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In the mid-1940s, Gene Tierney seemed to have it all: beauty, talent, success. By age 25, she was a major star and had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Ten years later, she was on the verge of being admitted to a series of mental institutions.

How did such a tragic fall from grace come about? And what can we learn from it about Gene Tierney and the treatment of mental health in mid-20th century America?

Gene Tierney – beauty, talent, success and more

  • Gene Tierney comes from a loving, well-to-do family and goes to school in Switzerland as well as in the US. Her father is an insurance broker with clients in Hollywood. In 1938, he packs his wife and children off to California. During a studio sightseeing tour at Warner Bros, 17-year-old Gene is spotted by director Anatole Litvak, who invites her to make a screen test. She’s offered a contract but her parents forbid her to sign.
Gene Tierney in her bedroom at her parents' house.
Around 1940. A rare, early shot of Gene Tierney on her bed at her parents’ house. The photos on the wall are of her. Photo by Hart Preston.

She returns home determined to become an actress and help the family out financially, now that her father’s business has fallen on hard times. And determination is what it takes:

In my circle you finished school, married a Yale boy, and lived in Connecticut. … I wanted to be an actress. Nothing else mattered. I suppose that thousands of girls of my generation talked that way, and some of them meant it, but most wound up as carhops or returned home to marry their boyfriends.

With her father’s help, she embarks on a career as a stage actress and in double-quick time makes it to Broadway, which quickly takes her back to Hollywood, as revealed in a 1941 interview with Screenland:

Columbia originally brought me out, after two minor roles in Broadway attempts. I was a scared-to-death seventeen then. I wandered and wondered about the Columbia lot, a mystery to everyone including mother and me. There was no rush to take portrait sittings, to pose in the latest fashions. Eventually I was cast in a picture, opposite Randolph Scott. … On my second day, way back three years ago, I was unceremoniously taken out and Frances Dee took over the role.

I was A Failure … I did what I could to grin and bear it. I was fat, so I dieted. I studied dancing. And when option time came I got the axe, anyhow. I’d come to Hollywood, fizzled ignominiously, and was fated to be forgotten. Only I’m stubborn. Ask mother and dad! I declined to Fade Out. At almost eighteen I knew I could make the grade with a studio.

Back on Broadway, she gets a break in the critically acclaimed The Male Animal, as a result of which she features in LIFE, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. More offers from Hollywood drop through her letterbox and she ends up signing for Twentieth Century-Fox, whose founder, Darryl F Zanuck, a notorious womanizer, hails her as “unquestionably the most beautiful woman in movie history.”

Learning from her previous abortive stay in Hollywood, this time her contract stipulates that Twentieth Century-Fox must immediately find roles for her and put her to work. In her first 12 months she complete three movies, the most important of which is Tobacco Road. At which point the studio’s publicity machine swings into action.

I was turned over to the studio’s top publicity woman, Peggy McNaught, and a photographer named Frank Powolny. Soon Peggy had me posing for Frank’s camera at the beach, at poolside, in nightclubs, on the set, and in the studio gallery. She lined up interviews and pushed me for fashion layouts in magazines and newspapers.

Over the next few years Gene Tierney appears in a succession of films including Sundown and The Shanghai Gesture (1941) Rings on her Fingers (1942), Heaven Can Wait (1943) and Laura (1944) – the role for which she’s best remembered to this day. Co-star Vincent Price would later remark:

No one but Gene Tierney could have played ‘Laura.’ There was no other actress around with her particular combination of beauty, breeding, and mystery.

Gene Tierney glances over her shoulder.
Mid-1940s. Gene Tierney glances over her shoulder.

As an aside, in the first instance Laura was to be directed by Rouben Mamoulian and he commissions his wife Acadia, a popular Hollywood artist, to paint the portrait of Laura, which plays such an iconic part in the movie. When Mamoulian is fired, his successor Otto Preminger decides that the portrait lacks mystery. So he sends Gene to pose for Frank Powolny, chooses one of the shots from the session and has a blow-up made and lightly brushed over with paint to create the desired effect.

  • The following year, Gene Tierney is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
  • In spite of this, her Hollywood career is dogged by poor reviews, with critics seemingly resentful of her privileged background and striking looks – as if those advantages preclude or negate talent, determination and persistence.
  • Suffice it to say that her performance in Leave Her to Heaven will lead Martin Scorsese to observe that, “Gene Tierney is one of the most underrated actresses of the Golden Era.”

Her experience working with Ernst Lubitsch on Heaven Can Wait is revealing of her attitude to her work and her colleagues:

Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, “Mr. Lubitsch, I’m willing to do my best but I just can’t go on working on this picture if you’re going to keep shouting at me.” “I’m paid to shout at you,” he bellowed. “Yes,” I said, “and I’m paid to take it – but not enough.” After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously.

By the time her mind crumbles, and her career with it, Gene Tierney has appeared in more than 30 movies.

Gene Tierney – a series of unfortunate events

For all her success in front of the camera, behind the scenes and under the surface Gene Tierney is going to pieces. Her plight is horribly reminiscent of William Blake’s poem, The Sick Rose:

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

A series of setbacks undermine Gene’s self-confidence and leave her increasingly fragile and vulnerable.

Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party
January 1941. Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party. Photo by Jack Albin.

In 1940, she meets fashion designer Oleg Cassini at a party given by their mutual friend, Constance Moore.  The two of them hit it off immediately. On 1 June 1941, they elope to Las Vegas where they get married in a private ceremony. Gene’s parents are horrified when they hear what she’s done and all but disown her.

Twentieth Century-Fox and the Hollywood establishment generally are similarly disenchanted. Even a favourable interview in Screenland three months after the event refers to “tempestuous Tierney”, “the climbing Count” and their “madcap marriage”.

Oleg has been working as a costume designer – notably on on Veronica Lake’s wardrobe for I Wanted Wings (1941), Gene’s for The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Rita Hayworth’s for Tales of Manhattan (1942). But for the next five years the studios treat him as a pariah. The couple are pretty much totally reliant on Gene’s earnings, which puts the marriage under strain from the off.

Then Gene finds out that her father, “who taught me that honour was everything” and who has been acting as her agent via a company called Belle-Tier Corporation, has been siphoning off all her earnings to prop up his failing insurance business. Everything has been lost. It also turns out that her father has been having an affair with one of her mother’s friends. The close relationship between father and daughter is at an end.

In March 1943 Gene discovers that she’s expecting a baby. She decides to use her break to do some volunteer work at the Hollywood Canteen – a patriotic gesture and a good source of publicity for a rising actress.

In June, she falls ill with rubella (German Measles), with fatal consequences for her unborn child. In October, when she gives birth, prematurely, her daughter requires a complete blood transfusion. Daria is also deaf and partially blind. Oleg and Gene decide to take the little girl home with them and raise her as best they can.

Gene Tierney poses in front of a mirror.
Mid-1940s. Gene Tierney, in a shot-silk costume, poses in front of a mirror.

A year after Daria’s birth, Gene is approached at a tennis party by a fan who smiles and asks if she recognizes her. She tells Gene she was in the women’s branch of the marines and met her at the Hollywood Canteen:

Did you happen to catch the German measles after that night? You know, I probably shouldn’t tell you this. But almost the whole camp was down with German measles. I broke quarantine to come to the Canteen to meet the stars. Everyone told me I shouldn’t, but I just had to go. And you were my favourite.

Around this time, it is becoming apparent that Daria is also fatally brain-damaged. In the end, her parents admit defeat and send her to an institution, where she will spend the rest of her life. With all the stresses and strains, their marriage is on the rocks. Oleg has an affair. The couple split up.

Gene meets and falls for future US President John F Kennedy. But when he hears that she has asked Oleg for a divorce, he tells her over lunch in New York that he can never marry her. Her response: “Bye, bye, Jack.”

Oleg and Gene are divorced in 1952, and she takes up with Prince Aly Khan, Rita Hayworth’s ex, whom she met in Argentina the previous year while making Way of a Goucho. It’s the same story as with JFK – there’s no way his family will countenance their marriage so the relationship goes nowhere.

Gene’s bouts of anxiety and depression finally come to a head in 1955 when she is working on Left Hand of God (1955) with Humphrey Bogart:

I was so ill, so far gone, that it became an effort every day not to give up. … I knew that if I got through the picture I had to get myself to a hospital. I learned later that a sister of Bogart’s had been mentally ill. He recognised the signs, went to the studio bosses and warned them I was sick and needed help. They assured him that I was a trouper, was aware how much had been invested in the film and would not let them down. They suggested that Bogart be kind and gentle. He was nothing less. His patience and understanding carried me through the film. We did not know then that he was himself terminally ill with cancer.

The studio’s response is telling and likely pretty typical. Their primary concerns are with ensuring the commercial success of their movies, hushing up inconvenient truths and providing sanitized versions of their stars’ lives for public consumption. Don’t imagine that Gene Tierney is alone in struggling with mental health issues. She’s in good company – Vivien Leigh, Rita Hayworth and Judy Garland are three other cases in point. Mental health continues to be an issue for film stars and other celebrities to this day, as revealed by an article in Marie Claire to mark World Mental Health Day 2017.

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Mental health issues seem to have run in Gene’s family. In Self-Portrait, she mentions her maternal aunt in this context, so she’s likely to have been predisposed to anxiety and depression. Her autobiography begins with her nadir in the spring of 1957:

It is a terrible thing to feel no fear, no alarm, when you are standing on a window ledge fourteen stories above the street. I felt tired, lost, and numb – but unafraid. I wasn’t at all certain I wanted to take my own life. I cat-walked a few steps away from the open window and steadied myself, to think about it. The fact that I could no longer make decisions was why I had gone to the ledge in the first place. What to wear, when to get out of bed, which can of soup to buy, how to go on living, the most automatic task confused and depressed me.

Gene Tierney – a mid-20th century mental patient

Portrait of Gene Tierney by Talbot.
Around 1940. Portrait of Gene Tierney by Talbot.

Gene Tierney is courageous in speaking out about her struggles with severe bouts of depression, a taboo subject for most of the 20th century. Over a period of six years, she is admitted to three different mental hospitals and has a total of 32 electric shock treatments:

I knew nothing about electric shock therapy, and I don’t think the doctors at the time knew much more. It was then considered a scientific breakthrough, although opinion was divided about the potential for long-term harm. The treatment was developed in Italy in 1938. Doctors soon began to use it to treat schizophrenia and cases of severe depression.

An electrode was attached to each temple and an alternating current of eighty or ninety volts passed between the electrodes for a split fraction of a second. In the early days of this therapy, the moment of violent seizure often produced fractures and dislocated bones. The use of muscle relaxants solved that problem.

When it shocked its victims into some measure of sanity, it seemed to do so by inducing a temporary amnesia. It triggered a physical feeling that was comfortable and benign. You can hardly be depressed over something you no longer remember. The results often were so dramatic that helpless people could soon manage everyday things that once seemed intimidating.

