10.25 × 12.25 SPINE: 1.

56

GEORGE HURRELL’S
$60.00 in U.S.A. $65.00 in Canada £40.00 in U.K.

“GEOR GE HUR R ELL W AS THE GR EA TE S T. W H I L E

( con t in ue d f r om f r on t f lap)

P HOTOGR AP HING, [HE] W AS ALWA Y S A BL E TO

VIEIRA

HOLLYWOOD
MAKE Y OU R E-LIVE THE P AR T FROM TH E F I L M
Y OU HAD JUST FINISHED . . . HE W A S BRI L L I A N T. ”
pulled the elderly artist into a nefarious world of -BE TTE D A V I S
GEORGE HURRELL’S
theft and fraud; how his undiminished powers
HOLLYWOOD

HOLLYWOOD
GEORGE HURRELL’S
gave him a second career; and how his mercurial
nature nearly destroyed it.
GLAMOUR PORTRAITS 1 9 2 5 – 1 9 9 2
The photographs that motivate this tale are lu-
minous, powerful, and timeless. This book show- MARK A. VIEIRA
cases more than four hundred, many of which GLAMOUR
have not been published since they were created. PORTRAITS
GEORGE HURRELL’S HOLLYWOOD is the ultimate
1925–1992

G
work on this trailblazing artist, a fabulous mon- eorge Hurrell (1904–1992) was the cre-
tage of fact and anecdote, light and shadow. ator of the Hollywood glamour portrait,
the maverick artist who captured movie
stars of the most exalted era in Hollywood history
MARK A. VIEIRA with bold contrast and seductive poses. This lav-
is a photographer and ishly illustrated book spans Hurrell’s entire career,
writer who specializes in from his beginnings as a society photographer to
Hollywood history and his finale as the celebrity photographer who was
makes portraits in the Hur- himself a celebrity, and a living legend.
rell style. He has lectured From 1929 to 1944 Hurrell was the “Rem-
at USC, UCLA, Lincoln Center, Universal Studios, brandt of Hollywood,” creating portraits of Mar-
the Hollywood Heritage Museum, and the Palm lene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Carole
Springs Film Festival. Vieira has appeared in Lombard, and Joan Crawford that were a blend
documentaries such as TCM’s Moguls and Movie of the ethereal and the erotic. His photos of Jane
Stars, Playboy’s Sex at 24 Frames Per Second, Russell sulking in a haystack made the unknown
and the BBC’s Shooting the Stars. He was guest girl a star—without a film credit to her name. He
curator of the Irving Thalberg exhibition in 2009 immortalized leading males stars of the day from
at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sci- the Barrymores to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper.
ences. He is also the author of The Making of Latter photo shoots magnified the glamour of
Some Like It Hot (with Tony Curtis), Greta Garbo: the likes of Warren Beatty and Sharon Stone.
A Cinematic Legacy, and Sin in Soft Focus: Pre- Through newly acquired photos and in-depth
Code Hollywood, among other film-related titles. research, photographer and historian Mark A.
Mark resides in Los Angeles. Vieira, author of Hurrell’s Hollywood Portraits,
offers not only a wealth of new images but a
compelling sequel to the story presented in his
COVER: CAROLE LOMBARD BY GEORGE HURRELL
earlier book on Hurrell. Hurrell was himself a
BACK COVER: SELF PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
GLAMOUR MARK A. VIEIRA star—rich, famous, successful. Then, at the height

V isit u s on t h e w e b ! PORTRAITS of his career, he suffered a vertiginous fall from

www.runningpress.com
1925–1992 FOREWORD BY SHARON STONE grace. GEORGE HURRELL’S HOLLYWOOD recounts,
for the first time anywhere, Hurrell’s rise from the
ashes—how movie-still collectors and art dealers

ISBN 978-0-7624-5039-8

IMAGES FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF:

MICHAEL H. EPSTEIN & SCOTT E. SCHWIMER
AND BEN S. CARBONETTO (c ont inu ed on ba c k fla p)

Printed in China 11/13

RUNNING
PRESS

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 GEORGE HURRELL’S
HOLLYWOOD

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 1 7/15/13 11:11 AM

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 2 7/15/13 11:11 AM
 GEORGE HURRELL’S
HOLLYWOOD
GLAMOUR PORTRAITS 1 9 2 5 – 1 9 9 2 MARK A. VIEIRA

I M A G E S F R O M T H E C O L L E C T I O N S O F :
Michael H. Epstein & Scott E. Schwimer and Ben S. Carbonetto

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 TO THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS,
ALAN AND ELEANORE VIEIRA.

PAGE 2: Norma Shearer, 1933.

OPPOSITE: Joan Crawford, 1934.

OVERLEAF: Bianca Jagger, 1977.

© 2013 by Mark A. Vieira

Published by Running Press,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

International Copyright Conventions
Printed in China

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented,
without written permission from the publisher.

Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for

bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other
organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets
Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200,
Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or
e-mail [email protected].

ISBN 978-0-7624-5039-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013937706

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5069-5

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Designed by Jennifer K. Beal Davis for Ballast Design

Edited by Cindy De La Hoz
Typography: Neutra Text and Bulmer

Running Press Book Publishers

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Visit us on the web!

www.runningpress.com

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 5 7/15/13 11:11 AM
Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 6 7/15/13 11:12 AM
 CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY SHARON STONE 8 CHAPTER 5: 263

PREFACE 11
INTRODUCTION 15 RODEO DRIVE
THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS STAR 264
THE OUTLAW 275
CHAPTER 1: 19
COLUMBIA PICTURES 280
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
IN THE 1920S CHAPTER 6: 285

LAGUNA BEACH 20 THE FALL FROM GRACE

THE GRANADA SHOPPES AND STUDIOS 26 WAR AND SCANDAL 286
“WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME” 38 THE LEAN YEARS 296
THE COLLECTORS 306
CHAPTER 2: 49
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER CHAPTER 7: 319

MORE STARS THAN THERE ARE IN HEAVEN 50 RETURN FROM THE ASHES
INVENTING THE GLAMOUR PORTRAIT 70 THE NEGATIVES 320
THE GILDED CAGE 86 THE BIG HURT 334
THE MILESTONE 343
CHAPTER 3: 111
HURRELL PHOTOGRAPHY CHAPTER 8: 357

“I WISH I LOOKED LIKE THAT” 112 THE LIVING LEGEND

THE HURRELL STYLE 136 THE MACHINE 358
THE ICONS 160 GENIUS AND MEANNESS 370
THE PATRON 180 REFLECTIONS IN A LENS 380
THE MUSE 190
THE STRAW BOSS 212 EPILOGUE 390
SELECTED CHRONOLOGY 393
CHAPTER 4: 229 COLLECTING HURRELL 397
WARNER BROS. NOTES TO THE TEXT 404
BIBLIOGRAPHY 400
“OOMPH!” 230 INDEX 412
SHINY WAX FRUIT 250 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 416

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 FOREWORD BY
SHARON STONE

George Hurrell was a master of light, elegance, and glamour. elegance of the body, the hand, the foot, the “look.” He knew it
When I met him I had just arrived on the Hollywood scene. The and he taught it to me.
legendary film-star manager Irving “Swifty” Lazar introduced I got to see almost all of his original prints from the begin-
me to the legendary photographer, Mr. George Hurrell, and they ning of his career onward, almost all of the real work, and I got
agreed that I had a kind of “lost type of glamour of bygone days.” to spend time with him right up until the end of his life. In fact, I
A photo session with George was set up immediately. He would was the last person George photographed before he died. And
shoot me in a satin gown on Mr. Lazar’s giant satin bed, with a that shoot was as clean, clear, and simple as all the others. I was
1940s hairstyle and a smoldering look to match. I was amazed, wearing leopard and lying on a saber-tooth tiger rug. Yes, a real
when after some preparation of hair and makeup and a quick saber-tooth tiger . . . rug. That was an era, he was a king, and yes,
wardrobe change, George took a mere five or six shots. I learned how to be a movie star from the best of the best, Mr.
Yes, he stepped in and lifted my chin just so, opened my George Hurrell.
pointer finger away from my others, turned my hand “the right Since then I have worked with many masterful cinematogra-
way,” asked me to part my lips, and in that rough voice said, phers. I have found that somewhere during the film they always
“Okay, kid. Now look right here.” And I did somehow—clear comment about George. There is a throwaway remark here
that I was with the greatest movie-star photographer of all time. or there, like “Move that key light; it should be more Hurrell,”
Click, and he changed the giant 8x10 film slide from side to side. or “Hey, that really reminds me of a Hurrell photograph.” Or
He asked me to hold still. He stepped in and adjusted my head. “George Hurrell would have really loved you.” That one brings a
Click, and we were done. There was never any waste. No ego. tear to my eye, as the feeling was mutual.
No pretense. George was simple enough to appear blue collar — S H A R O N STO N E
and yet simple enough to be a king.
After that shoot we worked together a number of times.
O P P OSI TE: Sharon Stone was an exemplary Hurrell subject. She
Each time I learned the mastery of the “clean photo”—the exuded glamour—and she collected Hurrell prints.

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 10 7/15/13 11:13 AM
 PREFACE

George Edward Hurrell was the creator of the Hollywood In a town where imitation is the sincerest form of survival,
glamour portrait. When he came to Hollywood in 1930, a Hurrell was an original. Not only was his lighting unique; his
movie star photograph was soft and undistinguished, like a personality was as much a tool as his famous “boom light.” He
portrait from a Main Street salon. Hurrell introduced a bold was loved by his subjects and tolerated by moguls such as Louis
new look: sharp focus, high contrast, and seductive poses. He B. Mayer, whose patience he tried with occasional bursts of
told a story with each photo, blending the ethereal and the temperament. For thirteen years, Hurrell was the highest paid,
erotic. He created imagery that was unprecedented and unique. best-known photographer in Hollywood. Bette Davis and Joan
How did an unknown artist from the Midwest become the most Crawford gave him their fabulous faces, and he immortalized
influential photographer in Hollywood history? them. By 1943 he had worked with every studio in town, had
In 1929 Hurrell was twenty-five, a full-time commercial a beautiful wife named Katherine, and was affluent. His sitting
photographer and sometime landscape painter. He was eking fee was $1,000, when the dollar bought thirty times what it
out a living in Los Angeles when the film star Ramon Novarro does in 2013. The millionaire producer Howard Hughes paid
came to his Westlake atelier. A series of sessions produced a him $4,000 to photograph an unknown girl in a haystack for
remarkable portfolio. Novarro was so pleased that he showed it The Outlaw. Censors suppressed the film, but Hurrell’s photos
to Norma Shearer, the highest-grossing star at the most pres- made Jane Russell a household word—which Hurrell already
tigious studio in the world. Shearer commissioned Hurrell to was. “Hurrell is one of Hollywood’s few genuine geniuses,” said
make photographs she could submit for a new type of role. She Motion Picture magazine. “He is Rembrandt with a camera.” He
got the role and Hurrell got a job—head portrait photographer was working at Columbia Pictures during the week and in his
at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Beverly Hills studio on weekends, shooting foldouts for Esquire
The dreamlike world of silent pictures had created a star magazine. At thirty-nine, he had an enviable life and a secure
system based on personalities who were bigger than life. The future. The photographer of stars had become a star.
naturalism of talking pictures diminished them. If the star This is the story I told in Hurrell’s Hollywood Portraits,
system was to survive, the studios would have to enlarge them which was published in 1997. It was the first book to show Hur-
again. Along came Hurrell, who adapted his technique to this rell’s work in accurate chronology, to describe it in the context
purpose. Using new lighting and retouching effects, he created of the personalities he captured, and to analyze it in acces-
spectacular, enticing images of Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, and
Jean Harlow, and sold them to a worldwide audience. In the
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell’s life was marked by dramatic, un-
process, Hurrell perfected a photographic idiom: the Holly- expected shifts of fortune. Here he is in 1980, on the verge of the
wood glamour portrait. most extraordinary shift of all.

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 sible photographic terms. I am a working photographer, using any day, any time, anywhere. But what are you seeing? In the
vintage camera equipment to make portraits in his style, so I ’70s I complained about books with poor reproductions of his
can explain his technique and show why his art had five distinct work. I criticized copy prints that leached the subtle shades of
periods. There were many craftsmen in the studio system, but gray from his black-and-white imagery. I have more to com-
only Hurrell’s work had the periods that characterize a Picasso. plain about now. Few of the Hurrell images on the Web retain
Hurrell’s Hollywood Portraits was published just as the the quality of his originals. I wrote this book to ensure that his
Internet and digital photography were gaining currency. Before photographs can be seen as he intended. I have secured prints
long, images from the book were all over the Web. Faces in made by Hurrell himself. I have included prints that I made in
magazine ads had a digital sheen that tried to copy Hurrell’s a photographic darkroom from his original negatives, some-
retouching technique. Norma Shearer, known as the First Lady times under his tutelage, and sometimes under the supervision
of M-G-M, became “Hurrell’s patron.” Joan Crawford, the most of his colleagues. I have scanned the prints myself. And I have
durable star in Hollywood history, was “Hurrell’s muse.” An entrusted these prints to Running Press, a publisher committed
authoritative book had honored the artist. I was no longer a to fine lithography.
Hurrell expert. I was a Hurrell scholar. I thought I had com- I have still another reason for writing this book. Hurrell
pleted my life’s work. It had only begun. died twenty-one years ago, yet he lives on. His personality
If you’ve ever written about a famous person, you can vibrates in every image. People want to know more about him.
expect to answer questions for the rest of your life. “How long There is more to tell. Like every Hollywood legend, Hurrell was
did you work with George Hurrell?” And “What happened to bigger than life—brilliant, mysterious, mythic. I want to clear the
his career after Hollywood?” And “What was he like?” I am apocrypha from the myth. Truth is more compelling than myth,
asked to identify his subjects, his sessions, and their dates; to Hollywood Babylon notwithstanding. I want to take the Internet
demonstrate his technique; to give free appraisals; to weed out taint off Hurrell and put him in a worthy context. I also want to
counterfeit prints; and, happily, to print his vintage negatives. tell what has not been told.
In short, I function as a professor of arcana. This gives me the In 1943, when Hurrell was at the height of his prominence,
opportunity to share knowledge and to gain more. In the sev- he suffered a vertiginous fall from grace. In 1975, when I met
enteen years that have passed since I wrote Hurrell’s Hollywood him, he was seventy-one but could not retire. He had lost his
Portraits, I have learned that a few facts I wrote were incorrect. fortune to bad investments and alimony. Instead of shooting
Hurrell never photographed Marilyn Monroe, even though glamour portraits, he was working as “unit still man” on Gable
numerous people claim that he did. This is why I have written and Lombard, a feeble tribute to the stars he had immortalized.
a second Hurrell book. The next time you see a Hurrell portrait, After years of middle-aged struggle, the one-time Rembrandt of
I want you to know when he shot it, how he shot it, and what Hollywood was an anonymous studio employee. The artist was
makes it great. in eclipse, his portrait career in ashes.
I have also written this book because of the photographs. Six years later, Hurrell was Hollywood’s latest comeback
At one time, in order to see a Hurrell portrait, you had the story, a celebrated artist. Elderly but robust, he was charg-
choice of a museum, a gallery, a book, or a fortunate friend. ing $5,000 to photograph stars such as Diana Ross and Liza
Technology has changed that. In our democratized millennium, Minnelli. He was selling his 1930s work for twice that, and in
you can see Hurrell’s work on the great god Internet for free, galleries that once had sneered at Hollywood photography. He

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 was the subject of articles, books, and shows. He was enjoying a a result, I was hurt and disillusioned. By writing the story of
second career. his life I have come to terms with that experience. I thank the
This is the story I add in this volume: Hurrell’s return from individuals who have helped me write an objective account of
the ashes. I was there, sometimes as a participant, sometimes as Hurrell’s second career. I have made every effort to convey the
an observer. I watched him wend his way through the monolith- truth, both about the artist and about his images.
ic soundstages at moribund studios, through the lavender-scent- It is those images that motivate this book. They are lumi-
ed living rooms of invidious collectors, through smoky dens of nous, powerful, and timeless. Most have not been published
thieves, and into chic galleries. I saw him flirt with history and since they were made. As you will read, they have traveled a cir-
scandal, wooing this one and dismissing that one. I was there, cuitous route from the studios to this book. With the help of the
like so many others, because I was entranced by the beauty of private collectors and the archives I thank in the Acknowledg-
his work. Before long, I saw it tarnished by bootlegging, theft, ments, I have worked to make George Hurrell’s Hollywood the
and fraud. definitive work on this trailblazing artist, a shimmering montage
The George Hurrell I knew was two people. Depending on of fact and anecdote, light and shadow.
what day you saw him, or what time of day, he was as bright as —Mark A. Vieira, January 23, 2013
his spotlights or as dark as his famous shadows. When I knew
him, I was too starstruck to anticipate his vagaries of mood. As ABOVE : Hurrell’s aptly named “boom light.”

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 14 7/15/13 11:13 AM
 INTRODUCTION

The artist who would become famous for turning human beings and eventually felt he was being called to the priesthood. In the
into latter-day gods was born a Roman Catholic at the begin- spring of 1922, as he approached his high school graduation,
ning of the twentieth century. George Edward Hurrell was born he decided to acknowledge what was known in Catholic school
on June 1, 1904, in the Walnut Hills district of Cincinnati, Ohio. as a “vocation.” He applied for admission to the Archbishop
At one point his publicity would state that he had been born in Quigley Memorial Preparatory Seminary in Chicago. Yet he
Covington, Kentucky, a few miles across the Ohio River. Like so heard another calling. “As long as I can remember,” he recalled
much of his life, the facts of his birth are blurred by myth. What fifty years later, “I wanted to be an artist. I was drawing all the
is known is that his paternal grandfather came to America from time, in school and out. Art was my favorite class.” George had
Essex, England, where his forebears had been shoemakers for always been putting his impressions of people on paper. By late
hundreds of years. George Hurrell’s grandmother came from high school, he was sufficiently skilled to consider a career in art.
Dublin. His father, Edward Eugene Hurrell, was born in Cincin- Hedging his bets, he applied to the renowned Art Institute of
nati. His mother, Anna Mary Eble, was born in Baden-Baden, Chicago. He was accepted by both the seminary and the school.
Germany, and came to Cincinnati as a child. Edward and Anna He chose the school, mostly because he could attend on a schol-
had five boys and one girl. George was the first born. He was arship, and he began to study painting and graphics.
followed by Edmond (“Ned”) in 1907, Russell in 1910, Eliza- George did not find the Michigan Avenue campus en-
beth in 1912, Robert in 1915, and Randolph in 1918. From tirely to his liking. The classes may not have been sufficiently
all indications, the Hurrells were devoutly Catholic. Randolph stimulating or it may have been that he was easily bored and
studied for the priesthood for years but relented a month before given to impatience. After a short time at the Institute, he left
his ordination. Likewise, Elizabeth was poised to enter a con- and enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, which was
vent but instead chose the secular life. located a block away, at 81 East Monroe Street. (Although this
In an Esquire magazine interview in the late 1930s, George Academy had the same name as an earlier incarnation of the Art
Hurrell made a cryptic statement about his father, the only time Institute, it was an entirely different school, founded in 1902 by
he would ever mention his family in print. “I’m a somewhat the Pictorialist photographer Carl Werntz.) “I went to the Acad-
screwy photographer—an artist gone wrong,” he said. “And so emy of Fine Arts at night for a while,” recalled Hurrell in 1980,
wrong, I’m the shoemaker’s favorite child.” In 1909 Edward “and I worked part-time. I would just fit that in. Whenever I had
Hurrell moved his growing family to Chicago so that he could
start a shoe factory. Chicago was the Catholic stronghold of the
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell was twenty-six when he made this
Midwest, and young George was undoubtedly influenced by self-portrait with an Eastman Century studio camera in the M-G-M
twelve years of Catholic education. He served as an altar boy portrait gallery.

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 to pay rent, I would go to work.” His odd jobs did not include which contracted with Hutchinson to shoot negatives of the art.
photography, although he did have a passing acquaintance with Because George was entrusted with this task, he had an entrée
it. Students were encouraged to take snapshots during the warm to a lecture that Payne was delivering at the Institute. Never
months to use as the basis for the paintings that they would one to stand on ceremony, the young photographer asked the
make in the winter. This was the first time George used a profes- esteemed artist for a critique of his paintings. Payne liked a
sional-gauge camera and entered a photographic darkroom, but landscape that George had recently completed. A number of
he was more interested in surrealist painting, especially that of visits followed.
Giorgio de Chirico. After a year and a half, George dropped out At forty-two, Payne was an acclaimed artist, showing in
of school, yielding to the inquietude that would inform the rest numerous galleries simultaneously. He had helped found the
of his life. Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918, and became its first
In early 1924 George took a job as a hand-colorist in a com- president. He described Laguna’s Mediterranean climate, lush
mercial photography studio, but he soon wandered from the landscape, and thriving art colony, and told George that if he
drafting table. “I got curious one day about life in the photogra- was serious about an art career, he might do well in California.
phy department,” he recalled. His curiosity led to a transfer, and George was not averse to a move; besides the lure of Laguna’s
he was soon assisting catalog photographers, making photos of artistic offerings, the Chicago winter had made it difficult for
iceboxes, hats, and—appropriate to his family history—shoes. him to get rid of what he would later call a “stubborn bacterial
“One day,” he recalled, “an emergency occurred in the studio. It infection.”
was understaffed and a photo had to be taken right away—and In May 1925, George climbed into a Hudson touring car
there was no one else to take it.” This was George’s baptism with the Payne family and set off for California. Payne was a
by fire, his first professional photograph. It was a thrill, but it true artist. In 1912, when he and Elsie were about to be married,
did not last. The elder staff members returned and George was he had suddenly asked her to call their guests and tell them to
back to assisting. After three weeks, he grew bored and quit. come several hours later—when the light in the chapel would be
After taking a few more photography jobs, he found one that right. Anecdotes like this enlivened the drive to California, but
lasted. The portrait photographer Eugene Hutchinson had a it was interrupted by a minor accident in Denver. The party of
splendid studio in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, four escaped injury, possibly because they were insulated by a
about a block south of the Art Institute. George was hired as a carload of canvases. George’s first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean
colorist but moved on to negative retouching, airbrushing, and came on a balmy evening in late May. “No place like California,”
darkroom work. He also learned how to shoot copy negatives was Payne’s breezy observation. For a young artist from the
of photographs and artwork. Although he continued to paint, it Midwest, this was an understatement. The image of Emerald
was his photographic work that made a fortuitous connection. Bay seen through a curtain of eucalyptus leaves would stay with
In early 1925 the California artist Edgar Alwin Payne Hurrell for the rest of his life.
was visiting Chicago with his wife, Elsie, and daughter, Evelyn.
Payne was known for painting en plein air, particularly the
OPPOSITE: The plein air painter Edgar Alwin Payne was responsi-
Sierra Nevada mountain range. He had been traveling through
ble for George Hurrell’s coming to California in 1925. Hurrell made
Europe for two years and was exhibiting at the Art Institute, this portrait in Laguna Beach in 1926.

