Photography in 1937. Stationed in Cairo, Egypt, during World War II, he served as a photographer for the U.S. Army Air Corp. After the war, he moved to La Jolla, California, and contracted with United Press International to photograph Hollywood film stars and other entertainers. Schneider opened studios in La Jolla and Los Angeles and worked on assignment for various national and local news and consumer publications. In the early 1970s, he became photographer for Solar Turbines and began to focus more on industrial photography. He retired in 1985.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE:
The Charles Schneider Collection contains photographs made during a 40-year career as a professional photographer, often while on assignment for news services, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and company publications. It includes negatives, color transparencies, some photographic prints, clippings, and other material. It features United Press International photographs from the late 1950s and early 1960s of Hollywood film stars and other entertainers, many taken at home with their families, including Anna Marie Alberghetti, Eddie Albert, Ray Anthony and his wife Mamie Van Doren, Lloyd Bridges, Nat King Cole with his daughter Natalie, Joan Collins, Broderick Crawford, Vic Damone, Sandra Dee, Yvonne DeCarlo, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Robert Fuller, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jeffrey Hunter, Deborah Kerr, Alan Ladd, Gina Lollobrigida, Shirley MacLaine, Marcel Marceau, Kim Novak, William Powell, Buster Keaton, Sophia Loren with husband Carlo Ponti and director Dino DeLaurentis, Jayne Mansfield and husband Mickey Hargitay, silent film actor Ramon Navarro, Anthony Quinn, and La Jolla Playhouse cofounder Dorothy McGuire. It also features many prominent San Diego people such as Raquel Welch, Helen Copley, the Marston family, Pete Wilson, Mary Crosby, Payne Johnson, Maureen “Little Mo” Connelly, Armistead Carter, Congressman Clair W. Burgener, Bishop John R. Quinn, Deborah Szekely, Bruce Hazard, Ernest Hahn, Earl Gagosian, Diane Powers, Ed White, Sid Gilman, and others. The collection includes location and studio photographs used in sales and marketing, annual reports, brochures, catalogs, advertisements, and publicity for various commercial and industrial enterprises, including Solar Turbines, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, hotels, restaurants, Rancho La Puerta and Golden Door fitness spas, and many other San Diego area businesses. There are also interior design, fashion, and food photographs, chiefly made for San Diego Home/Garden, San Diego Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, and Architectural Digest, including its first color cover; male and female models; artistic and experimental still lifes; and scenic views of San Diego. Of special note are UPI photographs of a Malibu family living in a fallout shelter in 1960, Ronald and Nancy Reagan at a fundraiser for his California gubernatorial campaign in 1966, and opening night at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

SUBJECTS INDEXED:
Rancho La Puerta (Mexico)
San Diego Gas and Electric Company.
Solar Turbines Incorporated.
Advertisements.
Art.
Architecture — California — San Diego.
Business enterprises — California — San Diego.
Business people.
Celebrities.
Clothing & dress.
Entertainers.
Facilities — California.
Fallout shelters — California — Malibu.
Fashion models.
Food.
Hotels — California — San Diego.
Industry.
Interior design — California.
Musicians.
Politicians — California.
Publicity.
Real estate development — California — San Diego County.
Socialites.

CONTENTS LIST:

Box 1
93:18923/0-47.7 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: aerial views, airlines, animals, apartments, architects, architecture, art, artists, automobiles, boats, buildings, and businesses. Includes posters, cartoons, and still life photographs by Charles Schneider; artwork and artists, including sculpture by Pat Niblack and portraits of Indian survivors of the Battle of the Little Big Horn by David [Humphreys] Miller, author of Custer’s Fall; Youman-Faure Gallery in La Jolla; aerial views of Del Mar Racetrack; group portraits of defunct Pacific Southwest Airlines pilots and attendants; interior and exterior views of Imperial Towers apartments on 6th Avenue; the work of various architects, including Rod Youngston, Richard George Wheeler, Gerald Jerome, and Joe Yamada; automobiles and dealers, including Marvin K. Brown Cadillac, Pascal Dilday, Guaranty Chevrolet, and Ray Dickson Mercedes; sailboats Cielo Azul, built by Driscoll Yacht Company in Point Loma, and Diane; buildings throughout San Diego County; Westgate Corporation and 3 West Corporation.
