OKPOP road trip nets six collections, including items from Tony Randall and comic creator with ‘Star Wars’ ties
A treasure hunt for Oklahoma pop culture artifacts has so far yielded nice finds, including some items from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
The Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture is yet to open. Located across from Cain’s Ballroom in downtown Tulsa, OKPOP looks like a finished structure from the outside, but substantial work remains before the museum becomes reality. Meanwhile, staffers are continuing to search for — and acquire — collections that will be housed at OKPOP. The museum is seeking collections from creatives who sprang from Oklahoma and made their mark all over the world. All over the world = road trips.
A pair of two-person OKPOP teams returned from a road trip with six collections for the museum plus banked interviews with people who are associated with the collections. Interviews were recorded by OKPOP cinematographer Tyler Mann to be part of exhibits and to be preserved as part of the Oklahoma Historical Society and OKPOP archives.
The collections came from the families of:
- Tony Randall. A graduate of Tulsa’s Central High School, Randall was an actor whose stage and screen career including an Emmy-winning turn as Felix Unger on the sitcom “The Odd Couple.” Randall died in 2004.
- Mel McDaniel. Born in Checotah and raised in Okmulgee, McDaniel was a Grammy-nominated country music artist whose hits include “Louisiana Saturday Night” and “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.” McDaniel died in 2011.
- Norman Dolph. A graduate of Tulsa’s Will Rogers High School, Dolph was a songwriter, painter and music industry figure who was connected to Andy Warhol. Dolph, who produced early Velvet Underground recordings, died in 2022.
- Sally Ann Forrester. Born in New Mexico, Forrester moved to Avant, Okla., to live with grandparents following the death of her mother. A musician, Forrester grew up to snare the title of “first woman in bluegrass” and was an accordion-playing member of Bill Monroe’s band in the 1940s. Forrester died in 1999.
- Archie Goodwin. Born in Kansas City and raised in Tulsa, Goodwin was a Will Rogers High School graduate whose work in the comic book and magazine industry included serving a tour of duty as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. A writer and editor, he is synonymous with Marvel’s “Star Wars” comic book and a “Star Wars” comic strip.
- Jerry Nelson. The Tulsa-born Nelson was a puppeteer whose voice you have likely heard if you have watched anything involving Muppets. Nelson voiced Count Von Count for 40 years in addition to his work with legions of other Muppet characters. Nelson died in 2012.
Building relationships with families
OKPOP is honored to obtain the collections and all of the above are part of tapestry of the stories the museum will tell, according to Ryan Allen, OKPOP’s director of storytelling and creative director.
The road trip to retrieve collections and interviews was probably a year in the making because connections had to be made with families, according to Allen, who said building relationships takes time.
“We are reaching out to creatives themselves and reaching out to their estates and families and management,” he said. “We really want to be collaborative in our storytelling at OKPOP. We are really wanting to inspire and encourage our visitors. We think hearing directly from the creatives themselves or the people that knew them best is the best way to tell that story. That’s our approach, and it yields a better and more meaningful story.”
Jacob Krumwiede, OKPOP’s executive director, said there are hundreds of Oklahoma creatives that OKPOP is “building relationships with. The vast majority of these creatives don’t have any academic research done on their lives and careers. And, we don’t have any collections for them, either. Really, our efforts right now are to build those relationships and conduct the necessary research on these people that we will feature at OKPOP. These are some of the things we are doing here behind the scenes to make sure this is a world-class museum.”
For this story, OKPOP made some items from the recently acquired collections available for photographs and perusal. First stop: Randall’s collection. Widow Heather Randall consented to a video interview with OKPOP and donated many items, including playbills, apparel and autographed scripts. One of the items was a school yearbook from Randall’s Tulsa Central days. Next to his yearbook photo, Randall wrote that it was a “horrible” picture, which seems like a Felix Unger (high standards, refined tastes) kind of critique.
As the collections tour continued, OKPOP staffers provided insight into the lives, careers and Oklahoma ties of other creatives. If you wanted to see everything in the Archie Goodwin collection, you might still be looking. Three pallets were needed to transport Goodwin’s items, which previously occupied two storage units in New York.
Some of the Goodwin items qualify financially as treasure, including early issues of Marvel Comics from his personal collection and many pages of original artwork from “Star Wars” comics and other publications. One-of-a-kind original art is coveted by collectors and tends to be expensive.
Marvel was the first company to license “Star Wars” for comic book stories. Jumping on the “Star Wars” bandwagon now sounds like a no-brainer of an idea, but, at the time the deal was brokered, it was a gamble on an unknown property.
“They had no idea in ‘76, ‘77 what it was going to be,” Mickel Yantz, OKPOP’s curator of pop culture, said.
As part of the Goodwin collection, OKPOP acquired correspondence between George Lucas’ team and Marvel, including behind-the-scenes photos so Marvel’s artists would know how to, for instance, draw a stormtrooper, according to Yantz. The first six issues of the Marvel “Star Wars” series served as an adaptation of the franchise-starting first film. Yantz said some things are quite different in the comic than in the motion picture.
“One of my favorites that I share with everybody was that famous scene where Darth Vader says, ‘I find your lack of faith disturbing’ where he uses the force to choke the officer. Well, what he actually uses the force for two panels before that is to get himself a cup of coffee, and he’s using the force to float a foam coffee cup into his hand before he force chokes the officer, which is like hysterical. Hopefully we’ll have the script and I can see if it actually says ‘Vader uses the force to get coffee.’”
Yantz and Emily McKenzie, OKPOP collection manager, are going through the vast Goodwin collection to examine the contents. Yantz said they are about a third of the way through the collection.
Precious items
The relationship with the Goodwin family has been years in the making. Goodwin’s children attended the OKPOP groundbreaking. Yantz and McKenzie worked with Goodwin’s children to go through the collection before items made their way to Tulsa.
“We’re not taking it for granted how special this is,” Allen said. “These materials are really amazing and special and they tell a strong story. But, for me personally, the process of building these relationships is perhaps even more meaningful. It is a process. It’s not the easiest process for families, especially those whose loved ones have passed, to let go of these items.”
Yantz confirmed it can be emotional to be with family members when they are reintroduced to items that bring back memories.
Talking about the Goodwin collection and his children, Yantz said, “They want the legacy of their father to be known by as many people as possible. But there’s still those emotional connections, so it is a process that sometimes takes years, and that’s absolutely fine because we want them to know that we are going to take care of this stuff and share his story as best as we can, and it’s going to be something that they are going to be proud of.”