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 CHAPTER 1

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
IN THE 1920s

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 LAGUNA BEACH

On June 1, 1925, George Hurrell celebrated his twenty-first lengthy, the rhythm of a portrait session was like that of a sketch
birthday and began to live like an artist. Friends of Edgar Payne session: the artist captured a pose, flipped to the next sheet of pa-
helped him find a place to live, a “picturesque cottage” that per in the sketch pad, and told the model to assume a new pose.
turned out to be a semifurnished shack called the Paint Box. Hurrell owned a portable 8x10 camera and an eighteen-
It had been built in 1904 by J. N. (“Nick”) Isch, who was the inch Wollensak Verito portrait lens. This lens was manufactured
proprietor of Laguna Beach’s general store and post office. with a chromatic aberration that created haloes around high-
The Paint Box was a place where an artist could pay for room lighted areas of the image, an effect called “soft focus.” It gave
and board with his or her work, so in a happy demonstration the photograph a hazy, dreamy quality, not unlike the sfumato
of quid pro quo, Isch accumulated an impressive art collection effect in Renaissance art, but only if the iris was used wide open,
from tenants such as Emily White, James McBurney, and Donna which was usually around F/4. Soft focus diffused facial detail,
Schuster. Hurrell’s arrangement was equally liberal; he would so the negative required less retouching, which saved both time
more or less watch the cottage for an absentee tenant, Malcolm and money. Moreover, the wide-open lens required less expo-
St. Clair, a film director whose father, watercolorist Norman St. sure time, which made poses more natural.
Clair, was one of Laguna’s first resident artists. Before long, Hurrell was photographing Laguna artists.
Hurrell soon found a sympathetic physician, but he pre- One of his first subjects was Edgar Payne. These dignified per-
scribed pills that were both large and expensive. “I had to make sonages came to sit for him, even if he was young and his equip-
a living,” recalled Hurrell. “I’d brought a camera from Chicago, ment primitive; he was using household bulbs with saucepans
and these artists needed pictures of their paintings. I’d take for reflectors. Sometimes he used nothing more than the north
them out in the sun and put a Wratten panchromatic K3 filter on
the camera [because the film was black and white and the color
OVERLEAF: George Hurrell’s portraits were first published by
values of the art had to be approximated], and I’d shoot these
the Stendahl Galleries in Los Angeles, so it was inevitable that
paintings. I was getting my bread and butter out of photogra- Hurrell should make a portrait of the influential Earl Stendahl.
phy.” And his health was improving. O P P OSI TE: William Wendt was known as the “Dean of South-
Hurrell’s photographic training did not consist solely of ern California landscape painters.” He was one of Hurrell’s first
portrait subjects in Laguna. The lighting in this study of Wendt is
copy technique. He had learned how to make a portrait. Because
subtle, considering the primitive implements Hurrell was using at
the 8x10-inch sheet film he used was large and its exposure time the time.

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 light coming through his studio’s skylight. Hurrell knew enough a three-dimensional subject into two dimensions; lighting is
about lighting to control both intensity and direction. He had supposed to persuade the viewer that there are once again three
learned technique from Hutchinson, but he also had an innate dimensions.
understanding of what light and shadow could do. “Rembrandt At twenty-one, Hurrell was an iconoclast. Having left a
was my ideal,” he said later. “Rembrandt used one source of genteel salon environment for a Bohemian enclave, he was
light, and that’s what I did.” dispensing with studio technique. He made a portrait of William
In 1925 the lighting scheme at the average commercial
portrait studio consisted of: 1) the “key light,” a large flood-
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Frank Cuprien was one of the plein
light aimed from above to create modeling; 2) the “fill light,” a air painters whom George Hurrell photographed in Laguna Beach
floodlight set at eye level to lighten (or “fill” in) the shadows cast in 1925 and ’26. Cuprien was known as the “Dean of Laguna Beach
artists.” Hurrell’s use of negative retouching to emphasize high-
by the key light; 3) the “backlight” (or “hair light”), which was
lights is obvious, even in this seminal work. Hurrell was twenty-two
aimed at the subject from behind, in order to separate him or when he made this portrait.

her from the background; and 4) the “background light,” which

Florence Barnes was becoming fast friends with Hurrell when he
illuminated the wall behind the subject. A photograph reduces made this portrait of the San Marino socialite.

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 Wendt, a sixty-year-old plein air painter, using a strong north rector of St. James Episcopal Church in South Pasadena. They
light and a little edge lighting from the sauce pans. Wendt was had been married for four years and had a three-year-old son
pleased with Hurrell’s work; it was markedly different. When named William. In a room full of artists, Florence stuck out, not
Hurrell used his Verito lens, he used it in a way that no one else because she was a young woman in the midst of a lot of bearded
had thought to. He did not shoot wide open; he chose to stop old men, but because she had a forthright quality. She was not
it down part way. The effect was akin to painting with a palette particularly attractive. She was stocky, her face was round, and
knife—not too soft and not too sharp. His Laguna subjects were she had sloe eyes, but she sparkled with an earthy élan. She was
quick to note the new look. This young man who fished at Vic- also well-spoken, conversant in the arts, and quick with a pun.
toria Beach was talented. At first glance, she was an odd match for a staid minister. Hur-
Hurrell was tawny, muscular, energetic, and, although he rell was drawn to her, if not romantically, then with fascination
was only five-foot-eight, a shock of dark, thick, unruly hair made at an individuality as great as his. And she made him laugh. Like
him appear tall. His unconventional good looks were accented his sister Elizabeth, she was funny.
by dark brown eyes, long eyelashes, and expressive eyebrows. Florence Barnes was independently wealthy, having inher-
His native intensity was allied to a bombastic self-confidence. ited a fortune at her mother’s death the previous year, and she
He was not shy about expressing his dislikes, which included was beginning to live life apart from Rankin. She maintained
stuffy behavior. He was soon creating a stir in Laguna, especially a thirty-five-room mansion in San Marino but was spending
with the wealthy tourists from Riverside, San Bernardino, and more time at a rambling Laguna estate called Dos Rocas. This
Pasadena. palatial home boasted the first fresh-water swimming pool in
On Christmas Day 1925, Hurrell accepted an invitation to that community. It was even designed with portholes so that
join the Paynes for dinner at the home of William A. Griffith, a non-swimming guests could watch underwater horseplay. Hur-
plein air painter and president of the Laguna Beach Art Asso- rell visited her in January and was soon a regular guest at her
ciation. Hurrell was studying with Wendt and painting steadily pool parties. Most were colorful and some were raucous, even
but his photographic portraits were getting more attention; he by Roaring Twenties standards, since Barnes’s guests came from
wanted to talk to painters. As Hurrell would later recall, the air circuses, art enclaves, and the fringes of show business. The
evening was memorable, but not for the artists. “They were all eccentrics Hurrell met at these parties included Mary Frances
very friendly, but they were very serious painters, not partygoers Kennedy, before she became M. F. K. Fisher. There was also
particularly. The society crowd that came down there from out fifteen-year-old Katherine Gertrude (“Gigi”) McElroy, who
of town were partygoers.” Before the evening was over, Hurrell was madly in love with thirty-three-year-old Dillwyn Parrish.
was introduced to a “Mrs. Barnes from San Marino.” When neighbors complained about the noisy parties, Barnes’s
Florence Lowe Barnes was born on July 29, 1901, to a grandmother told her to stop them. Barnes ignored her. The
wealthy Pasadena family. Her paternal grandfather, Thaddeus headstrong young woman was beginning to incense both sides
Lowe Sr., was the inventor and industrialist who built the of her family with her unladylike pursuits. She loved to party,
Mount Lowe Railway in 1896. Her mother came from the social to fly, and to fish. “Whoever catches the smallest fish has to
echelon known as the Philadelphia Main Line and owned exten- cook!” was her rule. After a few trips with Barnes, Hurrell’s skill
sive property, including the stately Broadwood Hotel. Florence at casting was surpassed by his skill at gutting. Barnes was an
was attending the party with her husband, C. Rankin Barnes, entertaining companion, even if it was apparent that her bravado

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 masked insecurity and a lack of direction. Like Hurrell, she was a toot from her auto horn. On Monday, March 1, 1926, Hurrell
sensitive, talented, and dynamic, but she needed a goal. was told to expect such a cue, but first he had to drive his Model
In late 1925 and early 1926, Hurrell photographed Wendt’s T Ford to Pasadena and photograph the guests at a California
paintings to publicize an upcoming show at the Stendahl Art Art Club gala hosted by sculptor and president Julia Bracken
Galleries in Los Angeles. Earl Stendahl was printing a catalog to Wendt. Hurrell had been busy all weekend, packing his belong-
accompany the February show William Wendt and His Work. ings. Nick Isch was selling the property for a housing develop-
Hurrell made prints for it and shot a portrait of Wendt for the ment, and the Paint Box was on blocks, soon to be moved. No
cover. Unfortunately, Wendt fell ill and the show had to be matter; Hurrell had found another dwelling. The Paint Box’s
postponed. However, a solo show of Payne’s work did open at electricity had been turned off, so Hurrell lit candles when
Stendahl’s in March. Payne was Stendahl’s best-selling artist, he returned from Pasadena to process his film. It was almost
and the gallery published a lavish catalog, Edgar Alwin Payne midnight when he heard the signal from the grove. He left the
and His Work; Hurrell shot both the art and the artist. candles guttering in the shack and ran down the hill. After a few
Hurrell divided his time between painting, shooting minutes there, he heard the siren of a fire truck. The Paint Box
portraits, and exploring the coastline—Moss Point, Dana Point, was in flames. A volunteer fireman tried to stop Hurrell from go-
and Main Beach. He was tanned, agile, and charming, so he got ing into the shack, but he was drunk and he put his fist through
attention from the opposite sex. It may have been at this time that a window. He managed to save his Verito lens, a tripod, and his
he evolved his aesthetic trademark. In a few years he would earn camera, but he saw his negatives and prints burn.
fame by positioning nubile young women with a shoulder toward Hurrell soon recovered. Florence Barnes referred friends,
the camera, chin tucked into it, the fabric of a blouse sliding and local shops put his work in their windows. “Laguna Beach
downward, liquid eyes looking seductively into the lens. This was such a small town then,” said Hurrell, “but it got so many
image was enhanced by the unprecedented use of “bounce light.” people from out of town. They came from the inland cities such
A bright light spilling onto the woman’s head and in front of her as Riverside, Santa Ana, Fullerton, and from Los Angeles, too.
would “bounce” upward into her eyes, making them glisten and In the summer the society crowd were running up and down the
shimmer. Perhaps Hurrell experienced an epiphany one day streets and looking for interesting things, and my pictures of art-
while seducing a woman in dappled sunlight next to a reflecting ists hanging in a place downtown would attract attention.” The
pool. Or perhaps it was during a camera experiment that the sun increased work bought him oil paint and even the time to use it.
shone through his skylight and created a hitherto unnoticed ef- In late March Hurrell attended the opening of the Wendt
fect. However it occurred, it confirmed his status as an artist and show at Stendahl’s, and, while there, dined for the first time at
as a romantic. A fleeting image became an idée fixe, and Hurrell’s the Musso and Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard. He liked
first period of artistic development began. both the fare and the ambience. In May 1927 Hollywood came
Hurrell was flirting, even with the married women who vis- to Laguna. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was filming the 1903 novel
ited Laguna. One flirtation led to a secret dalliance. He could not Romance, a pirate story written by Ford Madox Ford and Joseph
be seen bringing a married woman to his cottage, so she would Conrad. This silent film was the latest vehicle for the Mexican-
meet him in a nearby eucalyptus grove. The all-clear signal was born movie star Ramon Novarro. At twenty-eight, Novarro was

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 basking in the stupendous success of M-G-M’s Ben-Hur: A Tale to Redlands or Riverside or someplace, to shoot their family
of the Christ. During the day, he acted his scenes for Romance and that sort of thing.” There was a growing art market in
in sets built to look like a fishing village in 1820s Cuba. At night Los Angeles. Hurrell had met Earl Stendahl in his main gal-
Florence Barnes showed him the best side of Laguna. The epi- lery, which was located in the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire
cene actor and the moon-faced socialite became friends. Boulevard. A mile east, the Granada Shoppes and Studios, a
At one point while the Cuban sets were standing, Hur- complex of artists’ lofts and galleries, was nearing completion.
rell got permission to set up a camera on the beach and shoot a The prospect of selling art in a big city intrigued Hurrell. He
self-portrait. The arrangements were probably facilitated by his had been living in a small community for two years. “I was bored
friendship with Florence Barnes, and by hers with Novarro. This with Laguna,” he said. In December he decided to leave the art
was Hurrell’s first connection with Hollywood, and it yielded a colony and enter the art world.
handsome, picturesque portrait.
In 1927 America was booming. Speculation and spending
were running neck and neck, yet Laguna Beach was losing its
tourist trade. Hurrell found himself in Los Angeles more often,
photographing socialites. “Pretty soon I was shooting all kinds of
ABOVE: Hurrell at twenty-one had the intensity and resolve of an
social pictures,” he recalled. “I was being asked if I would come unknown artist.

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 THE GRANADA SHOPPES AND STUDIOS

On January 1, 1928, George Hurrell took residence in the newly ture by Julia Bracken Wendt. Her California Art Club was head-
opened Granada Shoppes and Studios, which were located quartered in Aline Barnsdall’s Hollyhock House on Hollywood
at 672 South La Fayette Park Place. What did the young artist Boulevard, and for women there were the Fine Arts Club, the
expect to find in Los Angeles that was not in Chicago or Laguna West Coast Arts Group, and the Ebell Club.
Beach? There were certainly more people. The population had There were thirty galleries in greater Los Angeles, includ-
doubled since 1920, cresting at a million. There were also more ing several on Wilshire. This path to the Pacific was known vari-
automobiles. The city was a sprawling grid designed for the ously as the “Fabulous Boulevard,” the “Champs-Élysées of the
auto, and Hurrell was living half a block from the most-driven West,” and the “Fifth Avenue of Los Angeles.” It was a meeting
street on earth, Wilshire Boulevard. When he motored the six place for oil millionaires and movie moguls, where Edwardian
miles to Musso and Frank, he passed the manicured gardens of gentility met Jazz-Age inanity. At streetcar stops, men wearing
La Fayette Park, the Georgian-Revival Town House, the whimsi- hats removed them to greet women wearing gloves. A man was
cal Brown Derby restaurant, and the elegant Ambassador Hotel. addressed as “sir,” a woman as “madame.” Inside apartments
He had moved to an exciting place at an opportune time. Los such as the Arcady and the Bryson, telephone conversations
Angeles was booming. Wherever one turned, there was some- were limited to making plans; tying up the line with gossip was
thing to beguile the eye, intrigue the mind, or provoke the senses. déclassé. In Westlake, the keynote was graciousness. In the cafés
Not everyone was impressed. New York playwrights and that dotted Seventh Street, though, there was smoking, drink-
European literati thought Los Angeles a cultural wasteland, ing, and racism. It was not uncommon to read of fisticuffs. But
a cow town without cows. Hurrell knew otherwise. He had four-letter words were never used in public, even in the heat of
only to look at the event listings in the Herald or the Examiner anger. Los Angeles strove to be a decent place. The most decent,
to see what was available: exhibits, lectures, classes. Many of gracious, and artistic place of all was Hurrell’s new residence.
them were in the Westlake District, where he was living. Three The Granada Shoppes and Studios were designed by
blocks away, at the west end of Westlake Park, was the Otis Art Franklin Harper to evoke a street in Spain. Four rectangular
Institute. Six blocks away was the Chouinard School of Art. structures were linked by an open-air promenade, and twenty-
Two miles east was the Biltmore Theatre, where stars such as
Katharine Cornell brought their Broadway successes. Three
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell’s first portrait of a Hollywood movie
miles south, in Exposition Park, was the Los Angeles County
star took place in early 1929, when Ramon Novarro came to the
Museum of History, Science, and Art, which featured a sculp- Granada Shoppes and Studios.

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 29 7/15/13 11:21 AM
 OVERLEAF: The Granada Shoppes and Studios wel-
comed George Hurrell in early 1928. The complex was
designed by former journalist Franklin Harper to suggest
a street of storefronts in Spain. It was built in the arty
Westlake District, home of numerous lofts, galleries, and
art schools.

L E F T: Hurrell wanted Florence Barnes to have a pleas-

ing portrait. No one was more pleased than she.

four uniquely designed doorways fronted two-level lofts, some On October 20, Hurrell participated in the grand opening
of which had Juliet balconies overlooking a salon. Harper told festival of the Granada. Each suite had an open house with an
the Los Angeles Times that the design was “entirely new to Los “Old California Fiesta” theme. Neighboring tenants included
Angeles, although incorporating apartments with shops and Inga Petterson; Tiny Tots’ Toggery; Madame Sylvia, Modiste;
artists’ studios is similar to the design of specialty shops in Oril Wing, book reviewer; Myra Ketcham, Sufi Movement
Europe.” Hurrell was leasing Number Nine, which was located Center; Mrs. Ella Pepworth, Vegetarian Tea Center; and Charles
at the ground level. It had entrances from both a terra cotta L. Shepard, pianist coach. The most prominent tenant was
esplanade and a stained-glass-enclosed patio, which he shared Mrs. Ida Koverman, who as secretary of the Republican Central
with the Granada Café, where dinner could be purchased Committee was working to get Herbert Hoover elected to the
for $1.50 and enjoyed in the “colorful beauty of the court, its presidency. She was also an unofficial adviser to Louis B. Mayer,
balconies, and arcaded wall, something different in the heart of president of M-G-M.
the Wilshire District.” This was not quite true, since Spanish The fiesta, with its music, dancing, and fashion show, was
Revival was all the rage in 1928. intended to bring customers to the building. Hurrell had not

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 A B OV E R I G HT: Hurrell shot his friend Florence Barnes in one of
her airplanes about the time she was adopting the name “Pancho”
and winning air races.

R I G H T: At Hurrell’s studio Novarro posed in characters and cos-

tumes that his studio would never have approved.

been idle. Using two recently acquired arc lights, he had pho- donned men’s clothing, joined a few friends in San Pedro, and,
tographed a group of ballet students, an American stage actress pretending to be a man, signed up as crew on a banana boat
named Irene Homer, a British actress named Mary Forbes bound for Peru. She wanted to go to the ruins at Machu Picchu,
(sister of the M-G-M actor Ralph Forbes), and prominent where she intended to think through her problems and decide
politicians. “The Dockweilers were a famous social family,” what to do about her marriage. Before long, she and her friends
said Hurrell. “I shot them, their weddings, their kids.” Still, discovered that the ship was running guns to revolutionaries.
he needed more work, and Florence Barnes was not around to When it docked in San Blas, Mexico, it was taken over by towns-
refer clients. people who turned it into a floating fortress. While the town’s
After coming to a crossroads in her personal life, Barnes money was guarded by soldiers, Barnes and her friends were
had embarked on a series of adventures. It began when Barnes sequestered as hostages. After two harrowing days, Barnes made
lost interest in helping her husband at the church. He was a daring escape with the ship’s helmsman, a Stanford-educated
becoming pompous and sententious. Worse, she was unable to fisheries researcher named George Roger Chute. They traveled
accommodate her maternal duties. In late 1927 she impulsively hundreds of miles to safety—on a horse, a burro, and on foot.

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 When Barnes returned to California six months later, she looked Angeles to photograph Greta Garbo and John Gilbert for Vanity
like a native of Mexico. “Pancho” Barnes was born. Fair. On August 6 he took his gear to the M-G-M stage where
In July 1928 Hurrell heard from Barnes; this time it was she Clarence Brown was directing them in A Woman of Affairs, a
who needed help from him. She had taken flying lessons and sanitized film version of Michael Arlen’s scandalous novel The
wanted a license, but an official at the National Aeronautic As- Green Hat. The scene being filmed was an inquest, so both
sociation would not process her application if it showed she was Garbo and Gilbert were in black. Steichen made his shots of
a woman. The inflexible official was named Orville Wright. Yes, the famous duo and was then given a challenging six minutes to
that Orville Wright. Twenty-five years after his historic flight, photograph Garbo. The two images he captured are among his
he was handling applications and believed that aviation was too most famous.
dangerous for the fair sex. If a damsel were to be injured while Hurrell was doing copy work for Leon Gordon, another
flying, why, the future of aviation could be imperiled! Could Earl Stendahl painter, when he heard that Steichen needed film
Hurrell make Pancho’s application photo look like a man’s? He processed. He was shooting photos of cigarette lighters for the
could and he did, right down to the engine grease under her Douglass Lighter Company and there was no darkroom in his
fingernails. Pancho got her application approved and she got suite at the Ambassador. “Steichen was sort of an ideal,” said
her license. She then installed a landing strip at Dos Rocas and Hurrell. “To me he was the great commercial photographer. I
bought a Travel Air biplane. Hurrell insisted on doing another used to subscribe to Vogue and devour every picture he shot.”
session so that she could have a more appealing portrait. The In short order, Steichen was standing behind Hurrell in his tiny,
retakes were made at Dos Rocas. He got his way. Pancho looked pitch-black darkroom as Hurrell gently agitated sheets of 4x5
gorgeous, like a purring houri. Once she got her wings, though, film in a developing tray. “I apologized for the size of my dark-
she was hard to find. room,” said Hurrell. “It had been a lavatory.”
While waiting for the next client to enter the Granada “Some of the best films I ever made I developed under a
Shoppes, Hurrell picked up his palette and brush, and then rug,” responded Steichen.
something happened. “That slow pace got to me,” he said. “I Hurrell showed the master some of his recent work. “His at-
saw that I’d have to get into that routine again, of doing things tempt to admire some of my prints was indeed a kindness,” said
so much slower, and I found that I didn’t have the patience.” Hurrell, who told Steichen that he sometimes had trouble dur-
His rat-a-tat temperament was better suited to photography, so ing a sitting. His tripod tended to fly out from under the camera.
he studied it harder than ever, analyzing the work published “Never let your subject know when you are baffled,” Stei-
in Vogue and Vanity Fair. There were exemplary portraits by chen counseled him. “Shoot the film anyway. Then make the
James Abbe, Nickolas Muray, and Cecil Beaton, but one artist change on your next shot. But be the master of the situation at
surpassed them all. Edward Steichen was chief photographer all costs.”
at Condé Nast publications because Vanity Fair’s editor Frank
Crowninshield thought he was the greatest portrait photogra-
O P P OSI TE: When Hurrell photographed Novarro in a cassock
pher in the world. “A scientist and a speculative philosopher and surplice, he brought a reverence to his work that bespoke his
stand back of Steichen’s best pictures,” said poet Carl Sandburg. own years as an altar boy. These distinctly un-Hollywood images
were Hurrell’s entrée to filmdom. The artist did not own a com-
“They will not yield their meaning and essence on the first look
plete set of these photographs, so they remained unseen for
nor the thousandth.” In August 1928 Steichen came to Los many years.

