Oakland University Archives and Special Collections
OU.SC.ARMSTRONG
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- Oakland University Archives and Special Collections
- Title
- Curtis Armstrong papers
- ID
- OU.SC.ARMSTRONG
- Date
- 1968-present
- Extent
- 15.0 Linear feet
- Language
- English
Preferred Citation
Item, folder title, box no., Curtis Armstrong Papers, Oakland University Archives and Special Collections
Biographical note
Curtis Armstrong was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1953. From 1964 to 1967 he lived in Switzerland with his parents. Upon their return they settled in Berkley, Michigan. It was at Berkley High School that Armstrong first discovered the theatre and was encouraged by his teachers to pursue this career. In 1972 he first enrolled at Western Michigan University before successfully auditioning for the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University. At this two-year professional acting academy, he learned an actor’s trade, performed in many plays with the Studio Theatre, and made important and lasting connections with teachers and mentors like Terrence Kilburn, artistic director of OU’s Meadow Brook Theatre.
Upon graduation in 1975 he and Lavinia Moyer formed Roadside Attractions, a pop-up theater troupe in Ann Arbor that would eventually become the Attic Theatre. Even as Roadside Attractions produced its own plays, Meadow Brook Theatre’s Terry Kilburn offered Armstrong the role of Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream to open the 1975-1976 season of Oakland University’s Meadow Brook Theatre.
In August 1976 Armstrong moved to the New York area to pursue his theatre career. He started performing regularly in off-Broadway productions, national tours, regional, and summer theaters. He became a member of the Colonnades Theatre Lab and played a role in Wolf Mankowitz’s Irish Hebrew Lesson. In 1979 he did a national tour of the Pulitzer-prize and Tony-award winning Da by Hugh Leonard. It was during the tour that he met his future wife, Cynthia Carle.
Armstrong made his break in the movie industry in 1983 with the role of Miles Dalby in Risky Business, starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay. After Risky Business he returned to the stage and held roles in several productions, including How I got That Story at the Attic Theatre in Detroit. Armstrong’s next cinema venture was in Revenge of the Nerds, a comedy that had a huge popular success.
After working regularly for the cinema in the 1980s, Armstrong tried his hand at screenwriting in the 1990s. With writing partner John Doolittle, he sold several scripts but none ended up on the screen, although one went as far as casting and pre-production. They also worked on the script of The Player, directed by Robert Altman, although they did not get credits for it. In 2004 Armstrong played the part of Ahmet Ertegün in the biographical film Ray. He has also appeared in numerous television series, from Moonlighting to Supernatural and New Girl. Along with his former Revenge of the Nerds co-actor, Robert Carradine, he hosted the television show King of the Nerds on TBS in 2013-2016.
In 2017, Armstrong wrote his autobiography, "Revenge of the Nerd: Or...the Singular Adventures of the Man Who Would Be Booger.” He is also an ardent bibliophile who collects – and occasionally writes – articles about authors such as P. G. Wodehouse, Washington Irving and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 2009 Oakland University gave Armstrong a Music, Theatre and Dance Alumni Achievement (MATILDA) Award and in 2016 designated him as an OU Prominent Alum.
Scope and Contents note
The Curtis Armstrong papers document Armstrong’s career as a theater, cinema, and television actor and as a screenwriter and author. The collection was donated by Armstrong to Oakland University in March 2019.
The collection has been organized in 12 series: Theater; Film; Screenwriting; Television; King of the Nerds; Books; Personal; Articles and clippings; Photographs; Oversize; Realia; and Audiovisual.
The first five series are generally arranged chronologically by project. The Film series contains productions in which Curtis Armstrong held a role while the Screenwriting series is for projects in which he and his friend John Doolittle worked and sold scripts in the 1990s. For each project, all relevant materials are included -- such as photographs and clippings -- except for audiovisual materials. Materials for each project are roughly organized chronologically from pre-production to post-production activities. Researchers interested in a specific project should also look in folders for projects Armstrong conducted simultaneously or soon after, as references to it may be included. This project-based organization corresponds to the way Armstrong sorted the materials when doing research for his autobiography.