Box 2
93:18923/47.8-106 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: businesses. Includes location and studio photographs used in advertisements, publicity, annual reports, brochures, catalogs, sales, and marketing for various commercial and industrial enterprises, including Blodgett Glass Company, Frazier Farms, Westgate Corporation, banks, Solar Turbines, Spectral Dynamics, General Dynamics Electronics, department stores, advertising agencies, Kinetics Corporation, Stewart-Form, Thearle Music Company, Union Brick Company, H.L. Benbough Company, and Batley-Janss Corporation. Also, colored and scented Wedding Rice invented and produced by Charles Schneider; and Barbe-Go, a fast-food process invented by Charles Schneider.
Box 3
93:18923/107-183 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: businesses, children, churches, construction, dance, exhibits, and fashion. Includes more photographs related to commercial and industrial enterprises, including Batley-Janss Corporation, real estate companies, Royal Inns of America, Florentine Company, Control Data Corporation, Interpace Corporation and prominent San Diego industrialist and road builder Roscoe E. “Pappy” Hazard, Frye and Smith printing company, Frazee’s, and California Neon Products; children using computers, 1981; interior of mausoleum and funeral at Fort Rosecrans; interior views of Clairemont Lutheran Church and Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church in La Jolla; real estate development before, during, and after construction at Tustin Hills in Oceanside, San Carlos, Point Loma, and University City; interior and exterior views of Dunphy Construction Company projects; photographs of ballet dancer Diana Davis for a record album cover; an exhibit of Charles Schneider’s photographs; photographs for United Press International of the Bensen family of Malibu, California, living in a fallout shelter, 1960; and fashion photographs, chiefly for John Hogan Company and San Diego Magazine.
Box 4
93:18923/184-252 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: fashion, food, gardens, golf, hotels, and interior design. Includes more photographs of women’s fashions, chiefly for San Diego Magazine and Los Angeles-based Prisma; food photographs, including Westgate’s Breast O’ Chicken canned tuna and color images for San Diego Home/Garden magazine; views of a garden at an unidentified private residence; close-up of Barton Millard Bowl presented to Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club; ribbon-cutting ceremony to open freeway in San Diego, 1962; commercial photographs showing interior and exterior views, employees, and guests of various San Diego hotels, including Royal Inns, Wishing Well, Islandia, Hilton, Hanalei, Continental Inns, and Hotel del Coronado after 1965 remodeling; La Jolla home of opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci; American Society of Interior Designers exhibit rooms in Balboa Park, 1982; commercial and residential interior designs by ASID members, chiefly photographs for local magazines with many designs by Walter Broderick, including Mister A’s and Top of the Tower restaurants, and residences in Rancho Santa Fe, Point Loma, and Coronado.
Box 5
93:18923/253-290 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: interior design. Includes more interior design photographs for Architectural Digest, San Diego Home/Garden, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications; images show the work of Marsha Sewell on the San Diego Civic Theatre, San Diego History Center Showcase house in Coronado, and the Del Mar residence of Architectural Digest co-founder Colleen Knapp; Cannell and Chaffin’s work on “Foxhill” in La Jolla, the residence of San Diego Union-Tribune publisher James S. Copley, 1967; also, the work of Diane Powers on Peters Productions, Judy Shappell on various branches of Home Federal Savings and Loan, and Gerald Jerome on hotels, furniture, and residences in Laguna Beach, La Jolla, and Tijuana.
Box 6
93:18923/291-360 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: interior design, industry, jewelry, land development, music, newspapers, and people. Includes interior designs by Helene Ziman, displays in Lloyd’s Furniture on El Cajon Boulevard, and Luana Apartments on Mission Bay; product testing for a key chain called “Twisty” and images of textile products for Webb Manufacturing; photographs for a Convair job recruiting brochure; close-ups of jewelry from Bowers Jewelry in La Jolla and Bolton Lee; Sonata area housing development in Escondido; members of Hammond Organ Society and the San Diego Symphony at El Cortez [Hotel?], 1964; images used by Copley Press publications, including scenes at the city desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune and a display of California daily newspapers published by Copley Press [1960s]; advertising, publicity, news, wedding, family, and studio photographs of San Diego area people, including public figures such as the founder of Old Town’s Bazaar del Mundo Diane Powers, director of the San Diego Museum of Art Steve Brezzo, Bruce Hazard, Ernest Hahn, Earl Gagosian, president of Solar Turbines Herbert Kunzel, and various other San Diego area businessmen; also, Charles Schneider and San Diego Home/Garden magazine founder Payne Johnson in the Colesium in Rome, Italy; opening night at the San Diego Civic Theatre, 1965; and American concert pianist Regina Shamvili.
