Gift of rare trove reflects donor's “passion to conserve and share humanity’s collective memory”

A visionary businessman, humanitarian, and engaged citizen who chairs Herrick Entertainment, a film and theatrical production company, Norton Herrick knows all too well the importance of motion pictures in capturing and preserving history and culture. That’s why he donated a collection of more than 3,500 rare films and television programs to the University of Miami’s School of Communication, ensuring that audiences of movie lovers and scholars alike will have access to the cinematic treasures of yesteryear and today.

The collection is now the focus of the School of Communication’s new Norton Herrick Center for Motion Picture Studies.

The archives include rare video-formatted versions of early silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and other Hollywood stars. The collection is now the focus of the School of Communication’s new Norton Herrick Center for Motion Picture Studies, a resource that aids the study and teaching of film at UM while enriching South Florida’s intellectual and cultural life through lectures, conferences, and screenings at the Bill Cosford Cinema. Herrick, who also chairs a Boca Raton-based real estate investment firm, also donated funds to support the school’s efforts to digitize the archives so that researchers and film scholars worldwide can access them online.

UM President Donna E. Shalala noted Herrick’s “passion to conserve and share humanity’s collective memory as portrayed during the golden age of cinema and television” in 2010, when Herrick was awarded the prestigious University of Miami President’s Medal.

Member of Miami Giving Society