Letters, family photos and other personal documents donated to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research by Kirk Douglas, a prominent Hollywood actor, can now be viewed on a recently launched website.

WCFTR collaborated with the UW-Madison communication arts department to launch the website. The website previews the “Kirk Douglas Papers” from 1945 to 1978 at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

It is the first featured collection to be highlighted both online and at the historical society.

Maxine Fleckner Ducey, a WCFTR archivist, said the research center began collecting historic film materials for the university’s research initiative in 1960, “which was long before any other universities thought that there was scholarly value in these kind of papers.”

The University of California-Los Angeles, a notable film school, did not start this type of collecting until 1976, Ducey said.

Tino Balio, an emeritus professor in communication arts, said he and other department members were able to convince Douglas in 1969 that UW-Madison graduate film students could use his materials for serious research purposes.

“We were one of the first universities back in the late 60s and early 70s to seriously try to collect primary source material to document the history of motion pictures,” Balio said.

Rick Pifer, WHS director of reference and public services, said Douglas donated materials to the collection from 1969 until 1991.

According to Ducey, the website focuses on some of the more personal and unique elements of Douglas’s collection in order to build interest in the complete collection housed at WHS.

Ben Brewster, WCFTR assistant director, said tourists come to Madison from all over the world to look at the WHS’s film collections.

He added WCFTR is currently negotiating with the younger generation of the Douglas family to possibly acquire more material, but said Kirk’s son, Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas, already has a collection of his own.

Ducey said Douglas’s is not the only Hollywood collection at the historical society. She said UW-Madison has a few hundred more collections from actors, producers and writers.

According to Ducey, WHS plans to highlight two or three other collections in the coming year.