This digital collection includes audiovisual material from the MSS 0377 Shad E. Graham Papers. Born in New York, New York in April 1896, Shadrack Edmond Graham was the son of a Broadway actor/producer Charles Edmond Graham and prima ballerina Edith Craske Graham. The Graham family moved to Hollywood shortly after Shad was born. Shad’s first taste of movie making came when he played the part of the newsboy in Thomas Edison’s The Great Train Robbery. When he was grown, he became Assistant Director at William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Studios in New York and California. He was eventually named chief film editor at MGM Studios in Hollywood. In both World Wars, Shad Graham sailed with U.S. troops, entertaining the troops and sending news back to the home front. During WWI, he was awarded the Medal of the Knights of Columbus for his contribution, and in WWII, he received a special citation from Major General “Wild Bill” Donovan as special film consultant to the Office of Strategic Service. After the Second World War, he married Ruth McLain of Houston and moved to Missouri City, Texas, to be an independent film producer of documentary film features. He filmed a documentary for 20th Century Fox Movietown News on the 1947 Texas City Disaster, which earned the studio awards and Shad Graham recognition as a film producer. Graham produced a number of documentaries, feature-length and short-film, including Our Home Town (short film series), 1947 Texas City Disaster, To Sow This Seed, The Gift, Bangor at War, and I Pledge to Drive Carefully (1958). Additionally, he produced two documentaries for Rice University: Through the Sally Port and Golden Years. (His wife, Ruth McLain Graham, was a Rice Alumna.) His most notable documentary was a series of 250 short films in the Our Home Town series, which used actual towns across the United States as locations. During his latter years, he collaborated with Ilanon Moon on a book about his mother’s career entitled Mama was a Ballerina. Graham was a charter member of the Film Editors of New York City and Hollywood and was a gold card member of the Motion Pictures Pioneer Association. Upon his death in 1969, his wife donated most of his collection to found the Shad E. Graham Memorial Student Film Fund and the Shad E. Graham Memorial Film Library. He is buried in Houston, Texas. Resources: Pin Oak Stables Twenty-Seventh Annual Charity Horse Show (1970) p. 3 and Texas State Historical Association, Shadrack Edmond Graham.