BILL CLINTON and HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Color publicity photograph of Bill and Hilary Rodham Clinton in the White House with Frankie Hewitt.
Photograph signed: "Bill Clinton" as President and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as First Lady. Inscribed in calligraphy: "To Frankie Hewitt/Best wishes,". Color, 10x8 overall, image 8x5½ (one surface). Imprinted on verso: "OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO 07FEB98". Pictured are Frankie Hewitt with President and Mrs. Clinton in the White House. FRANKIE HEWITT (1931-2003) was the driving force behind Ford's Theatre, first lobbying single-handedly in 1965 to restore the structure as a working theatre and museum, then shaping the theatre's future by raising production funds, building new audiences and developing new American theatre works. Hewitt had served as a speechwriter for John F. Kennedy and an assistant to U.N. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson. After speaking with Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, she formed the nonprofit Ford's Theatre Society and negotiated a ten-year contract with the Department of the Interior under which the Society would produce live theater at Ford's Theatre. The theater reopened on February 12, 1968, the 158th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, with a production of John Brown's Body. After two theater companies failed to garner critical or financial success, Hewitt herself became the producing artistic director and held that role until her death. On February 27, 2003, a day before she died, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Bush. Fine condition.