But even more than electric shock treatment, Gene fears the cold pack:

To me, the cold pack was the worst indignity of my confinement. It was not meant to be cruel or inhuman or to punish you. The cold pack was simply one of the ways of rearranging your mind, of shocking you back into sanity, or so the doctors hoped. When my time came, I felt only that I had been dehumanized.

I was wrapped from the neck down in icy wet bedsheets, my arms strapped to my sides. It was like being buried in a snow bank. Tears poured down my cheeks as the minutes ticked away. I couldn’t move. I lost the feeling in my hands and feet. My mind was in a panic.

Gene Tierney poses in front of a mirror
1940. Gene Tierney poses in front of a mirror.

Eventually, she starts to get a grip on herself:

When I accepted my handicap, my doctors told me, “Now you are going to get well, because you know you have a weakness.” But it took me four years to face the truth. Up to then, I committed myself to treatment because I thought my family felt I should, and I told myself I was pleasing them.

Her exit interview is like something out of Kafka:

I was beginning to respond, to open up, to examine the disappointments in my life: my father, my marriage, the helplessness I felt when I had to give up Daria.

Early in August of 1958, I was told to appear before members of the medical staff for an interview. If I passed, I would be released to my family. I was dressed neatly and quietly, without jewelry, in my own clothes. I felt pale and edgy, like a young girl applying for her first job. I was applying for my freedom.

I sat behind a two-way glass. The doctors could see me, but I could not see them. I found it disconcerting, hearing these disembodied voices. My nerves were so keyed up that I remember nothing of their questions or my answers.

Gene is lucky insofar as she can afford to stay at some of the best institutions around at the time. In 1963, Richard Avedon will visit a state-run establishment – East Louisiana State Mental Institution, Jackson, Louisiana. His photos are a harrowing reminder of what it was like for less well-off individuals with mental-health problems.

In the UK, most of the old asylums have been closed down but some of the buildings survive as ruins, eloquently and evocatively documented at Abandoned Britain. All well and good, but now there’s almost nowhere to go for those who need help and many of them sleep rough on the streets.

Gene Tierney publicity portrait for On The Riviera.
1951. Gene Tierney publicity portrait for On The Riviera.

Gene Tierney – a kind of redemption

Gene Tierney will struggle with her demons for the rest of her life. That won’t prevent her from appearing in minor roles in a handful of films during the 1960s and one movie historian will remark that:

Gene Tierney returns to the screen after 7 years absence undergoing psychiatric treatment, which probably included recovering from endless caustic comments from Bosley Crowther throughout her career. He never had a nice word for her, ever… I wonder if she just rolled her eyes at every NY Times review. Crowther just relentlessly had it in for her no matter what she did. She must have snubbed him at a party as a starlet.

In autumn 1958, she had met W Howard Lee, a Texas oilman, then about to divorce none other than Hedy Lamarr. On 11 July 1960, Gene Tierney will marry Lee in a small ceremony in Aspen. He will stick with her through her ups and her downs until his death in 1981.

Want to know more about Gene Tierney?

The two books on which this piece is based are Self-Portrait by Gene Tierney with Mickey Herskowitz and American Legends: The Life of Gene Tierney. There’s an article by Ben Maddox about Gene Tierney’s recent marriage to Oleg Cassini in the September 1941 issue of Screenland, available at the Media History Digital Library. Another article in the 29 September 1958 issue of LIFE magazine is about Gene Tierney’s return to Hollywood.

Hedy Lamarr before she came to Hollywood

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In Vienna Farewell, an article published in the April 1939 issue of Photoplay magazine, writer and journalist Heinz Liepmann describes a fateful night in Vienna on which he met Hedy Lamarr, then wife of one of Europe’s most powerful arms manufacturers.

Most of the articles about Hedy Lamarr published in the Hollywood fan and gossip magazines are pretty trivial fare – typically about her looks, her clothes and her romances Here is an exception, a well-written piece that offers glimpses into her life before she crossed the Atlantic, set in the context of the fall of the first Austrian Republic.

The author, German as his name suggests, was a writer and journalist as well as a committed anti-fascist. From 1934 to 1947 he lived in exile in various countries including the US, which is presumably how he ended up writing this article. To set it in context, it’s framed by a prologue and postscript.

Prologue

The year, 1914; the place, Vienna. Hedy Lamarr begins life as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler but Hedwig soon morphs into Hedy as the little girl struggles to pronounce the name with which she has been christened. Her parents are Jewish (though her mother has converted to Catholicism) and from modest backgrounds. But her father is intelligent and industrious and builds a successful career in banking. Hedy grows up as a privileged child in an insulated world.

When she’s just five years old, she becomes entranced by movie magazines and starts pretending to be an actress. Age 16, she skives off school and manages to land a job as a script girl at Sascha-Film Studio, Vienna’s first movie studio. One thing leads to another and over the next couple of years she get parts on the stage in Vienna and Berlin (notably working for highly regarded director Max Rheinhardt) and in films. Then, in 1932, she goes to Prague where she is offered a lead part by director Gustav Machatý in his new film, Ecstasy.

Ecstasy is an art-house film and garners a good deal of critical acclaim. But in the US in particular this is overwhelmed by the notoriety it acquires for two scenes featuring Hedy. In the first, she appears running naked through the woods and swimming in a lake. In the second, with the camera focused on her face, she has an orgasm as the young man whom she has followed to his cottage makes love to her – her string of pearls breaking and cascading to the floor. She is well prepared for this scene – she’s having a real-life affair with Aribert Mog, her on-screen lover.

Hedy Lamarr as Empress Elizabeth of Austria in Sissy, the Rose of Bavaria Land
1933. Hedy Lamarr as Empress Elizabeth of Austria.

To rehabilitate herself in polite society and rebuild her career, Hedy’s next appearance is on stage is as Empress Elizabeth of Austria in Fritz Kreisler’s entirely conventional and uncontroversial musical-comedy operetta, Sissy, the Rose of Bavaria Land. And that is how she first encounters her husband-to-be, Fritz Mandl. He showers her with flowers after each performance before finally presenting himself backstage to her.

Fritz is a glamorous and dangerous playboy with a closet not exactly devoid of skeletons. He is also an Austro-fascist arms manufacturer with close ties to Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg and Benito Mussolini. Fritz is a power broker in Austria – in the words of one journalist, “It was said of him that he could break a prime minister faster than he could snap a toothpick in half.”

These are turbulent times and the first Austrian Republic is in its death throes. Chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss, is desperate to ensure that the country remains an independent nation state and a bulwark of Christian German culture against Nazism and communism. Crucial to his strategy is an alliance with Benito Mussolini’s Italy.

The threat from the Nazis within Austria increases early in 1933 when Adolph Hitler comes to power in neighbouring Germany. In March, Dollfuss advises President Wilhelm Miklas to suspend the National Council indefinitely, leaving him as a de facto dictator. The following year, he cements his position by forcing through a new constitution.

With such political instability, growing hostility to the Jews and the impact of the Great Depression, Hedy’s family are facing a perfect storm. It’s not surprising that they see marriage to Fritz Mandl as a way of safeguarding their daughter’s future and that encourage her to accept his proposal. Eight weeks after their first encounter, the couple are married and begin to settle into their future roles: she the trophy wife, he the autocratic and jealous husband.

It is at shortly after this that the party described by Heinz Liepmann takes place. However, the date given in the original article is clearly incorrect. By November 1934 Chancellor Dollfuss was no more. It is likely that the party actually takes place in November 1933.

Vienna Farewell

Vienna, night of November 22, 1934. … Vienna – the gayest capital of Europe; the town known the world over for its waltz music, pretty girls and easy life; Vienna, now dark and deserted. On the Kaertner Strasse and around the Stefansdome, where, in former days, music, light and laughter ruled, there is now silence and darkness. The only steps one can hear are those of the patrolling guards of the Heimwehr, the Storm Troopers of Austria.

Vienna is dying. Only nine months have passed since Dollfuss’ cannons and machine guns smashed houses and streets in Vienna and slaughtered the last Austrian Liberals. But behind the five-foot Chancellor Dollfuss, who now governs the unfortunate country with terror and tears, stands another man, six feet, five inches tall, a member of the oldest and proudest nobility of Europe, fabulously wealthy – Vice Chancellor Rüdiger Prince von Starhemberg, Master of the Heimwehr and therefore Master of Austria. And whereas the streets of gay Vienna lie dark and deserted, and the easygoing Viennese sit in their houses, silent, poor and hungry, the palais of Prince von Starhemberg shines, full of light, gaiety, music and laughter. Violins are humming sweet waltzes – beautiful women with jewels and chinchilla wraps laugh and dance and flirt; old servants in gold-embroidered uniforms carry trays with champagne; yes, the spirit of old, gay Vienna is still alive. …

Yes, I remember the night of November 22, 1934. Two days before, I had arrived in Vienna. How well I remember the deep depression I felt as I walked through the dying town. And then, through the mediation of Professor Clemens Krauss, the famous conductor of the Viennese Philharmonic, I was invited to the ball in Prince von Starhemberg’s palais.

We arrived rather late. The big crowd seemed to be in an extremely gay mood. About one hundred twenty people were present. Seldom in my life have I seen so many beautiful women together and so many famous men and so many diamonds, furs and luxurious trappings. The air was filled with exotic perfumes and the smoke from many cigars. The guests belonged to the cream of Austrian and international society. If my memory serves me right, I recognized Prince Nicholas of Greece, Madame Schiaparelli, Franz Werfel and his wife, formerly the wife of the great composer Gustav Mahler, Prince Gustav of Denmark, Nora Gregor, the best-loved actress of Vienna, General Malleaux of the French General Staff and – Hedy Lamarr.

I remember that she attracted my attention as soon as I arrived. Among all the beautiful and extravagantly gowned and jeweled women, she was by far the most attractive – and the youngest. She wore a white dress, which in its simplicity was really a work of art, and a single diamond that, as I learned later on, was one of the purest and largest in Europe. She was dancing with a man much older than she, a big stout man with a strongly lined face.

Hedy Lamarr in Vienna
Mid-1930s. Hedy Lamarr in Vienna.

“Who is she?” I asked the young Hungarian playwright, Oedoen von Horvath.

He led me a few steps aside where nobody could hear us. “Look here,” he whispered, “don’t you know what is going on here tonight? It is the first official meeting between Prince von Starhemberg and Fritz Mandl, after their quarrel. Maybe history will be made tonight!”

A little impatient, I replied: “At the moment I am not interested in history but in that woman who is dancing over there. Who is she?”
 Horvath looked at me, incredulously. “Do you mean to say that you don’t know her? That is Hedy Kiesler, the Hedy Kiesler. She is the wife of Fritz Mandl. That’s the man she’s dancing with.”

I was somewhat perplexed. I had heard the name Hedy Kiesler mentioned through her unfortunate appearance in the film, “Ecstasy” – but everybody in Europe knew Fritz Mandl, the owner of the Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik. Fritz Mandl was one of the four munition kings of the world. Sir Basil Zaharoff, the greatest international dealer in arms, Schneider-Creuzot, his French colleague, Alfred Krupp, the master of the German cannon works in Essen and Fritz Mandl – these four hold the fates of all of us in their hands. Day and night, they are active in their trade, for war is their business; they have to sell arms and ammunitions. Mandl was the youngest of the big four. He was fabulously wealthy. Hedy Kiesler, the most beautiful woman in Vienna, was his wife.

