The Hollywood Museum collection spans the years 1901-1966 (bulk 1910s-1950s) and encompasses 71 linear feet. The collection contains a wide variety of material donated to the Hollywood Museum between 1960 and 1967, including clippings, scrapbooks, photo albums, programs, casting directories, catalogs, books, magazines, and scripts. In addition, there is a small amount of correspondence, lobby cards, posters, costume sketches, artifacts, and sheet music. Those individuals represented by more extensive papers include technical director Rudolph Bylek, writer Myrtle Gebhart, producer David Horsley, and producer Jesse L. Lasky.

There are 150 scrapbooks, including those of director Herbert Brenon, Rudolph Bylek, Myrtle Gebhart, director Henry King, producer Carl Laemmle Sr., producer Carl Laemmle Jr., Jesse L. Lasky, actor Robert Emmett O'Connor, director Sidney Olcott, and actor Charles Ray. Scrapbooks contain clippings on specific films such as "The Miracle of the Bells" (1948) and "The Great Caruso" (1951). There are more than 60 photo albums, including those of producer Fred Balshofer, actor James Carewe, cinematographer Philip duBois, actor Boyd Irwin, makeup artist Harry Ross, actor Tom Santschi, and actress Evelyn Selbie.

Two dozen film programs (including one for the 1926 DON JUAN) are supplemented by an early 1900s Animatiscope program, a 1937 George Gershwin memorial concert program, and a 1936 program honoring Louis Lumière at the London Polytechnic School of Kinematography. Among the 160 magazines are miscellaneous issues of "Vitagraph Life Portrayals," 1912-1914, and individual issues of "Amateur Movie Makers," 1927; "Motion Picture Magazine," 1914; "The Photoplayers Weekly," 1915; and "Movie Life," 1961. "The Standard Casting Directory" is represented by miscellaneous issues between 1926 and 1933. Other casting directories include a 1928 "Album of Screen Children." Nearly 100 books cover the gamut of film history. Eight Frank Borzage films, including CHINA DOLL (1958), are among the more than two dozen scripts. Several Tom Geraghty scripts and treatments from the 1920s include ZIP, BOOM, BANG (Educational short, circa 1926), BACK STREET (1932), HERE'S TO ROMANCE (1935), RHAPSODY IN BLUE (1945), and THE BIG FISHERMAN (1959).

Information on film companies can be found in the collection in Lubin film catalogs, 1905-1909; flyers for the Selig Polyscope Company from the 1910s; a booklet on Vitagraph, circa 1912; a 1923 studio directory for Famous Players-Lasky in Hollywood; a photo album of Universal City, 1926; campaign books for Paramount Pictures for the 1920s and 1930s; a brief anecdotal account of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in "The Essanay Story," circa 1952; and a 1959 house organ for Republic Studios called the "Republic Insider."

Several dozen lobby cards can be found for such diverse films as A PAJAMA MARRIAGE (1920); HEART PUNCH (1932); AMBITIOUS PEOPLE (short, 1931); and several for the films of Harry Langdon, including HOUSE OF ERRORS (1942). Among the music-related material are a 1911 "Moving Picture Pianist Album" and a conductor score for Victor Young's Academy Award-winning score to AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956). A small amount of correspondence is highlighted by a 1911 letter from George K. Spoor on Essanay letterhead. The more than 20 costume sketches include those by designers Travis Banton, Jean-Louis, Rosemary Odell, Helen Rose, Edward Stevenson, Travilla, and Paul Zastupnevich. Of special interest is a sketch of the dress designed by Walter Plunkett for Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). The few artifacts are Ben Turpin's bronzed shoes, John Bunny's spectacles, a small framed Buster Keaton caricature, and a Plunkett family heirloom brooch used in GONE WITH THE WIND. Esoteric items include contracts related to the early career of theater owner, exhibitor, and distributor Marcus Loew, 1904-1906; Jackie Coogan "Little Folk Hankyfits" handkerchiefs; and a 1918 caricature of Jesse L. Lasky by singer Enrico Caruso.

The photograph series of the Hollywood Museum collection spans the years 1899-1970 and encompasses approximately 76 linear feet. The series consists of over 60,000 photographs, including portraits, oversized prints, candids, fashion shots, publicity shots, scenes from stage productions, production stills, black-and-white and color negatives, and color transparencies. The photographs are grouped into motion picture production photographs, biography photographs, and subject photographs.

The motion picture production photographs span the years 1899-1970 and consist of scene photographs, largely from the silent era of filmmaking. The material is arranged alphabetically by film title. Titles include "The Affairs of Anatol" (1921), "Alice Adams" (1923), "The Big Parade" (1925), "Blood and Sand" (1922), "The Blue Angel" (1931), "Cleopatra" (1917), "Cripple Creek Bar Room Scene" (1899), "Dancing Lady" (1933), "The Great Train Robbery" (1903), "The Jazz Singer" (1927), "The Mark of Zorro" (1920), "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947), "Of Human Bondage" (1934), "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1917), "The Sign of the Cross" (1915), and "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).

The biography photographs consist of publicity portraits, unidentified scene stills, publicity stills, candids and group stills. The material is arranged alphabetically by name. Among those depicted are Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, James Cagney, Charles Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks, Thomas H. Ince, Buster Keaton, Gene Kelly, Carole Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power, Luise Rainer, Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Gloria Swanson, King Vidor, Erich Von Stroheim, and Adolph Zukor.