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 When the film had dried and Steichen was leaving, he told “important” people, this was an opportunity to make money.
Hurrell that Douglass was paying $1,500 for a total of three And yet his excitement was giving way to doubt. The night
prints. [Roughly $45,000 in 2013.] After Steichen left, Hurrell before the session he sat alone in his atelier, slightly deflated.
wondered how much money a photographer could make if he The world-famous Novarro had been photographed in richly
worked for corporate clients—and had a name. appointed salons. What did this humble studio have to offer?
By January 1929 Pancho Barnes had resolved her marital A beat-up view camera, a rickety tripod, a used Verito lens, and
crisis, was living her own life, and was readying herself for the two battered arc lights of the type used to simulate sunlight shin-
first all-woman air race. She was also spending a good deal of ing through a window on a movie set. His shooting area was less
time with Ramon Novarro, acting as both friend and adviser. than 300 square feet, so there was little room for props. For a
He had been in Tahiti for two months making what would background he used the stippled plaster wall or a three-paneled
be his last silent film, The Pagan. With talking films overtak- screen. For film he was using outdated Eastman Commercial
ing the silents, he was anxious about his Mexican accent. His Ortho. Panchromatic film had become available a year earlier,
next picture would be a talkie, The Battle of the Ladies (later but he had gotten a deal on some old stock from a wholesaler.
renamed Devil-May-Care). If his fans decided that his voice did Panchromatic film was the preferred stock for portraits because
not match the image he had created in silents, he could lose his it “saw” the entire spectrum; orthochromatic film could not
career. For someone making $75,000 per film, this was a fright- see red and saw too much blue. This made his subjects look
ening thought. He did have a backup plan. His new contract burnished and exotic, which was what he wanted, and what they
allowed him to take time off for concerts. He was planning a tour were learning to like. In many cases, they liked it because they
of Europe in which he would sing excerpts from operas. If his liked him.
talkie debut was not a success, he could have a singing career. Hurrell was something of a mystery to his family and
With this in mind, Novarro began rehearsing his repertoire friends. He personified the duality of the Gemini twins, bounc-
in El Teatro Intimo, the small theater he had built in his man- ing between gregarious brightness and solitary angst. His
sion at 2265 West Twenty-Second Street in Los Angeles. He moodiness could be off-putting, but when he projected good
had costumes and wigs made so he could portray operatic char- will, his eccentric appeal charmed male and female, old and
acters such as Parsifal and Tonio, and though he needed photos young alike. Hurrell would later describe himself as “this hearty
of himself in these costumes, it would be impolitic to stroll into young man with too much energy, ready for anything.”
M-G-M’s portrait gallery with this ensemble. The publicity In the giddy 1920s, all the “bright young things” had
department would not pay for the photographs, and he had not nicknames. One afternoon, “Pancho” left “Pete” (Novarro) and
finalized concert dates. He was pondering this when Pancho his costumes with “Georgie.” She then headed for Clover Field
Barnes showed him the portraits Hurrell had made of her. It was in Santa Monica, to prepare for the air races that would be held
unusual for a motion-picture star to patronize a photographer in a month. Hurrell directed Novarro to the upstairs area, which,
outside his company, but Novarro’s enthusiasm for Hurrell’s like the European atelier, was small and had a window overlook-
work overcame any qualms he might have had. He would go to ing the studio. While the pleasant young man donned his first
Hurrell’s studio for a portrait but would tell no one at Metro. costume, Hurrell wound up his hand-cranked Victrola and
Once again Pancho Barnes was helping George Hurrell. played a record from his proliferating jazz collection. Novarro
This time was different. Although Hurrell was unimpressed by came downstairs in a black-and-silver charro costume. “Every-

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 one takes me for a Spaniard,” said Novarro, “but I was born in Victrola. “Pete became more responsive,” said Hurrell. “After
Durango, Mexico. My real name is José Ramón Gil Samaniego.” the fourth or fifth exposure, I knew I was catching something
He smiled and the mustache glued to his upper lip with spirit appealing.” As Hurrell played with light and shadow, he expe-
gum started to fall off. He thought it might look odd. Hurrell rienced the liberating pleasure of working with a gifted model.
told him not to worry. He would fix it with retouching. “I was really inspired,” he said. He was so inspired that when
Novarro sat down and stared at the camera with a blank Barnes came back for Novarro, she had to wait for the session to
expression. Hurrell fired up the arc lights, and, as they flickered wind down.
and buzzed, he stepped forward to analyze Novarro’s face. “Pete Novarro returned to the studio two days later for the “proof
had photographically perfect features,” recalled Hurrell. “And pass,” which can be an anxious moment for both subject and
he could face my camera with a blank expression.” Novarro was photographer. Even unretouched, the proofs were impressive.
an accomplished actor, able to convey nuances of emotion with “You have caught my moods exactly,” he told Hurrell. “You
slight changes in expression. Still, he was out of sympathy with
Hurrell’s music. “I’m old-fashioned in an age of jazz, gin, and
ABOVE: Hurrell made this study of Novarro as Parsifal in San
jitters,” Novarro said. Hurrell put a classical recording on the Marino in the summer of 1929.

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 have revealed what I am inside.” Novarro marked the proofs for really first-class stills by George.” Murnau went through them,
retouching, an unusual skill for an actor at the time, and then making stacks.
scheduled a second sitting. And a third. “Every night we would “Fine, fine, fine, fine,” said Murnau slowly. But when he fin-
take stills of one costume,” recalled Novarro. “And we had some ished, he had selected only five photographs for Novarro to use.
really stunning photographs.” Hurrell shot him as characters “Oh, Fred!” said Novarro. “I’m spending about a thousand
from opera and from European history. Then the project was dollars on this.”
interrupted. On February 22, 1929, Novarro lost his brother “Ramon, these are very fine photographic studies, but they
to cancer. José Samaniego was twenty-four. Ironically, on the are not you,” said Murnau. “Your value at the box office is you. If
same day, at the dedication of the Grand Central Air Terminal you are going to act a Mexican drunk or something like that, and
in Glendale, Florence Barnes won the first all-woman air race, nobody knows it’s you, then it’s not worth anything.”
coming in twenty-four minutes ahead of her competitors. Be- Novarro was unconvinced. He took the photographs to
cause of Novarro’s bereavement, there was no celebration. M-G-M’s publicity department. The reaction he got there was
Novarro promised to resume the sessions with Hurrell after quite different. Instead of chiding him for using an outside pho-
he returned from his first concert tour. He sailed for Europe in tographer, the publicist got on the phone and arranged for a spe-
March and got as far as Berlin before grief took its toll. He was cial spread in the rotogravure section of the Los Angeles Times.
unable to perform. When he returned home in June, he secluded “Novarro with Impressions” ran on October 20, 1929, duly
himself in a religious retreat at Loyola College. Not coincidental- credited: “Photos by Hurrell.” A caption stated that Novarro
ly, when he resumed shooting with Hurrell, the photos had a reli- was “planning to desert the cinema for the operatic stage.” In
gious theme. Hurrell shot one session at Novarro’s home. While reality, a concert career was beginning to look redundant for No-
there, he noted the actor’s devotion to his family and the reli- varro. He had created a hit with his performance of “The Pagan
gious statuary in his quarters. Although Novarro ran with a fast Love Song” on the soundtrack of the otherwise silent film The
crowd, he had another side; at home he was devout and intro- Pagan and had sung numerous songs in the recently completed
spective. Their last session took place on the grounds of Barnes’s Devil-May-Care. His talkie debut was a great success. Novarro
San Marino estate. Novarro posed as Parsifal, and Barnes’s horse continued showing his portraits to other stars. For Hurrell, a
Lightning stood in for his mysterious steed. When Hurrell and satisfied customer would be the best advertising, and more.
Novarro showed Barnes the finished print, she exclaimed: “My
God, George! Even the horse looks glamorous!”
Novarro was friendly with the German director F. W. Mur-
O P P OSI TE: Novarro asked Hurrell to name this portrait “The
nau, who had won acclaim for The Last Laugh and Sunrise. “So
New Orpheus.” Fifty-two years later, a sale of this image set an
I went to Murnau,” said Novarro. “I had, let’s say, about fifty art-world record.

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 “WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME”

Ramon Novarro had a long-standing friendship with Norma the end of 1925 Shearer was an M-G-M star, and one of the top
Shearer. She was on the set of her latest film, Their Own Desire, five box-office draws every year thereafter. In 1927 she married
when he showed her his Hurrell images. “Why, Ramon!” she Irving Grant Thalberg, M-G-M’s vice president in charge of
exclaimed. “You’ve never been photographed like this before!” production. After a series of silent comedies, Shearer made her
When it came to image, Shearer was astute. She was known talkie debut in a drama, The Trial of Mary Dugan. Her voice
for her delicate beauty and patrician profile. It was not generally recorded well, but she remained sensitive about her figure, her
known that she had worked for years to match the rest of her ap- legs, and especially about her eyes. She suffered from a condi-
pearance to those attributes. When she was starting out in New tion known as strabismus, which causes a misalignment of the
York, she suffered painful rejections because of her “odd looks.” eyes when focused at certain distances or in certain conditions,
In 1920 the Broadway showman Florenz Ziegfeld gave her the such as muscle fatigue. She exercised and practiced in a mirror
once over and then showed her the door. That same year the to control the problem, but relied on cameramen such as Wil-
pioneer moviemaker David Wark Griffith told her that her eyes liam Daniels to make her look good on the screen. In the portrait
were too blue to register on ortho film. “She will never forget that gallery, she was not so fortunate.
horrible moment,” said her husband, Irving Thalberg, “when D. Ruth Harriet Louise was M-G-M’s head portrait photogra-
W. Griffith told her to go home and forget about pictures.” pher. She was twenty-five, beautiful, and inventive. Her studies
Shearer persevered, made films, and eventually came to Los of Greta Garbo were exceptional, but her work could also be
Angeles. She signed with Louis B. Mayer Productions on Febru- prosaic and perfunctory. Her usual practice was better suited
ary 28, 1923. Within a week, the bugaboo of her “odd looks” to a firing squad than to a portrait gallery. She put her subjects
returned. Her first screen test was judged a failure. Mayer was against a blank wall and shot them with flat lighting. She rarely
about to cancel Shearer’s contract when a thoughtful camera- moved the camera closer than mid-length. After processing
man took the time to light her properly. Ernest Palmer’s exper- the negative, she would have it retouched and printed—as was
tise made all the difference. Shearer began to study lighting and the custom—but would then deviate from accepted practice by
angles, insisted on certain cameramen, and went on to compete shooting a copy negative of only the subject’s head and shoul-
with beauties such as Eleanor Boardman, Carmel Myers, and
Aileen Pringle.
O P P OSI TE: Norma Shearer’s portentous sitting began with im-
In 1924 Mayer’s company merged with Metro Pictures and ages of her as a modern-day Madonna, even though she had no
the Goldwyn Company to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. By child of her own.

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 ders. This copy negative became the official image. Predictably, friend’s mother. Shearer had turned twenty-seven on August 10
the result was grainy, muddy, and marred by obvious retouching and wanted something stronger. “You can’t really be interesting
strokes. Far too many M-G-M stars had portraits that looked like as a young girl,” she said later, “or outstanding as an ingénue.”
this. Shearer suffered the worst because Louise did nothing to Thalberg had purchased the novel Ex-Wife by Ursula Par-
compensate for her eye problem. When Shearer complained to rott, the story of a young career woman who fights the double
her powerful husband, he turned to her and said: “You wanted standard after discovering her husband’s infidelity. Shearer set
to be a motion-picture star?” her sights on the property. “I knew that M-G-M was considering
Fortunately, Shearer’s popularity was not affected. She borrowing someone from another lot to play it,” she said, “I was
was strikingly beautiful and a polished actress. She excelled at there on the lot, under contract, and I felt in my heart I could do
portrayals of intelligent, honorable women caught in compro- it. But Irving laughed at me when I told him. It was so utterly
mising circumstances. In her new film, Their Own Desire, she different from the type of thing with which I’d been associated. I
was playing a girl conflicted by her father’s affair with her boy- was determined to prove to him that it wasn’t ridiculous.”

ABOVE LEF T: George Hurrell would remember Suite Number ABOVE R I GH T: This was not the kind of portrait for which
Nine in the Granada Buildings as “tiny,” but it was roomy and even Shearer had engaged Hurrell, but it was later distributed to maga-
had a side entrance with large double doors for loading furniture. zines by the M-G-M publicity department.

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 In a way, Shearer was a victim of her own publicity. She was of Mr. Novarro,” she said. “Now there is a part in my husband’s
constantly referred to as “gracious Norma Shearer” or the “First new picture that I must have. But he won’t give me the part
Lady of M-G-M.” With that kind of press, she was could hardly because he thinks I’m not ‘glamorous’ enough.”
be expected to play a torch bearer of the single standard. One What Shearer did not say was that Thalberg’s attitude was
day her maid Ursula caught her reading Ex-Wife. “Oh, Miss the latest in a series of hurts that had her wondering about the
Shearer,” she said. “You don’t want to play a part like that. She’s future of their marriage. He insisted that she live with him at his
almost a bad woman!” The next thing Shearer read was a listing parents’ home in Beverly Hills, even though he was wealthy and
in the Buyers Guide of the September 1929 telephone directo- could afford to live anywhere. His domineering, overprotec-
ry: “George E. Hurrell, 672 S La Fayette Pk. Pl.: DRexel-7663.” tive mother made him and Shearer sleep in separate bedrooms.
In late October 1929, after his Novarro photos had ap- Shearer had put up with this for the sake of her marriage and to
peared in the Los Angeles Times, Hurrell received a call from avoid any stress that might endanger Thalberg’s fragile health,
Pete Smith, head of the publicity department at M-G-M. Hur- but she was beginning to feel slighted. When he sent a bouquet
rell could hardly believe what he was hearing. Norma Shearer to former girlfriend Bessie Love, Shearer grew so angry that she
wanted him to make portraits of her. “I was only too glad to spent the night at her mother’s. Making these photos would
do it,” he recalled, “and it was important, except that I didn’t send a message to Irving. Hurrell thought to himself that here
care particularly. I wasn’t ambitious in that way. I wanted to be was “a tough little gal, fighting in her own way to get the part.”
a painter.” Hurrell had recently shot Millard Sheets, who was “Can you turn me into a siren?” she asked.
barely out of Chouinard but was getting rave reviews for his first “I’ll try,” Hurrell answered. He looked at the clothes Shear-
show of paintings, so Hurrell was once again thinking about his er had brought, consulted with the hairdresser, analyzed Shear-
art. Smith pressed Hurrell about his schedule, and a date was er’s face and hair, and then clarified what was expected of him.
set. Hurrell went out to buy new gramophone records. “The idea was to get her looking real wicked and siren-like,” he
A few days later, Hurrell looked out his front window and said. “She wasn’t really that type, you know. She didn’t have any
saw a canary-yellow Rolls-Royce parking in front of the Granada of it.” At least that was his impression as he watched Shearer and
Shoppes and Studios. Shearer emerged, followed by Ursula, her hairdresser climb the stairs to the dressing room.
who was carrying an armload of outfits. Next came a hairdresser, “I was pretty nervous,” he recalled. He had less at stake
a child model and his mother, and a publicist who was per- than Shearer did. “A great deal depended on that sitting, but if
plexed by this expedition; movie stars did not go to unknown Norma was nervous, there was nothing to indicate it.” She came
photographers. “Norma came with a retinue,” recalled Hurrell. downstairs with her hair slightly fuller, and he shot poses of her
“Even her chauffeur was carrying suitcases. And then I was with the boy, and then sent him and his mother off. Once again,
surprised to see workmen carrying boudoir furniture. She’d Shearer climbed the stairs, and the hairdresser followed. Hur-
brought a van full of it from the studio warehouse. All of these rell asked her to change Shearer’s hair again. He thought her
folks lined up outside.” forehead made her look intellectual, so he suggested a down-
“Welcome to my studio,” said Hurrell. “Such as it is!” over-the-forehead sweep, cascading over one eye. “It was my
Shearer made a grand entrance into Number Nine, gave him a idea to get her hair bushy,” recalled Hurrell. “She never wore it
very firm handshake, and sat him down. “I loved your pictures that way.”

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 A half hour passed. Hurrell played record after record. He
was just putting on Ted Lewis’s “When My Baby Smiles at Me”
when he looked up the stairway. Shearer was standing on the
balcony, clad in a gold-brocaded dressing gown, her hair gelled
to unruly perfection. She paused for a moment and descended
the stairs. She walked over to the screen, and as the wraparound
garment revealed a knee, she said, “I’m afraid my legs are not
my best feature, Mr. Hurrell.” As he assured her that he could
find the right angle and pose, she skillfully found both. “And I
realized that she’d learned to handle all her faults brilliantly,” he
said. Shearer took a breath and concentrated on the Verito lens.
Hurrell could see that her eyes did not quite line up, a symptom
of the muscle problem. Then he saw her correct it. “She knew
how to focus just beyond what she was supposed to be looking
at,” said Hurrell. “She looked through the lens, to something
right past it.”
A technical adjustment was needed. In order to get both
Shearer’s legs and face in focus, Hurrell had to close the Verito
down to F/11. This necessitated more light, so he yanked the
protective screens from the lights. Tiny particles of dust began
to emanate from the bluish-white glare of the buzzing carbon
arcs. Shearer squinted momentarily, but faced the camera un-
complaining. Hurrell got his F/32, and Shearer had to hold still
for only two seconds, a trifle compared to what she had endured
as a New York model in 1920.
Hurrell started to sing with the record: “And when my
baby smiles at me / There’s such a wonderful light in her eyes.”
Shearer stiffened and questioned Hurrell’s choice of music.
“She didn’t like it,” said Hurrell. “She couldn’t understand
why I was playing it because it had no connection with getting a
sexy mood particularly. I explained that I needed it.” This was
shrewd, since this regal young woman was slightly ill at ease.
Before she could object further, Hurrell nervously danced right

R I G H T: For her special session with Hurrell, Shearer posed on

boudoir furniture lent by the M-G-M property department.

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 43 7/15/13 11:25 AM
 LEF T: Shearer was concerned that her legs would not photograph R I GH T: At first Shearer did not know what to make of the pho-
well. Before Hurrell could reassure her, she had skillfully angled tographer who sang along with his Victrola and danced around
them toward his camera. “Norma planned her campaign carefully,” his studio, but when his antics became silly, she began to enjoy the
said Irving Thalberg. “She bought herself just about the goldest experience.
and most brocaded negligee she could find.” Since Hurrell was shooting orthochromatic film and using arc
lights, Shearer’s coloring registered darker than it did with pan-
chromatic film and incandescent lights, but a different look was
what she wanted.

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 into the tripod and knocked over his camera. The lens didn’t as extras on a Marion Davies film, The Restless Sex, and had sat
break, but the ground-glass viewing back did. He danced off, re- next to a bank of unscreened Klieg lights. “We started stumbling
turned with a fresh one, and mentally thanked Edward Steichen around the room,” recalled Shearer. “When we tried to open
for his counsel. “Always be the master of the situation,” the mas- our eyes, tears would run from under stiff lids, and the slightest
ter had said. Hurrell continued to sing. “The kind of light that movement felt as if ground glass was scraping our eyeballs.” For-
means just love / The kind of love that brings sweet harmony.” tunately, their mother, Edith, got help from the night clerk at the
The Victrola started to wind down, and instead of winding hotel in which they were staying. “He reached a druggist who
it again, Hurrell mimicked the bleary voice. Shearer stared, then sent Argyrol,” said Shearer. “He knew this trouble well. It was
shook her head, then grinned. “She laughed,” said Hurrell. “I caused by exposure to carbon lights.” Shearer was in this kind
could see that she was starting to enjoy herself.” He was master of pain again, just as she and Thalberg were going on a yachting
of the situation. Hurrell changed records, asked the musical trip. Fortunately, Hurrell’s lights were small, so this case of klieg
question “Is Everybody Happy?” and continued shooting. By eyes was not as severe, but this was no way to treat a movie star.
the time he finished, they had worked together for four hours. The star had reason to forgive the photographer. Even
The Rolls-Royce was barely onto Wilshire Boulevard when Thalberg sensed that something was up. “Norma was like an
Hurrell locked himself in his darkroom and attacked the first excited child as she waited for the proofs of her pictures,” he
sheets of film. “I’d used more than sixty plates,” he recalled. said. When they arrived, she packed them away and brought
“That impressed me considerably and seemed the height of them to Joseph Schenck’s yacht Invader. When she looked at
lavishness.” It was certainly a full day’s work of processing; it them in daylight, the sun faded them instantly. Thalberg, who
took him until well into the evening to finish. As the negatives was elsewhere on the yacht, did not see them. Shearer phoned
washed, his singing echoed in the empty atelier. “I hung the the publicity department from Catalina Island. Hurrell got a call.
films around the studio—on tables, the wrought-iron staircase, He had to recover himself and rush out sixty more proofs, but
anywhere I could shove a push pin—so the film could dangle on standard photo paper.
and dry. When the last film was up, I went out to celebrate.” With some trepidation, Shearer finally showed the proofs
Hurrell walked around the corner to the Silver Platter Grill on to Thalberg. The thirty-year-old genius gasped. In seven years
Seventh and Rampart Streets, and he got drunk. of looking at photos of his wife, he had never seen anything like
“I didn’t feel so good the next day,” said Hurrell, “but I this. Regaining his composure, he said, “Why, I believe you can
sent red proofs [impermanent contact prints] out to M-G-M, play that role!” Shearer got the part of Jerry in Ex-Wife, which
then sat by the telephone.” Shearer did not feel well either. She was released as The Divorcee. The film would become a major
was suffering from “klieg eyes,” the common name for actinic success, confirming both Shearer’s popularity and the versatil-
conjunctivitis, which is an inflammation caused by prolonged ity she had shown in her silent film work. Her relationship with
exposure to ultraviolet rays. When Hurrell had impulsively Thalberg improved, too, and within a month she was expecting
pulled the screens off the Kliegl Bros. lights, he had given his their first child. There would be another thrill when Shearer’s
subject an affliction that took her back to a painful experience in performance in The Divorcee won her an Academy Award for
1920s New York. Best Actress. All this good fortune came from a visit to a small
Shearer and her sister, Athole, woke up in the middle of the Westlake studio. “It was a tremendous gamble,” Shearer later
night, screaming with pain. They had worked the previous day admitted, “but a lucky one.” It was lucky for Hurrell, too.