“Look,” Horvath gripped my arm. The dance had ended and Mandl, after bowing to his wife, slowly went up the wide staircase. His host followed. And, though the music was now playing another tune and everybody seemed to be busy flirting, dancing and laughing, there was something sinister in the air, a nervous tension, a barely audible excitement.

Everybody in the ballroom was aware of the two men who had just left the hall. In the minds of each one of us was the thought: what are the two men up to? A torturing question. …

I asked a mutual acquaintance to introduce me to Hedy Kiesler – or, as she was then called, Mrs. Fritz Mandl. I asked her to dance.

She seemed to be tired. I noticed that her shining deep eyes were not so gay as they had appeared to be from a distance.

“Let’s sit down for a moment,” she suggested. Only then did I notice that her soft alluring beauty was really intoxicating when enhanced by the vital charm of her eyes and her voice. She appeared sophisticated and naive at the same time – great international hostess and sweet Viennese girl.

Hedy and I spoke about her father, Emil Kiesler, who had died a few years ago and whom I had known as director of an important Viennese bank. He was a shrewd businessman, a tall, handsome, well-dressed man with blue eyes and dark hair growing gray at the temples. About four or five years ago, when I was in his office, his wife came in. Mrs. Kiesler was – or better, is (she is still living in Vienna) – a small energetic woman. Kiesler immediately interrupted the conference and started to whisper excitedly with his wife.

“It must have been about a younger sister of yours,” I told Hedy, “because I could not help overhearing talk of their ‘little girl.’ Something seemed to have happened to her.”

Hedy laughed. “The little girl must have been me,” she said, “because I am the only one they have. Probably I was having the measles or I had been in some mischief. My poor old daddy –“ Mrs. Mandl added thoughtfully, “– we were a very happy family in our house in Peter Jordan Street –”

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sunday in vienna

1. Sunday in Vienna

A short Pathé Pictorial newsreel showing the Viennese at leisure.

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vienna in the early 1930s

2. Vienna in the late 1920s and early ’30s

A collage of films showing the Vienna in which Hedy Lamarr grows up including landmark buildings, parks and pleasure gardens and the city by night.

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ecstasy still

3. Ecstasy

Whereas most of those who see Ecstasy in mainland Europe take it in their stride, in the US it is greeted with outrage. Still, there are a few who see beyond the movie's titillation potential. In a review in the May 18 issue of the Hollywood Spectator, Fred Stein enthuses:

We are at a loss for words with which to convey the qualities of Ecstasy. It is a pictorial poem, a symphony in moods and movement expressed in the most evanescent overtones of sight and sound. … No picture we have seen has so completely realized the cinema as an independent art form. … No doubt this picture should not be seen by those who are too young to know what life is about. … To the rest of us Ecstasy can be nothing less than a great artistic experience.

A new waltz began and Hedy was claimed by one of her admirers. Horvath approached me excitedly. “Did she say anything about Mandl’s conference with von Starhemberg?” he asked.

I took Horvath’s arm and led him out of the ballroom to the big balcony. It was a cold and clear winter night. The sounds of the music and the laughter were only faintly audible. Before and under us was the silent dark town.

“Mrs. Mandl didn’t say a word about her husband,” I replied, “but I wish you would tell me something about her. She can’t be much older than nineteen or twenty. When did she marry, and why?”

Horvath thought for a minute and then answered slowly. “In these last three or four years, Hedy Kiesler has lived an amazingly fantastic life. It began in quite the usual way. As the only child of a well-to-do Viennese family, she went through the usual forms of education – private tutors, private schools, later on, perhaps a year or two in a pension in Switzerland; and then the climax, introduction into society.

“As far as I remember, shortly before she became a debutante, her father died and at once her troubles started. The fortune of the family slowly vanished during the Austrian monetary crisis. Hedy’s attempts to regain some of the fortune on the stock exchange failed. She and her mother lost every penny they possessed. But Hedy was a brave girl. She accepted a job as a stenographer, but she was much too pretty to work in an office. You know what I mean. At last, through an old friend of the family who wanted to help the Kieslers, Hedy got a job as script girl in the Sascha Film Studios. And there Gustav Machaty got hold of her.

“Machaty was the first to recognize the possibilities of Hedy Kiesler,” Horvath went on. “For years he had been planning a great film – his lifework, as he called it – but he had not been able to start it because he could not find the right actress. When he saw Hedy he knew that he had found her, but first, of course, she had to gain experience.

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Eva and Emil on their wedding night

1. Eva and Emil on their wedding night

1933. Eva (Hedy Lamarr) and Emil (Zvonimir Rogoz) on their wedding night in a...

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Eva and Emil on their wedding night

2. Eva and Emil on their wedding night

1933. Eva (Hedy Lamarr) and Emil (Zvonimir Rogoz) on their wedding night in a...

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Eva and Adam part after their night of passion

3. Eva and Adam part after their night of passion

1933. Eva (Hedy Lamarr) and Adam (Aribert Mog) part after their night of passion...

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Emil ignores the pleas of little children for charity

4. Emil ignores the pleas of little children for charity

1933. Emil (Zvonimir Rogoz) ignores the pleas of little children for charity as Adam...

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Adam and Eva toast their love with champagne at the hotel

5. Adam and Eva toast their love with champagne at the hotel

1933. Adam (Aribert Mog) and Eva (Hedy Lamarr) toast their love with champagne at...

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Adam and Eva toast their love with champagne at the hotel

6. Adam and Eva toast their love with champagne at the hotel

1933. Adam (Aribert Mog) and Eva (Hedy Lamarr) toast their love with champagne at...

Six scenes from Ecstasy (1933). The movie opens in US cinemas in spring 1936, with these stills part of a set issued to promote it.

SPOILER ALERT! Ecstasy plot synopsis

On her wedding night (1 + 2), Eva discovers that her elderly husband isn’t really interested in sex. Unloved, frustrated and bored, she leaves him and goes back to her father and initiates divorce proceedings.

When she goes skinny-dipping in a nearby lake, her horse runs off in search of a mate taking her clothes in the process. Eva, naked, sets off in pursuit and watches as youthful and virile Adam captures the steed and, spotting her in the bushes, returns her clothes. It’s love at first sight. As she leaves, she twists her ankle, giving him the ideal excuse to make physical contact as he straps it up.

Initially she plays difficult to get but love blossoms and that night she goes to visit Adam in his house in the woods. They fall into each other’s arms and consummate their love. The following morning they walk out into the countryside where they part, vowing to meet again that evening (3). Back at her father’s place, Emil lies in wait seeking a reconciliation. She tells him it’s too late.

On his way into town, Emil gives Adam, who’s part of a gang working on the road, a lift. They stop at Adam’s house so he can change and get Emil a drink of water. While he waits, the heartless Emil ignores the pleas of little children for charity (4). Adam returns and Emil notices he’s carrying Eva’s broken string of pearls. After a demented drive, Emil only just manages to stop the car as the gates to a level crossing come down. He’s spent and Adam drives him to a hotel to recuperate.

Adam, blissfully unaware of the situation, prepares to welcome Eva at the hotel where Emil is staying. She arrives, they drink champagne (5 + 6). While they dance, they hear a shot. Adam breaks into the room from which it came and finds Emil lying dead on the floor. Eva doesn’t tell Adam her terrible secret, but at the train station she leaves him asleep and boards the train to Berlin alone. Adam returns to work and the camaraderie of his gang. Somewhere in the city, Eva has a baby on her lap.

“Machaty asked a few film directors to let her play small parts in their films. After she had gained what the film people call ‘camera technique,’ Machaty began his ‘great work.’ It was a super-modern film about a beautiful poor young girl who married an ugly, old, but wealthy man. Working with unknown actors and with Hedy Kiesler as star, Machaty at last finished the film and called it ‘Symphony of Love’ – later known under the title of ‘Ecstasy.’”

Horvath paused. Footsteps came nearer on the silent street. They belonged to a detachment of Heimwehr soldiers – gray-uniformed, brutal fellows – the creatures of the noble Prince von Starhemberg and Fritz Mandl.

We looked up. From the balcony of the palais where we stood we saw a lonely light in the floor above us. Prince Starhemberg and Fritz Mandl were having their conference there. What would be the result? Something sinister was in the air. Mandl was known as usually getting what he wanted. …

“With one exception.” I smiled. “When Mandl had married the beautiful star of ‘Ecstasy,’ he had tried to buy all negatives of the film. Machaty sold them to him. But new negatives turned up in Tokyo, or in Australia, or in Rome. Again Mandl started buying. He didn’t want to have his wife appear naked before the bulging eyes of movie fans. But it was a long time before he learned that as soon as he bought the negatives, the company which distributed ‘Ecstasy’ had new ones produced. At last Mandl succeeded in buying the original for a terrific amount of money.”

“Why did she play in ‘Ecstasy’ at all?” I asked Horvath, who was still staring up at the silent light in the room above.

My friend shrugged his shoulders. “I think that she can hardly be blamed for it,” he answered. “The film itself is a very ambitious and purely artistic work and I think that nobody, least of all Hedy, had the faintest idea that the great public could regard it as a ‘naughty’ film. Hedy must have suffered deeply over the international scandal. Of course, she didn’t behave cleverly after the scandal broke. She shouldn’t have appeared in public for some time. But the great Max Reinhardt was just then going to direct the new play by Eduard Bourdet, ‘The Weaker Sex,’ and, either because he wanted to take advantage of Hedy’s publicity, or, as I believe, in order to give her a chance to show the public that she was really an actress, he gave her a small part in it. Through her, the play became a sensation. She began to travel between Berlin and Vienna. Among the parts she played in these years, I remember one in Noel Coward’s ‘Private Lives’ and a big part in the film, ‘The Trunks of Mr. O. F.’”

My friend became silent again. After a while he went on, thoughtfully: “Yes – and then her marriage. It was a very strange and curious coincidence. People say that Fritz Mandl, who had seen Hedy Kiesler in ‘Ecstasy,’ went to the first night of ‘The Weaker Sex’ and watched her from his box. In the intermission, he asked a mutual friend to introduce him to her. Fritz Mandl is supposed to be a man who gets everything he wants – and a short time later his marriage to Hedy Kiesler was announced. Do you remember the story of ‘Ecstasy’? A very wealthy, ugly old man buys – excuse me, I meant to say marries – a beautiful poor young girl. Do you understand what I mean when I call it a strange coincidence?

