If you haven’t seen Lights! Camera! East Tennessee yet at the Museum of East Tennessee History, you still have time. In fact, April 26 may be the ideal time to explore this area’s relationship with the movies.
Orleans (standing in cap) and his crew
Take some time to visit the exhibition then settle in for a noontime program featuring the remarkable career of Sam Orleans. The Greeneville Sun wrote an article about him on the anniversary of the 1964 Parrottsville Plane Crash that took his life.
Following years of work as a news stringer and cameraman for hire, Orleans opened Knoxville’s first motion picture production studio in 1946. Throughout the next two decades, his company produced over 100 educational and industrial films, focusing on such subjects as driver’s education, agriculture, health and nuclear power.
Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection Manager Eric Dawson will offer an overview of Orleans’s life and career, illustrated by clips from films shot in Knoxville, Maryville and Oak Ridge. This program will be held in the Bilo Nelson Auditorium of the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St. in Downtown Knoxville. It is free and open to the public; registration is not required.
Mary Pom Claiborne is assistant director for marketing, communications and development for Knox County Public Library