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 M-G-M was exercising its option not to renew Ruth Har- “I played hard to get,” Hurrell remembered, “because that’s
riet Louise’s contract. “The gal who had been there was giving the way I was in those days.” Strickling was taken aback. He
them trouble,” Hurrell recalled in 1980. “She suddenly decided waited a day and then called again, still unprepared for Hurrell’s
to quit.” This was hearsay. She had been married to director indifference. He described the M-G-M portrait gallery. “Well,
Leigh Jason for two years, but that was not a reason to quit a I’ve got a studio,” countered Hurrell. “What do I want with
job she obviously enjoyed. Whether because of temperament another studio?” Strickling assumed that Hurrell was angling
or the need to raise a family, Louise was indeed leaving. She for more money. He was not. After this reception, Strickling
would work through part of December and then there would be decided that he would not offer Hurrell more money but kept
a new head portrait photographer at the studio. The most likely the offer open.
candidate was Clarence Sinclair Bull, who had been with the Hurrell stalled for two weeks and then went to Laguna to
company since the merger, and with the Goldwyn and Triangle visit Pancho Barnes. The visit included a flight to Mexico in her
companies before that. He was in charge of the larger gallery, biplane. While they were fishing, Barnes told Hurrell to accept
the on-set photographers (the “stills men”), and the stills lab. Strickling’s offer. Hurrell decided to go to Culver City and meet
He was also a highly talented portraitist. He had not gotten with Strickling, but there was not enough time to drive there be-
along with Louise, since she insisted on processing her film in fore the studio closed for the weekend, so Barnes flew him. While
her own lab. He was next in line. But Shearer wanted Hurrell she waited at Clover Field, Hurrell signed a six-month contract.
to come to M-G-M—and the only job open was that of head When she flew him back to Laguna, Hurrell triumphantly walked
portrait photographer. on the wing of her biplane. After a weekend of celebrating, he
Thalberg called Pete Smith, head of the publicity depart- drove back to La Fayette Park. He had to complete his society
ment, who then called Howard Strickling, the “publicity man” portrait orders, buy a new car, find an apartment, and retouch the
who oversaw the portrait department. Strickling was ordered to twenty-five poses ordered by Norma Shearer.
offer Hurrell a job; five days a week, at $150 a week. Strickling
expected Hurrell to jump at the offer, given recent events. On
October 29, 1929, the so-called “Black Tuesday,” the stock mar-
ket had crashed. In one day, $14 billion had evaporated. The
O P P OSI TE: While Shearer assumed provocative poses, Hurrell
country was still trying to comprehend what had happened.
kept cranking his Victrola and playing “When My Baby Smiles at
This was of no import to Hurrell. Me.” Said Hurrell: “She ribbed me for years about it.”

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 47 7/15/13 11:27 AM
Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 48 7/15/13 11:27 AM
 CHAPTER 2

METRO-GOLDWYN-
MAYER

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 49 7/15/13 11:28 AM

 MORE STARS THAN THERE ARE IN HEAVEN

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios has been likened to a city, a Hurrell started work at M-G-M on Thursday, January 2,
factory, or a fiefdom. In 1930, when it was roaring forward on 1930. On that day he emerged from his new apartment at 1261
a $12-million-dollar profit, it suggested a walled kingdom out North Flores Street in West Hollywood, climbed into his new
of the Arabian Nights. It was rich, busy, and powerful. Three LaSalle roadster, and drove to his new workplace, 10202 Wash-
thousand employees worked to create fifty films a year. What ington Boulevard in Culver City. His “office” was a studio on the
sold those films, besides clever storytelling and sumptuous set- roof of an editing building built in 1916 by the studio’s original
tings, were extraordinary performers—the stars in this studio’s tenant, director Thomas Ince. To enter the “stills studio,” Hur-
constellation. Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer had risen to rell (and his subjects) had to climb three flights up an outside
the top of the Hollywood heap in a mere three years by creating staircase. Facilities included two galleries, a film loading room, a
stars. To quote the M-G-M publicity department, the studio retouching area, a small darkroom, and a rooftop patio. The film
had “more stars than there are in heaven.” Universal had more exposed in the galleries was developed and printed in another
acreage. Fox Film had more stages. Paramount had more presti- building, the M-G-M still lab, which churned out 25,000 nega-
gious directors: Ernst Lubitsch, Rouben Mamoulian, and Josef tives and 14,000 prints a week. The stills department offices,
von Sternberg. M-G-M had more stars: John Gilbert, William managed by Clarence Sinclair Bull, were in a third building.
Haines, Marion Davies, Ramon Novarro, Buster Keaton, Norma Bull also shot portraits, but in another gallery. Hurrell
Shearer, Lon Chaney, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford. This would be getting the smaller gallery, the one used by Ruth
was why Metro was the industry’s most profitable company.
Having stars was only part of the formula. M-G-M also had
OVERLEAF: This photograph, probably taken by George
a dynamic sales force. If people all over the world were to see the
Hurrell’s assistant, Al. St. Hilaire, shows Anita Page posing for a
next Chaney film, they had to know about it. In 1930 the best Hurrell portrait. The light over her head is not a work light. It is a
light that Hurrell used to define the contours of his subjects. He
way to alert them was in print. There were hundreds of newspa-
would eventually devise a way to make it fly, but at this point, the
pers and magazines in which to place articles and ads, but movie light was still immobile, fastened to an overhead beam.
magazines targeted the filmgoer. There were dozens of fan mags, OPPOSITE AND FOLLOWING PAGES: When Hurrell
led by Photoplay, Motion Picture, and Screenland. Each had a began working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in January 1930, one of
the first players he photographed was Joan Crawford, who had
rotogravure section featuring the latest “portrait art,” fully cred-
just returned from the San Jacinto Mountains, where she was film-
ited. George Hurrell’s job was to create art for that section. ing Montana Moon. These poses are from their initial sessions.

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 Harriet Louise. He was also getting her twenty-two-year-old about movie stars,” said Hurrell. “I didn’t give a damn who they
assistant, Al St. Hilaire, who had been with M-G-M since the were.” Was he apprehensive about his new job? “I didn’t care
1924 merger. St. Hilaire would load 8x10 film into holders, whether they liked what I did or not. I thought, Hell, this is only
move lights, help Hurrell with props and sets, and occasionally temporary. I’m just doing this to make a couple of bucks. Then
process film. Howard Strickling explained the job to Hurrell. I’m going back to my easel and paint.”
Eight films were in production. When each one finished, Hur- If Hurrell’s attitude irked his new employers, he tried them
rell would shoot “in-character” portraits of its star. The session further by making demands. Bull had established guidelines for
would take place the day after the film’s completion, when the stills department. He was meticulous and exacting, a com-
hairstyling, wigs, makeup, and wardrobe could still be matched pany man, devoted to the studio and dedicated to his work. He
to what had been filmed. expected the same of his employees. Hurrell did not care. He
On days when Hurrell was not shooting stars from a insisted that his workday end at five. No one at the studio, ex-
recently finished film, he would be shooting supporting players, cept for the exalted Garbo, dared leave at five. Hurrell would not
as well as newly signed artists, directors, writers, and execu- budge on the issue. Strickling, mindful of the executive order
tives. Because of union regulations, he would not be shooting that had brought Hurrell there, acceded. Bull was overruled.
on movie sets. His first assignments would be starlets. In a week Hurrell also demanded that he be the only one to develop
or so, he might be shooting one of Metro’s stars. Was he excited his negatives. Although Bull had engineered a peerless labora-
about meeting one of these cinematic avatars? “I didn’t care tory, Hurrell would not let it process his film. “I went in there

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 with an attitude that nobody developed my stuff but me,” but if the number was “469,” for example, the negative belonged
recalled Hurrell. “So they set it up. They didn’t care one way or to the film Madam Satan. In this way, an M-G-M negative could
another.” Strickling may not have cared, but Bull did, especially never be misidentified. By refusing to cooperate, Hurrell was
when some of Hurrell’s negatives were too contrasty to be print- not only flouting Bull’s system but also ensuring that among
ed by the machines that made hundreds of single-weight 8x10 images shot at M-G-M, his negatives would be immediately
glossies. The other reason why Bull wanted to process Hurrell’s recognizable as his own for their lack of identification. It was a
negatives was to conform them to a unique system. decision that would come back to haunt him sixty years later.
Some years earlier, while working in the Goldwyn dark- Bull complained to Hurrell about his contrasty developer.
room, Bull had invented a negative identifying device. A small Prior to this, Hurrell’s negatives had never been printed by any-
box flashed a minute amount of light onto the edge of an
exposed negative before it was processed, projecting a set of ABOVE: After Hurrell had retouched a negative of Joan Craw-
ford and made the first print from it, the negative would go into an
numbers and letters. When the negative was hung to dry, the envelope like this and be sent to the laboratory. A limited number
lab technician could look at its edge and read the date on which of enlargements would be made for certain magazines and for
stars to give as gifts. These would usually be 10x13 prints on dou-
it was shot and its photographer, as well as the number of the ble-weight semigloss paper or on buff-colored matte paper. Then
production that was paying for it. Everything had to be charged the negative would have a “key number” written on it in India ink
and go to another part of the lab, where printing machines would
to an account, so if the number “530” was on the edge of the
make hundreds, often thousands, of 8x10 single-weight glossy
negative, it meant that the job was charged to general publicity, prints for dissemination to newspapers, theaters, and fans.

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 one else. They were not intended for large print runs. How many and that film was only being shown for a few months. After that,
prints would a socialite need? Like it or not, he had to adapt to it had neither value nor meaning. So what if it was perishable?
the corporate setting, so he made sure that his chemicals were “Making pictures is not like writing literature or composing mu-
fresh and not too aggressive. On the other hand, when he made sic or painting masterpieces,” wrote Edwin Schallert in the Los
the 10x13 custom prints, he did not care if the chemicals were Angeles Times in 1934. “The screen story is essentially a thing
exhausted. As a result, these enlargements yellowed and faded of today and once it has had its run, that day is finished. So far
within a few years, something that did not happen to Bull’s prints.
Hurrell’s indifference was in tune with industry policy. Pub- ABOVE: This was the main entrance to M-G-M, the most power-
licity material was only as valuable as its role in selling the film, ful film company in the world.

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 there has never been a classic film in the sense that there is a berg’s story editor. “Any newcomer would have to be impressed
classic novel or poem or canvas or sonata. Last year’s picture, by the efficiency of the studio’s departments. Excellence began at
however strong its appeal at the time, is a book that has gone out ground level.” Three stories up, Hurrell could look down and see
of circulation.” hundreds of people hurrying between newly built soundstages.
Ephemeral or not, Hurrell wanted control of his work. He “M-G-M had pictures coming and going,” said Hurrell. “God,
next demanded that he alone would retouch his negatives. Bull they didn’t know what they were doing half the time.”
had assembled a roomful of retouch artists, but Hurrell bristled One of Hurrell’s first subjects was Anita Page, a popular
at the idea of sharing his retouching secrets. Yet each portrait leading lady who had yet to become a star. They hit it off and he
negative required at least two hours of retouching. There was used his sessions with her to experiment with new lenses and
no time for him to retouch negatives. He was needed in the lights. “Whenever we weren’t busy,” recalled Hurrell, “we’d call
gallery. He persisted, saying that his retouching effects made his Nita in and say: ‘Let’s see. What haven’t we done?’ We used to
work unique. This was true, so a compromise was reached. He shoot pictures of her all over the place. Up in the trees; out in
was assigned his own retoucher, a willing pupil named Andrew the fields; splashing in streams; cuddling in silks.” Page enjoyed
Korf. In truth, Hurrell’s retouching effects were innovative, but working with the bubbly new photographer, but it required
Korf ’s execution of them was smoother. Hurrell also wanted to energy. “With George it was always a ‘production,’” said Page
shoot on sets. Strickling said he would see if the union stricture in 1996. “It wasn’t like that with the other photographers. With
against outside photographers could be relaxed. him, it was almost as though you were getting ready to make a
Hurrell had boxes and boxes of the Commercial Ortho he picture.” Hurrell’s first M-G-M portrait to appear in print was
had gotten so cheaply. He demanded that M-G-M buy it from a winsome study of Page. The photograph, made in early Janu-
him for use in his gallery. Bull declined. Why use outdated, ary, did not run until April. In 1930, the “lead time” for glossy
color-blind ortho when Eastman had just introduced Super Por- publications such as Photoplay was six weeks.
trait film and a new edge-notching system to help film loaders By the time Hurrell’s work was being seen in the fan maga-
and processors in the dark? But M-G-M bought Hurrell’s film. zines, he was already onto new effects. “I was always fighting
Hurrell stopped making demands when he started working. myself to keep from being stereotyped,” he recalled. “I would
The gallery, though small, was appointed with the finest equip- try to interpret each sitting as a new approach.” He was able to
ment. There was a new Eastman Century Studio camera and do this because the equipment he was using was far superior to
a Cooke Portrait Lens, which was a newer version of his trusty the two arc lights he had been managing with. Having spotlights
Verito. There were 1,000-watt spotlights, which he used to with fresnel lenses gave him the ability to throw sharp shad-
throw pools of yellow light. There were “Type 23” floodlights, ows on the wall behind his subjects. Suddenly he was mad for
nicknamed “double broads” by manufacturer Mole-Richardson shadows, painting them behind nearly every subject. Sometimes
because their rectangular shells contained two huge globes. he would take the silks off the double broad and throw beveled-
When covered with silk scrims, they threw a soft, milky light. edge shadows. He also had light stands that enabled him to put
With these tools, there was no limit to what Hurrell could do. spotlights near the floor and shoot shadows higher and higher.
From the first day, the work was nonstop. “The Culver City He learned that lighting a person from below did not necessarily
plant was a metropolis devoted to a single purpose,” said Samuel make him look like a monster; on the contrary, if he smiled, the
Marx, who started working at M-G-M in May 1930 as Thal- effect was angelic.

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 Hurrell’s first months at M-G-M were frenetic, productive, discouraged this (in addition to cooperating with the union) was
and happy, as he spent forty hours a week exposing sheets of the expense of having a small lighting crew to aim lights from
Commercial Ortho and loudly playing a new Victrola. To the the catwalks above the set. Hurrell began shooting Crawford in
casual observer, he was a goofy young man having fun. Eighty- fashion poses, which he had discovered was not his favorite type
three years later, we can see that he had begun his second period of photography. He began to find her poses coy and artificial.
of creative development. He was still using ortho film, still using She found him overbearing. “I kept telling her how to pose,”
the soft-focus lens stopped down for that singular effect, but recalled Hurrell. “She didn’t like it. She finally got so upset
his use of lighting implements gave his work a new vigor and about it that she went into the dressing room and said, ‘I’m not
impact. Georgie was on fire. going to pose anymore.’ So the publicity gal came out and said,
Bull steered clear of Hurrell. He was eight years older than ‘You can’t talk to her like that. She knows how to pose and she
the cheeky young man and had a slightly proprietary attitude doesn’t want you telling her how to pose.’”
toward the galleries. He had come to the plant in 1918, when “What the hell am I doing here then?” snapped Hurrell.
it was Triangle Studios, and then stayed through its years as “She doesn’t want me to tell her how to pose? Pack it up, Al.
Goldwyn Pictures. The merger had improved both working Let’s get out of here.” St. Hilaire put the view camera into the
conditions and his fortunes, so he was fiercely loyal to Mayer. carrying case. He was following Hurrell out the door when
“Clarence thought that when Ruth Harriet Louise left that at Crawford came running after them. They calmed down and
last he was going to have his chance,” recalled Hurrell. Con- agreed to complete the sitting. “I was the ‘posy’ type,” recalled
sequently, he was hurt when the publicity department chose Crawford. “That was something I overcame by developing a
to overlook his seniority and bring in Hurrell. “And he hated sense of humor about myself.” And once Hurrell had cooled
my guts all the time thereafter.” Bull stayed in his office and let down, he was able to see Crawford more clearly. “I felt a kind
Hurrell learn about actors on his own. “I found that capturing of emotional tug, an excitement,” he recalled. “I knew I had a
glamour wasn’t easy,” he said. “Even veterans before cameras unique subject.”
dreaded portrait sittings. They treated them as necessary evils. Two days later, Hurrell was having lunch in the studio
Stars showed a surprising inferiority complex about their commissary with Al St. Hilaire when a freckle-faced young
appearance and the effect of their posing.” His first star assign- woman rushed up, knelt before him, and kissed his hand. Once
ment was Joan Crawford, who had shot to stardom with a 1928 he recognized her, he was astonished. “Please forgive me, Mr.
silent film, Our Dancing Daughters. She was used to working Hurrell,” said Crawford. “I’ve just seen the proofs. They are so
with either Louise, who accommodated her, or with Bull, who very, very lovely.” When one of the images was published, the
was sensitive, soft-spoken, and had a severe limp, the result of credit read: “Photograph by Hurrell.” The caption described
childhood illness. “Clarence Bull was a very quiet, serious man,” Crawford as the “darling of the great god Camera.” The inspired
said Crawford. “He might joke with you before you started the quality of their work was already being noted.
sitting, but once you were in there, he was the most dedicated In April Hurrell encountered two subjects whose talent
man imaginable.” But Strickling assigned Crawford to Hurrell. was as deep and uncompromising as his, but, while he could
Crawford’s first session with Hurrell went from an energetic be disarmingly matter of fact about his work, these artists took
exercise to a test of wills. Strickling had gotten him permis- theirs very seriously. The first was M-G-M’s highest-grossing
sion to shoot on a standing set. One of the reasons the studio female star, Greta Garbo. She had been an instant sensation in

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 her first American film, The Torrent, in 1926. Since then, the A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: A Hurrell portrait of Grace Moore,
the Metropolitan Opera star who eventually popularized opera
Swedish actress had crossed the line between movie star and
on film.
cultural icon. At twenty-four she possessed the most famous face
Clark Gable had just signed an M-G-M contract when Hurrell
in the world. Her most recent film (and her first talking film) made this December 1930 portrait. “The first time I ever photo-
was Anna Christie. It was on its way to becoming the most-seen graphed him,” recalled Hurrell, “—and I was the first one who did
photograph him—he walked into the Metro stills gallery as unself-
film of 1930. No public figure was known, followed, and indeed conscious as if he’d known me for twenty years.”
worshipped as was Garbo. Once again, Bull was passed over.
Strickling assigned Hurrell to photograph the actress.
Hurrell knew that Garbo was wary of strangers. The sets
on which she worked were populated only with employees from
previous films, whether the employee was an extra or a cinema-
tographer. She mandated that William H. Daniels photograph
all of her films. Because of her special status, Garbo was able to

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 isolate herself behind black screens while she created her magic. door, loaded down with the heavy gowns. Because she wanted
Sometimes even the director was excluded while Daniels and to be alone, she had chosen to carry her costumes and apply
the camera operator filmed Garbo. “I was the one who insisted her makeup by herself. “I took a look at those costumes,” said
on the closed sets for her,” said Daniels. “I did it to protect her. Hurrell “and I thought I’d try something like one of those old
She was shy, so shy.” She was also comfortable with Ruth Harriet daguerreotypes. There was a skylight there, so I first tried put-
Louise, so she specified her as her official portrait photographer. ting natural light on her, to get that feeling of an old portrait.”
(Garbo would occasionally but infrequently work with photog- Garbo was accustomed to the incandescent lighting of
raphers such as Russell Ball, a society photographer who some- Daniels and Bull. “She could ‘feel’ light,” said Bull. She did
times did Hollywood portraits.) The previous August, when not know what to make of the skylight. She was also used to
Louise had been unavailable, Garbo had grudgingly consented looking at her reflection in the front element of the view camera
to work with Clarence Bull. A few days after the session, Garbo lens. Like Norma Shearer, she understood the technical aspects
had insisted on seeing every proof, and had realized that three of both filmmaking and photography. And she knew how she
were missing—out of three hundred. Bull was surprised when wanted to look. Hurrell found her face fascinating. “There
she approved every single pose and ordered one custom 10x13 wasn’t any problem with photographing her,” he said. “Her
print of each. features were so photogenic. You could light her face in any
Strickling had pulled strings so that Hurrell could shoot the manner possible; any angle; up, down. Her bone structure, pro-
occasional session on a movie set, so Strickling sent him to the portions, her forehead, her nose were just right. The distance
set of Garbo’s latest film, Romance. Both her gown, which was between here and here was just right. And her eyes were set in
designed by Gilbert Adrian, and the nineteenth-century man- such a way that you couldn’t go wrong.” But something was
sion set, which was designed by Cedric Gibbons, were exqui- going wrong.
sitely detailed, but the draperies and decorations were too large Garbo was turning slightly this way and slightly that way,
and heavy to be taken to the portrait gallery, so it made sense to dispensing poses with a minimum of effort. Hurrell knew she
send Hurrell to the set. Garbo did not agree. She saw him as an was shy, but he had cleared the area. “She wouldn’t allow any-
intruder. She wore the expression of an angry child and froze body to be there,” he said. “Just the assistant.” She knew Al St.
up, barely cooperating with his good-natured suggestions. She Hilaire from sessions with Louise, so he could not have been the
complained to Pete Smith, who asked Strickling why he was problem. “I hummed and jumped up and down,” said Hurrell.
sending Hurrell, who was not a member of Local 659, to work “The result was a slight smile, which I caught. Thereafter, she
on a union set. Strickling promised Smith that Hurrell would was pensive. She did not appear to respond very much to my
not shoot on a set again. After his effective work on a number popular recordings.” He took a break while St. Hilaire unloaded
of sets (Free and Easy, The Big House, Doughboys), this was a and reloaded film holders. Garbo changed from black velvet to
disappointment. gray velvet. “I had to work with the bulky costumes as best I
Garbo’s introduction to Hurrell had not been a happy one, could,” said Hurrell.
but her contract required her to work with studio personnel, so The costumes were not the problem. Garbo was the
Strickling scheduled a full session with Hurrell on the day after problem. “She was going to do what she was going to do,” said
she finished work on Romance. At 8:50 AM, Hurrell heard a
clomp-clomp on the outside staircase and Garbo appeared at the O P P OSI TE: A Hurrell portrait of M-G-M star Marion Davies.