“Since the wedding, Hedy Mandl has become one of the most brilliant hostesses of international society. Yes,” Horvath ended dreamily, “if a novelist were to describe her life, people would call him unbelievably fantastic. …”

Horvath suddenly gripped my arm. I looked through the glass door and saw Prince von Starhemberg and the munition king Mandl walk down the wide staircase, arm in arm. Horvath and I returned to the ballroom. Everybody had stopped dancing to look at the two men. Hedy Kiesler left her dancing partner and went over to her husband. At that same moment, the music that had stopped began to play a waltz. Fritz Mandl, the munition king, took the arm of Hedy Kiesler, the most beautiful girl in Vienna and his wife, and they began to dance. We saw him whispering to her, gravely, and then I noticed that her eyes grew wide and fearful. …

Hedy Lamarr at home in Vienna
Around 1935. Hedy Lamarr at home in Vienna.

Yes, it was a great night in the Viennese palais of the Prince von Starhemberg. Today we know from political documents that on this very night – November 22, 1934 – Starhemberg and Fritz Mandl reached an agreement concerning their ambitious political plans. Fritz Mandl promised to supply Prince Starhemberg’s Heimwehr with arms for the overthrowing of Dollfuss.

On this night the foundation was laid for those tragic events which began with the cruel murder of tiny Chancellor Dollfuss and led, at last, to the end of the proud Austrian Empire and its rape by the German dictator. …

I remember well the jubilant violins playing Viennese waltzes … I remember the laughter and the gay voices of famous men and beautiful women … I remember the atmosphere of exotic perfumes, white shoulders, expensive cigars, promising smiles, international medals and chinchilla wraps … and I remember Mrs. Fritz Mandl – more appealing, more charming and more beautiful than anyone else – and, hidden behind her veiled eyes, a great loneliness and fear. …

Dark and deserted were the streets of Vienna. Only in one house, a palais – like a ghost, a dream out of old times – the last sweet waltzes of Vienna were danced under shining chandeliers. …

It’s only a few years ago, but the dream has long since ended. The morning was gray, the awakening terrible. Dollfuss has bled to death; von Starhemberg is a poor forgotten refugee in Switzerland; Fritz Mandl, driven out of his country, is traveling somewhere between Shanghai and Buenos Aires, selling arms – and Vienna, old, beautiful, gay Vienna, is occupied by the barbarians. The “blue” Danube has become a “red” Danube, flowing over with blood and tears. …

Only one has escaped the awakening in the gray morning: Hedy Lamarr.

Postscript

Whether or not Mandl and Prince von Starhemberg plotted Dollfuss’s downfall that evening in Vienna is open to doubt. What’s not, is that on 25 July 1935, the Chancellor will be assassinated. This raises two issues:

  • The date given in the original article must be incorrect since by November 1934 Chancellor Dollfuss will be dead and buried. It is likely that the party actually takes place in November 1933.
  • The killers will be eight Austrian Nazis who burst into the chancellery in an attempted coup and happen to bump into Dollfuss in the process. There’s little evidence of a connection between them and either Prince von Starhemberg or the Heimwehr.

Hedy will grow increasingly worried about her husband’s business affairs and the control he insists on exerting over her. In 1936, she will have an affair with Prince von Starhemberg with a view to enlisting his help in escaping from Austria. But as the pair step off the train in Budapest, they will be confronted by Mandl, whose spies have tipped him off about the elopement.

The following year (1937), Hedy will finally manage to outwit her husband and flee via Paris to London and from there to the US and Hollywood, with a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Shooting for the stars – insights from four leading Hollywood cinematographers

By

Four leading cinematographers talk about their work and the stars they’ve filmed in this article published in the February 1941 issue of Modern Screen.

Here, then, in their own words are some revealing insights into how they see their work, observations of some of the stars they’ve filmed and revelations of tricks of the trade. And an opportunity to showcase a series of behind-the-scenes images of various cinematographers and crew at work.

Jack Cardiff
1950. Jack Cardiff, one of the great 20th century cinematographers, on the set of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.

But first a brief introduction to the cinematographers themselves:

  • Gregg Toland. Orson Welles once said that Gregg taught him everything he knew about the art of photography. Before filming Citizen Kane, Gregg spent a weekend giving him a crash course on lens and camera positions. Orson would never lose his admiration for Gregg, saying on many occasions, “Not only was he the greatest cameraman I ever worked with, he was also the fastest.” Gregg’s advice to aspiring cameramen was simple: “Forget the camera. The nature of the story determines the photographic style. Understand the story and make the most out of it. If the audience is conscious of tricks and effects, the cameraman’s genius, no matter how great it is, is wasted.”
  • James Wong Howe. In the 53 years he spent developing and perfecting his craft, “Jimmy” Howe was nominated for 16 Academy Awards and won two Oscars. In his ongoing quest for realism, he strove to make all his sources of light absolutely naturalistic and developed various filming techniques. For example, to get the audience as close as possible to John Garfield in a boxing scene in Body and Soul, he got up into the ring on roller skates and scooted about the fighters to capture the most evocative shots of their struggle.
  • Rudolph Maté. Rudy worked in Europe with Carl Theodor Dreyer on both The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr before migrating to the US in 1934. During the 1940s he received five consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, the last of them for the Rita Hayworth vehicle, Cover Girl. He also worked with her on Gilda and (uncredited) The Lady from Shanghai. He went on to direct a series of movies including DOA.
  • Ernest Haller. Ernie is best known for his Oscar-winning work on Gone With The Wind (over the years he had six other Oscar nominations). He was admired within the industry for his expert location shooting and his ability to balance make-up and lighting to bring out actors’ best features. He shot 14 of Bette Davis’ movies and was her favourite lensman. During the 1930s and ’40s, he worked at Warner Bros. His later movies included Rebel Without a Cause and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Shooting for the Stars by William Roberts

They make fat stars thin and old stars young! Who? Those magnificent Merlins of Movietown – the unsung cameramen.

These fellows are pretty tough, believe me. They’re banded together in a secret organization called the ASC, and it’s not that they try to be secret but just that no one knows much about them outside of Hollywood. Movie stars dread them and, privately, call them super-assassins.

The leaders of the ASC have committed many drastic deeds. They have literally taken flesh off Myrna Loy’s legs. They have flattened Brenda Marshall’s nose. They have removed pieces of Madeleine Carroll’s cheeks They’ve reduced Priscilla Lane’s mouth, narrowed Zorina’s forehead and changed Vivien Leigh’s blue eyes to pure green. And for committing these atrocities they have been paid as much as $1,500 per week.

However, if truth will out, the secret organization referred to is actually a staid labor union, the American Society of Cinematographers. The members, merchants of mayhem, are the very expert and very well-paid cameramen of Movieland who, with thick ground glass and well-placed kliegs, have made ordinary faces beautiful and have converted terrible defects into gorgeous assets.

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Ava Gardner filming Singapore

John Brahm and Maury Gertsman shoot a scene for Singapore

1947. Perched above a courtyard entrance, director John Brahm and cinematographer Maury Gertsman prepare to shoot a scene for Singapore. The writing on the clapperboard reads

SINGAPORE
1540
DIRECTOR BRAHM
CAMERA GERTSMAN
SET DRESSER EMERT
PROP MAN BLACKIE
SET NO. 10 SCENE 29

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Rita Hayworth filming Affair in Trinidad

Rita Hayworth films a scene for Affair in Trinidad

1952. Cinematographers go flat out to get the right angle. Here the glamorous focus of attention is Rita Hayworth. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA’S BACK – Rita Hayworth does a torrid dance in a night club scene on her first day before the cameras for Columbia’s “Affair in Trinidad,” a Beckworth Production in which she co-stars with Glenn Ford.

Photo by Irving Lippman.

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Ann Sheridan and Sidney Hickox on the set of Silver River

Sidney Hickox chats with Ann Sheridan on the set of Silver River

1948. Cinematographer Sidney Hickox was brilliant at shooting gritty, moody crime films and melodramas for Warner Bros. His movies included three Lauren Bacall vehicles – To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947). A caption on the back of the photo reads:

Ann Sheridan and cameraman Sid Hickox chat between scenes on the set of “SILVER RIVER,” Ann’s current picture with Errol Flynn for Warner Bros. Star is pictured here at the Warner Bros. ranch near Calabasas, California, where extensive exterior sets of Nevada’s sliver mining town were reproduced for the picture.

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Grace Kelly at ease

Grace Kelly at ease

1956. Aspiring cinematographer Grace Kelly strikes a pose, as the caption on the back of the photo points out:

ACTRESS AT EASE....It’s Grace Kelly perched on the camera boom between scenes on the set of M-G-M’s “The Swan”.

If any one class of worker in Hollywood does not get credit where credit is due, if any one class of laborer is hidden behind the star-bright glare of publicity, obscure, unsung, unknown – it is the cinema cameraman.

“It’s this way with us,” Gregg Toland told me. “They’ve got us wrong, entirely wrong, everywhere. They think cameramen are low-grade mechanical morons, wearing overalls and stupid grins, existing on starvation wages and merely grinding 35 mm. toys. Well, maybe. Only we don’t like that impression. Maybe we are technicians. Nothing wrong with that. But sakes alive, man, tell ’em we’re creative artists, too!”

And so, I’m telling you. They’re creative artists, too. They’re makers and breakers of thespians and pictures. They’re the Merlins behind the movies.

Take that fellow Gregg Toland who just had the floor. A lean little man in brown clothes – cultured, brilliant and active. Twenty-one years ago he obtained a job during a summer vacation as an office boy at the old Fox Studios. The film stars on the lot didn’t impress him, but the intent cameramen, cranking their black-sheathed boxes, hypnotized him. He decided to skip school and become a photographer. The result? Well, the last I heard, he had prepared for canning such products as “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Long Voyage Home” and “Citizen Kane.”

I talked with Toland in the comfortable study of his sprawling Benedict Canyon home. He downed a long beer with a practiced gulp and explained the qualifications and duties of the cameraman.

“A first-rate cameraman must realize,” said Toland, “that while some scenes of a film might be shot much, much better, much more artistically, those scenes are worth neither the extra time nor extra cash investment. The cameraman must have a strain of the economist in him, and get speed into his picture without sacrificing quality. After all, time becomes a paramount item when you realize that a single day on a certain picture may run to $22,000 in expenses!

Merle Oberon and Turham Bey filming Night in Paradise
1945. William H Greene, director of color photography, does a last-minute check on the set of Night in Paradise prior to filming a scene starring Merle Oberon and Turham Bey.

“As photographer on a major movie, my first job is to manage my camera crew. I have a special crew of seven men. All specialists. I take them with me wherever I go. There’s an operator and two assistants. There’s a grip, a gaffer or electrician, a standby painter and a microphone boy. But that’s only the beginning of my job. I must see that there is efficiency. Speed, again. And, with things as they are, I must practice economy by being artistic with one eye on the production budget. These days a cameraman is actually a producer, director, photographer, actor and electrician. The out-and-out old-fashioned photographer who just had to maneuver a camera is as extinct as the dodo bird.”

With two decades behind a Hollywood camera, I wondered just which particular feminine face Gregg Toland considered the best he had ever brought into focus.

His answer, like his personality and his pictures, was direct.

