Jennifer Kaufman and Tom Forsythe, Proprietors
Jennifer Kaufman and Tom Forsythe purchased Frontier Movie Town in August of 2006. At the time it consisted of only a small gift shop and a rustic dining room built around a collection of movie sets from the Little Hollywood glory days of Southern Utah.
Before long, the opportunity to collaborate with "Chuckwagon Cookout, Inc." came along. After extensive expansion and remodeling during the winter of 2006 and spring of 2007, Frontier Movie Town grew into a much larger gift shop with new restrooms and multiple dining rooms to serve scrumptious cowboy inspired meals to 400 guests at a time.
Running Frontier Movie Town was a natural extension of Jen's talents. She had previously operated the Sun Gallery down the street in Kanab. Prior to that, Jen ran the food service concession at another area gift shop. At Frontier, Jen applies her experience with a fine eye toward merchandising and by seeking out "Made in USA" products whenever possible. It's an endeavor fraught with compromise since souvenirs depicting some of the greatest western icons like John Wayne, all come out of China. Another disconcerting discovery was that most US flags are actually Chinese-made. After some thorough detective work, Jen managed to source US flags that are actually made in the United States. She is very insistent that products sold in the gift shop that appear to be "Native American" made are actually made by Native American Indians.
Tom heads up the photography department, doing his best to capture the candid expression on the faces of the ever evolving cast of "How The West Was Lost" skit. Additionally, Tom oversees all facility management for the gift shop, dining rooms and museum. He is also a highly acclaimed photo artist best known for his photo series under the "Food Chain Barbie" moniker. His photo art can be perused and/or purchased from his personal website, www.tomforsythe.com. Tom quotes Bob Dylan, "You must choose either fortune or fame though neither of them are to be what they claim.” Tom says, "The fame may have been fleeting and he's still working on the fortune, but in the meantime he is fortunate to playfully interact daily with people who are enjoying the greatest vacation of their lives."
With the gift shop business running smoothly, Tom and Jen realized that the movie sets needed their own identity so the Little Hollywood Movie Museum was resurrected as a 501 (c) (3) non profit. They continue to work on expanding the interpretive aspects of the museum to help preserve and popularize the history and ongoing appeal of Southern Utah as the Little Hollywood western film capitol of the world.