The remaining series contain materials not generated for specific projects. The Books series contains drafts, proofs and miscellaneous materials relating to Armstrong’s two books, A Plum Assignment: Essays about P. G. Wodehouse (2018), and Revenge of the Nerd, his autobiography (2017).
The Personal Files contain documents and photographs from Armstrong’s years at Berkley High School, Western Michigan University, and Oakland University’s Academy of Dramatic Art (ADA), as well as miscellaneous items relating to other personal matters. Of particular note are letters Armstrong sent to his parents, then working and living in London, that document his experience at the ADA in detail. The Personal Files also hold Armstrong’s business correspondence and personal notebooks. His notebooks contain notes on personal and professional topics, including notes about roles and the character bios that Armstrong drafted to prepare for a role. Occasionally, journal entries are also found in the notebooks. One notebook includes a bio for Goov, his Clan of the Cave Bear character. It also includes, by Armstrong’s own admission, a list of things he suggested to cut his screen time on Revenge of the Nerds, because he was embarrassed about his role and wanted to appear as little as possible in it.
The Articles and Clippings series contains newspaper and magazine clippings discussing various aspects of Armstrong’s career that are not related to a specific production. Likewise, the Photographs series contains photographs that are not limited to any specific production or whose topic have not been identified. Some photographs are loose while others are in scrapbooks, left in the order in which the donor arranged them.
The Oversize series contains posters, including a poster for Risky Business’s 30th anniversary, signed by director Paul Brickman.
Realia is a small series that contains an intertitle from a Moonlighting episode, a Moonlighting fan club pin, and an oversized Revenge of the Nerds VHS tape box.
The Audiovisual series includes all recordings, including commercial DVDs, demos, ads, interviews, and personal recordings by Armstrong and others. Commercial DVDs have been separated out.
Administrative Information
Publication Information
Oakland University Archives and Special Collections
Kresge Library100 Library Drive
Rochester, MI, 48309
Access and Use note
A number of files and audio recordings have been restricted and placed in a separate series. They include Curtis Armstrong’s diaries during the making of Risky Business, tapes made by Robert Carradine called “Burden of Nerds”, and another behind the scenes series of tapes by Lycia Naff during the shooting of Clan of the Cave Bear (all open for research March 5, 2049). Recordings of interviews conducted by Curtis Armstrong in preparation for his autobiography are also included (open for research March 5, 2049). Contestant biographies for the King of the Nerds show are also restricted (open for research March 5, 2069).
Copyright
For some materials for which the donor held copyrights, rights were transferred to Oakland University. Copyright of all other materials has not been transferred to Oakland University. Patrons are responsible for determining appropriate use of the materials.
Processing
Processed by Dominique Daniel and Shirley Paquette, June-August 2019
Collection Inventory
Theatre |
Box 1 |
|||
|
Roadside Attractions - Notebooks |
||||
|
Roadside Attractions - Notes - Scripts |
||||
|
Roadside Attractions - The Caretaker 1976 |
||||
|
The Who Gets Slapped - New York Theatre 1976 |
||||
|
DA - Power Center Performing Arts, Ann Arbor Oct. 26-28, 1979 |
||||
|
DA - New York Theatre 1979-1980 2 folders. |
||||
|
The Irish Hebrew Lesson - New York Theatre 1980 |
||||
|
Anna Rey - New York Theatre 1981 |
||||
|
The Entertainer - New York Theatre 1981 |
||||
|
Life of Galileo - New York Theatre 1981 2 folders. |
||||
|
Moliere in Spite of Himself - New York Theatre 1981 2 folders. |
||||
|
Virginia - New York Theatre 1981 |
||||
|
Wind in the Willows - New York Theatre 1981 |
||||
|
Present Laughter - Meadow Brook Theatre 1975, 1985 |
||||
|
A Summer Remembered - Totem Pole Playhouse 1988 |
||||
|
The Nerd - Totem Pole Playhouse 1989 |
||||
|
Totem Pole Playhouse - corresp. 1990 |