“Anna Sten,” he replied. “She was by far the most photogenic woman I ever shot. She didn’t have an insipid baby doll face, you know the type. She had a face full of good bones and character. Her cheeks caught the lights well, and her nose was so tilted as to place attractive shadows beneath. Frances Farmer was another face I enjoyed working on and, of course, if you want to go way back into ancient history, there was no one like the incomparable Gloria Swanson.

“On the other hand, an actress like Merle Oberon gives the photographer a good deal of work. Her countenance can only be photographed from certain angles. And as to clothes, her body requires that she wear either fluffy dresses or evening gowns to show her up to advantage. Jean Arthur, a dear friend of mine, won’t mind my mentioning that her face is also a lighting job, but, when it comes to attire, she is perfectly photogenic in anything from a cowboy costume to a bathing suit.

Ingrid Bergman filming a scene for Arch of Triumph
1946. Ingrid Bergman filming a scene for Arch of Triumph.

“Thinking back on personalities, I recall that I had difficulties with Ingrid Bergman when I worked on ‘Intermezzo.’ Ingrid is really two persons. Shoot her from one side and she’s breath-takingly beautiful. Shoot her from the other, and she’s average.”

Toland paused for punctuation, then smiled.

“Of course,” he said cheerfully, “I’d rather photograph girls like June Lang and Arleen Whelan with their pretty little faces, than any. Because they’re no work at all. You set your camera and your lights anywhere, and they still look cute. If I shot them constantly, though, I’d become far too lazy.”

Now he spoke of the stronger sex.

“The most photogenic male is Gary Cooper. But he looks best when he isn’t photographed well! Here’s what I mean. If he’s shot casually and naturally, without frills or fuss, he has plenty of femme appeal. He doesn’t have to be dolled up like the juvenile leads. If you don’t believe me, just take a gander at him in ‘The Westerner.’ He’s grand in it and without special lighting or any make-up.

“Henry Fonda is another I enjoy working with. He also doesn’t require makeup. And he’s so damn intelligent. Understands props, stage business, electricity. You know, Fonda’s main hobby is photography, and on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ he spent half his time looking through my camera, which, of course, gave him a better understanding of what I was after.”

I inquired about Toland’s most recent and celebrated patient, Orson Welles.

Orson Welles directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai
A caption on the back of the photo reads: MENACE .. This is the picture you won’t see on the screen. It shows Orson Welles, his usual mug of steaming coffee in hand, directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in a dramatic courtroom cross-examination scene for Columbia Pictures’ “The Lady from Shanghai.” Orson is producer, writer, director and co-star with Rita in “The Lady from Shanghai.” Frank plays the role of a tough district attorney. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

“Shot ‘Citizen Kane’ in sixteen weeks,” explained Toland. “It’s an unusual picture. For example, we worked with no beams or parallels (to hold spots) for the first time in Hollywood history. All sets were given natural ceilings, which made bright lighting difficult but also made for realism.

“Orson Welles was an interesting type to shoot, especially his characterization, changing from a lad of twenty-five to an old man of seventy, and wearing, in old age, blood-shot glass-caps over his eyes.

“His problem, today, will depend on whether audiences prefer him as a character actor or as himself. I like one quality in his acting and direction. Stubbornness. He would bitterly fight every technical problem that came up. Never say die. Never.”

Gregg Toland confessed that the one defect he’d found in most actors and actresses was discoloration and lines or wrinkles under their eyes. “Were we to leave them natural, it would make them appear tired and haggard on the screen, especially since they are amplified so greatly. So, I place bright spotlights directly in their faces, which wash out these lines and make their faces smoother.”

Then Toland began discussing technical problems in a very untechnical manner. It was a liberal education in cinema craft. He spoke fondly of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Said he enjoyed much of it because he was able to shoot his favorite type of scene – building somber moods through shadowy low-keyed lighting, such as the opening candlelight scene in that classic of the soil. “We slaved, Jack Ford and I, to make that picture real,” Toland revealed. “We sent the cast out to acquire good healthy sunburns. We threw away soft diffusion lenses. We shot the whole thing candid-camera style, like a newsreel. That’s the trend today in Hollywood. Realism.”

“Of course,” he added, “sometimes realism is attained only through complete trickery. Remember the third or fourth shot in the beginning of ‘The Long Voyage Home?’ The scene of the ship floating and rocking on the water? Here’s how that was done. I had the studio build half a miniature boat, set it on a dry stage. Then I took a pan full of plain water, placed it on a level with my lens – and shot my scene over this pan of water, catching the boat and giving the perfect illusion of its being in the water. But I better not tell you too much of that. Trade secrets, you know. You better have another beer …”

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Mervyn Leroy and Harold Rosson filming a scene for Johnny Eager

Mervyn Leroy and Harold Rosson filming a scene for Johnny Eager

1941. Director Mervyn Leroy, crouching, oversees the shooting of a scene for Johnny Eager.

...
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Douglas Sirk conferring with Hazel Brooks

Douglas Sirk conferring with Hazel Brooks

1947. Director Douglas Sirk briefs Hazel Brooks prior to filming a scene for Sleep,...

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Ava Gardner filming The Angel Wore Red

Ava Gardner filming The Angel Wore Red

1960. Ava Gardner seems to enjoy being the centre of attention as she emerges...

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George Cukor filming Marilyn Monroe

George Cukor filming Marilyn Monroe

1962. A bird's eye view of George Cukor directing Marilyn on the set of...

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But, instead of another beer, I indulged in something equally stimulating. I saw another ace cameraman. I left Toland, drove out into the Valley north of Hollywood and halted before an intimate Oriental restaurant bearing a blinking neon that read “Ching How.”

This restaurant was the hobby and hide-out of the cherubic Chinese cameraman, James Wong Howe, the place where he came in the evening, to chat with old friends or supervise a steaming chow mein after a hard and tiresome day with Ann Sheridan, Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr or Loretta Young!

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve
1950. Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve.

Looking at Jimmy Howe, you’d never know what he’s been through and what his keen eyes have seen. Not because he has the “inscrutable” yellow man’s face of fiction, the traditional face that hides feelings and emotions, but because he is so cheerful, so friendly, so disarmingly sincere.

You wouldn’t know that he once fought gory battles in the fistic arena for ten bucks a knockout, or that he got his first job in Hollywood as a camera assistant at that same price. But you would know, immediately, that Jimmy Howe is as American as you or I, born in Pasco, Washington, of a farmer father; and you would know, too, immediately, that he understands more about Hollywood stars than any photographer alive.

I found Jimmy Howe a little interview shy when it came to discussing personalities. That was because he’d been burned once. Recently, a reporter asked him about Bette Davis, and Howe told the reporter that Bette’s enormous eyes were her finest feature, and that they must be emphasized by lighting, whereas her long thin neck must be shadowed. The reporter misquoted him as stating that Bette was badly pop-eyed. Ever since, Howe has been afraid to explain the truth to Bette – and if she reads this – well, hell, Bette, the guy thinks you’re the greatest actress on earth!

Over a delicious dish of aged Chinese eggs, bamboo shoots and other Far Eastern delicacies, in a nook of his popular eatery, Jimmy Howe softened sufficiently to discuss the women he had captured for celluloid.

He digressed on the subject of glamour gals.

“Hedy Lamarr has more glamour than anyone in Hollywood. Her jet black hair and fine light complexion, marvelously contrasting, requires no faking soft diffusion lens. But, like all glamour ladies, she must be aided by the cameraman. First of all, I took attention away from her lack of full breasts by playing up her eyes and lips. With a bright light I created a shadow to make you forget her weak chin. Then, I really went to town! I planted an arc on a level with her eyes, shadowing her forehead and blending it and her hair into a dark background. Now, all attention was focused on her eyes. Remember her first meeting with Boyer in ‘Algiers?’ Her eyes got away with lines that would never have passed Mr. Hays.

Portrait of Myrna Loy by Clarence Sinclair Bull
1936. Myrna Loy by Clarence Sinclair Bull.

“It’s an old glamour trick. The average girl should learn it. For example, when you wear a hat with a low brim, and then have to peer out from under the brim, it makes you more interesting, centers attention on your orbs. When you sport a half-veil, you have to look from behind it and thus become an exciting and intriguing person. There’s no question about it. The eyes certainly have it.

“Now Ann Sheridan. Her gorgeous throat and shoulders, and those lips. I light them up and disguise the fact that her nose is irregular and her cheeks overly plump. Incidentally, to correct her nose, which curves slightly to the left, I put kliegs full on the left side of her face, pushing her nose perfectly straight. Once, on ‘Torrid Zone,’ when Annie arrived on the set with a pimple on her chin, I had the make-up man convert it into a beauty mark, and then viewing her through the camera, realized that this concentrated attention on her full lips, which made her even more glamorous!

“Each actress, no matter how beautiful, becomes a problem. Madeleine Carroll has a good and bad side to her face, like so many others. I always shoot her threequarters, because it thins her out. A full face shot makes her too fleshy. With Myrna Loy, there must not be white around her neck, because it’s too contrasting to her complexion. Moreover, lights must be low, shooting upward, to reduce the size of her underpinnings.

“Zorina, off-screen, relaxing, is an ordinary woman, with a good-sized healthy body. But, the minute she dances before the camera, her true personality grows. Her face turns from good looking to gorgeous. Her body becomes smaller and willowy. She’s easy to work with, except that an enthusiastic uncle of hers, a doctor, gave her four vaccination marks when she was young, and we have to get rid of them with make-up and special lights.

1938. Vera Zorina on the set of On Your Toes. Photo by Madison Lacy

“But you want to know the most photogenic lady I ever set my lens upon? Priscilla Lane. An absolutely eye-soothing face, despite a generous mouth. A fine skin texture. A rounded facial structure. Mmm. Lovely to look at.

“There is no perfect camera face, Confucius say. Not even Loretta Young, who is reputed to have a camera-proof face. Why, she wouldn’t want a perfect face and neither would any other actress. A perfect face, without irregular features, would be monotonous and tiresome to observe. Of course, a well-balanced face is another thing. Oh, I’ve seen so-called perfect faces – those composite photographs showing Lamarr’s eyes, Leigh’s nose, Dietrich’s lips – but the result is always surprisingly vacant!

“Most women must be photographed with flat lights, shooting down from a forty-five degree angle, because this lighting washes out any defects. Whereas, a cross-lighting from either side, while it makes the face natural and round and real, also accentuates wrinkles, blemishes and bad lines. There are exceptions. Flat lighting would wash Joan Crawford’s face clean to the point of blankness. Crosslighting chisels her beautifully. But others can’t stand up as well.

“I’m not telling you these inside items on the stars to give you a sensational story. I’m trying to point out this – that while the Chinese author, Lin Yutang, wrote a book called ‘The Importance of Living,’ I should like to write one called, ‘The Importance of Lighting.’ It’s all-important. Take a look at the way celebrities appear in a newsreel, without careful kliegs adjusted to them. They seem messy.

