Sylvester McCoy In New York, 1988

 

When Sylvester looked at these photos, he said, boy, got I old. Now he can look at them and say, look how young I was.

images by Wolynski: Sylvester McCoy In New York City, March 1988

How I Learned To Love Guns

Over the weekend, I went to a gun show - unthinkable even a couple of years ago. But I was there to take pictures. At first, I was told absolutely no photos. But then I got talking to Claude Hall, the organizer, his dog Lightning, his friend Wyatt Earp and before you know it, everyone was happy to pose for me. (As Crash, my most loyal reader, knows - I talk to everyone). Very friendly people.

I photograph Americana now and guns have to be included, since everyone but me has one out West. Back in Warsaw, London, New York nobody had a gun. The first time I ever saw one in private hands - it was a fellow comic in Vegas - I almost fainted. Now I’ve gotten used to them - you just see so many. My neighbor keeps a shot gun under his bed - don’t know if it’s loaded - but I make sure never to piss him off.

That’s the way it is now - I live in a gun culture. Don’t think anyone is safer - quite the opposite - a stupid, heated argument can be settled abruptly and it often is. Nice to be right every time.

One has to admire a government that allows its citizens to be armed to the teeth. To what end? What great danger lurks that people feel compelled to collect arsenals? None, really, but armaments are very big business. It’s like smoking  - instead of banning the manufacture of cigarettes, they ban smokers everywhere. Why not start at the root of the problem? They’re putting cigarette manufacturers out of business anyway, slowly but surely. Heck, if I couldn’t buy a cigarette anywhere, I just might quit.

And so it goes with guns - readily available all around me. I’m appalled I’m not appalled anymore. But as long as they keep making them, people will buy. As Quentin Crisp once said, you have to learn to love the atomic bomb - maybe things will improve after one goes off. Two-headed mutants will be walking around - can you imagine people had only one head before the big bang?

Richard Jeni In The Lobster Tank

Richrad Jeni, the late comic, had the idea that he wanted a photo with the lobsters seated around a restaurant table and he would be in the tank. His cousin had an old-fashioned Italian restaurant on Coney Island, straight out of "The Godfather", and we made our way there at dawn - the only time we had access to the lobster tank.

Today you could easily Photoshop it, but I suspect Richard wanted to don a snazzy suit and actually go in - the water was filthy - it was right before they changed it every day. That night we had dinner there with all his family. I knew the food would be delicious, because I saw them prep it - plump, fresh vegetables, in fact, everything fresh. The place was packed.

Elayne Boosler wrote a great remembrance about Richard's remarkable talent.

images by Wolynski: Coney Island, Aug 1986

Musicians At Catch A Rising Star, 1986

Edgar Winter

Buster Poindexter, David Johansen's lounge persona

Soozie Tyrell

The comedy club, Catch A Rising Star, used to invite musicians to perform - pity the lighting was so lousy. Even when they held a special event at Tavern On The Green with headliners Buster Poindexter and Soozie Tyrell, the lighting was still bad. That's all photographers ever notice.

Soozie sang "Hit The Road Jack" with Buster and currently she's in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. More importantly, she taught me how to play poker.

images by Wolynski: Catch A Rising Star, Tavern On The Green, NYC, 1986

The Bangles At Catch A Rising Star,1986

I have no idea why the Bangles picked a poky little comedy club, Catch A Rising Star - seated about 200 - to record a live album. The album was never released, but a set list is floating about the Internet. They played 16 songs including "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like An Egyptian".  "A Hazy Shade Of Winter" and "Eternal Flame" were still to come.

A sweltering August New York night - Catch had dodgy air conditioning at the best of times. But the ladies rocked to a select audience (judging by the photos, not that select). It was hot, hot, hot.

Actually, the biggest act to come out of Catch was not a comedian, but Pat Benatar, who used to sing Gershwin and Porter in between the comics. Funny how life turns out.

images by Wolynski: Catch A Rising Star, NYC, 6th Aug 1986

Eve Arnold: "It's not that we're so great, it's that the others are so fucking mediocre"

Eve Arnold (great gallery), the legendary Magnum photographer died this week at the age of 99 - she was born 6 days after the Titanic sank. When I was a film student in London, I used to pick up the Sunday Times for the color magazine and Eve’s wonderful photos - she was no spring chicken then. Quite frankly, I had no idea she was still alive. Sometimes it takes a passing to remind one of a great artist.

A late bloomer, Eve Arnold had no particular style - well, quiet elegance - or subject, equally at home on Hollywood sets and poverty stricken slums. In this celebrity culture, perhaps she’s best known for her stunning images of Marilyn Monroe, whom she befriended. First lesson I learned from Eve - your subject has to trust you absolutely.

Actually, Eve said “Lesson number one - pay attention to the intrusion of the camera”. When a camera appears, people act differently - the bigger the equipment, the more phoniness. It’s up to the photographer to make people forget they’re even there. Eve only ever used natural lighting - a photo journalist to the core - yet Hollywood stars never looked more glamorous.

You can’t pick out an Eve Arnold photo from a pile of many (except that it‘s beautiful), which is as it should be - you adapt your style to the subject, not the other way around. “Never strive for effect” was her motto. It takes a particular kind of personality to become a great photographer - you can’t bend others to your will, you must let them bend you. Give up control and let things happen. “The difference between a fine photographer and an average one is having the wit to take advantage of accident”.

