Les AuCoin Collection

Kelly and Stacy AuCoin pose with actress Lily Tomlin

Kelly and Stacy AuCoin pose with actress Lily Tomlin at a fundraiser, taken some time in the 1980s. In typed notes about the photograph, AuCoin wrote, "during my years on the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Interior and Insular Affairs, I championed the National Endowment for the Arts. It needed strong congressional advocacy against virulent opposition from Senator Jessie Helms and other extreme conservatives who argued that the endowment funded pornography masquerading as art. (They never explained why sculptures such as Michelangelo’s Statue of David or the iconic Venus de Milo were not pornographic!) My policy work for the arts quickly brought attention from, among others, the Hollywood community. Three celebrities campaigned for me in several of my closest races—besides Lily Tomlin, Debra Winger and Sally Field. This photo was taken at the home of the host of a New York City fundraising event at the home of George Plimpton, the editor of the Paris Review, just off New York City’s East River. Tomlin was the evening’s celebrity guest. Kelly and Stacy flew in from college to join us." This is one of a collection of digitized objects from the Les AuCoin Papers (MS.147) at the Pacific University Archives. The original photo remains with the AuCoin family.

1980-1989

Fund raising

Legislators--United States

Actors

New York

PUA_MS147_150

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Still Image