“Why, the only newsreel personages I ever saw who looked decent without expert work on them, and who were, in fact, once offered a million dollars to come to Hollywood, were the Windsors. Now Wally Simpson is a bit too thin in the face and has some blemishes. But this could be corrected by shooting her three-quarters, the lights flat against her. She should never be shot in profile. As to the Duke, Edward himself, well, while he often appears a bit weary and haggard, he would have to be kept that way in Hollywood. It’s part of his adult charm. We wouldn’t want to wash that out with faked brightness.”

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Esther Williams filming Jupiter's Darling

Esther Williams filming Jupiter’s Darling

1955. Well, here's a different cinematographic challenge – underwater filming for Jupiter's Darling, a Roman...

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Dorothy Lamour on a location shoot

Dorothy Lamour on a location shoot

Around 1940. Most Hollywood movies made in the forties and fifties were shot in the...

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Shooting a scene for A Matter of Life and Death

Shooting a scene for A Matter of Life and Death

1946. A Matter of Life and Death, a Powell and Pressburger production, was shot primarily...

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Joseph Ruttenberg filming Ava Gardner

Joseph Ruttenberg filming Ava Gardner

1948. Joseph Ruttenberg homes in on Ava Gardner in this scene for The Bribe. Another...

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Now the little man expounded on picture-making. He told exactly the way pictures should be made. Here’s Howe:

“My theory of picture -making is that a movie must run true. It must be real. You must not feel that it is obviously a movie. A big fault is that photographers often try to make their photography stand out. That is bad. If you go away raving about the photography of certain scenes, you’ve seen a bad photographic job.

“When I was a beginner, way back, I had that common failing. I never gave a damn about the actor. All I wanted was to get those fat beautiful clouds in, so people would say, ‘Some shot. Some photographer.’ But now I know that’s not professional.”

There was one more thing. I had a hunch a lot of photographers, like producers, were repressed actors at heart. Did James Wong Howe ever aspire to histrionics?

“Oh, once I almost became an actor. The late Richard Boleslavsky wanted me to play with Greta Garbo in ‘The Painted Veil.’ Just a bit part. I refused. My place is behind the big machine, not in front of it. Besides I’d be scared stiff. Me, Wong Howe, an actor? Hell, the boys would rib the pants off me!”

To continue my scientific study of the lads behind the lenses, I went to a party of General Service Studios. There, on the lavish set of “Lady Hamilton,” Vivien Leigh was passing out cake to celebrate her birthday, and a stocky, dark-haired handsome man named Rudolph Mate was celebrating his first year as a full-fledged American citizen.

Rudolph Maté on the set of Gilda
1945. Rudolph Maté on the set of Gilda with Rita Hayworth and Russ Vincent.

Rudolph Mate, born in Poland, student of philosophy, lover of fine paintings, was the cameraman on the newest Leigh-Olivier vehicle. His previous pictures had been movie milestones – “Love Affair,” “Foreign Correspondent” and “Seven Sinners.”

I asked Mate about the ingredients that make a tip-top photographer, and he answered very slowly and very precisely. He spoke slowly to prevent becoming mixed in the languages he knows – French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Polish, English and pinochle – all of which he speaks fluently.

“To become a good photographer, one must have a complete knowledge of the technical end,” stated Mate. He pointed toward his $15,000 movable camera. “One must make everything about that instrument a habit, a second nature, as natural and uncomplicated as walking. This complete technical knowledge gives one time, on the set, to think in terms of the story being shot. A photographer must be creative, imaginative. Above all, he must have a talent for continuity.

“What do I mean by continuity? The celluloid mustn’t be scatterbrained. For example, every day a cameraman looks at the daily rushes of the footage he’s shot. Some photographers have excellent daily rushes, excellent separate scenes – but, when the film is cut, patched together, it’s mediocre and without full meaning because the cameraman had no feel of harmony, no sense of continuity. “A cameraman must be thorough. I study a script page by page and solve each problem as I study it. Also, on the side, I study oil paintings and works of art. In fact, I have a big collection of my own, because this study gives a cameraman knowledge of composition and color.”

Rudolph Mate was ecstatic about Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton.

“A marvelous subject. Cool. Positive. The certain beauty of a steel dagger. No bad facial angles. And an actress in her head and in her heart. Laurence Olivier is fine for me to shoot, too. His face is so expressive. It has so much character.”

Marlene Dietrich as Jamilla in Kismet
1944. Marlene Dietrich as Jamilla in Kismet.

Mate admitted that he had enjoyed toiling with Marlene Dietrich on “Seven Sinners,” and that he was scheduled to do her next opus at Universal.

“She has a wonderful head. I mean both brains and shape. Furthermore, like no other actress, she understands lighting problems and angles, and takes all suggestions without a fight. She is cooperative despite the nonsense you read. She will pose for fifty different takes if need be. The reason she knows so much is that she acquired her photographic education from Josef Von Sternberg, her first director, who still has the best pictorial mind in the cinema business.”

Mate, I understood, was a master magician at trickery. He could make anything real. In “Lady Hamilton,” you’ll see the Battle of Trafalgar, when Olivier as Lord Nelson is killed. It’ll be a terrific scene, realistic as war and death – but remember, it was made with miniature boats, only five feet tall, costing $1,000 each, and the cannon balls were tiny marbles shot into thin balsa wood.

Remember, too, that Mate can – and often has – made mob scenes involving thousands of people with just a half dozen extras. This he has accomplished with a special “button lens,” one with 220 separate openings for images, thus multiplying anything it is focused upon.

Rudolph Mate had a date with Vivien Leigh, in front of the camera, and I had one, at Warner Brothers Studio, with a gentleman named Ernie Haller, a studious architect who wound up by becoming the genius to put that little tidbit labeled “Gone With the Wind” on celluloid.

Good-natured, bespectacled Ernie Haller didn’t waste words. “The cameraman’s main duty is to tell a story with lighting. Next, he must have a thorough understanding or feeling for composition; you know, how to group and balance people and objects properly. It’s like salesmanship – you create a point of interest, and you try to sell the fans a star or an idea by subtly focusing attention on this point of interest.”

Haller referred to a few tangible points of interest.

Ann Sheridan filming Nora Prentiss
1946. Ann Sheridan filming Nora Prentiss.

“I’m not merely being loyal to Warners when I tell you Ann Sheridan is the most photogenic female in this town today. Her features are well proportioned and take lighting easily. The most photogenic man is Errol Flynn. His oval face stands up from any angle or under any lighting condition.

“But, as you know, we have our sticklers, too. There’s Clark Gable. I always shoot him three-quarters, so that you see only one of his ears. If you saw both at once, they’d look like mine do – stick out like the arms of a loving cup.

“Brenda Marshall, whom I’m working with at present, is a fine actress. Her only defects are a slightly crooked nose and eyes set too closely together. I light up one side of her face more fully to straighten the nose, and push inkies square into Brenda’s face to spread her eyes.

“When I shot GWTW, I found Vivien Leigh ideal for Technicolor. But I learned too much light was extremely bad for her. Her face was delicate and small, and full brightness would wash out her features and spoil the modeling of her countenance. Another thing. She has blue eyes. David Selznick wanted them green. So I set up a baby spot with amber gelatine, placed it under my lens, and Scarlett wound up with green eyes.

Franz Planer preparing to shoot a dancing scene starring Ava Gardner and Robert Walker
1948. A rare behind-the-scenes shot of cinematographer Franz Planer preparing to shoot a dancing scene starring Ava Gardner and Robert Walker. Director William A Seiter looks on.

“Listen, they all have handicaps that we have to correct. Most have square jaws, which must be softened and rounded. Some have prominent noses, which requires a low light set at the knees to push up their noses. Some actresses have thin legs. We plant spots right at their feet to fill ’em out.

“There’s no limit to what we have to do. We keep middle-aged actresses young by using special diffusing lenses that make faces mellow, hazy, soft, foggy, ethereal. We use these lenses on mood scenes, too, thus enabling us to create cold, crisp mornings on hot, sultry days.

“In my time, I’ve put them all in my black box. Some who were difficult and some who were easy, ranging from Mae Murray and Norma Talmadge to Dick Barthelmess and Bette Davis. I’ve never had trouble because I knew sculpturing, knew the basic foundation of the human face and was able to become, literally, a plastic surgeon with lights.”

Says Haller:

“Most trick stuff is in the hands of the Optical Printing Department of any studio. This is conducted by specialized cameramen and special effects men who manufacture 75% of the mechanical trick scenes. Most impossible scenes are done in miniature, caught by a camera that blows them eight times normal.”

Ernie Haller, with an eye for the unusual, summarized some of the crazy paradoxes he’d run into during his many semesters in the movie village. He said that big banquet scenes were always filmed right after lunch, because the extras weren’t so hungry then and wouldn’t eat so much expensive food! Moonlit night scenes were taken in the daytime with a filter, because real moonlight was not photogenic. Faked fights photographed better than real ones, because real ones appeared too silly. Sequences on an ocean liner had to be faked on dry land, because an honest-to-goodness boat pitched and heaved too much for the average camera. Blank cartridges recorded better on the sound track. Real ones were too high-pitched.

“In barroom sequences,” concluded Haller, “cold tea is better than whiskey, not because it photographs better but because actors have to drink a lot of it – and tea, sir, keeps them sober!”

So there. You’ve met some of the boys from the ASC. Now paste Gregg Toland’s classical outburst into your hat –

“Tell ’em we’re not low-grade mechanical morons, we cameramen. Tell ’em we’re creative artists, by God!”

And, by God, they certainly are!

Richard Avedon – art and commerce

By

Richard Avedon was one of the all-time-great fashion photographers. For decades after his emergence onto the scene in 1946, he was a dominant influence on the industry thanks to the energy, imagination and willingness to take risks that he brought to his work.

Fashion was where Avedon made his name. It was also his undoing – at least in his own mind. He came to regard it as “merely” commercial, whereas what he really wanted was to be, and be seen as, a serious artist. So he turned his attention to portraiture, using fashion commissions to fund his endeavours.

But such was Avedon’s reputation in the field of fashion that despite all his efforts it continued to dominate his image for most of his career.

Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt by Richard Avedon
1966. Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt in new Mainbocher evening look. Photo by Richard Avedon.

Avedon – fashion and portraiture, two sides of a coin

At first sight, Avedon’s portraits seem to be the polar opposite of his fashion work. A distinguishing characteristic of a typical Avedon fashion shot is its energetic high spirits. By contrast, what distinguishes many Avedon portraits is the bleak, unflinching, often inquisitorial dissection of his subjects’ vulnerabilities. His portraits are rarely kind, let alone flattering. More than occasionally, they shock his subjects.

But look more closely and you’ll discover a dark seam of existential angst running through Avedon’s fashion work too. He’s all too aware that beauty can be isolating and that it fades. You can see that in the expression of Dorian Leigh as she looks at herself in the mirror in a photo taken in 1949 at the beginning of Avedon’s career. Pathos is more to the fore in his 1955 shot of Dovima with Émilien Boulione and a clown. But nowhere is his existential angst more explicit than in In Memory of The Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, a harrowing editorial for the November 6, 1995 issue of The New Yorker.

