Heroes

November 26, 2024

Heroes can be found in all different forms. In the United States, we have many sports heroes. One example is professional boxer and social activist Muhammad Ali (1942-2016). Muhammad Ali’s given name was Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; when he converted to the Nation of Islam in the 1960s, he took the name Muhammad Ali. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Cassius Clay took home a gold medal in the Boxing Light Heavyweight Division. Special Collections & Archives holds two books written by Norman Mailer (1923-2007) about Muhammad Ali: The fight and On the fight of the century: "king of the hill." On the fight of the century: "king of the hill." Contains over fifty photographs. More photographs of Ali can be found in our Digital Collections; we have 119 Muhammad Ali photographs available from photographers Guy Crowder and Harry Adams.  

With CSUN being close to Hollywood, we also have documentation of movie star heroes in the archives. There just happened to be a 1992 Columbia Pictures movie called Hero. This motion picture stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy Garcia, and Joan Cusack with an ensemble supporting cast. Dustin Hoffman plays Bernie LaPlante, a bumbling crook who displays a repressed sense of courage, bravery, and selflessness. In other movies, Hoffman received seven Academy Award nominations and won two. The Columbia Pictures 1992 Hero press kit is available in the Lisa Lu Press Kit Collection. The ensemble supporting cast for the film was actually quite interesting and included Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Sigüenza of comedy group Culture Clash.

CSUN also holds the archives for Culture Clash and in May 2024, the comedy group performed at CSUN’s Soraya Center for the Performing Arts. The first movie Culture Clash did together was Encino Man and Hero was the second. The press kit for Encino Man is also in the Lisa Lu Collection. Plus, in box 4, folder 37 of the Ric Salinas Culture Clash Collection, we have the screen play for the 1992 Columbia Pictures film Hero written by David Webb Peoples.  

Finally, a military hero is a person who shows extraordinary courage, strength and ability while in military service. To learn more about military heroes, we have a resource in our Chase Craig Collection that is helpful. In box 17, there is a volume of War Heroes published by Dell Publishing. In the early 20th century, Dell was one of the largest publishers of comic books and pulp magazines. Designed to appeal to young readers, the comic book War Heroes was a quarterly publication that began in 1942. In issue number one of War Heroes, one of the comics is titled “Victory at Midway Island.” The comic features the heroic acts of Lieutenant George H Cannon, USMC (1915-1941) and Corporal Harold R Hazelwood, USMC (1920-1985). In a graphic form, the story explains that on the night of December 7, 1941 two Japanese naval ships moved into the Midway Islands. Without warning, the Japanese Navy opened fire on the American soldiers. Hazelwood was working as a switchboard operator in the Command Post on Sand Island, Midway Islands. To give you an idea of the island size, Sand Island is about 1.75 square miles. During the bombardment, a shell exploded just outside the Command Post. Corporal Hazelwood was wounded with shell fragments and in the explosion his leg was broken. Even though he was wounded and in pain, he went back to work on the telephone switchboard to communicate with other soldiers during the attack.  Later on in 1942, the President of the United States awarded Corporal Hazelwood the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force while serving on Sand Island, Midway Islands. For further research on Midway Islands, the James Sefton World War II Correspondence Collection has a letter from a soldier stationed on Midway; and, there are also some photographs in a 1942 photo album. 
 

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Post tagged as: special collections, urban archives, rare books, archives, correspondence, photographs, international