Beeban Kidron, the English film director, wrote a great remembrance of her years as Eve’s apprentice. The editing sessions went on for hours - yes, throwing out 99% of your work is the key to becoming good. This led Eve to exclaim “It’s not that we’re so great, it’s that the others are so fucking mediocre”.

Every photographer is mediocre before he edits. I once looked at some original Cartier Bresson contact sheets - ooh, tedium and crap. Five hundred shots before you get to the good one?  Well, that’s what it takes.

Eve Arnold didn’t have it easy. No one in America would hire her, so she sent her stuff to London and that’s how her career began. At a photography course in New York, she was mercilessly derided for having no style and no vision. All those classmates of hers with style and vision are long forgotten, Eve Arnold’s unassuming simplicity is for the ages.

Ray Romano, 1987

With Ray, what you see is what you get - a nice guy from Queens who made it big, still married to his childhood sweetheart.

Before "Everybody Loves Raymond"  -awful jacket, crooked teeth, bad haircut and a smile that wouldn't quit - a typical Italian-American from Queens, attractive and shy.

images by Wolynski:  NYC, June 1987

Queen For A Day

Me in a fat suit

Out-of-focus with Jose Ferrer

I was morbidly obese for two days - had to photograph a convention - something to do with entertainment in amusement parks. There was extra money if I became a strolling player while taking photos, posing as a typical visitor to Hershey Park. They outfitted me with a fat suit - two big balls for my ass and tits, that jiggled when I walked.

Being enormous wasn’t half bad - it got me the attention of George Clooney’s uncle, the Oscar winning actor Jose Ferrer. He followed me around for hours, slapping my enormous ass and grabbing my tits - of course, I was blissfully unaware, since they were only soccer balls. I guess Jose took one look and was smitten.

People Who Knew Cole Porter

Kitty Carlisle Hart

Douglas Fairbanks Jr

Alexis Smith played Cole Porter's wife opposite Cary Grant in "Night And Day"

Lisa Kirk starred in the original Broadway production of "Kiss Me Kate"

In the spring of 1990, my old friend Allan Albert was directing an episode of American Masters for PBS on Cole Porter. I was called to take the still photos of all the people who knew him well.

Kitty Carlisle Hart was the most impressive - who else could pull off purple with such aplomb? Most people knew her from “To Tell The Truth” and other game shows, but to me she’ll forever be the ingénue in “A Night At The Opera” - never mind Cole Porter, I wanted to hear about the Marx Brothers.

The filming took place in her legendary apartment, an entire floor of a building on Madison Ave - it was filled with mementoes of her incredible life. She was the widow of Moss Hart, playwright and director, who staged “My Fair Lady”.

Kitty was late for the filming - finally, she stepped out of the elevator in her overcoat and saw the whole crew - it had slipped her mind as to why we were here. But, ever gracious, once she was reminded, Kitty slipped off her coat and was ready to roll - she looked this good all the time and she was in her eighties.

Kitty sat down and the interview began. However, after 30 seconds she insisted the filming stop. She just felt the lighting wasn’t right, but everyone assured her she looked beautiful. In desperation, she finally turned to me “Young lady, is this lighting right for me?” It wasn’t - way too harsh. Boy, was the film crew mad at me when I suggested a reflector to soften the face. And Kitty Carlisle Hart knew all this without needing a mirror.

At the age of 95, she was still doing her one-woman show of reminiscences  - what a life. I guess the only way to age well is to age expensively.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr was a charming old lecher, who pinched my butt every chance he got. Allan Albert suggested I go for it - here’s my opportunity to marry well and briefly. He really likes you, you could be Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks Jr - wouldn’t that be something?

I really enjoy photographing the performing arts, because of all the colorful people you meet from rock bands to movie stars of yesteryear. It’s also stressful, because you have to do them all justice - if they look bad, you look bad.

Images by Wolynski: March, April 1990, NYC

Tammy Grimes, 1982

Everything about this shoot was a disaster.

Tammy Grimes was the reigning diva of Broadway in the 60’s, winning Tonys  for “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and Noel Cowards “Private Lives” - described in Wikipedia as “known for a self-created persona described as ‘a daffy but endearing pseudo-English eccentric’ with a ‘slightly askew accent that is two parts Grimesian British to one part British British".

On the appointed day of our shoot, I waited and waited and no Tammy Grimes. Oh, well. A couple of days later, I was in the darkroom when I heard knocking. Tammy had arrived out of the blue. This was not a good time - I was finishing up a print order and the studio was a mess - let’s set up another session. Tammy was determined to have her photo taken right here, right now. She said I should go and finish in the darkroom, while she cleans - I pointed to the broom and mop. Tammy took off her coat and she was wearing a dressing gown - there was no clothes bag. Oh, boy.

Tammy did a wonderful cleaning job, even doing the dishes. I set up the lights and then the sync cord wouldn’t work - had to push the film and shoot with the guiding light. Tammy had not one item of clothing - she improvised with a ratty bedspread. What a complete disaster. Except when she got the contacts she exclaimed “Just like Avedon” (she’d been photographed by him before). It helped that Tammy had flawless skin - for a woman of 51, she looked incredible. Who says smoking ruins the complexion?

Images by Wolynski: Tammy Grimes, NYC, June 1982