In an interview quoted in Avedon Fashion 1944–2000, he traces the underlying anxiety in his fashion work back to his experience as a boy growing up in a home dominated by women:

I watched the way in which they prepared themselves to go out, what clothes meant, what makeup meant, what hair meant, what men meant. That anxiety was a very important thing that I tried to work into the magazines. And very often they [the photos] were rejected.

Avedon – the great storyteller

Another common denominator between Avedon’s fashion and portrait studies is drama and stories. Throughout his life, he never passes up an opportunity to go to the theatre, the ballet and the movies. He’s also an avid reader. All this helps to provide inspiration and fuel his own creativity.

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The model for this shoot, published in the May and June 1951 issues of Harper’s Bazaar, is Dovima, whose face reminds Avedon of the...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The shoot takes place during Avedon’s honeymoon with his second wife, Evelyn, whom he marries on 29 January 1951. So presumably Evelyn is lurking...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the feet of the pharaohs

1951. According to Winthrop Sargeant, Dovima is so overcome by the grandeur of her Egyptian role that she undergoes a mystical experience....

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the Temple of Karnak, Luxor

1951. In a memo to Avedon about the Egypt shoot, Diana Vreeland (Fashion Editor at Harper's Bazaar) writes, “Dick, before you plan these pictures, just...

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The stories are most evident in his fashion editorials, especially the iconic series of images he creates for Harper’s Bazaar to showcase the Paris collections, and which in the process help transform the image of the city after World War II. In A Woman Entering a Taxi in the Rain, an article published in the November 8, 1958 issue of The New Yorker, Winthrop Sargeant remarks:

His leading lady must always be involved in a drama of some sort, and if fate fails to provide a real one, Avedon thinks one up. He often creates in his mind an entire scenario suggested by a model’s appearance. She may be a waif lost in a big and sinful city, or a titled lady pursued in Hispano-Suizas by gentlemen flourishing emeralds, or an inconsolably bored woman of the world whose heart can no longer be touched – and so on. Avedon models play scene after scene from these scripts, and sometimes helps out by actually living an extra scene or two. The result is extraordinary for its realism – not the kind of realism found in most photography but the kind found in the theatre.

Think Elise Daniels with street performers and Suzy Parker and Robin Tattershall.

The mood of those shots might feel improvised, but the shoots themselves are far from spontaneous. They take a great deal of preparation: research into locations, sketches of proposed shots and test photos. On the day, Avedon coaxes and cajoles his models into the personas and poses he has in mind, chatting to them, joking with them and, crucially, telling them the stories he wants them to act out. He’s a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and inspiration and he won’t take no for an answer.

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Twiggy photographed for Vogue by Richard Avedon

Twiggy – annotated working print

1968. A working print of a variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue. The wax...

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Twiggy – final print

Twiggy – final print

1968. A variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue captioned:

Looking like a picture, left:...

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Hiro, once upon a time an assistant of Avedon, says:

Dick was the most brilliant of all the flashes that illuminated my professional path. His impatience was an inspiration in itself. The preparation he made for each sitting, the perfectionism – sharp, like a scalpel. And then the way he directed. His personality, which helped him clinch every shot. His timing. This man created the modern woman – the Avedon Woman.

In Avedon’s portraits, the drama is in the eyes, faces and expressions of his sitters, usually accentuated by ascetic, plain white backgrounds. More often than not the drama is dark, and not just by coincidence. Before the shoot, Avedon researches his subject and forms a view of what he wants his portrait to convey. And he seems inexorably drawn to his sitter’s vulnerabilities and failings – the skull beneath the skin.

He’s fond of telling a story of how he took his celebrated photo of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The challenge: find a way of getting them to drop their guard – the happy, smiling “Ladies Home Journal cover faces” they would present for their portrait in contrast to the expressions he’s seen as he stalked them at the casino. He wants his portrait to reveal their “loss of humanity.” When he turns up at their NYC apartment for the shoot, he notices their pug dogs, which they adore. So he sets everything up, gets the couple into position and says, “If I seem a little hesitant, a little disturbed, it’s because my taxi ran over a dog.” Both of their faces drop, he clicks the shutter and catches the expression he’s looking for.

It turns out that this story might itself be made up. Either way, it gives us an insight into the store Avedon sets by stories. It also illustrates another aspect of what Avedon is like and how he captures images like no others – he is an arch manipulator, charismatic and ruthless, who knows what he wants from a shoot and also how to get it.

That applies not just to individual shoots but also to Avedon’s legacy and the brand he is determined to create for himself. He’s perfectly prepared to edit his archive, destroying photos that don’t fit with the narrative he wants to create for himself. And when he talks about his experiences, it’s not always clear where fact ends and fancy begins. Indeed, according to Norma Stevens, his studio manager:

Dick would sometimes make merry with the facts—he even joked that if he ever wrote an autobiography he would call it Here Lies Richard Avedon. He said, “There is no truth, no history – there is only the way in which the story is told.”

Avedon at work on Funny Face
1956. A caption on the back of the photo reads, “Director Stanley Donen, center, confers with Photographer Richard Avedon, right and Production Manager Harry Caplan regarding a photographic insert used in the main titles to Paramount’s new Audrey Hepburn-Fred Astaire musical, Funny Face.”

Avedon – the Hollywood connection

Not only do many of Avedon’s fashion shoots seem to come straight out of a movie, they even inspire one. Funny Face is based loosely on the exploits of Avedon and his first wife, Doe, played by Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Avedon is retained as a consultant for the movie, revealing some of his working methods, providing tips on lighting and on Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe, and creating title credits and backgrounds plus a montage of freeze-framed fashion.

Funny Face and Avedon’s work as a stills photographer for The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and Some Like It Hot (1959) bridge his fashion and portrait work, with one of his greatest portraits being of Marilyn Monroe lost in thought.

For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that’s – she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn’t photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.

On a lighter note is Avedon’s virtuoso shoot – witty, stylish, extravagant – with Marilyn for the Christmas 1958 issue of LIFE magazine. The idea is to recreate the images of five stars from different eras. With his interest in theatre and the movies, this is right up the photographer’s street.

In every age the entertainment world produces an enchantress who embodies the fancies men dream by – the places they might have visited with her, music danced to with her, suppers shared with her. In the Gay Nineties, it was Lillian Russell, 160 opulent pounds of curvy Victorian womanhood. Then it was Theda Bara, representing all the women who came bursting from their stays in World War I with predatory eyes and heavy make-up into the new freedom. Afterward there was Clara Bow and Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow. Heiress today of the fabled five is Marilyn Monroe. On the following pages, in a stunning feat of re-creation, Marilyn impersonates her predecessors in their most enduring images.

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Marilyn’s sensitive, funny and loving impersonations start opposite with a radiant replica...

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Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

The movies’ first heavy-breathing temptress and the original vampire was Theda Bara...

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Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

This is Marlene Dietrich in the role that made her famous –...

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Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Jean Harlow always looked as if she were being bent backward over...

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The images here are scans of vintage black and white prints sent to a Hollywood producer, whereas the published versions are in colour.

Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon
1958. Marilyn Monroe as herself. Photo by Richard Avedon.

Avedon – fashion photography’s great innovator

One of the things that makes Avedon such a key figure in fashion photography is his ability to stay ahead of the curve. Fashion is by its nature so ephemeral that few photographers manage to remain current for more than about a decade. Avedon, almost uniquely, manages to evolve his approach to tap into the zeitgeist and reflect the changing times in which he lives. Perhaps that’s because he sees it as an important aspect of his remit.

I believe that the photographer’s job is to record the quality of the woman, of that moment he is working… Our job is always to report on the woman of the moment. The way she lives, the way she dresses. Our conception of beauty changes and is always changing.

Almost from the off, Avedon is pushing at the boundaries, getting his models to act rather than just pose, using blurred movement and soft focus when sharp focus and detail are what’s expected. According to Winthrop Sargeant, that was just the beginning:

The model became pretty, rather than austerely aloof. She laughed, danced, skated, gambolled among herds of elephants, sang in the rain, ran breathlessly down the Champs-Elysées, smiled and sipped cognac at café tables, and otherwise gave evidence of being human.

Some Avedon admirers date the turning point in his style from a celebrated photograph he made for Harper’s Bazaar in 1950, in which Dorian Leigh was shown bursting into laughter while throwing her arms around the winner of a French bicycle race. The picture created a sensation in the profession, since embracing sports heroes and laughing had not previously been thought suitable activities for fashion models, and the extent of its influence soon became clear as models began to appear everywhere embracing bicycle riders, matadors, coachmen, and Lord knows what else, in a state of hilarity. Next, Avedon, again a good jump ahead of the pack, started photographing models with handsome young men posing as their husbands, and then—most revolutionary of all—models wheeling children in perambulators or, to make the family scene complete, dangling them in baskets gaily held by the father, too.

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Andrea Johnson

Andrea Johnson

1946. This print comes from the collection of post-World War II supermodel, Andrea Johnson. The reverse is inscribed in pen "other shot Larry Avedon S449-2...

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The hand of Ara Gallant by Richard Avedon

The hand of Ara Gallant

1973. The smooth sloping shoulders (Beauty, youth), the manicured rough hand (The Beast, mortality), the balanced asymmetry… just the kind of unexpected magic and storytelling...

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It’s not so easy for us now to appreciate quite how startling Avedon’s work is for people at the time. Over several decades, particularly the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, he helps to define and advance accepted notions of beauty as well as pushing the limits of what’s acceptable in a fashion magazine (for example, his photo of Countess Christina Paolozzi topless in the January, 1962 issue of Harper’s Bazaar). Landmark shoots include:

Avedon – his achievement

The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st were a time of social, political and cultural change. Avedon’s fashion work as well as his portraits are a commentary on those decades, probing and revealing what power and wealth, confidence and vitality, deprivation and helplessness look like and what they do to people – a unique legacy of penetrating and iconic images.

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Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar

Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar of Edward Abbott

1961. This photo (another copy is in the Hagley Digital Archives) is annotated in pencil on the reverse ‘253527’ and ‘RICHARD AVEDON’....

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Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson by Richard Avedon

Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson perched in a tree

1966. Two of the top models of the day, Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson, perch like birds in a tree in this photo published in...

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Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar by Richard Avedon

Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar

1967. This is the year that American-born model, Penelope Tree, moves to London to live with David Bailey. She’s 18 years old and it's...

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This piece is mainly about Avedon as a fashion photographer, but that’s not the half of it. Additionally, he created a whole series of influential advertising campaigns, the most notable of which starred 15-year-old Brooke Shields modelling a pair of Calvin Klein skin-tight jeans. He branched out into film and video. He initiated ambitious and important projects – In the American West is a great example. He ran a sizeable studio, which among other things acted as a kind of academy, training and inspiring generations of photographers. And through his exhibitions and books he helped raise the status of photography to challenge that of painting and sculpture in the minds of curators, collectors and the public at large.

Few photographers have the determination, the courage and the insightfulness to challenge themselves and their sitters to the extent that Avedon did. That is at the heart of his greatness.