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 Hurrell. “And that was that. There was never any give and take. April 1930 ended with another memorable session. Lon
She was pretty much self-styled.” Desperate to get some kind of Chaney was M-G-M’s highest-grossing male star and, because
reaction, Hurrell resorted to antics. He crawled along the floor of the economy with which his films were made, its most profit-
and then scaled a ladder. Garbo was unmoved. “She just sat able, but he, along with Garbo, had delayed the transition to
there like a stone statue,” said Hurrell. “I couldn’t get her to do talking pictures. The “Man of a Thousand Faces” could trans-
anything.” He could not shoot the same thing over and over; he form himself into the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Phantom
needed to vary the poses. of the Opera, or a wizened Chinese patriarch, using only the
“On each sitting, they expected to have twenty-five chemicals in his makeup kit and his uncanny acting talent.
okayed,” recalled Hurrell. “You had to shoot fifty plates to get These characterizations had made him famous and the studio
that. I’d shoot about a hundred. In those early days, they sent rich, but the makeup contorted his mouth, so he was happy
those publicity shots all over the world, and each editor would making silent films. Actor Boris Karloff recalled, “Lon Chaney
want an exclusive picture. So they would send out twenty-five once told me that speech made impossible about fifty of his
shots and then two weeks later they’d have to send out another best makeup devices.” Chaney had to be coaxed into making a
twenty-five shots, and those would have to be different.” sound film. “I don’t want to talk and spoil any illusion,” he told
Hurrell had St. Hilaire roll in a couple of spotlights so Thalberg.
he could add some sharp edge light to the soft overhead light. “You’ve done all kinds of dialect and character stuff on the
Garbo kept to herself. “She didn’t respond to me,” said Hurrell. stage,” said Thalberg. “Just use a couple of voices and let ’em
“It may have been because we didn’t meet on common ground, guess.” The vehicle they agreed on was a remake of his first M-G-
maybe because I was wild and yelling, hollering, and she wasn’t M hit, The Unholy Three. Playing a sinister ventriloquist, Chaney
particularly amused by it. It didn’t do anything for her.” He was would use not two but five different voices—a major challenge.
determined to make her laugh. “But you didn’t just tell a person There was another reason for his reluctance to make sound films.
to laugh,” said Hurrell. “You made them laugh.” A persistent illness had kept him from working the previous
He had a trick up his sleeve. The camera was focused. St. summer, and, although he felt better when he started The Unholy
Hilaire had readied the film by pulling the slide out of the film Three on April 1, by the end of filming he had missed two days
holder. Hurrell walked backward, holding a black rubber bulb of work and looked older than his forty-seven years.
in his hand. It was connected to the shutter release by a fifteen- On April 24, Chaney climbed the stairs to the gallery. As
foot hose. Peering at his impassive subject, he kept walking soon as he entered, Hurrell could see why he was so popular.
backward, pretending to be concentrating on her. “Finally, I Even without a fantastic disguise, he had a powerful presence.
almost fell over some cables—and she laughed out loud. In the Chaney sat down in front of the camera and set a ventriloquist’s
split second while I regained balance, I instinctively squeezed
the bulb.” O P P OSI TE: Hurrell’s job at M-G-M included making “fashion lay-
Garbo had let her guard down, revealing a wry humor. And outs” for movie magazines. Women constituted perhaps 75 percent
of the movie market, so their interest in fashion had to be culti-
the sitting had come to an end. She wordlessly swept up her vated. Hurrell did not particularly enjoy shooting fashion, but he
gowns and departed. On her way downstairs, she passed one was respectful of Gilbert Adrian, M-G-M’s costume designer. Here
(clockwise from upper left) are some 1930 “Gowns by Adrian.” Kay
of Bull’s assistants. “There’s a crazy man in there,” she blurted.
Johnson in Madam Satan; Joan Crawford in a fashion sitting; Kay
Garbo would never work with Hurrell again. Francis in Passion Flower; and Kay Johnson in a fashion sitting.

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 A B OV E : Hurrell went to the set of Clarence Brown’s Romance A Hurrell portrait of Ramon Novarro.
to make this portrait of Greta Garbo. Because she was put off
by his antics, she complained to the publicity department. When Hurrell next photographed Garbo, it was in the portrait
gallery, and she was no more forthcoming than she had been
O P P OS I T E , C LO C KWI SE FR OM TO P LE FT: A Hurrell with him before. To get even this faint smile from her, he had to
portrait of William Haines. fall on the floor.

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 dummy on his knee. Hurrell started moving lights around and
then studied Chaney’s face. “Don’t worry about the wrinkles,”
Chaney smiled. “Just go ahead and shoot ’em. They’re my
trademark.” What he was referring to was not a set of crow’s feet
but the contours of his face, which a good retoucher softens but
never removes. Hurrell’s goal was to capture the weirdness of
Chaney’s character, Professor Echo. Chaney began talking to
the dummy, which made Hurrell a trifle uncomfortable. He felt
as if he were eavesdropping on an odd relation, a con man berat-
ing a wooden homunculus. More than any subject Hurrell had
yet photographed, Chaney was in character.
Hurrell found the experience slightly unsettling, but when
the lamps were turned off and afternoon light came through the
door, Chaney was the friendly fellow who had arrived an hour
earlier. St. Hilaire had loaded more film, so Hurrell asked if he
could capture this other person, too—the “real” Lon Chaney.
A B OV E : “I tried going a little dark,” said Hurrell, “with just a “How about some straight stuff ?” said Hurrell.
little light flooding in from the side if necessary, doing the kinds
The actor’s face darkened and he gave a regretful little
of things with natural lighting that artists like Vermeer did with
paint.” smile. “Not today,” he said. “I don’t feel comfortable being pho-
tographed as myself.”
O P P OS I T E : In spite of Garbo’s antipathy to Hurrell, she did
order prints for herself and her family. Hurrell later recalled that when Chaney went out the door,
there was something poignant about the way he said good-bye,
something that made the words linger. Hurrell tried to forget
about it, and he did, until four months later. On August 26,
Lon Chaney died of throat cancer. He was the first of Hurrell’s
celebrated subjects to die, a reminder that in spite of all the
adulation, a movie star was a mortal human being.

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 O P P OS I T E : “The results didn’t look as theatrical,” said OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell went to the set of
Hurrell, “and they didn’t turn out as dramatic as my usual work, but George Hill’s The Big House to shoot in-character portraits of Rob-
considering those heavy velvet costumes she wore, I think it served ert Montgomery, Chester Morris, and Wallace Beery.
its purpose of promoting her and the film.” As Hurrell would learn,
Garbo thought otherwise. Joan Crawford was the M-G-M star whom Hurrell photographed
most often in 1930. She would sometimes show up at the end of
A B OV E : In April 1930, Hurrell photographed the mysterious Lon someone else’s session and ask to be photographed. “I made more
Chaney in order to publicize his first talking picture, The Unholy photographs of Crawford perhaps than of any other,” said Hurrell.
Three. “She liked to pose. She was very pliable. She gave so much to the
stills camera.”

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 INVENTING THE GLAMOUR PORTRAIT

George Hurrell’s third period of artistic development began in transport that enchantment to the confines of a photographic
mid-1931. In a year and a half he had shot every M-G-M star image. For him, glamour began with personality.
and supporting player, and had helped two veteran perform- “I did enjoy shooting film stars,” Hurrell said later. “They
ers achieve stardom. Marie Dressler was sixty-one and Wallace had a wonderful feeling about being photographed.” He
Beery was forty-five when their rough-and-tumble performances understood their moodiness, their insecurity, their quicksilver
in George Hill’s Min and Bill created a stir at sneak previews. flashes of brilliance. If at times it looked like he was trying to
“The best tunes are played on an old violin,” said Dressler, con- beat them at their own game by giving a zany performance, there
firming Irving Thalberg’s hunch about the two character actors. was a reason. “When you get into an enclosed area with a star
Hurrell’s portraits of “Min” and “Bill” were gentle, wry, and for four hours,” he said, “it becomes monotonous as hell—if
unretouched; he wanted them to look like the weather-beaten
wharf rats that they were portraying. “Most of those portrait
O P P OSI TE: This portrait was one of the most widely dissemi-
sittings were connected with a particular movie,” said Hurrell. nated images of Joan Crawford in the 1930s. Made for Clarence
Brown’s Possessed, it was printed in magazines, and on posters,
“You had to be familiar with the script. You didn’t have to read
postal cards, and cigarette cards. Crawford had become a star
it, but you had to have a general idea of what the picture was three years earlier in Our Dancing Daughters. Playing a high-
about. That enabled you to get closer to your subject.” When he spirited flapper, she had personified the giddy hedonism of the Jazz
Age. Possessed gave her the template for both a new era and the
photographed Dressler and Beery as themselves, however, they next phase of her career. She was the Great Depression’s answer
were fully retouched. Veterans or not, they were M-G-M stars to Mary Magdalene, the working girl who acquires worldly wisdom
from publicans and Pharisees, then redeems herself by virtue of her
and had to look flawless. own willpower.
There was an unspoken understanding that these perform-
OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: This is a print made from an
ers were somehow set apart from other people, that they pos- unretouched Hurrell negative of Joan Crawford made in 1931 for
Harry Beaumont’s Laughing Sinners. As was customary with a
sessed something that qualified them to appear on a thirty-foot
Hurrell sitting, she was wearing eye makeup and lipstick but no
screen. The term “glamour” had not yet come into popular base. The commercial lens that Hurrell had recently adopted was
use in connection with the cinema. Popularized by Sir Walter unsparing in its clarity; there was no softness to disguise sun dam-
age or freckles.
Scott, it was an eighteenth-century word that denoted enchant-
This is a print made from the same negative after the retouch artist
ment and magic—mysterious qualities that could emanate from
James Sharp spent six hours applying pencil lead to its emulsion.
a movie screen. To invent the glamour portrait, Hurrell had to This is why Golden Era movie stars looked impossibly beautiful.

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 you don’t do something to make it entertaining, or amusing, or part, though, Hurrell was content to stay behind the camera. He
at least interesting.” Hurrell would do anything to get a rise. “I would rather aim the spotlight than be in it.
would stand on my head, fall on my face, even run up a ladder The light he was aiming in 1931 was a significant element of
and fall over with the ladder. Whatever came to mind.” Hurrell his third period. The Mole-Richardson company had introduced
even managed to impress the irrepressible Jimmy Durante. “Ya a lightweight fresnel spot. It fascinated Hurrell. With it he could
got the best comedy shtick in town!” exclaimed the vaudevil- throw sharp shadows onto a white wall. He could project ellipti-
lian. Sometimes Hurrell would capture his act in a pose with cal nimbuses. He could paint slashes of rectangular light. And
his subject; he did this with Clark Gable one day. For the most when he threw this light across faces, his use of it was as playful

A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Lilian Bond shows Hurrell’s trade- and undetectable; the boom light is outlining his subject with a hot
mark off-the-shoulder look in this 1931 portrait. white highlight; and the theme of the piece is sensuality.

In 1930 Edwina Booth returned from Africa, where she had played O P P OS I T E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Lili Damita cooperated with
a “White Goddess” in W. S. Van Dyke’s jungle epic Trader Horn. Hurrell’s campaign for more sexy photographs. The publicity
Hurrell’s job was to present Booth as something other than the department did not. This photograph was rejected. The image
scary character, so he prettified her in a series of sessions. The exists because Hurrell quietly removed the negative from studio
first instance of Hurrell photographing a woman on a polar bear premises.
rug occurred in December 1930 during a session with Booth. This
photograph shows most of the elements of his third period of This photograph of Lupe Velez shows the direction of Hurrell’s
artistic development. The lens is sharp; the retouching is smooth work in 1931. Her pose is unabashedly seductive.

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 or poetic as the moods of his subjects. Regular spotlights were “They take too long to move,” said Hurrell “When I’m try-
so heavy that they were restricted to conventional light stands. ing to get an expression out of a subject, I can’t be worrying about
One day Hurrell tried holding this new light over the head of a the damned lamps. I could adjust this ‘boom light’ in a twinkling.
subject. The effect excited him. Before this, in order to get that Now: do I get it or not?” Strickling put in an order and Hurrell
hot light spilling over the shoulders, the effect he liked so well, he got his new toy. His intuition proved right. The boom light was
had had to use a stationary overhead spot—but it was immobile, an extension for his arm. The light could swing and sail and soar
nailed to a wooden beam stretched across the top of the gallery. above his subjects, mimicking moonlight or sunlight. This light,
The subject had to be positioned under it to get the correct play more than any other effect, became George Hurrell’s signature.
of light and shadow. This frustrated Hurrell. He wanted his new His use of it was totally unprecedented and completely his own.
light to fly over the heads of his subjects, as it would if he held it Conventional lighting practice held that the key light
in his hand, but it was going nowhere; it was fastened tightly to should be set first, then the fill light, and only then, the hair
a stand. Hurrell went to Howard Strickling. “Howard,” he said, light. Hurrell set this arrangement on its head, so to speak, by
“I want that small lamp to be suspended from the end of a boom. doing the exact opposite. He positioned the boom light first,
You know, like a microphone. Is there such a thing?” molding a compositional pattern of light on the head and shoul-
“No,” replied Strickling. “It’d have to be built in the ders. Often he made a triangular pattern with the temple and
machine shop. Requisitioned. And there’s no production I can cheekbone. Once he had created this white-hot design, he aimed
charge it to. What’s wrong with the ones you have?” the key light to fill in and mold facial features. His key light was

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 usually set lower and dimmer than the brightness of the boom This lighting scheme was a startling innovation, and it attracted
light—another unconventional touch. Then he skipped the fill attention. No one dared to juxtapose glaring white highlights
light altogether; he filled in the shadows with the soft light that and somber shadows. No one dared eschew a fill light. Why was
bounced upward from light-colored clothing or a tablecloth. he doing it? The answer was something that Hurrell may not

O P P OS I T E , C LO C KWI SE FR OM TO P LE FT: W. S. thing,” he said to Hurrell. “What can you do with this face? I look
(“Woody”) Van Dyke was known for films made in far-flung loca- exactly like a moose.” Adrian was as moody as Hurrell. “Adrian was
tions. As Trader Horn became the highest-grossing film of 1931, a loner,” recalled his colleague John Scura. “Not a friendly sort of
Thalberg assigned the versatile director a comedy-musical. The person, but a genius.”
Cuban Love Song did poorly, which was ironic because Van Dyke’s
biggest hits would be the Thin Man mystery/comedy series and the This soundstage portrait of Clark Gable shows Hurrell’s ability to
Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy operettas. organize disparate elements into a cohesive composition.

When Hurrell returned to the soundstages, he found that the physi- ABOVE: Irving Thalberg was often snapped by studio and press
cal plant made an attractive background, as in this 1931 shot of photographers but rarely posed for a portrait. When Hurrell
Buster Keaton. photographed him on the back steps of his Santa Monica home,
Thalberg sat still long enough to let the camera record his mysteri-
When Hurrell photographed Gilbert Adrian, the designer’s ous gaze. Then he brought his son, Irving Jr., to pose with him.
creations were becoming as influential as the latest from Paris,
but he was loath to be photographed. “God, I deplore this sort of

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 have been able to verbalize. Looking at the images he lit in this found, a man named James Sharp. With him came an Adams
way, one can see that his hot toplight and blazing white contrast Retouching Machine, a device that vibrated the negative, ensur-
make the subject stand out in bold relief from the background. ing evenness of strokes. As Sharp did a number of Hurrell’s neg-
There is a depth and dimension that the standard “three-point” atives, Andrew Korf studied his technique, and was soon able to
lighting scheme cannot achieve. match it stroke for stroke. This retouching was so smooth that
To capture such shadings of light was impossible with Hur- Hurrell’s negatives could be printed without diffusion. They
rell’s old ortho film; this would exceed its latitude, its “contrast were startlingly sharp and yet the skin had an alabaster smooth-
ratio.” He had recently phased out ortho in favor of panchromat- ness. This was another unprecedented effect.
ic film, which had been introduced in 1928. Panchromatic means While supervising Sharp and Korf, Hurrell continued to
“all colors,” and this black-and-white film did “see” the entire refine the retouching techniques he had used on the Novarro
spectrum. Panchromatic stocks included Par Speed Portrait, Por- portraits two years earlier. He applied powdered graphite to
trait Pan, and Super Speed Portrait. Hurrell took a chance on Par the emulsion of the negative, then rubbed it in patterns with
Speed Portrait and found its tonal rendering an improvement; it a rolled-up paper called a “blending stump.” This technique
gave skin tones a creamy rather than burnished look. It was also embellished facial highlights, but Hurrell used it just as often to
faster than ortho film. Its increased sensitivity to light allowed isolate the subject from the background; no one else in Holly-
Hurrell to shoot at exposures as short as one second, and to stop wood was using this effect. In the darkroom, he used the print-
down his lens. Seeing images this crisp made him think about ing technique known as “burning” to increase tonal range and to
trying a “commercial lens,” one manufactured to be sharp at any darken less important areas and make them recede. He was still
f-stop. After a bit of deliberation, he raided his savings account making a master print for the darkroom technicians in the other
and bought a very expensive lens, a 16-inch Goerz Celor. “I was building to match when they made the large custom prints that
trying to get character into my work,” said Hurrell. “That’s why would go to selected movie magazines and to studio VIPs.
I went sharp. There was no reason for that thing to be fuzzy. And Another Hurrell innovation was his rendition of skin tones.
that immediately gave the pictures more character.” He instructed his subjects to pose for him without the heavy
There was one problem. This lens was a little too sharp. It makeup base they wore for the motion-picture camera. “I always
made even youthful skin look bumpy, especially with the light tried to get them to leave the makeup off,” recalled Hurrell. “In
from a thousand-watt spotlight raking across it. The Verito lens those days, it wasn’t easy, because the makeup was so caked, and
had allowed for relatively coarse retouching, and a darkroom they used such heavy makeup, too. They would just iron out
technique called “diffusion” further disguised it. Diffusion was everything.” Referring to the specular highlights created by a
achieved by putting a glass or cloth diffusion filter between the spotlight, he explained that “skin has a sheen to it and as soon as
enlarger lens and the photographic paper; when the negative you put that heavy makeup on, it goes flat.” In later years, writers
was projected, the diffusion blended the dark areas into the would claim that stars showed great faith in Hurrell when they
light, and retouching strokes were smoothed out; unfortunately,
so were detail and contrast. There was no point in shooting with O P P OSI TE: This portrait of Clark Gable shows what Hurrell
a sharp lens if the picture then had to be softened to hide coarse could do with one light, a white wall, and the ability to relate with
his subject. “The best male subject is Clark Gable,” said Hurrell in
retouching. The solution to this problem was achieved in two
the 1940s. “He’s such a warm, he-mannish guy. He’s interested in
ways: one human, one mechanical. A new “retouch artist” was helping you out. He ‘gives.’”

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 O P P OS I T E : Lupe Velez was about to work on The Cuban Love ABOVE: Lois Moran was on her way out of Hollywood when
Song with Van Dyke when Hurrell shot this portrait of her. she posed for Hurrell in August 1931. She had just finished West of
Broadway with John Gilbert, a film that brought no one credit. She
achieved fame in Gershwin musicals on Broadway and notoriety as
the inspiration for “Rosemary” in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender
Is the Night.

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 went before his camera without makeup. This was at best inaccu- A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: In mid-1930, George Hurrell photo-
graphed Marie Dressler in a style not dissimilar from a commercial
rate and at worst disingenuous; no star portrait would be released
salon’s; she was a dignified older lady and not yet a star.
to the press without retouching. Joan Crawford knew full well
When Hurrell photographed Dressler in character for Min and Bill,
that her freckles would be retouched out of existence. “George his lighting showed a woman creeping through the dark to protect
Hurrell loved photographing me without makeup—except for my her loved ones.

eyes and lips, of course,” recalled Crawford, “and for him I never O P P OSI TE: Marie Dressler did not expect stardom at sixty-two,
wore makeup. Just a scrubbed face.” The result was a texture that but she wore it well. Because she had struggled and waited for
many years and had much to offer, she created a gallery of unfor-
was both transfigured and inviting.
gettable characters.
Since coming to M-G-M, Hurrell had become reacquainted
with both Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer; they posed for
no one else. The star he had photographed most frequently

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 was Joan Crawford. Between January and August of 1930, he for Strangers May Kiss. At one point during the session, she
had shot her at least seven times and had been invited to her stopped posing and turned to him. “You know, George,” she
home to shoot her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Then—sud- said, “it seems so strange to be up here, when we’ve got those
denly—Crawford was being photographed by Clarence Bull, magnificent sets down on the stage. I would feel much more
and only by him. This unexplained estrangement persisted until at home being photographed there. I think my clothes would
the spring of 1931, when Crawford returned to Hurrell’s gal- look better, too. Let me speak to Irving.” The answer was a few
lery, just as he was orchestrating his new effects: “Pan” film, the months in coming, even though the request had come from the
boom light, the Goerz lens, and fine retouching. Crawford was “First Lady of M-G-M.” There had to be a reason to let Hurrell
making a film called Girls Together (later retitled This Modern shoot on a union set. William Randolph Hearst found a reason.
Age) and had new effects of her own: cat’s eye makeup and Louella Parsons was the gossip columnist for his daily, the
platinum blonde hair, bleached to compete with the increasingly Los Angeles Examiner. She was visiting the set of Shearer’s latest
popular Jean Harlow. The photos Crawford and Hurrell shot film, A Free Soul, and Shearer wanted Hurrell to make flattering
for This Modern Age were startling in their newness and gained pictures of the event. Parsons’s power was absolute and unchal-
precious space in Photoplay. lenged, so it behooved Hurrell to flatter her. He did something
In April 1931 Hurrell was surprised to hear that for the first unusual; he put a diffusion disk on his lens. After Parsons had
time in a year, he was going to shoot portraits on a movie set. finished her tea and left, Hurrell made poses of Shearer and her
This was not just any assignment. It was an executive command. leading man, Clark Gable. “Shearer was right,” said Hurrell.
It came about when he was making portraits of Norma Shearer “The costumes did look better. Psychologically, it all worked.

