Who We Are
Linda Thurman founded Movie Poster Archives and immediately engaged Ed and Susan Poole because we are people who love movie posters. We also love knowledge, research and truth. We spend hours studying posters, lobby cards, stills and press kits. We celebrate details and authenticity and love delving into original sources to discover obscure facts.
Executive Director
Linda Thurman is an author, speaker, and executive director of Movie Poster Archives, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving film accessories: posters, stills, and related papers. Linda is the author of Hollywood South: Glamour, Gumbo, and Greed (Pelican Publishing). Her eclectic career includes film, television, theater, music, and publishing.
She held positions at United Artists, Norman Lear’s Act III Productions, and HBO Pictures. Linda was the Managing Editor of the Hollywood Creative Directory. She initiated and supervised the launch of HCD Online in 1994, the first year of explosive growth for the World Wide Web. IFilm.com purchased the company in 2000.
She retired from Hollywood and returned to Louisiana to become president and co-founder of Emerald Bayou Studios. Linda was honored to hold the Tom Bigler Endowed Chair in Media at Wilkes University. She was a founding member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmys) Interactive Media Peer Group and served on the Digital Coast Roundtable (appointed by the Mayor of Los Angeles). She has also served on the boards of the Association of Internet Professionals, the Louisiana Center for Workforce Recovery, Louisiana Center for Women in Government and Business, Louisiana Girls Leadership Academy, New Orleans Video Access Center, on the E-Commerce Advisory Committee for California State University Dominguez Hills, and the Internet Neutrality Task Force for the U.S. League of Women Voters.
Linda’s talent for combining art and technology surfaced early in her career as a theatrical lighting designer in New York. Her credits include John Sayles’ Turnbuckle with David Straithairn; Village Wooing with Rip Torn; and Spider Rabbit with Taylor Meade of the Andy Warhol Studio. Also in New York, Linda directed the play But Can A Woman Alone which was selected for presentation at the prestigious Womyn’s Theater Festival in Boston.
Throughout her career, Linda has worked closely with high-profile personalities. A few of her more than 200 films are Fried Green Tomatoes with Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates, Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange, and the original cult classic, The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer. Her experience in the music industry led her to join Cindi Lauper, Michael Bolton, Mike Stoller, and Diane Warren in the American delegation to the Songwriters Summit in Moscow in 1988.
A native of Louisiana, Linda attended Southeastern Louisiana University majoring in theatre and music. Afterward, she moved to New Orleans to work on the production staff at the Repertory Theater New Orleans. While in the Crescent City, Linda was a staff producer at NOVAC (New Orleans Video Access Center) where she negotiated the organization’s first distribution deal with the City of New Orleans to put TV monitors in public spaces to screen customized content.
Her articles have appeared in the NATPE News, the Los Angeles Voter, and Woman Spirit Magazine. She has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter, New Orleans Advocate, and other publications.
Archivists and Researchers
Ed Poole and Susan Poole, Consulting Archivists and Researchers, have written more than 20 books on film history with an emphasis on posters. Ed coined the phrase “movie accessories” to denote movie-related paper.
They founded LAMP: Learn About Movie Posters and Hollywood on the Bayou. The Poole Collection is world-renowned and has been exhibited in London, Los Angeles, and New York.
Ed and Susan’s expertise is a resource for Heritage Auctions, the Smithsonian, and auction houses and collectors worldwide.
Ed and Sue worked with the Louisiana Department of Tourism to create the popular Louisiana Film Trail online at https://www.louisianatravel.com/film.
Books written by the Pooles include:
The Pooles’ website HollywoodOnTheBayou.com has
over 50 vintage Louisiana trailers and lists of Louisiana films by time period as well as by parish. It serves as a sister site for their more comprehensive research websites LearnAboutMoviePosters.com, MoviePosterDataBase.com and MovieStillID.com.
.
Mission
To preserve and study movie posters, lobby cards, stills and paper film accessories.
Vision
To create a vast digital and physical archive for the preservation and research of movie paper.