How did two historians help dozens of writers, producers, crew members, and actors from HBO’s Perry Mason television series re-create Depression-era Los Angeles as accurately as possible? William Deverell and Elizabeth Logan of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, who served as the historical consultants on Perry Mason, join Alta Live to detail their extensive research, reveal some surprises they discovered throughout their work on this hit series, and tell us what it’s like to be on a modern Hollywood set that’s supposed to look exactly like 1933.
About the guests:
William Deverell is the director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and a professor of history at USC. He is also the founding director of the USC Libraries Collections Convergence Initiative. He is a historian of the 19th- and 20th-century American West. His undergraduate degree in American studies is from Stanford, and his MA and PhD degrees in American history are from Princeton. He has published widely on the environmental, social, cultural, and political history of the West.
Elizabeth Logan is the associate director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. She received an undergraduate degree in history from Stanford, a JD from UCLA Law, and a PhD in history from USC. Logan served as a historical legal consultant for HBO’s Perry Mason season 2.•
