Lorne Michaels gifts his Saturday Night Live archives to the UT Austin, offering researchers and fans unprecedented access to the show's history.

Live" creator Lorne Michaels has donated his career archive to the Harry Ransom Center cultural archive at the University of Texas.

Collection features "rehearsal notes and sketches to annotated scripts and personal correspondence" and provides behind-the-scenes history of SNL

Lorne Michaels has donated a collection of his work on Saturday Night Live and more to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The collection spans 50 years and includes rehearsal notes for SNL,

Lorne Michaels, creator of NBC's “Saturday Night Live", has donated his archive to UT Austin's Harry Ransom Center.

Michaels has no official ties to UT or Texas, but he's the latest of a group of entertainment bigwigs to select the Ransom Center to host personal archives. Robert De Niro donated his archive in 2006, and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner also donated the show's archive in 2017 .

Shelley Duvall, from left, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Lorne Michaels and Laraine Newman pose backstage at "Saturday Night Live" in 1977. The image is among the items in the Lorne Michaels Collection, an archive the series creator has donated to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Live" celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and Michaels' collection includes materials from across the show's history.

Lorne Michaels, the creator of the long-running sketch comedy television show “Saturday Night Live” donated the materials from the show that launched