Box 7
93:18923/361-406 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: people and ranchos. Includes more images of people, including 1960 studio photographs of Racquel Welch “before surgery”; model Joyce Fischer; Helen Copley in her La Jolla home “Foxhill”; San Diego restauranteur Joe George; the Mighty Panthers rock ‘n’ roll band; Pete Wilson’s 1966 campaign for mayor of San Diego; Mary Crosby, who opened the first modeling agency in San Diego; television star Mike Connors; and Ronald and Nancy Reagan at a Mission Bay Hilton Hotel fundraiser for his California gubernatorial campaign in 1966; also, many views of world renown fitness resort Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Baja California, including some photographs of Burt Lancaster.
Box 8
93:18923/407-482 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: ranchos, restaurants, still lifes, San Diego views, and San Diego Gas and Electric Company. Includes more Rancho La Puerta scenes; Rancho Bernardo scenes, including Daly Ranch, PGA tournament and Rancho Bernardo Golf Club, swimming pool, shopping center, Seven Oaks Community Center, and Alvino Rey performing at Rancho Bernardo Inn; remains of plank road from Yuma, Arizizona, to San Diego, 1980; Los Angeles County Hospital Mortuary School, 1957; “Oops! Sorry!” experimental photograph of falling wine glass; photographs of Oscar’s Drive-In, Point Loma Inn, Jack In the Box, and other restaurants used chiefly for magazine advertisements; “mood scenes” and other views of San Diego; tennis grand slam winner and San Diego native Maureen “Little Mo” Connelly; and photographs for San Diego Gas and Electric Company.
Box 9
93:18923/483-587 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  Subjects: San Diego Gas and Electric Company, theater, travel, interior design, and people. Includes more photographs of San Diego Gas and Electric Company facilities and employees used for annual reports and other publications; San Diego Magazine cover photograph of the Old Globe Theater in Balboa Park; Charles Schneider with Payne Johnson at the Colesium in Rome, Italy, in Cairo, Egypt, and at the pyramids of Giza; also, more interior designs by Gerald Jerome, including photograph of Santa Monica condominium used by Architectural Digest for its first color cover; and more photographs of San Diego area people, including the Marston family, pianist Bill MacNamara, Dr. Stanley Lloyd, art collector and philanthropist Armistead Carter, Congressman Clair W. Burgener, Bishop John R. Quinn, and Rancho La Puerta and Golden Door fitness spas founder Deborah Szekely.
Box 10
93:18923/447-472 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  [Note: Reference numbers in this box repeat reference numbers in Box 8. When requesting images from this series of numbers, specify the reference number and the subject (i.e. entertainment industry) or box number.]
  Subjects: entertainment industry. Includes United Press International photographs from the late 1950s and early 1960s of entertainers, many at home with their families, including Italian singer and actress Anna Marie Alberghetti, Eddie Albert, band leader Ray Anthony and his wife Mamie Van Doren, French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont and his wife Marisa Pavan, Lloyd Bridges, Nat King Cole with daughter Natalie, Joan Collins, Academy Award winner Broderick Crawford, singer Vic Damone, Sandra Dee, Yvonne DeCarlo, film star Kirk Douglas, actress Rhonda Fleming at the Golden Door spa near Escondido, star of television westerns Robert Fuller, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jeffrey Hunter, Anna Kashfi and son Christian Brando, Academy Award nominated actress Deborah Kerr, Alan Ladd, Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, Shirley MacLaine, French mime Marcel Marceau, actress and cofounder of La Jolla Playhouse Dorothy McGuire, Kim Novak, William Powell, and legendary comic actor and filmmaker Buster Keaton.
Box 11
93:18923/473-480 Negatives and contact prints; 4 x 5 in. or smaller.
  [Note: Reference numbers in this box repeat reference numbers in Box 8. When requesting images from this series of numbers, specify the reference number and the subject (i.e. entertainment industry) or box number.]
  Subjects: entertainment industry. Includes more photographs of entertainers, including Sophia Loren and husband Carlo Ponti and Italian director Dino DeLaurentis at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood, Jayne Mansfield and husband Mickey Hargitay, silent film actor Ramon Navarro, stage and screen star Anthony Quinn, singer Katina Ranieri, Racquel Welch, and Gina Lollobrigida with Charles Schneider.
93:18923A/1-24 [Note: These photographs were added to the collection after it had been arranged and numbered.]
  Subjects: art, businesses, fashion, interior design, industry, land development, and people. Includes divers harvesting kelp and interior views of American Agar Company on Washington Street; a merry-go-round in Balboa Park; objets d’art; views of San Diego area buildings constructed in part with Florentine marble; women’s fashions; interior design exhibit at Del Mar Fair by Cuilly Burdett; photographs for John Zane and Coleman Bradley advertising agencies; male and female models; Oceanographic Engineering Corporation; portraits of brokers at E.F. Hutton’s La Jolla office; kitchens designed by St. Charles Kitchen Designers in La Jolla; weddings; Stewart Form; and Sister Mary Carol working on a project for the National Association of State Units on Aging at UCSD.
