JACK VALENTI - QUOTATION SIGNED - HFSID 225199

JACK VALENTI. Typed Quotation signed: "Jack Valenti", 1p, 8½x11. Excerpt from a speech. Headed: "Jack Valenti/President Of The Motion Picture Association/Of America/Speech At The University Of Texas, Austin/October 23, 1989/Daily Variety/November 20, 1989". In full: "One of the strange anomalies of the movie business is the public indifference to screen-writing. Directors occupy their own nirvana. Actors are world famous. The producer's name sometimes inhabits an 'above-the-title' stature. But names of the writers blur before the viewer's eye...The fact is that nothing in the movie world begins without a script. 'In the beginning was the word' is not only a biblical injunction, it is a mandate of daily life in Hollywood. Words are the threads which weave the movie tapestry. Without a latticework of words finely caught, braced and knit with dramatic narrative, nothing happens. Nothing. I am not aware of any great film that was constructed from a bad script. I know of no superior director who was able to conceive a splendid movie from an awkward, loose-fibered screenplay. It doesn't happen." In 1966, Jack Valenti (1921-2007) left his post as special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson to become the third President of the Motion Picture Association of America. A leading figure in the establishment of the ratings system in the U.S., Valenti also contributed numerous articles to newspapers and magazines. Slightly creased, nicked at lower right blank edge. Fine condition.