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 After that, I shot on the sets as often as permitted. No longer was nudity. “That was just the rule of operation,” he said. “You
I plagued with a plain backdrop or lack of props.” understood that. Because, first of all, they couldn’t publish
But when Hurrell saw the photos he had made with the dif- it. You had to get those gals looking sexy without taking their
fusion disk, he did not like them. From then on, the quickest way clothes off.”
to identify a Hurrell portrait was by its sharpness. The “Hurrell The limits imposed by the studio did not apply to the
style” had crystallized. It would be refined in two more artistic expression on a woman’s face, only to the degree of cleavage or
periods, but it could never be mistaken for anyone else’s work. inner thigh that could be shown. An undraped shoulder, when
Hurrell was maturing. He was twenty-seven. He conducted combined with a direct stare, could be more compelling than
sittings with confidence and aplomb, evoking honest poses and the full nudity that “art photographer” Edwin Bower Hesser
warm expressions. “I tried to create a theatricality, a mood for was shooting in Griffith Park. Hurrell began testing his for-
each shot,” he recalled. “I jumped and hollered, fell down and mula on every available subject. “The starlets knew the gallery
carried on because I had to get reactions. Half the time I didn’t sessions were important to them,” he said. “Some of them had
know what I was doing, but it always worked. I’d get reactions.” very decided ideas about it.” Brainy Madge Evans, for example,
Sometimes the reactions would linger, and he began to attract would go just so far, and then rebel against what she considered
female admirers. The only romances to which he ever admitted the absurdity of it; but Hurrell would already have gotten some
were with Conchita Montenegro, a starlet from Spain, and Mary stunning shots. Submitting this image to new film, a new light, a
Carlisle, an M-G-M leading lady. His friendship with Pancho new lens, and a new retoucher, Hurrell trademarked a formula,
Barnes continued, even after she gained fame as the “Fastest something transgressive yet uncensorable—something that
Woman on Earth.” On August 4, 1930, flying a Travel Air Type made fantasies tangible.
R Mystery Ship at 196.19 mph, she bested the record held
by Amelia Earhart. Because Barnes had been flying to Mexico
O P P OS I T E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell photographed Ramon
for Pickwick Airways (often with Mariano Samaniego, Ramon Novarro in November 1931 for George Fitzmaurice’s Mata Hari. It
Novarro’s brother), she knew more places to take Hurrell for would become Greta Garbo’s highest-grossing film but would not
stop the steady decline of Novarro’s stardom. One by one, the male
fishing and landscape painting. stars of M-G-M’s silent days were fading.
Back at the studio, Hurrell’s work acquired a new sensual-
Buster Keaton could not wear a brave face for Hurrell’s camera.
ity. “I used to hate doing that fashion layout stuff,” he said years Even though his films were doing better than those of Novarro,
later. So he found something more stimulating. He began a Haines, and Gilbert, he felt that his latest films had nothing of him
in them, that he had sold out.
series of portraits that featured suggestive poses. When he told
starlets to slide their blouses off their shoulders, some burst out Hurrell’s camera saw John Gilbert trying to hide despondency over
a failed career. The vastly popular silent star had been jinxed since
laughing. Others, like Lili Damita, would willingly disrobe, but
the talkies, trapped in a no-win contract with a studio that was
then the publicity department would “kill” the proofs. Hur- forcing him to make inferior films like West of Broadway.

rell was warned repeatedly not to shoot anything approaching

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 THE GILDED CAGE

On December 31, 1931, Marion Davies gave a party. It took place 6 million. Universal was shutting down for a month at a time,
at 415 Palisades Beach Road, the Georgian mansion that William RKO was in receivership, and Paramount was dumping its
Randolph Hearst had built for her on the Santa Monica beach- theaters. Even theater-rich Fox Film was hemorrhaging money.
front. Even though this was New Year’s Eve, this was a “Kiddie Hollywood was staring into a vortex. The depression had hurt
Party.” Clark Gable as a Boy Scout, Irving Thalberg in a sailor everyone—everyone but M-G-M. The studio was ending 1931
suit, and Norma Shearer as Pollyanna the Glad Girl were news- with a profit of $12 million. Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg
worthy, to say the least. Davies usually had James Manatt shoot had bought surefire literary properties, adapted them to their
for her, but to cover this party she chose George Hurrell. This stars, and cultivated new stars, all of whom Hurrell had pho-
made no sense. There was no artistry in snapping these flash- tographed. With the depression worsening, Hollywood grew
illuminated shots. Anyone could do them. Furthermore, Hurrell increasingly insecure.
was present at the party, not as a guest, but as an employee, like a Curiously enough, Hurrell had less trouble with Holly-
caterer, and could not mingle with studio people he knew. This wood stars than he did with newly recruited Broadway stars.
was the price Hurrell paid for his enviable job. Like Howard Helen Hayes had been on the boards since she was a child and
Strickling and every other executive, he was on call. “When you a star for ten years, but at thirty-one she was frightened of hav-
got a phone call like that,” said Laszlo Willinger, another M-G-M ing her picture taken. “I always have butterflies in my stomach
photographer, “they didn’t ask you to show up. They told you.” before I go on stage,” she told him. “I feel the same way now.”
If Hurrell was displeased with the treatment he was getting, As it transpired, she had recently seen herself on the screen and
no one knew. He was fortunate to have a job in 1931. He had knew that she was far from camera-proof. Hurrell contrived
come to M-G-M on the heels of the Crash. In the two years to reassure her, playing “Vienna, City of My Dreams” on the
since, a thousand banks had failed, tens of thousands of busi- Victrola. It worked. What also worked was lowering her face so
nesses had folded, and more than six million Americans had as to minimize her chin, emphasize her eyes, and bring out the
lost their jobs. There were a hundred thousand unemployed “whimsical something” he saw in her. The public saw it, too,
in Los Angeles alone. The national lexicon included “apple and she became Metro’s newest star.
sellers,” “breadlines,” and “flophouses.” The American con-
sciousness was permeated by fear. At first the studios denied it. O P P OSI TE: Because Lynn Fontanne had not received the gowns
Adrian designed for her to wear in Sidney Franklin’s The Guards-
Movies were an escape, and the unemployed had quarters. By
man, Hurrell had her improvise a costume with some decorative fab-
1932, however, attendance had plummeted from 10 million to ric that was in the gallery. She was uneasy with his raffish manners.

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 Thalberg wanted more Broadway stars to join M-G-M, but to the movie-going public. They had toured with their plays
he could not persuade Katharine Cornell to make a film, and and were famous but were also thought of as “high-brow.”
Tallulah Bankhead kept him waiting, but in June 1931 he did In a way, they were. They were ill-at-ease in a city that had
convince Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the “First Couple restaurants shaped like hats and hot dogs. They were used to
of the American Stage,” to make a film of their 1924 hit, The posing for formal, almost professorial camera artists, so Hur-
Guardsman. Because framed portraits of the Lunts would be rell’s antics were a jolt. When he sang with a record of Gloria
used as props in their film, Hurrell had to reverse his usual Swanson warbling “Love, Your Magic Spell is Everywhere,”
procedure and photograph them before they started filming. Lunt blinked and said, “Nice touch.” Hurrell saw the couple’s
Thalberg was concerned about how to sell the fortyish Lunts attention flagging. He launched into a soft-shoe routine. The

O P P OS I T E , C LO C KWI SE FR OM TO P LEFT: George Hurrell did not make a good impression on Alfred Lunt and Lynn
Hurrell shot this photo of Joan Crawford and Constance Bennett Fontanne, the First Couple of the American Theatre. His antics
at the Kiddie Party that Marion Davies gave on New Year’s Eve in bothered them, and, like Garbo, they let their discomfort show.
1931.
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell’s first sitting with Johnny
Hurrell’s two most frequent subjects were not friends, according Weissmuller was a disappointment. There was little that Hur-
to the caption attached to this press photo (not shot by Hurrell). rell could do about the monkey makeup that the studio had the
“Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford are the ace stars (excluding Olympic champion wear in Tarzan the Ape Man. In addition, Hurrell
Garbo) of the M.G.M. studios and are continually fighting over could not get a rise out of Maureen O’Sullivan.
roles. The lovely Norma is married to Irving Thalberg and so has an
edge that Joan resents heartily. There was bitter warfare over that After the M-G-M makeup department improved the Tarzan
grand role in ‘Strange Interlude,’ but Norma won.” makeup, Hurrell had another session with Johnny Weissmuller.

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 did not want to watch a man disguise himself as someone else to
seduce his own wife. The Guardsman did well in the big cities,
but not in the heartland.
What did do well was Trader Horn, the first jungle movie
actually shot in Africa. Its leading lady, Edwina Booth, was
poised for stardom. Hurrell even innovated a stylistic element for
her—he had her pose with a polar bear rug. The willowy Booth
did not become a star, in part because she was unable to work.
She had contracted jungle fever during the very unpleasant
ordeal of making Trader Horn. A lawsuit resulted, and M-G-M
had to settle with the disabled woman. Trader Horn was too
profitable not to have a sequel, but the next jungle film could not
be filmed in a hazardous location. Southern California would
pass for Africa. Since Thalberg had just purchased the rights to
the Tarzan series from Edgar Rice Burroughs, the sequel’s first
script combined the characters of both Trader Horn and Tarzan
of the Apes. As Thalberg developed the project, he saw that the
Tarzan story needed no help. The only problem was casting.
Who could play the atavistic hero?
In a curious echo of Shearer’s visit to Hurrell, a candidate
Lunts were reserved and unresponsive. Hurrell called it a day. for the role created photos of himself as the character. Johnny
Or so he thought. Weissmuller, who had gained renown as a five-time Olympic
“My God, George,” said Strickling later that day. “What did Games gold medalist, stripped down to a leopard-skin loincloth
you do to the Lunts?” and posed for the New York portraitist Hal Phyfe, who was
“What do you mean? Nothing. Why?” working for the Fox Film Corporation. Weissmuller had already
“They’ve been photographed a hell of a lot—by Abbe and been interviewed by M-G-M, but Phyfe’s photos convinced
Muray and Steichen—and they’re sure these are going to be Thalberg to cast him in Tarzan the Ape Man. While the film was
disastrous!” shooting in Culver City and Lake Sherwood, Weissmuller took
For once, Hurrell bit his tongue. Strickling mailed the a break and came to Hurrell’s gallery. The session included the
proofs to the San Francisco hotel where the Lunts were spend-
ing the weekend. A few days later, Hurrell was in the studio LEF T: Jean Harlow and George Hurrell hit it off at their first ses-
commissary when he saw Strickling approaching. “Alfred Lunt sion together, which was in April 1932, shortly after she signed with
M-G-M. It was his idea to dress her in white and surround her
just called from up north,” beamed Strickling. “And do you
with white objects.
know what? He ordered all kinds of prints. Best photos they’ve
O P P OSI TE: Hurrell’s portraits of Johnny Weissmuller created
ever had taken!” Alas, Hurrell’s work could not persuade people excitement when they appeared in Photoplay. There had been
in Waubeka, Wisconsin, to see The Guardsman. Midwesterners previous screen Tarzans but none had received mythic treatment.

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 Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan, who was playing Jane to his Hurrell helped launch a record number of careers in ’31
Tarzan. It was not a success, partly because O’Sullivan was un- and ’32. He made charming photos of ten-year-old Jackie
responsive, but mostly because Weissmuller’s makeup was too Cooper, whose performance in The Champ was the proverbial
dark and his eyebrows too heavy. The studio decided to modify tearjerker. He shot Robert Montgomery in tuxedos and tails
his look and Hurrell had a second chance with the athlete. This as he went from overworked leading man to sophisticated star.
session was a distinct improvement, and it introduced another Hurrell worked with Strickling for a year to transform Clark
Hurrell trademark, the use of baby oil to enhance specular Gable from a menacing lounge lizard to a sporty outdoors-
highlights on skin. Weissmuller looked like a marble statue of a man. “He was almost shy in those early days,” recalled Hurrell.
Greek god—and he became a star. “He didn’t know how long his career would last.” In October

O P P OS I T E : When Myrna Loy signed with M-G-M in late 1931, ABOVE: Prior to her arrival at M-G-M, Myrna Loy (who was born
she was immediately booked for a session with Hurrell. Never mind Myrna Williams in Radersburg, Montana) had been playing either
that she had been working in films for years and been photo- “Oriental” characters or unpleasant vamps. Thalberg felt that this
graphed by the best. M-G-M’s policy was to use the gallery as a straightforward young woman had more to offer. (He knew her
proving ground. “It started with the stills—the buildup, the exploita- outside the studio because he was a booster of the Los Angeles
tion, feeling out the public,” said Hurrell. “I’m not saying this just Opera and she was a regular.) But she did look exotic. “A top light
to make myself more important: they would start with my stills. No on Myrna Loy tends to bring out her exoticism,” said Hurrell at the
matter who it was, she would have a stills session when she arrived, time. “Her face flattens slightly, and her slant eyes are emphasized.
and I would make large prints, and these would go to the top man, Lowering the light will make her lose that Eurasian appearance.”
whether it was Jack Warner or L. B. Mayer.”

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 1931 Hurrell shot Gable as the ambitious attorney for his third solved the problem of her hair. He noticed that a surgical lamp
film with Joan Crawford. “The era of the sophisticated lady on a hospital set had a “hot spot” in the center of its beam. By
got under way when I was cast with Clark Gable in Possessed,” aiming the hot spot at the crown of Harlow’s head, and letting
said Crawford. The frankly adult film crystallized Thalberg’s the penumbra light the outer edges, he avoided the blown-out
formula for Crawford—the working girl who claws her way effect and created gorgeous, glowing images of her. When she
into high society. It also confirmed Gable’s status as the hottest signed with Metro full-time, Strickling assigned her to Hurrell.
leading man in Hollywood. And it created a situation: Crawford Hurrell was fascinated by Harlow’s porcelain-doll ap-
and Gable were more than coworkers. “It was a love bounded pearance and began by shooting her in white. “A white dress is
by the flats on the set,” wrote Crawford. “When we went into always more arresting, in the camera and in life,” said Hurrell.
a scene, everything else ceased to exist. When stills photogra- “Men turn to look at a white-gowned woman.” He, too, found
pher George Hurrell took pictures of us, he’d simply have the her hair hard to light. His solution was to turn the knob on the
lights set up. Sometimes we were oblivious of the fact that he’d back of the spotlight so that the beam had a hot spot, but instead
finished shooting.” The extramarital affair was squelched, and of aiming it at the crown of her head, he aimed it to shoot past
by no less a personage than Louis B. Mayer. Gable had starved her head, letting the penumbra of the beam fall on her hair.
in stock companies for ten years and felt that security was more The effect was spectacular. She looked like one of the Art Deco
important than romance. statues that were being sculpted for M-G-M by David Williams,
In April 1932 Hurrell photographed Jean Harlow for the brother of Myrna Loy.
first time. The studio had just purchased her contract from How- “We were on the same wavelength from the beginning,”
ard Hughes and was in the process of refining her image, which Hurrell recalled. “I had a job to do and she had a job to do.”
had grown a little tawdry. The “Platinum Blonde” was really an Hurrell’s job was to balance the sweet, good-natured girl with
uncomplicated twenty-year-old, but Hughes and her mother, the saucy siren. Given his propensity for sizzling images, it was
Mrs. Jean Bello, were selling her services to any studio (and any surprising that his shots of Harlow captured as much sweetness
film) that would pay their price. Harlow would just as soon read as they did sauciness. Their next sitting was to publicize her
a good book but spent hours posing in revealing gowns and sug- first M-G-M film, Red Headed Woman. “When Jean wore that
gestive poses for photographers who were ordered to “get some cinnamon-colored wig for her picture,” said Hurrell, “I found
sex into it.” There was Ray Jones at Universal, Hal Phyfe at Fox her slightly less interesting to photograph.” Hurrell’s pictures
Film, and Elmer Fryer at Warner Bros. They all encountered dif- of Harlow hit the magazines two months later, and readers saw
ficulties when photographing her hair. Her natural color was ash- platinum polished to the M-G-Mth degree.
blonde, but a scary mixture of peroxide, ammonia, and Lux soap Meanwhile, Metro executives had lost interest in the stars
flakes gave it a platinum tone. When lit from behind it tended to who brought their company to prominence. By 1932, William
“blow out” the film’s contrast. Haines, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, and Ramon Novarro were
Clarence Bull was the first M-G-M photographer to shoot fading. Each actor had his own problem but they all shared a
her. He first did in November 1930, when she visited M-G-M
to make The Secret Six; next in April 1931 for a special sitting; O P P OSI TE : Within a few months, Harlow was a favorite Hurrell
subject. “She took direction superbly,” he recalled. “I played all
and again in November 1931 to promote The Beast of the City.
sorts of music for her—soft and romantic, loud and raucous—and,
In addition to developing a rapport with the easy-going girl, Bull consequently, she’d give me a spectrum of moods.”

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 complaint: Mayer and Thalberg were not giving them good
films. These were stars of the first magnitude, and though they
were still adapting to sound films—and aging—their skills were
greater than ever. What neither they nor their bosses could
control was the public. It was fickle. There were loyal fans, to be
sure, but there were just as many who were turning from Gilbert
to Gable. When Hurrell was assigned to create new art of these
still-young veterans, he found them dispirited.
Haines was too busy preparing his exit from M-G-M to co-
operate with Hurrell. His exit line was: “I’m not nervous about
posing, but I am nervous about this man!” Keaton was hung
over and sometimes drunk. Novarro was preoccupied during the
sitting and then critical of the proofs afterward. He marked them
heavily, hoping the retoucher could remove evidence of heavy
drinking. Gilbert was the worst, a sad shadow of his former self.
He had been the brightest light of the silent era, M-G-M’s big-
gest moneymaker, yet Mayer, angered by the fat contract that his
New York partners had brokered for Gilbert, wanted to get rid of
the highly strung actor. “The poor guy was fidgeting and shak-
ing and sweating,” recalled Hurrell. “He knew they’d put the
O P P OS I T E , C LO C KWI SE FR OM TO P LE FT: Hur-
rell shot Lionel Barrymore for Grand Hotel. “He was a serious
skids under him. He was about ready to collapse. I shot some
dramatic actor,” recalled Hurrell. “I don’t remember ever trying plates and was getting warmed up when he jumped out of his
to make him laugh. It was pretty much a straightforward kind of
seat and snapped at me, ‘That’s enough! I’ve got to go now.’”
thing, looking over his shoulder, looking straight at the camera,
leering at the camera. If he would get too serious, I’d just make Curiously enough, these stars, all of whom were in their
some sly remark about going too far in one direction or another.”
thirties, were being eclipsed, not exclusively by fresh young
A Hurrell portrait of John Barrymore and Joan Crawford made talent but by much older actors. Marie Dressler was sixty-three.
on the set of Grand Hotel.
Wallace Beery was forty-seven. Lionel Barrymore was fifty-four.
Hurrell expected to photograph John Barrymore with Greta
His brother John, who was brought to M-G-M with much fan-
Garbo for Grand Hotel publicity, but Garbo had other ideas.
fare, was fifty. To Hurrell these were oldsters; they were also vital
Hurrell did shoot Wallace Beery and Joan Crawford for Grand
Hotel. and powerful. Dressler, the most popular woman in America,
was a delight. “She’d come the long, hard way,” recalled actor
A B OV E : Jackie Cooper was M-G-M’s youngest star in 1932,
carrying films like Divorce in the Family with his prodigious Robert Young, “and she was very, very grateful.” Beery was dif-
talent.
ficult, disliked by many. After years of enduring slights and over-

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 ception, the economy of its production, and the quality of its
showmanship, Grand Hotel was M-G-M at its most effective.
The all-star ensemble was not only in front of the camera.
Behind it were Hurrell, director-writer Goulding, art director
Cedric Gibbons, and cinematographer William Daniels. Only
two men worked on Grand Hotel without credit. The first was
Thalberg. His name never appeared in the credits. “If you can
put it there,” he said, “you don’t need it.” The other uncredited
artist was a freelance photographer named Fred Archer. Garbo
had not forgotten her discomfort at working with the “crazy
man” Hurrell two years earlier. She mandated that someone else
take her on-the-set portraits. Because Bull was ill, Fred Archer—
not Hurrell—took the famous profile-to-profile portrait of Greta
Garbo and John Barrymore.
Hurrell shot the rest of the cast on an Art Deco set that
faithfully represented a Berlin luxury hotel. His portraits of
sights as a supporting player, he was taking full advantage of his Crawford with John Barrymore showed that she was in awe of
new status, stealing studio furniture, intimidating other actors, America’s Hamlet; she later called him “beauteous and fiery.” Of
and using soundstage perimeters for bodily functions. At one the Great Profile, Hurrell later said, “His ‘presence’ was similar
point Strickling lost patience and went to Mayer. “Yes, Howard,” to Chaney’s, so strong that all he had to do was lean against a
sighed Mayer, “Beery’s a son of a bitch. But he’s our son of a doorway.” Even if Hurrell did not shoot Garbo, his Grand Hotel
bitch.” Hurrell had his share of Beery stories. It took months for portraits convey the richness of the film and the pride of its
Beery to show up. “He’d rather go to the dentist,” said Hurrell. performers. When it premiered, on April 12, 1932, it put Metro-
When he did show up, he would rush through a session. Still, Goldwyn-Mayer at the top of the heap.
Hurrell did get honest, unaffected expressions from Beery.
Beery had no choice but to show up when Hurrell shot him
ABOVE: In July 1932 Hurrell made this portrait of Joan Bennett.
with three other stars on the set of Edmund Goulding’s Grand
Because she was under contract to Fox Film, not M-G-M, the ses-
Hotel. This was unusual, as unusual as the film itself. Conven- sion was conducted outside Hurrell’s place of employment—a risky
tional wisdom dictated one star per movie. Thalberg challenged enterprise in a company town.

this notion with the first “all-star production.” Instead of one O P P OSI TE: Robert Montgomery was brought to M-G-M to be
a leading man to its stars and he served this function admirably,
star, Grand Hotel had five: Beery, John and Lionel Barrymore,
but he was too talented, versatile, and intelligent to be a perennial
Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo. In the ingenuity of its con- consort. By the end of 1932, he was a star in his own right.

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 Hurrell had no time to bask in reflected glory. He was busy but when they had problems, even artistic crises such as his
shooting Shearer on Strange Interlude sets and Crawford on the own, he was unable to muster sympathy. All he could see was his
Grand Hotel set again; it had been dressed as a ship’s ballroom own vexing immobility. He tried a change of residence, renting
for her next film, Letty Lynton. The pace of work in the rooftop a house at 1346 North Harper Avenue, half a block from the
gallery continued to accelerate, even after Bull returned from sick Sunset Strip. The house resembled a little Mexican hacienda,
leave. Hurrell began to feel that the room was hot and claustro- and for a time it quieted him.
phobic, and that his schedule of sittings was not so much an
artistic opportunity as a contractual obligation. From the age of
eighteen, he had come and gone as he pleased. At twenty-eight O P P OSI TE: Hurrell posed Shearer in proximity to an etched-
he was either coming from work or going to work. No matter that glass star for obvious reasons.

the work was exciting and fulfilling. He was required to do it. ABOVE: Playing Nina Leeds in Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Inter-
Hurrell tried taking weekend trips to Mexico with Pancho lude had been a challenge even for Lynn Fontanne, but Shearer
met it head on, giving a performance as strange as the film’s title.
Barnes. He found the trips less and less enjoyable because he
The plot required her to age, and in this pose she is wearing her
would inevitably have to return. He liked working with actors, middle-aged look.

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 At the gallery, the air was still stuffy, and Hurrell vented white background. That’s the way it worked, because I was just
his frustration on anyone who represented the management. an arrogant, egotistical bastard.” Strickling diplomatically asked
Strickling heard complaints and cautioned him about the way Hurrell if he could leave some lightness in one of the corners of
he spoke to people. “If I couldn’t work alone,” said Hurrell, “if each portrait, or at least in some of the portraits. Hurrell refused.
somebody was sitting around, like even the publicity, if they Per the initial agreement, Hurrell had a privilege. He was
didn’t keep their mouths shut, they had to leave—or else I left.” the only employee allowed to make the first prints of the freshly
Hurrell also guarded his aesthetic territory. Strickling told retouched negatives from each sitting. These “artist’s proofs”
him that the magazine editors wanted the majority of portraits to
have white backgrounds. Clarence Bull complied. Hurrell said, ABOVE: Hurrell turned Shearer into an Art Deco artifact in this
“To hell with the editors.” Strickling would shake his head over portrait for Strange Interlude publicity.

Hurrell’s latest batch of low-key pictures. “Black backgrounds O P P OSI TE: The fall of 1932 was difficult for many Americans.
were taboo,” Hurrell recalled. “So I shot black backgrounds. If The citizens who did go to the movies that season went to see
Norma Shearer in Sidney Franklin’s Smilin’ Through. It became,
they didn’t like the black backgrounds, they could throw them
thanks to its tough yet sentimental plot (and portraits like this), as
in the trash can. They had to wait ’til I was in the mood for a big a hit as Tarzan the Ape Man and Grand Hotel.

