UT's Harry Ransom Center starts film endowment named for Robert De Niro

For more than 15 years, the Harry Ransom Center has hosted the archive of Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro. Now it's creating an endowment in his honor, dubbed the De Niro Curator of Film.

The University of Texas research library and museum announced the news Monday. Ransom Center Director Stephen Enniss said in a statement provided to the American-Statesman that the endowment will support ongoing work "to preserve film history and inspire the next generation of filmmakers.”

De Niro also will help the Ransom Center celebrate its 65th anniversary by attending a Sept. 24 gala called "A Celebration of Film." According to Monday's announcement, the gala, through sponsorships and ticket sales, will be used to try to raise a large part of the goal for the endowment, which is $3 million. The rest would come through private donations. De Niro has made an undisclosed contribution, a spokesperson said.

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“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,” Enniss said in his statement.

The Ransom Center's film archive holds material spanning Hollywood history. The De Niro collection specifically contains scripts, production records, costumes, props, film and video from the actor's career. 

De Niro first donated his archival materials to the Ransom Center in 2006; at the time, it was the center's second-biggest film acquisition after the David O. Selznick archive obtained in the 1980s. The "Raging Bull" actor has made further contributions over the years. 

Among the notable effects in the De Niro collection: brown leather cowboy boots he wore in 1976's "Taxi Driver," a fake Italian passport from 1974's "The Godfather, Part II" and a pair of handcuffs from 1991's "Cape Fear." The Ransom Center also holds hundreds of reels from De Niro's 1993 directorial debut, "A Bronx Tale."

“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 in a statement. He added that the center "has done a remarkable job curating a breadth of collections underscoring the history of the art form and the business.”

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The fall gala will be held at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center, and it will benefit the Ransom's film collection and research efforts, according to the center. Tickets to the high-dollar gala range from $2,500 to $25,000, and the center teased that as-yet-unnamed celebrities will attend.

For more information about the archive, the endowment and the gala, go to hrc.utexas.edu/gala.