||||
|
Totem Pole Playhouse - misc. 1993 |
||||
|
Totem Pole Playhouse - misc. - n.d. |
||||
|
Totem Pole Playhouse - news clippings 1989-1990 |
||||
|
God of Hell 2006 2 folders. |
||||
|
El Hermano - New York Theatre n.d. |
||||
|
New York Theatre - misc. n.d. |
||||
Meadow Brook Theatre - misc. |
||||
|
Scripts - misc. productions 11 pieces. |
||||
|
Attic Theatre - misc.- news clippings 1980s-1991 4 folders. |
||||
|
|
||||
Film |
Box 2 |
|||
| Box | ||||
|
Risky Business - script - corresp. - news clippings - photographs 1983 6 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerds - script - schedules - news clippings - publs. - photographs 1984 5 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Better off Dead - script - schedules - news clippings - photographs 1985 3 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Bad Medicine - script - schedules - news clippings - poster 1985 4 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - script 1986 2 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - Clan Reporter - newsletter |
2 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - misc. notes - corresp. 1986 3 folders. |
2 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - news clippings - poster 1986 |
2 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - photographs 1986 3 folders. |
2 | |||
|
One Crazy Summer - script - newsclippings - photographs 1986 2 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerds II - script - news clipping 1987 2 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerds III - script 1992 2 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - script 1993 2 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerds IV - script - photos - media 1994 3 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Double Shot 2004 |
3 | |||
|
Conversations 2004 |
3 | |||
|
Ray - script - news clippings - media - photos - book 2005 5 folders plus hd.cover book. |
3 | |||
|
Man of the House 2005 |
3 | |||
|
Greener Mountains 2005 |
3 | |||
|
Akeelah and the Bee - script - news clippings - misc. corresp. 2006 3 folders. |
3 | |||
|
Ratko - photographs 2009 |
3 | |||
|
Flypaper - script - news clippings 2011 |
3 | |||
|
Sparkle - script 2012 |
3 | |||
|
Planes-Fire and Rescue - script - media 2014 |
3 | |||
|
Orpheus - script 2015 |
3 | |||
|
|
||||
Screenwriting |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Shanghai Noon - script - corresp. 2000 |
4 | |||
|
Honeysuckle Cottage - 1990 |
4 | |||
|
Honeysuckle Cottage - 1992 2 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Hollywood Scandal 1991 2 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Monkey Business 1992 |
4 | |||
|
The Player 1992 2 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Flight of Fancy 1993 3 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Goofy Movie 1995 |
4 | |||
|
Personal Liability 1995 2 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Snowballs - Balto 1995 3 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Debbie Does Darwin 1996 |
4 | |||
|
Infinite Jest 1997 |
4 | |||
|
The Birthday Party Wars 1999 |
4 | |||
|
Out of Town 1999 2 folders. |
4 | |||
|
Tarzan - script - corresp. - drawings 1999 3 folders. |
4 | |||
|
|
||||
Television |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Moonlighting - scripts - corresp. - schedules - media - photos 1986 20 folders. |
5 | |||
|
Moonlighting Strangers - Fanzine 2002-2004 8 spiral bd. issues. |
5 | |||
|
Honey I'm Dead - news clippings - media 1991 |
5 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerds - Pilot [unaired] 1991 |
5 | |||
|
Eek! stravaganza 1993 4 folders. |
5 | |||
|
The Chronicle 2001 |
5 | |||
|
One on One 2004 |
5 | |||
|
American Dad - scripts 2005 3 folders. |
6 | |||
|
iCarly 2008 |
6 | |||
|
Rules of Engagement - script 2011 |
6 | |||
|
The Closer - script - "Silent Partner" 2011 |
6 | |||
|
Supernatural - scripts - schedules - cast list 2013 3 folders. |
6 | |||
|
Highston - scripts - handwritten notes 2015 2 folders. |
6 | |||
|
Frequency - script 2016 |
6 | |||
|
Major Crimes - script - corresp. 2016 |
6 | |||
|
|
||||
King of the Nerds |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