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 would then be given to darkroom technicians, who would tally glossy. His coveted black backgrounds suddenly had the
make prints to match Hurrell’s. Their custom-printed 10x13 glistening opacity of obsidian. He removed the borders of the
enlargements would then be sent as exclusives to specific fan prints and came up with something really exceptional—a new
magazines. For Hurrell, hand-printing his negatives was more look, an artistic breakthrough. He decided that from now on,
than the culmination of his work on a sitting. It was an aesthetic this would be his signature paper. AZO was it.
transport. Working alone in the quiet and the dark, he did not There was only one problem. Company man Bull had just
have to deal with egos or politics. He was free to create. signed a deal with the DuPont Corporation. Throwing the huge
Even though the little darkroom was situated in Hurrell’s M-G-M stills account to DuPont would earn him kudos from
gallery, it was under Bull’s jurisdiction; he supervised all stills Mayer and new respect in the photographic world. Hurrell had
studio and stills laboratory functions. For years, M-G-M had tried these papers that Bull was espousing, in particular DuPont
been purchasing film and photo paper from Eastman Kodak. Varigam, but he was not impressed with semigloss prints. He
This was reflected in the order blanks imprinted on in-house
negative sleeves. The film supplied to Hurrell by Clarence Bull
O P P OSI TE: Hurrell professed to be disappointed when M-G-M
was Eastman Super Sensitive Pan. The paper was E.K. AZO put a wig on Jean Harlow for Jack Conway’s Red Headed Woman,
Double-Weight Gloss (although it was never dried glossy, but but his images are no less arresting.

rather to a semigloss luster), or E.K. AZO Double-Weight Matte. ABOVE: If Shearer did snatch Strange Interlude from Crawford
If prints were being made for stars or producers, the paper was (at least in Crawford’s mind), Crawford got a nifty film herself,
Letty Lynton. Both stars were exceedingly fortunate to have Hurrell
“buff,” E.K. AZO “E”; its deeply grained surface made half-tone creating images of them, for he was inspired in the spring of 1932.
screening impossible, thus preventing unauthorized reproduc-
OVERLEAF: Crawford gave a heartfelt performance during his
tion. Studios lived in fear of “leaks.” Letty Lynton portrait session, as she had before the movie camera.
Hurrell’s fondness for low key led him to experiment with “The serious moments would always be a reflection on her movie,”
said Hurrell. “You’d suddenly drop everything and turn off the mu-
various photographic papers. He liked them all until M-G-M got
sic and think serious. Both of you would have to get into a serious
a ferrotype dryer. It dried the AZO as it was meant to dry—to- mood.”

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 would stick with AZO, dried to a high gloss. But Bull’s deal with loyalty. Hurrell either did not know about industry practice or
DuPont specified exclusive use of DuPont products by M-G-M, did not care.
and for once, Hurrell was no exception. A fight was brewing. “I saw no reason why I shouldn’t do it,” he maintained, years
To add to his vexation, Hurrell received a call from Public- later. He also saw no reason why he should not use M-G-M film,
ity that “Mr. Mayer” wanted him to work later than five o’clock paper, or processing facilities. He surely must have known that
on a certain day, because a visiting dignitary wanted a “Photo by someone would see the unfamiliar face of Joan Bennett floating in
Hurrell.” How did he respond to this executive “request”? a tank of fixer or falling out of a drum dryer. Inevitably, someone
“I told him to go to hell.” did. That person knew that Joan Bennett was not a Metro star,
It is impossible to know if this injudicious response made and, in short order, notified Strickling. He grabbed an assistant,
its way back to Mayer, one of America’s most powerful men, went looking for Hurrell, and ambushed him. For once Hurrell
but before a skirmish could erupt on this front, Hurrell moved could not appeal to Shearer or Thalberg. This was Friday, July
to another. Realizing the value of his services, he had begun to 15. They were preparing for a big night. Grauman’s Chinese
shoot an occasional portrait outside the studio walls. One such Theatre was hosting the elaborate premiere of their latest opus,
portrait was made at RKO Radio Pictures. The British actor Strange Interlude. Hurrell was at the mercy of two agitated pub-
Laurence Olivier had seen Hurrell’s work and wanted a portrait. licists. “What do you mean using the studio facility for outside
Perhaps Hurrell just wanted to create art outside the gallery, to work?” Strickling asked him. “Doing the job on our time!”
use fresh settings. Perhaps he wanted to lay the groundwork for “My God, you’d think I had robbed the bank or some-
his eventual departure. “On a weekend I felt that I was free to go thing,” recalled Hurrell. “They walked me around the lot, talk-
down and shoot what I wanted,” recalled Hurrell. “So I did. It ing to me and telling me what a dirty rat I was and how horrible
was my Sunday operation, let’s say.” and how could I even think of doing such a thing and how could
The Sunday operation was facilitated by a wily publicist I go and shoot a movie star from any other studio.”
named Maggie Ettinger (who was born Margaret Oettinger to “Look!” Hurrell said through his teeth. “I’ve had this job
the brother of Louella Oettinger Parsons). Ettinger knew that up to here. I can leave right now!”
players outside M-G-M, especially freelancers, would be eager “Where will you go?” sneered Strickling. “If you leave
to have a portrait made by Hurrell. Capitalizing on Hurrell’s Metro, you’ll be unemployable. No studio will touch you.”
discontent, she lined up a number of sittings in early July. First “That’s all right,” said Hurrell. “That’d be better than taking
there was freelancer Lilyan Tashman, wife of the Fox Film star this crap.” Strickling was aghast that Hurrell could be so unthink-
Edmund Lowe. Hurrell photographed her at their Malibu ing—and so ungrateful. Then Hurrell really hit him. “I’m going
beach house. Then he photographed Joan Bennett, who had to open my own gallery.” Strickling just stared for a moment.
been on location for a backwoods role, Wild Girl, and who “Your what?” he gasped. Then he laughed. “You’re a fool.
needed glamour portraits. She was not a freelancer; she was a Whom would you photograph? People off the street? What would
Fox Film player. Hurrell was treading on dangerous ground. they make of your crazy behavior? Look at Hal Phyfe. Russell Ball.
“And while I had no contract with M-G-M,” said Hurrell, “they Independent shops don’t make a living in this town. Calm down.
considered me under contract and I was not allowed to shoot Be grateful and go back to work. You’ve got a good job.”
anyone outside the studio.” He was working without a con- “A good job?” shouted Hurrell. “Well, you know what you
tract, but “industry practice,” then as now, required an implicit can do with it!” In front of a lot of executives, extras, and grips,

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 Hurrell turned on his heel and stomped off to the old editing A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell made this portrait of Robert
Montgomery to publicize Letty Lynton.
building. He ran all the way up the outside staircase, and disap-
peared into the stills studio. A few minutes later, he emerged, Hurrell’s photographs of the gowns created by Adrian for Clarence
Brown’s Letty Lynton helped Macy’s Cinema Shop sell 50,000
followed by Andrew Korf and Al St. Hilaire. The three men
copies of this garment. No less an authority than Edith Head called
silently walked past Stage Twenty, Stage Seventeen, the commis- this film the single most important fashion influence in film history.
“He was a really great artist, that Adrian,” said Hurrell. “I had great
sary, the administration building, the guard post, and then out
admiration for him—a creative genius.”
the side gate and into the parking lot. Within minutes, Clarence
Bull got a phone call. “George has quit!” Strickling shouted into
the receiver.

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 CHAPTER 3

HURRELL PHOTOGRAPHY

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 “I WISH I LOOKED LIKE THAT”

The Pacific Ocean was a hushed rumble outside the half- would build that personality,” said George Hurrell, “so that it
timbered mansion on Palisades Beach Road on Saturday, July became a strong, personal, willful projection.” At that moment,
16, 1932. Norma Shearer opened a telegram and read it. “Allow Shearer was indeed the First Lady of M-G-M.
me to pay tribute to the most glamorous woman of the screen,” A week later, Hurrell was in his house on Harper Avenue,
wrote George Hurrell. “‘Strange Interlude’ shows you as the fin- working in a new medium, when the telephone rang. It was
est actress of all. I have left M-G-M to open my own studio again. Howard Strickling, and his voice sounded friendly. “What are
I feel that I cannot do justice to my subjects or to myself when you doing, George?”
sittings are made under the pressure of mass production. You “A charcoal sketch,” replied Hurrell. “And I’m resting.
as an artist must understand this. To me you will always be the Why?” He listened closely as Strickling cleared his throat and
loveliest and greatest. I hope I may still regard you as a friend continued. When the publicity man was nervous, he stammered.
and patron.” “We’d like to . . . to have you come back. What do you say?
The previous night Shearer had been the main attraction Are you interested?”
at a major Hollywood event. The premiere of Strange Inter- “Nope.”
lude had been a success, even if a stampede of fans had broken Strickling said that Hurrell could work as an outside
a girl’s leg, but then the film was not the usual M-G-M fare. contractor, without hidden restrictions. Hurrell feigned indif-
“There was nothing exactly normal about Strange Interlude,” ference. Strickling was being conciliatory. Hurrell was being
Shearer wrote years later. “How could there be, with people peevish, which was uncalled for, given the many concessions
walking around, talking to themselves?” O’Neill’s controversial Strickling had gotten him. Strickling got tough. He proceeded
asides did nothing to detract from her performance. Shearer to tell Hurrell his right name. He had quit the biggest photo
had tackled Eugene O’Neill, inviting comparisons with Lynn
Fontanne, and looked like a million dollars. “I can’t do the
OVERLEAF: Mae West sat for George Hurrell in early 1933, just
Garbo or Dietrich thing,” she told the Los Angeles Times, but after she had completed her first starring film, Lowell Sherman’s
she did commandeer their cameramen—William Daniels and She Done Him Wrong.

Lee Garmes—to glamorize her in Strange Interlude. It was her O P P OSI TE: A magazine feature was Norma Shearer’s opportu-
nity to save Hurrell’s Hollywood career. “Norma’s New Wardrobe”
night of triumph, something she had worked toward for years.
was written by Virginia T. Lane for Modern Screen and included this
In this she was no different than Garbo or Dietrich. “They photograph of Shearer.

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 job at the biggest company in America’s sixth-biggest industry. decide to freeze him out, he would not be too cold; for the last
The country was in a depression. Folks could not afford basics, eighteen months, he had earned $350 a week and had not had
let alone portraits. There was no such thing as a blacklist, but time to spend it. He stood his ground.
Hurrell might have difficulty finding work. Studio contractees “Say, listen, George. There’s one more thing. Norma called.
could be prevented from using him. He had tailored his style of She heard about, about you leaving Metro. Well, she needs some
photography to movie publicity, so he might want to stay in Hol-
lywood. Then again, he might not.
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Gloria Swanson had produced a
Hurrell had a history of impatience and restlessness. He
film in England, only to see it flop. She was hoping to sign with Fox
might very well pull up stakes and go to New York. Furthermore, Film or M-G-M, so she came to Hurrell. New portraits were the
best way to remind the industry (and her fans) that she was still a
his work had become so influential that every photographer in
great star.
Hollywood was imitating his use of hard lens, boom light, and
In 1933 Hedda Hopper was not yet a powerful gossip columnist.
single spotlight. The imitators would eventually run out of At forty-three, she was a show-biz veteran and was thrilled that
steam, and there would be a demand for the original. Then, too, someone would take such care with her portraits. She knew that
George Hurrell needed referrals. She helped him, and so did publi-
there were two hundred people for whom Hurrell had done
cists Helen Ferguson and Maggie Ettinger (who was a cousin of
portraits. They might just remember him. But if M-G-M did Louella Parsons, Hopper’s future rival).

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 C LO C K W I S E F R OM TO P LE FT: Joan
Crawford lent her face to Hurrell’s calling card in
early 1933.

On August 8, 1932, Hurrell had the honor of pho-

tographing the “Royal Family of Broadway” and
their families; (left to right) John Barrymore Jr.,
Irene (Mrs. Lionel) Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore,
Ethel Barrymore, Jackie Colt, John Barrymore,
Sammy Colt, Dede Barrymore, Dolores Costello
(Mrs. John) Barrymore, and Ethel Colt. There are
few things more difficult to compose and execute
than a family portrait; this one shows that Hurrell
was a master.

Hurrell made this portrait of Ethel Barrymore with

her sons Sammy Colt (at left) and Jackie Colt
in Laurel Canyon. “Her cello-like voice gave me
goose bumps,” he recalled.

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 new shots. She has some new outfits and Modern
Screen is planning a feature around them. It’s a
grand opportunity.”
“Yes?” Hurrell perked up.
“Well, why don’t you come out, and, well,
shoot the stuff ? On an independent basis, of
course.”
“Oh, all right,” said Hurrell.
“How much will you want?”
“Let’s see. A fashion layout should be about
twenty poses. All right. Twenty negs for two
hundred dollars.”
“My God!” blurted Strick. “That’s highway
robbery!”
“That’s only ten bucks each. [$300 each in
2013.] If that’s going to break the studio, then I
suggest you get someone else.”
Strickling said he had to get approval and
hung up. Hurrell later learned what that meant.
“Strick called Norma and tried to talk her out of
it. Said it was too much. She didn’t care what the
hell it was. She just wanted me.”
To make the transition from corporate em-
ployee to independent contractor, George Hur-
rell accepted the help of several well-connected
women. Actress Hedda Hopper talked him up to
important writers such as Frances Marion, who
had Mary Pickford’s ear. Maggie Ettinger intro-
duced him to publicist Helen Ferguson. In 1930,
after struggling for years as an underpublicized
freelance actress, Ferguson had begun represent-

R I G H T: Hurrell Photography opened in the fall

of 1932 at 8706 Sunset Boulevard. This photo was
taken later by Dick Whittington Photography.

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 ing players who were not under contract to the majors. She together since they were mites.” Hurrell posed her with her
and her clientele booked sittings and helped Hurrell achieve boys Sammy and Jackie Colt in the garden. Ethel observed the
independence. But no one could have helped him if the First care that Hurrell and Al St. Hilaire were taking to aim a silver
Lady of M-G-M had not saved him first. reflector at her, and she told Hurrell not to over-retouch her face.
Shearer wanted Hurrell to shoot her session on one of the “I’ve spent a lifetime getting these character lines,” she smiled,
sets from Smilin’ Through, where she had recently been work- “and I wouldn’t be Ethel Barrymore without them.” She was
ing. When she arrived and greeted Hurrell, she saw carpenters turning fifty-three, and as this was M-G-M, her negatives were
working on the set and set dressers moving furniture. “We’re heavily retouched. When she left Hollywood a few months later,
sorry, Miss Shearer, but it won’t be ready for an hour,” said a she criticized its artificiality, calling it a “glaring, gaudy, night-
workman. Then she realized that the set had been struck but marish set built up in the desert.”
was being reassembled and dressed just for her. She hurried Hurrell got a call from the Fox Film Corporation, Joan
to a telephone on the wall of the soundstage and called Strick- Bennett’s studio. He went there to shoot starlet Irene Ware and
ling. “Oh, Howard! You should have told me! I had no idea! star Warner Baxter, using the gallery where Hal Phyfe usually
Oh, don’t do that.” She and Hurrell found another set, where he worked. If Hurrell had stayed, he could have made spectacular
hung his favorite Marie Laurencin print on the wall, and a crew images of the fiery Clara Bow for her comeback picture, Call
of electricians began setting lights from the catwalks overhead Her Savage, but Fox did not invite him. He later admitted that
so that Hurrell could have his favorite effect. Shearer was happy. he was disappointed, but he was not really interested in working
“She was the Queen,” recalled Hurrell. “What she wanted, she for someone else. He needed a place of his own.
usually got. No expense was spared.” On September 1, 1932, Hurrell moved into 8706 Sunset
Hurrell next photographed another Queen—or, to be Boulevard. His new studio was just a few blocks from his home,
more precise, an Empress. Irving Thalberg had brought Ethel on the increasingly popular stretch known as the Sunset Strip,
Barrymore from Broadway to costar with her brothers John and which was located in West Hollywood, an unincorporated part
Lionel in Rasputin (later renamed Rasputin and the Empress). of Los Angeles County. His studio was the deepest of six store-
For the first time, all three members of the “Royal Family of the fronts in a white, Colonial-style commercial building owned by
Theatre” would be in one film. On August 8 there was a gather- Montgomery Properties, Limited. The studio was only twelve
ing of the clan at the Laurel Canyon home Ethel was subletting feet wide but had a depth of sixty feet. Its back wall was white
from author P. G. Wodehouse. Clarence Bull shot John and his “sprayed stucco,” ideal for portraits, and the tall picture window
family indoors while Hurrell shot “Miss Barrymore” and her looking onto the Strip was perfect for displaying portraits. The
sons outdoors. Hurrell found the great lady as intimidating as rent was $50 a month. Before “Hurrell Photography” could
the Romanoff she was portraying. When he arrived at her home open, however, Hurrell had to buy a camera, lens, tripod, and
early in the morning, Ethel snapped at him: “I have to have
my breakfast before I sit for you.” He blinked when he saw her O P P OSI TE: In 1933 Myrna Loy had not found the combination of
breakfast. It was a double Scotch. script and director that could make her a star, but with Penthouse
and W. S. Van Dyke, she was getting close. “It was hell getting
“I want a few snaps for my family album,” said Ethel. “My
started,” recalled Loy, “but once you were in, they coddled and
sons are here with me, and we haven’t had decent pictures taken cared for you. They groomed you and made you look wonderful.”

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 had taken in June for Smilin’ Through. This was the one she
had hung over her son Irving’s bed. She arranged for Hurrell to
get the negative from Bull, and Hurrell paid a lab to enlarge it to
48x60. He then framed it and installed it in the window.
A few nights later, he went to dinner with Pancho Barnes at
the Brown Derby on Vine Street. He was slightly apprehensive.
He had not been there since quitting Metro. Would he be turned
away at the door? He was greeted by every star and publicist in
the restaurant. Word of Shearer’s visit to his studio had spread
through the film community. If she had not set herself against
M-G-M’s boycott, Hurrell might not have been seated that night.
But she had. And now, with her stamp of approval, he was in.
In early 1933, the Great Depression worsened. Hurrell’s
business fell off. So did M-G-M’s. By February the country was
in near-chaos, with banks shipping gold overseas in expectation
of a complete economic collapse. “At the end of February, the
United States was a congeries of disorderly, panic-stricken mobs
lights, commission the construction of a new boom light, hire and factions,” wrote Walter Lippmann. On March 8, Louis B.
a receptionist, and rehire Al St. Hilaire and Andrew Korf. Hur- Mayer called all employees to a soundstage for an emergency
rell’s savings account was quickly depleted. He turned to Mag- meeting and tearfully asked them to take a 50 percent salary
gie Ettinger for help; her husband, the painter Ross Shattuck, cut. Wallace Beery made an obscene noise and walked out, but
lent him $800. the rest of the employees agreed. If things were that bad, could
Hurrell placed a listing in the Buyer’s Guide; it read: “Hur- Hurrell hope for more assignments from Strickling?
rell / Photographer / 8706 Sunset Blvd. / Oxford 7701.” His As Hurrell walked into his studio one day, his receptionist
friends gasped at his fees. A $250 portrait package would yield handed him two phone messages from Joan Crawford. Perhaps
one print each of only twelve poses. This was portrait art for the
carriage trade. How would he get it? ABOVE: Mary Pickford, the original Queen of Hollywood, saw
He invited Norma Shearer to his new studio for a com- Crawford’s picture in the window of Hurrell Photography. “I wish
I looked like that,” said Pickford, who had also seen the portraits
plimentary sitting. After she chose her favorite pose from the Hurrell had made of her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, and his son.
proofs, he would enlarge it and hang it in the shop window.
O P P OSI TE: Although Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was getting di-
Shearer liked the pictures but suggested that he use a pose he vorced from Crawford, he came to Hurrell Photography.

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 she was tired of Bull’s gentility. Perhaps she needed the Hurrell Jr. “erudite, urbane, and amusing.” His well-known stepmother
“sheen.” Perhaps she was tired of seeing Shearer’s face in Hur- was riding west on Sunset when she saw the huge enlargement
rell’s window. “I admire and like Joan,” Shearer said later that of Crawford’s portrait in Hurrell’s window. “I wish I looked like
year. “I think both of us have been hurt and embarrassed by the that,” said Mary Pickford.
persistent rumors of our rivalry and hatred.” Crawford had been At thirty-nine, Pickford was no longer “America’s Sweet-
the second star Hurrell had photographed at M-G-M in 1930. heart” but still internationally famous. She was making a new
She would be the second M-G-M star to visit 8706 Sunset. In film, Secrets, the story of a pioneer woman who triumphs over a
both instances, she followed Shearer. lifetime of hardship and tragedy. Pickford wanted to show her
Crawford had started 1933 in her own personal depres- fans that she was an adult, not “Little Mary, the Girl with the
sion, after an unprecedented two flops in a row, Rain and Today Curls.” Playing characters such as Pollyanna had made her one
We Live. She needed Hurrell’s ebullience and she needed his of the richest, most powerful women in Hollywood, but she
photos to remind her fans that she was still perfecting her im- yearned for a mature image. Hurrell could create it. He took his
age—for them. The image Hurrell created for her in 1933 was a
sparkling new one. Ferguson used it for publicity and the phone
ABOVE AN D O P POSITE: Mae West sat for Hurrell in the
began to ring. One of the first to call was Crawford’s newly
portrait gallery at Paramount Pictures, a company that owed her a
divorced husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Hurrell found Doug great deal in 1933. Her films saved it from bankruptcy.

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 gear to Pickfair, the estate that Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks “I’d been around Hollywood for quite a spell,” recalled
Sr. had occupied at the height of their phenomenal fame. Their Hurrell, “but this was the first such request I’d had from a major
marriage was strained, which was another reason Pickford celebrity. She removed her clothing and I discovered she had
wanted alluring portraits by Hurrell. The images he created of a beautiful body. I made the shots, she dressed and, just before
her were both wistful and vaguely sensuous. She was pleased she left, she held out her hand.”
and became a repeat client. “Now give me the plates, please.”
Soon after this, Hurrell photographed another thirty-nine- Hurrell complied, and the nude portraits of Mae West
year-old star. Mae West had just burst onto the scene in the disappeared into her collection, never to be seen again.
racy, funny She Done Him Wrong. This slightly cleaned-up By the late spring of 1933, America’s fiscal crisis had
version of her stage play Diamond Lil was breaking attendance passed, thanks to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the
records everywhere and bringing desperately needed cash into first of his New Deal policies. The country had a leader who
Paramount’s coffers. In fact, the film saved the company from could both unify and galvanize. He was a real-life hero to many.
receivership. Everyone was seeing it. Even Mary Pickford had a First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was equally respected. In June she
comment: “I passed the door of my young niece’s room,” said flew across-country, and, while she was in Arizona, one of Hur-
Pickford. “She’s been raised, oh, so carefully. And I heard her rell’s society clients phoned. Mrs. Franklin K. Lane Jr. explained
singing bits from that song in She Done Him Wrong. I say ‘that that Mrs. Roosevelt had been the victim of a series of unflatter-
song’ because I’d blush to quote the title.” The song was “A ing pictures. After refusing to be photographed for two years,
Guy What Takes His Time.” Mrs. Roosevelt had agreed to sit for Junior League magazine—
Mae West was on her way to becoming a cultural phenom- but only if Hurrell made her portrait. He was flabbergasted.
enon. The only problem was that no one knew what she looked On June 6, Hurrell carried his camera and lights into 701
like out of her 1890s costumes, not even Hurrell. “The first South Ardmore, the Wilshire District mansion of Franklin K.
time I saw her,” he said, “I was standing in the reception room Lane Jr. Hurrell would have seven—count ’em—seven minutes
at Paramount, there by the Marathon Street gate, and she came to make a portrait of the First Lady of the United States. After
walking in. Well, I thought, ‘Who is this?’ But she came in like setting up, Hurrell waited for an hour. There was a hubbub,
she was Mae West. So it couldn’t have been anybody else!” Hur- and Mrs. Roosevelt entered the palatial living room exactly on
rell knew immediately that West was bound for stardom. “You time, and wearing a blue floral-print dress. “So nice to meet
could feel an atmosphere to it,” said Hurrell. “You felt inspir- you, Mr. Hurrell,” she said, and he thought to himself that she
ed when someone like Mae West or Marlene Dietrich or Joan sounded like Ethel Barrymore. Hurrell was struck by her poise
Crawford walked into the room.” In case he did not feel inspired, and by the way she put him at ease, asking about his work with
West was willing to help.
Hurrell was shooting West in the Paramount Pictures O P P OSI TE: Jeanette MacDonald signed with M-G-M in the
hopes of reviving a stalled career. Her first M-G-M portraits, shot
portrait gallery when she asked him to dismiss Al St. Hilaire.
by Clarence Bull, did not quite come off, so Howard Strickling as-
“George,” she said, “I want you to take some nude shots of me.” signed her to Hurrell, who promptly found her best angles.