Want to know more about Avedon?

Your preferred search engine will offer you many online sources of information and images.

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avedon most sought after photographer

1. The Most Sought After Photographer in the World

If you’re strapped for time and looking for an overview of Avedon's work, take a look at this four-minute documentary.

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avedon darkness and light

2. Darkness and Light

If you’d like to spend a bit longer finding out about Avedon, this documentary covers most aspects of his work and includes clips from interviews with him and people who knew him.

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norma stevens

3. An Insight into Richard Avedon

An overview of Avedon’s fashion work by his biographer and erstwhile studio manager Norma Stevens.

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knight mcmenemy

4. Being shot by Richard Avedon

Supermodel Kristen McMenamy, interviewed by photographer Nick Knight, recalls her experience of being shot alongside Nadja Auermann for one of Avedon's iconic Versace campaigns.

Here are four videos and a handful of books worth looking up:

  • Avedon Fashion 1944–2000 by Vince Aletti, Carol Squiers and Philippe Garner is outstanding for both the images and the accompanying essays.
  • Richard Avedon: Made in France by Judith Thurman presents a collection of images made in Paris for Harper’s Bazaar during the 1950s, reproduced to the exact scale of the engraver’s prints made for Avedon, uncropped, on their original mounts, with all of the artist’s notations on both front and back.
  • An Autobiography: The Photographs of Richard Avedon is a major retrospective of images chosen by Avedon himself. There is hardly any text.
  • Norma Stevens’ and Steven Aronson’s biography, Avedon: Something Personal is a compelling and insightful portrait, laced with reflections on the great man by people who knew and worked with him. Bear in mind, though, that many of the details are disputed and it’s inconceivable that the author remembered her conversations with Avedon verbatim.
  • Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers by Michael Gross provides a context in which to assess Avedon’s achievements in the field of fashion photography.

Tazio Secchiaroli – more than a paparazzo

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A scene from Fellini's Satyricon
1969. A scene from Fellini’s Satyricon. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

Tazio Secchiaroli is generally regarded as the most talented and daring of the paparazzi. During the 1950s, he played a key role in developing the genre of paparazzi photography.

This article touches on his early career and his exploits as a paparazzo, but it’s mainly a showcase for the stunning work he did after that, particularly with Federico Fellini and Sophia Loren.

Tazio Secchiaroli – his rise to stardom

Tazio Secchiaroli is born on 26 November 1925, in Centocelle, a working-class suburb about 10 kilometres from the centre of Rome.

As a teenager, his first job is working as a gofer at Cinecittà. But in the final years of World War II the Italian film industry is on its knees. So in 1944, age 19, Tazio Secchiaroli becomes one of the ‘scattini’ (street photographers), patrolling the train station and tourist spots for visitors to Rome and offering to do portrait shots of them.

It’s a hand-to-mouth existence, hardly more lucrative than his job at Cinecittà. Fortunately he gets to know Luciano Mellace, a photographer who works for International News Service, an American agency. In 1951, Mellace offers Secchiaroli a chance to join the agency, which the latter seizes with both hands. His new job involves assisting at shoots and helping out in the darkroom. It’s a start.

The following year, Tazio Secchiaroli moves on to VEDO, a photo agency. Its founder is an enterprising and unscrupulous photographer called Adolfo Porry-Pastorel. He’s known in the trade for the stunts he pulls to outwit his competitors – for example putting a stickers over the picture lenses of his rivals’ twin-lens cameras. Because the sticker is invisible through the viewfinder, the trick will be discovered only after the event, in the darkroom.

Gjon Mili in the studio with two models
1950. Gjon Mili in the studio with two models.

But Tazio Secchiaroli is both ambitious and restless. In 1955, he becomes his own boss, setting up Roma Press Photo agency with Sergio Spinelli, a colleague at VEDO. Spinelli does the marketing and PR, Secchiaroli takes the photos. And what photos they are! His ability to be in the right place at the right time and to grab the most telling shots is covered in the paparazzi – shock horror birth of a monster. Before long, he’s the de facto ringleader of the paparazzi and known as an urban fox – the Volpe di via Veneto.

His pursuit of Ava Gardner and Walter Chiari (actor, co-star in The Little Hut and escort) tells us all we need to know about his ruthless tactics:

One evening, we were following Ava Gardner and Chiari, who were nightclubbing around Rome. There were four of us: Elio Sorci, myself and our collaborators. We had taken pictures of the two of them going in and out of nightclubs, worthless photographs because there were so many just like them. So, later, as he was parking and she had gone to open the door to the apartment building, I told Sorci to get ready. Then I went up very close to Gardner and set off a flash in her face; she screamed and Chiari immediately rushed me. Sorci promptly started shooting and got some pictures in which it looks as if we were fighting.

Based on Tazio Secchiaroli’s reputation as leader of the pack, Federico Fellini recruits him as an advisor for La Dolce Vita. It proves to be a formative experience and a turning point in Secchiaroli’s career.

In the early sixties, perhaps recognizing that street photography is a young man’s line of work and that he is not getting any younger, Tazio Secchiaroli transitions from paparazzo to set and portrait photographer. To this end, he persuades Gjon Mili, working in Italy on an assignment for LIFE magazine, to take him on for three months as an unpaid assistant. This is his opportunity to learn about the formal photographic techniques that as a paparazzo have not really been on his agenda – things like composition, lighting and depth of field.

Tazio Secchiaroli – his work with the stars

His first assignment as a set photographer is for Federico Fellini’s follow-up to La Dolce Vita – 8½. After that Tazio Secchiaroli works on the sets of all of Fellini’s films except for Juliet of the Spirits and Orchestra Rehearsal.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Photo taken on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Photo taken on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Photo taken on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Annie Daniel on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Annie Daniel on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Photo taken on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Monica Pardo on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Terence Stamp on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Terence Stamp on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Terence Stamp on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Terence Stamp on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Photo taken on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico Fellini's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Federico Fellini on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Federico Fellini on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini and Anne Tonietti on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Federico Fellini on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Federico Fellini on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Anne Tonietti on the set of Spirits of the Dead

Spirits of the Dead

1968. Federico Fellini and Anne Tonietti on the set of Toby Dammit, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the director's contribution to Spirits of the Dead. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

Fellini is not just an employer but also a profound influence:

If it weren’t for Fellini, I might have remained a paparazzo. He opened the doors of Cinecittà to me, but more than that, he showed me things I never would have understood on my own. Watching him, I learned to see the world in a disenchanted and slightly amused way. It was as if I had taken a load off my shoulders, or rather, off my brain.

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Ursula Andress preparing for a scene from The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Ursula Andress preparing for a scene in Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Ursula Andress in a scene from The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Ursula Andress as Caroline Meredith in a scene from Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Ursula Andress in a scene from The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Ursula Andress as Caroline Meredith in a scene from Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Elsa Martinelli as Olga in The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Elsa Martinelli as Olga in Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress in a scene from The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress in a scene from Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress filming a scene for The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim

1965. Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress filming a scene for Elio Petri's sci-fi fashion thriller, The 10th Victim. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

Tazio Secchiaroli also works with other directors including Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Elio Petri (only two of the photos here from The 10th Victim have the photographer’s stamp; the others are attributed to him).

As portrait photographer to the stars, his most notable collaboration is with Sophia Loren, which lasts 20 years. In her autobiography, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life, she writes:

I trusted Tazio Secchiaroli – my invaluable photographer – with my life. He was completely free to do as he pleased because I was sure he’d do the right thing. Marcello [Mastroianni] was a friend of his and had recommended him to me, and I’d gotten along with him right from the start. Fellini adored him as well, and they often worked together. He’d been the first to immortalize the nightlife of via Veneto, inspired not just the character of the paparazzo in La Dolce Vita, but by the whole atmosphere of the movie. He became like family to me, accompanying me all over the world, from set to set, and from event to event.

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Sophia Loren being photographed

Sophia Loren being photographed

1967. Sophia Loren being photographed. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

1967. Sophia Loren as Maria Lojacono in Ghosts, Italian Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

1967. Sophia Loren as Maria Lojacono in Ghosts, Italian Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren at a garden party

Sophia Loren at a garden party

Around 1970. Sophia Loren at a garden party. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren hugging a friend

Sophia Loren hugging a friend

1967. Sophia Loren hugging a friend. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Man of La Mancha

Sophia Loren in Man of La Mancha

1972. Sophia Loren as Dulcinea in Man of La Mancha. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

Elsewhere she rhapsodizes about his talent and professionalism:

Beneath an apparently cold and inattentive expression, Tazio has the instinct and controlled aggressiveness of the true photographer, one who will take a hundred or even a thousand shots until he is sure that he has got exactly the one he was looking for. Above all, Tazio has one great talent: he never pesters you, he will not confuse you with suggestions, he never tries out sterile experiments. Like a good hunting dog (I hope Tazio will forgive the analogy, but I do love dogs), he does not run or jump without reason. With all his senses on the alert, he waits patiently for the precise instant, however fleeting it may be, to seize the picture and freeze it forever on his film.

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Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti outdoors

Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti outdoors

1967. Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti outdoors. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti relaxing on a sofa

Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti relaxing on a sofa

1967. Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti relaxing on a sofa. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in an exotic garden

Sophia Loren in an exotic garden

1967. Sophia Loren in an exotic garden. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

1967. Sophia Loren as Maria Lojacono in Ghosts, Italian Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

1967. Sophia Loren as Maria Lojacono in Ghosts, Italian Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

Sophia Loren in Ghosts, Italian Style

1967. Sophia Loren as Maria Lojacono in Ghosts, Italian Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Charlie Chaplin, Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando on the set of A Countess from Hong Kong

On the set of A Countess from Hong Kong

1967. Charlie Chaplin with Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando on the set of A Countess from Hong Kong. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren filming More Than a Miracle

Sophia Loren filming More Than a Miracle

1967. Sophia Loren filming More Than a Miracle. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

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Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Marriage Italian-Style

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Marriage Italian-Style

1964. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Marriage Italian-Style. Photo by Tazio Secchiaroli.

And the admiration and affection is reciprocated by Tazio Secchiaroli:

With la Loren, I really understood what light is. Few people have as good a sense as she does of this basic, incorporeal thing. But that’s not all. La Loren is one of the greatest people I have ever known. Beneath the diva is a simple, generous woman who, out of her great sense of fairness, detests cynicism, slyness, and arrogance.

Tazio Secchiaroli will carry on working on film sets and portraits until 1983:

Because photography, like any art, requires a great deal of energy. In 1983, I felt that this energy was exhausted. So I decided to quit.

Want to know more about Tazio Secchiaroli?

Diego Mormorio’s monograph, Tazio Secchiaroli – the greatest of the paparazzi, authoritatively written and beautifully illustrated, is a must-read. Online, the first place to go is Flashgun warrior by Gaby Wood, published in the 17 July 1999 issue of The Guardian. Apart from Wikipedia and, for a selection of Tazio Secchiaroli’s photographs, The Red List, other sources include:

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