Box 12
93:18923/499-567 Negatives and contact prints; 5 x 7 in. or smaller + 3 appointment books.
  [Note: Reference numbers in this box repeat reference numbers in Box 9. When requesting images from this series of numbers, specify the reference number and the size (i.e. 5 x 7 in.) or box number.]
  Subjects: businesses, fashion, food, and people. Includes commercial photographs for various businesses, including jewelers J. Jessop and Sons, Graf Furriers, and Stewart Form; fashion photographs for John Hogan, Walker Scott department store, and advertisements in San Diego Magazine; experimental still lifes of food; and images of people, including Helen Copley in La Jolla home, San Diego Chargers coach Sid Gilman, Hollywood stunt men, Racquel Welch, “San Diego’s top model” in the 1960s Margaret Miller, Dr. Robert Epstein, Norman Foster, retired Notre Dame football coach Frank Leahy, Lute Mason, pianist Richard Norris, Stewart Form founder Ruth Stewart, Gordon Luce, Henry Boney, and Father Charles Colburn. Also includes Charles Schneider’s appointment books for the years 1979, 1983, and 1984.
Box 13 (cold room)
Various numbers between 93:18923/0 and 93:18923/276 Transparencies: color; 4 x 5 in.
  Subjects: art, birds, buildings, businesses, construction, entertainment industry, food, and interior design. Includes objects from the Museum of Man collection; advertising photographs of models in hot tubs for San Diego Home/Garden; still life photographs; portraits of Indians by David Miller; sunrise at Stonehenge in England; a wild macaw parrot in Mexico; Home Tower and San Diego County buildings; a turkey farm; 3 West Corporation products; Dunphy Construction Company projects; UPI photographs of entertainers, including Mamie Van Doren, Jayne Mansfield, Rhonda Fleming at the Golden Door spa, and singer Vic Damone; still lifes of food, mostly for San Diego Home/Garden; photographs for Architectural Digest and other publications of interior designs by Diane Powers, Marsha Sewell, and others; also, interior designs by Judy Shappell for Home Federal Savings and Loan.
Box 14 (cold room)
Various numbers between 93:18923/277 and 93:18923/591 Transparencies: color; 4 x 5 in.
  Subjects: interior design, people, restaurants, San Diego views, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, spas, and travel. Includes more photographs of interior designs by Gerald Jerome, Helene Ziman, and others; San Diego Chargers All Pro tackle Ed White; Whaley House in Old Town; Charles Schneider’s 70th birthday party at the San Diego Country Club; Racquel Welch; fashion models Tish Moore and Kathy Talbot; Jayne Mansfield and husband Mickey Hargitay; photographs for world renown Golden Door spa near Escondido, including Zsa Zsa Gabor at the spa; Mandarin Gourmet and Bazaar del Mundo restaurants; San Diego from Point Loma and other scenic views; photographs from trips to Egypt, Iran, and Peru.
Box 15 (cold room)
2001/22/1-42 Photographic prints: b&w, 5 color; 11 x 14 in. or smaller.
  Includes Charles Schneider with Payne Johnson at the Colesium in Rome, Italy, in Cairo, Egypt, and at the pyramids of Giza; Charles Schneider posing with Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida; a color snapshot of Charles Schneider; images of Cairo, Egypt, photographed in 1943; a contact sheet with 12 images of Sophia Loren; and photographs of other entertainers, including oversize prints mounted on cardboard and several photographs [by Joseph M.F. Haase?] of Ginger Rodgers at Del Mar Racetrack in 1941. Also, a photographic postcard of Jayne Mansfield sent to Charles Schneider from the Kings Palace Hotel in Athens, Greece, inscribed on the front: “To Charlie, Love, Jayne.”
93:18923/122-123, 441-445, 468, and 568 Transparencies: color; 14 x 11 in. or smaller.
  Includes still life photographs of food for San Diego Home/Garden; view of San Diego from Point Loma; “Oops! Sorry!” experimental photographs of falling milk carton and wine glass; seven interior views and two-page typed description of Architectural Digest cofounder Colleen Knapp’s ocean front villa in Del Mar. Also includes brochures, catalogs, typescripts, magazine and newspaper clippings, annual reports, and letters related to Charles Schneider and his photographs, including Architectural Digest‘s first color cover.