A May 1956 episode of the television series Telephone Time is one of the four films currently included in The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign’s digital ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film (ARENA).
The series was created, produced and hosted by John Nesbitt. And the episode is titled “Emperor Norton’s Bridge,” although the Bay Bridge — the Emperor’s bridge — appears nowhere in the story.
As it happens, though, Nesbitt — starting years before the airing of the episode — was a lifelong advocate for naming the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton.
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The conventional wisdom, advanced by Norton biographer William Drury and many others, is that Joshua Norton was a "high-functioning schizophrenic." But, accepting that Norton struggled with some form of mental illness, is schizophrenia really the best way to explain it? Here's a different take worth considering.
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The Emperor's Bridge Campaign has contributed four rare Emperor-themed films to the Internet Archive, the nonprofit library that collects published works and makes them available in digital formats.
These films are rarely seen outside the domains of film screening societies and, occasionally, subscription cable television — and sometimes not even then.
The Campaign is delighted and grateful to have the Internet Archive as a partner in making these films available for viewing by a broader audience — both via the Internet Archive and via the Campaign's own ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film (ARENA).
This collaboration with the Internet Archive includes the Archive's new high-resolution scan of the Campaign's 16mm copy of a 1936 theatrical film short that appears to feature the earliest dramatic portrayal of Emperor Norton extant on film.
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On Thursday 23 March, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign presents Lights! Camera! Norton! — an evening of three films about Emperor Norton at the legendary Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The event includes a screening of our own 35mm print of a 1936 short that we believe features the earliest dramatic portrayal of the Emperor on film.
This special evening takes place in the 254-seat Big Roxie theater and is a fundraiser for the Campaign: After the first 50 tickets sold, 50 percent of all proceeds from this screening will benefit The Campaign.
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Arriving in San Francisco in 1858, Oscar Penn Fitzgerald (1829-1911) was the founder and sometime preacher at one of the churches that was on Emperor Norton's Sunday rotation. By the time he returned to his native South in 1878, Fitzgerald had become an influential leader in the development of higher education in California. They were twenty years that enabled Fitzgerald to witness firsthand nearly the whole of the Emperor's reign.
O.P. Fitzgerald's second book of "California Sketches," published in 1881, features one of the most carefully observed and wonderfully drawn portraits of Emperor Norton that we have — exploring, with great empathy, the paradox of an Emperor who carried a Bologna sausage in his hip pocket but whose nobility of mind and bearing were such as to rob his title of any paradox at all.
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At the recent San Francisco History Days fair at the city's landmark Old Mint building, Stephen Parr of the San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films screened a rarity from the Oddball archive — a 1947 film short titled Emperor Norton, from the Academic Film Company.
In fact, Emperor Norton is a retitled reissue of the film The Story of Norton I, made by Columbia Pictures in 1936. This may be the earliest film portrayal of the Emperor.
We haven't yet connected all the dots. But the picture of this film is much clearer than it was. It's a fascinating story.
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It stands to reason that The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign* is one of the few organizations or individuals to be actively researching the question of whether Emperor Norton wrote the anti-"Frisco” proclamation so often attributed to him. So it was gratifying, a couple of days ago, to have our efforts acknowledged by the respected San Francisco-based magazine Mother Jones.
* In December 2019, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign adopted a new name: The Emperor Norton Trust.
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In a brief article last year, veteran San Francisco journalist Lynn Ludlow offered a fascinating, erudite and thought-provoking account of why early Herb Caen had it all wrong on "Frisco."
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You're not likely to encounter a more thoughtful or potent meditation on Emperor Norton and what he means than this.
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A well-written new profile of the Emperor by an Englishman who nurtures a self-professed "love affair" with San Francisco.
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A well-crafted new biographical summary of Emperor Norton appeared today. The concluding three paragraphs are especially worth pondering.
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