King of the Nerds - origins - notes - corresp. - images n.d. |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - Season 1 2012 3 folders. |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - Season 2 2013 |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - Season 3 2014 |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - scripts n.d. |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - misc. |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - clippings |
6 | |||
|
King of the Nerds - New York Comic Con Oct. 11-14, 2012 |
6 | |||
|
|
||||
Books |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
A Plum Assignment - manuscript - notes - articles n.d. 4 folders. |
6 | |||
|
A Plum Assignment: discourses on P.G. Wodehouse and his World / Curtis Armstrong & Elliott Milstein c2018 1 soft cover book. |
6 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerd: or the singular adventurs of the man who would be "Booger" / Curtis Armstrong - advance uncorrected proof 1 soft cover book. |
6 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerd: a nerds progress - manuscript 11 folders. |
7 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerd - Contract March 18, 2016 |
7 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerd - Proofs May 14, 2017 2 folders. |
7 | |||
|
Revenge of the Nerd - Publicity |
7 | |||
|
|
||||
Personal |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Junior High & High School 1968-1972 |
7 | |||
|
Western Michigan 1973-1974 |
7 | |||
|
Correspondence - 1973-n.d. |
7 | |||
|
Correspondence - 1974-1975 |
7 | |||
|
Correspondence - Business 1986-2001 |
7 | |||
|
Academy of Dramatic Art - corresp. - handbook - notes - photographs |
7 | |||
|
Academy of Dramatic Arts - Variations on a Theme - photographs |
7 | |||
|
Academy of Dramatic Arts Reunion - 20th 1995 |
7 | |||
|
Actors Equity Alien Committee - notebook - corresp. - news clippings 1980s |
7 | |||
|
Awards |
7 | |||
|
The Tempest - annotated script |
7 | |||
|
Notebooks 2 folders. |
7 | |||
|
Misc. - invites - "Dear Liar" |
7 | |||
|
|
||||
Articles and Clippings |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Publicity Scrapbook 2 folders. |
7 | |||
|
Clippings |
7 | |||
|
|
||||
Photographs - misc. people & events |
Box 8 |
|||
|
|
||||
Oversize |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Revenge of the Nerds - Nerds in Love [vhs case - facsimile] |
8 | |||
|
Revenge of Nerd - Curtis Armstrong book - promotional poster |
8 | |||
|
Ray - Variety - promotional poster |
8 | |||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - cast promotional photograph (color) |
8 | |||
|
Library Bards - Bardcore - autographed poster |
8 | |||
|
Proclamation - City of Tucson - Nerds Day Nov. 8, 2017 |
8 | |||
|
Risky Business 30th Anniversary - autographed poster |
8 | |||
|
American Dad - 2018 season promotional poster |
8 | |||
|
Nerds V - promotional poster (color) |
8 | |||
|
Scrapbook - Publicity [Photographs] 2 folders. |
9 | |||
|
Scrapbook - #2 [Photographs] 1993-2007? |
9 | |||
|
Scrapbook - Cast & Crew [Photographs] n.d. |
9 | |||
|
Scrapbook - Moonlighting [Photographs] |
9 | |||
|
|
||||
Realia |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Moonlighting intertitle - [black & white posterboard] |
8 | |||
|
I heart Burt - the Burt & Viola fan club - pin |
10 | |||
|
Mask - Shakespeare character - handmade |
10 | |||
|
|
||||
RestrictedRestricted accessMaterial in this box contains confidential information. See Deed of Gift for restriction details. |
Box 11 |
|||
|
Totem Pole Playhouse |
||||
|
Risky Business - handwritten notes [Films] 3 folders. |
||||
|
Crewlists [Films] |
||||
|
Crewlists - Supernatural |
||||
|
King of the Nerds - Series 9 folders. |
||||
|
Miscellaneous |
||||
|
Contracts 6 folders. |
||||
|
Journals 2 notebooks. |
||||
|
Address Books 2 books. |
||||
|
Clan of the Cave Bear - 4 VHS tapes - Audio |
||||
|
Burden of Nerds - VHS tape - Audio |
||||
|
Revenge of Nerds Book - Interviews - Audio 8 cassettes. |
||||
|
Miscellaneous - Audio 3 cassette tapes. |
||||
|
|
||||
Audiovisual |
||||
Commercial DVDS |
Box 12 |
|||
Other |
||||
| Box | ||||
|
Film - Screenwriting |
13 | |||
|
Television |
14 | |||
|
Personal |
15 | |||
|
Interviews |
||||
|
King of the Nerds |
||||
|
Ads |
||||
|
Music clips |
||||
|
|
||||