The subject photographs span the years 1899-1962 and consist largely of unidentified scene stills; interiors and exteriors of production companies; group portraits; and set reference, theater, location filming, film crew and personnel photographs. The subjects are arranged alphabetically. Subjects include actors and actresses, George Eastman House of Photography, guilds and union associations, Hollywood Center for the Audio-Visual Arts, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Theaters Association, Photo Players Club, production, radio broadcasting, sets, Sherman House, studios and production companies, theaters, and wardrobe and makeup tests.

The Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum (commonly known as the Hollywood Museum) was planned in the early 1960s but was never built. Lack of funding, over-ambitious plans (a museum, galleries, film archive, library and academic complex, theater, sound stage, television studio, demonstration center, concessions, and administrative offices were part of the project at one time or another), and politics all contributed to its failure. This was not the first or the last attempt to build a museum in Hollywood honoring filmmaking. Previous plans—none directly linked to the Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum—included Motion Picture Relief Fund president Jean Hersholt's efforts in 1954 to build a film museum to bring in revenue for the Motion Picture & Television Fund Country House. His successor as president, E. L. DePatie, launched a campaign the following year for a Motion Picture Exposition and Hall of Fame, but the plans were dropped due to lack of industry support. Two years later John Anson Ford, acting chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, moved to establish a committee to explore the creation of a museum in Hollywood. Headed by producer Jack Warner, the committee considered the Hollywood Bowl area as well as Exposition Park, near downtown Los Angeles, as possible locations. The possibility of such a museum in Exposition Park prompted the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to push for a Hollywood locale. This was the impetus that resulted in the Hollywood Museum commission.

In June 1959, under the initiative of Los Angeles County Supervisor Ernest Debs, whose district included Hollywood, the board of supervisors issued a mandate to build and operate a museum in Hollywood that would foster and perpetuate interest in the motion picture, television, radio, and recording industries. The Los Angeles County Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum Commission was formed, with retired producer Sol Lesser acting as chairman. The supervisors offered county-owned land opposite the main entrance to the Hollywood Bowl, supplemented by the acquisition of contiguous parcels. William Pereira, architect of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Country House and Hospital, was hired to study the site and eventually design the building. Two private nonprofit corporations were established in June 1960: the Hollywood Museum Corporation, for the museum construction, and the autonomous Hollywood Museum Associates (HMA), of which Lesser was president. The former would build the facility with county-guaranteed bonds, and the latter would lease it from the county for thirty years, after which the building would revert to the county.

In December 1960 the board of supervisors suggested that the film industry put up half the cost of the project. This caused the HMA concern and was an early warning sign of the troubles to come. Over the next few years the HMA raised nearly $500,000 and gifts continued to accumulate. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held at the proposed site on October 20, 1963. Debs and Lesser, along with Gene Autry, Walt Disney, Jack Warner, Mary Pickford, Gregory Peck, Gloria Swanson, and others, addressed an audience of several thousand people. Early the following year, financier Bart Lytton, a founding member of the museum, publicly demanded an investigation of HMA finances. Despite his claims, the board of supervisors approved the museum lease. A county-condemned building on the site necessitated the eviction of its occupant, who consequently held sheriff's deputies at bay with a shotgun for several weeks until his arrest in April 1964. The dramatic standoff received much attention from the media, and taxpayers began to question the expenditure of public funds. The attorney for the evicted man immediately sued the county to prevent the sale of bonds to finance construction. The supervisors appointed a review board, headed by Lytton (who some claimed was disgruntled because he hadn't been appointed to the commission), that reported the HMA was operating at a deficit.

By late 1964, after having invested more than $1,000,000, the county froze funding. When Lytton saw the architect's plans in March 1965, he claimed the museum would cost $21 million to build. This estimated price tag far exceeded the original $6.5 million proposal and surpassed the amount of money raised thus far. Arguments ensued over how much the building would cost and where the money would come from. The HMA then suspended financial operations and stopped soliciting monetary donations. Two months later the county had completely withdrawn its support. The following month the proposed site was paved over to create a parking lot. (In the early 1980s the unrelated Hollywood Studio Museum, operated by Hollywood Heritage, Inc., opened in the Lasky-DeMille barn, which had been moved to the site.) By the time Lesser resigned as president of the HMA in August 1965, plans for the museum had been abandoned. Numerous attempts to resuscitate the project failed. (Two unrelated museums later opened in Hollywood: the presently shuttered Hollywood Museum on Hollywood Boulevard, showcasing John LeBold's costume collection, in 1984, and the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, near Mann's Chinese Theater in 1996.)

The museum's acquisitions remained in storage facilities supervised by the county until September 1967. In 1968 the City of Los Angeles, through its Board of Recreation and Parks Commission, inherited the Hollywood Museum memorabilia when it paid storage fees owed by the county to the warehouses storing the material. The materials were transferred to the Lincoln Heights jail, near downtown Los Angeles, and placed in the custody of the Hollywood Center for the Audio-Visual Arts. Donor Betty Lasky began a campaign around 1976 to find a proper home for the acquisitions. Terrys Olender, Lasky's attorney, tried to convince Los Angeles Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson to relocate the material to Los Angeles-area institutions. Stevenson appointed Olender public service legal coordinator for the Hollywood Museum project in 1979. Within two years Olender and Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Bruce Sottile had drawn up city-approved contracts to loan the "research" portion of the collection to four area institutions for a period of 25 years, renewable for an additional 15 years. By May 1982 the research material was distributed among the American Film Institute, the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the Academy. Ironically, one of the proposals made by Sol Lesser at a 1960 Hollywood Museum Library Committee organizational meeting attended by Margaret Herrick, Academy librarian Betty Franklin, and others was to have the legal committee draw up a performance contract so that the Academy could repossess Hollywood Museum gifts if they were in storage or not in use.