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 LEF T: Hurrell’s patron, Norma Shearer, was absent for almost a
year. “When illness rendered me useless,” said Irving Thalberg,
“Norma unhesitatingly risked everything for me. The bugaboo of a
star—being off the screen for any length of time—she flouted for my
sake. She left her work to go abroad with me, helping me in my pur-
suit of health.” Hurrell made this portrait in the fall of 1933, shortly
after Thalberg and Shearer had returned to Culver City.

film stars. She was good-humored about her misadventures in O P P OSI TE: Hurrell was justifiably proud of the portrait he made
of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on June 6, 1933. “She was warm,
photography. “For a lady who was through with photographs,”
outgoing, and bright,” remembered Hurrell. “She had a genuine
she smiled, “I seem to be doing pretty well.” Hurrell quickly interest in other people.”

exposed the plates, and Mrs. Roosevelt took her leave. “A few OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: Jean Harlow had a backyard
weeks later,” recalled Hurrell, “I received a note saying that she tan when she reported to the standing sets from Dinner at Eight
to work with Hurrell. This was the gown that Harlow wore to the
thought the photographs were some of the best ever taken eponymous dinner party, but this was not the mood of that scene;
of her.” she and Hurrell were dreaming up poses to ignite the pages of
Photoplay. These shots were exposed with only one light; Hurrell
Hurrell shot more freelance actors for Helen Ferguson but
used no fill light.
only an occasional M-G-M actor. The studio was ignoring him.
Hurrell’s famous flowing-hair effect evolved gradually. “I was trying
Bull was shooting more sittings, and Strickling had brought to get something with a sexy quality to it,” said Hurrell, “so the first
in a New York photographer named Harvey White, who was thing I would do was put the girl on her back. But she couldn’t have
her hair under her head. They had to brush it back, with the hair
shooting Jean Harlow for Dinner at Eight. White’s work was flying out. That’s where that thing came from.”
excellent, and as sexy as Hurrell’s, but the artist was troubled.
PAG E 1 3 0 : A 1933 Hurrell portrait of Joan Crawford.
“Harvey came to M-G-M after I left,” said Hurrell. “He was
PAGE 1 31 : Joan Crawford had a career breakthrough in late 1933
damn good. He did his best work on Harlow, but he had a prob- with David O. Selznick’s production of Dancing Lady. This back-
lem. He was an alcoholic. He’d get stewed and sit on the steps stage musical became known as M-G-M’s “100 percent commercial
picture.” Hurrell’s Dancing Lady portraits are among his best.
of Howard Strickling’s office, singing and shouting. Finally, L. B.

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 Mayer passed by and saw this, and that was the end of Harvey
White. They wouldn’t even credit him.”
Producer David O. Selznick decided that he needed
more images of Harlow to sell Dinner at Eight, so Strickling
called Hurrell to M-G-M in June. Hurrell saw that Harlow
had acquired a suntan in her garden. The tanned girl who car-
ried her navy blouse and white satin gown to the standing set
from Dinner at Eight was not the wisecracking doll she had
portrayed three months earlier. “When you got her alone, she
became sweet and shy,” said Hurrell. “It was like she didn’t
have to be ‘Jean Harlow’ anymore.”
Jean Harlow was her mother’s maiden name. It had
replaced her own, Harlean Carpenter, when she started acting.
Even the most disinterested onlooker could see symbiosis
in Harlow’s relationship with her mother, Jean Bello. The
mother was a frustrated actress who lived through—and
off—her overly dependent daughter. Hurrell was acquainted
with Jean Bello. “She had will,” he said. “She had willpower,
and the Baby didn’t.” The only resistance Harlow put up was
when her mother’s husband, an oily con man named Marino
Bello, became obstreperous. Then Harlow would seek refuge
in gambling, drinking, or sexual adventures. Her mother tried
to monitor the drinking. Harlow was resourceful. “I’m not
going to drink around her,” she said, “but I am going to drink.”
One place where she could drink was at Hurrell’s studio.
Knowing that he did not countenance interference, she went
to the studio alone.
The session commenced with her navy blouse. It con-
tinued with gin, which Hurrell shared. Inspired by the Muse
and fueled by the gin, he shot the most erotic sitting of his
career. He accomplished it with a line of talk that would have
shocked Sigmund Freud. There was no M-G-M stenographer
there to transcribe it, but secondhand reports say that he
painted word-pictures of Harlow’s sexual fantasies.

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 The photos created a sensation. Hurrell’s client load
increased dramatically. Mary Pickford introduced Hurrell to
her studio, United Artists, and to her director, Frank Borzage.
When Hurrell attended a party at Borzage’s house, he met a
beautiful brunette who had once been chosen “Miss Seattle”
by Rudolph Valentino. Her name was Katherine Cuddy. By
the end of the summer, she and Hurrell had eloped to Santa
Barbara. Before the newlyweds could enjoy a real honeymoon,
Hurrell was swamped with work. Joan Crawford was making a
comeback with a new musical, and Norma Shearer had come
back from Europe with a new wardrobe. The studios were
enjoying a resurgence in ticket sales and could afford Hurrell’s
fees. He had just enough time to find a home for himself and
Katherine at 8254 Fountain Avenue. Maggie Ettinger and Hel-
en Ferguson continued to push him. A Movie Mirror article,
“The Camera Does Lie,” called him “Hollywood’s youthful
wizard.” By December, he had shot fifteen more Metro stars.
Every week he put a new enlargement in the window of Hur-
rell Photography, and Hollywood watched 8706 Sunset with
growing interest.

L E F T A N D O P P OS I T E : Hurrell and Crawford did several

sessions at the time of Dancing Lady. “Crawford had that kind of
photographically perfect face,” said Hurrell. “You could light her
from almost any angle and it would work.”

OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: In September 1933, Crawford

was living a real-life romance on the set of a movie. She was in
love with her Dancing Lady costar, Franchot Tone. Hurrell made
this study of them in her living room.

Crawford struck this pose in a setting that had little to do with

Dancing Lady. The staircase was something Hurrell found on
an adjoining soundstage. It had been used as the entrance to a
nightclub in the Harlow film Hold Your Man. “I liked shooting on
sets,” said Hurrell, “because you had new things to work with.”

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 THE HURRELL STYLE

In late 1933 George Hurrell gained a generous new client. makes a star. “Sam spent millions,” said Hurrell. “But nobody
Samuel Goldwyn was known as the prince of independent went to see Anna Sten.” They did see his photos of Sten, which
producers. He released finely crafted films like Arrowsmith and were stylish.
Street Scene through United Artists, yet he envied M-G-M for What Hurrell was accomplishing was not merely stylish; it
Garbo and Paramount for Dietrich. He was determined to cre- was a new style. Moving to 8706 Sunset had initiated another
ate his own exotic star. In April 1932 he imported Anna Sten, period of artistic expression. Hurrell’s fourth period of work
a Ukrainian Swedish actress who had renounced her Soviet was distinguished by the effortless look of his images and the
citizenship to work for the UFA Studios in Berlin. Goldwyn seamless integration of unique effects. Gone were the urgency
coaxed Ruth Harriet Louise out of retirement to make Sten’s and experimentation of his Verito days. His boisterous self-
first American portraits. The actress was subjected to English confidence had mellowed into an unspoken self-assurance. Each
lessons, drama coaching, screen tests, and halting interviews, sitting followed a graceful arc. Each was tailored to the subject,
but no project eventuated until August 1933, when she finally yet had a consistent polish. Because Hurrell had his own studio
began filming a bowdlerized version of Émile Zola’s Nana. he could evolve his art without interference or interruption.
Then Goldwyn brought in Hurrell. “We make Ann a star,” Hurrell’s trademark effects included: shooting a subject upside
Goldwyn said proudly. down on the floor so that her cascading tresses seemed to fly
Hurrell found “Anoushka” Sten easy to work with and up; an occasional “Dutch tilt” to throw vertical lines zanily out
remarkably photogenic. “Anoushka’s face could be entirely of plumb; using only one light, a spotlight, to shoot a subject
changed by lighting,” he said. “Lights from different directions against a white wall; elongated eyelash shadows; the placement
painted different pictures on her features. Her face was like
a canvas.” After Crawford and Shearer, Sten was his most-
O P P OSI TE: Samuel Goldwyn was determined to turn Anna Sten
photographed subject of 1933. “I took hundreds of exposures into the next Garbo. One man’s obsession became another man’s
of her,” said Hurrell. “And Sam was a funny guy. He had a great income, and Hurrell finished 1933 in fine shape. This portrait was
made to publicize her debut film, Dorothy Arzner’s Nana, which was
big office, and he’d spread her pictures out on the floor. Sixty
released in 1934.
or seventy big prints. And then he’d walk around, trying to
OVERLEAF, LEFT TO RIGHT: Hurrell’s 1934 portraits of Shearer
think of how to make her a star.” After two years of hyperbole, were formal, precise, and sometimes a little intimidating.
Sten’s debut in Nana was a cruel disappointment. She was an
Hurrell painted nimbuses of light on the sprayed stucco wall of his
accomplished actress but lacked that intangible something that studio for this portrait of Mary Pickford.

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 of the boom light so that it shone down from behind, or down and she would deftly move her palm or her fingers a fraction
the part in the subject’s hair, or onto the cheekbones; a spot- of an inch without altering the whole effect.” Inside 8706
light shining up from the floor; lead retouching to lighten the Sunset, clients surrendered to Hurrell’s taste and abided by
iris of the eye; a tiny dot of retouching “opaque” to enlarge the his judgment.
specular highlight in each eye; and using a spotlight instead of a Hurrell was a one-man band but he was not solipsistic. He
soft light as the fill. studied the work of other artists, especially the elegant George
Except for manufacturing film, Hurrell controlled every as- Hoyningen-Huene and Cecil Beaton, who frequently visited
pect of his work. He was known, for example, for his attention Hollywood, photographing stars for Vanity Fair and Vogue.
to the subject’s wardrobe. Prior to every sitting he conducted a Hurrell shot them both. Beaton had done a noteworthy portrait
consultation and recommended specific clothing. “Personally of Shearer in 1930, using spotlights and cellophane. Hurrell
I like blue and white, or a black and white contrast in gowns,” liked the effect, so he ordered rolls of the stuff and posed numer-
he said. “Printed materials detract from the face.” Once the ous subjects in front of it: Jean Parker, Carole Lombard, Paulette
correct garment was chosen, he carefully arranged the folds Goddard, and Ethel Merman. When asked about the cellophane
in its fabric and the fingers on each hand. Some models could years later, he laughed, “We had a run on it.” It was typical of
do it themselves. “If I posed Jean Harlow in a certain attitude him to transform a design element into a signature effect.
that did not look quite right in my camera,” recalled Hurrell, “I Hurrell was also fond of his sprayed stucco wall. When
would say, for instance, ‘Change the position of your left hand,’ Wallace Beery came directly from the dusty sets of Viva Villa! he

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 O P P OS I T E , L E F T TO R I G H T: “Wallace Beery projected
so much,” recalled Hurrell in 1969. “He was the kind of guy who
would be ideal today for the motor drive because he kept up
this action. He never stopped. He couldn’t hold still. He liked me
’cause I was so fast!”

This sheet music for the theme song from the David O. Selznick
production of Jack Conway’s epic Viva Villa! shows one of the
many ways in which Hurrell’s images were used.

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Eddie Cantor was a big

moneymaker for Samuel Goldwyn Pictures, but the independent
studio had no portrait gallery, as such. It only had a stills depart-
ment, which was headed by the unit photographer Kenneth Al-
exander. Goldwyn grabbed Hurrell and got him to shoot Cantor.

Paulette Goddard was a “Goldwyn Girl,” one of the chorines

who both decorated and enlivened his films. When Hurrell put
her against this cellophane background, she had just been
signed by Charles Chaplin.

Mae Clarke posed for Hurrell when she was making a comeback
after the nervous breakdown that followed her successes in
Frankenstein and Waterloo Bridge.

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 OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: Dorothy Lamour was appear- director, Elwood Whitney, sat grinning gleefully in the background,”
ing mostly in sarongs and in period clothes in Paramount films, so said Hurrell, “because Carole and I both sounded like lunatics
Hurrell had her wear contemporary clothes. with our yelling and wild antics. She assumed this pose after only
a few suggestions. Except for changing the angle of her head and
William Powell, like Wallace Beery and Jeanette MacDonald, had maneuvering the overhead light to suit me, I thought the whole
been cut loose by a studio that did not know how to use him. Then attitude was good. I made half a dozen other exposures following
M-G-M picked him up and created a breezy new character, the this one, and then I made two close-ups, thus ending this part of
one he played in The Thin Man. “Bill hated stiff poses,” said Hurrell. the sitting, which took about ten minutes. I knew the first shot was
“He’d been photographed soberly too often, especially when play- the one I would like the best. The others I made for the sake of va-
ing ‘heavies’ early in his career. So I put on hot swing music and riety, and, of course, there is always the chance that you will arrive
hollered and danced and tore my hair, breaking him up time after at something better if you keep trying.” Hurrell made it sound easy;
time.” Still, Powell’s best portraits were subdued, conveying gentle it was not. He was inspired by a gifted subject, so the manipulation
strength. of two boom lights, a cellophane background, and a monstrously
heavy camera were nothing to him.
O P P OS I T E : Hurrell was so proud of this 1934 portrait of Carole
Lombard that he asked Esquire magazine to showcase it in a 1938 ABOVE: The East Indian classical dancer Ram Gopal was photo-
feature article about him and his work. As Hurrell recounted it, graphed by Hurrell in February 1938 to publicize a concert series
the portrait was made for Lux soap. “The advertising agency’s art at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

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 was still in costume and, as always, anxious to leave. “I put him
up against the wall,” said Hurrell, “and shot seventy-two poses
in forty-five minutes!” Many of these poses were out of focus,
but M-G-M used them anyway. Just as many, though, were
excellent. Hurrell liked that sprayed stucco so well that his next
apartment, 1332 1⁄4 North Miller Drive, had the same look.
In 1934 the Great Depression lightened. Americans
began returning to the movies. Hollywood was flush again, and
Hurrell doubled his fee, from $250 to $500 a sitting. Howard
Strickling gulped and continued to book sessions, sometimes
more than two a day. “One day I made fifteen hundred dollars!”
Hurrell recalled. Strickling would call when the studio had a
new actress who needed a different look.
Rosalind Russell was considered “horsey.” When she
finished J. Walter Ruben’s Trouble for Two, she was driven to
Hurrell’s studio by a publicist, “along with a load of evening
dresses, turbans, veils, and earrings.” Years later she could still
remember that the session lasted until seven in the evening and
that after she changed back into her tweed suit, the publicist
had the bright idea of walking down the street to the Trocadero
nightclub—where every other woman was wearing satin.

A B OV E R I G H T: Clifton Webb came to Hollywood in May

1935 with eighteen trunks, twenty-two handbags, and his mother,
Maybelle, expecting to appear in a Joan Crawford film tentatively
titled Elegance. After waiting eight months to rehearse with Craw-
ford, Webb was disappointed to see the project canceled.

R I G H T: Hurrell photographed Edward Weston and his wife, Cha-

ris, in Carmel, California, in 1936. “I admired his work,” said Hurrell
in 1980. “I still think that he’s the only great artist in the history of
photography. He was a purist. He was a technician. You name it
and he was it.”

O P P OS I T E : Jeanette MacDonald had a session with Hurrell

in early 1935. She had just completed W. S. Van Dyke’s Naughty
Marietta with her new costar, Nelson Eddy. Hurrell revisited the
sexiness of MacDonald’s earlier films and avoided the coyness of
her later work.

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 Louis B. Mayer accosted her and said, “You’re a wonderful
girl but you represent yourself as a cold New England woman.”
This was why she was getting the Hurrell treatment.
Jeanette MacDonald had been the “lingerie queen” in a
series of sophisticated Paramount films made by the masterly
Ernst Lubitsch, but after signing her, M-G-M could not find
the right look for her; she had a prognathous jaw. It was left
to Hurrell to find her best angles. He elicited a combination
of operetta grandness and sultry seductiveness. MacDonald’s
spark of stardom was ignited. So was Russell’s. This was the
oft-invoked “star quality.” Hurrell knew that it existed. When
he photographed socialites, he could make them look attractive,
but he could not make them glow from within. That was the
intangible thing that made a star. That was glamour. MacDonald
and Russell had it. “Those gals were products of that period,”
said Hurrell. “After somebody coined the word glamour, they
thought that way and they felt that way. They developed that
thing. They projected that quality. You’d see them at parties, for
instance, cocktail parties, just idle things, but when they’d come
through the door, they wouldn’t just walk through it. They’d
arrive. I never saw anything like it. It was as if they had internal
trumpets that blew just as the door opened.”
By 1935 Hurrell was getting regular referrals from every
studio but Fox Film and Warner Bros. Fox was in a state of tur-
moil and Jack Warner was too cheap to pay for portraits outside
his own gallery. Warner’s attitude was one reason why his head
of production, Darryl F. Zanuck, had left in April 1933. Zanuck,
who was second only to Irving Thalberg as a brilliant produc-
tion chief, started his own company, Twentieth Century Pictures.
The legendary Harry Brand was its head of publicity and threw
a great deal of work to Hurrell. In May 1935, Zanuck merged
Twentieth Century with the Fox Film Corporation. Soon Hur-
rell was getting even more calls from Brand. Twentieth Century-
Fox had the temperamental Simone Simon, the precocious

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 OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell liked putting statu-
ary or flowers in the upper left corner of the frame, as in this
study of Jeanette MacDonald. “I was always fighting myself to
keep from being stereotyped. I was always trying to think, ‘Let’s
see, this time you gotta do it differently. Eliminate that top light,
or just put cross-lights. Keep things lively, keep them alive.’”

Hurrell also began experimenting with multiple exposures, as in

this portrait of Merle Oberon.

TH I S PAGE: Robert Taylor was another player that M-G-M

was not sure what to do with. Then a loan-out to Universal for
Magnificent Obsession made him a hot property. It was time
for the Hurrell treatment. “I lit men differently,” said Hurrell.
“With much more definite front light. I would first get them to
feel natural. Not slouching or falling apart, though. You had to
remember that there were a million women out there waiting to
see this picture, so he’s got to look good. Because these gals are
thinking, ‘If I can just get my hands on that guy!’”

O P P OSI TE : “Bob Taylor wasn’t the ambitious type,” said Hur-

rell. “He was never up there at the front office, fighting for roles.
And he was very casual about his good looks. He just liked being
at his ranch. He was a delightful guy.”

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 OPPOSITE: When Rosalind
Russell came to M-G-M in 1934, it
was apparent that she was smarter
than the average starlet and not in-
terested in being glamorous. “I wasn’t
a sex symbol and never could be,”
she wrote years later. “I was always a
character actress.” Her self-possession
did not deter M-G-M from giving her
the Hurrell treatment, as this portrait
indicates.

L E F T: Hurrell made portraits of

Tallulah Bankhead in 1936 to publicize
the West Coast opening of a play
called Reflected Glory.

Shirley Temple, the sunny Alice Faye, the sinuous Dolores Del hit it off. “She was a disciplined pro,” said Hurrell. “I don’t
Rio, and, last but not least, Loretta Young. think we ever repeated a pose.”
“Loretta Young was one of the most inventive subjects that Pancho Barnes had brought Ramon Novarro to Hurrell,
I ever shot,” said Hurrell. “She always had exciting ideas about and Joan Crawford had brought the younger actress Gail Patrick
the way she should be shot. She had radiance.” Young was to watch a Hurrell session, but Loretta Young went them one
barely twenty-three but a veteran of more than sixty films, so better. The unit still photographer on her films at Twentieth
she knew a few things about being photographed. “I saw some was named Frank Powolny. He kept asking Young if he could
pictures of his when he had his gallery on Sunset,” recalled do portraits of her. Finally she agreed, but only if he could do a
Young, “and I thought they were gorgeous.” At the time, Young certain kind of photography. “Just take a look at those Hurrell
was being photographed by the in-house portraitist Eugene things,” she told Powolny. “That’s how I want to look.” It was
Kornmann. She went to Harry Brand and told him: “The next a tall order, to be sure, but Powolny was able to satisfy her. He
sitting I have, I want to go to George Hurrell.” She did and they had to. She could not always get Twentieth to pay Hurrell’s fees.

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 And yet there was no one like him. “What I liked about the way he rented a studio on the mezzanine of the Sherry-Netherland
he photographed was the way he made you look so glamorous,” Hotel. He also shot fashion for Bergdorf-Goodman and ad-
she recalled years later. “And your skin looked so shiny. I know vertising for Elizabeth Arden. The vacation lasted two months,
the secret. He was the first man who said that he didn’t want any and, when he grew vague about a return date, Strickling began
makeup. You used to put a little oil on your face and that was all. interviewing photographers. “Howard looked at one fellow’s
You could wear eye makeup if you wanted to, but no greasepaint. portfolio,” said M-G-M photographer Ted Allan. “His name
Your skin in the photo looked like you could touch it. It didn’t
look like chalk. It looked like skin.”
Less than three years after opening his own studio, Hurrell A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Sonja Henie was a Norwegian ice
skater who became an Olympic champion and then, improbably,
was the most sought-after photographer in Hollywood. He was
a movie star. It helped that she was shrewd in business and very
averaging fifty sittings a year. But if his energy was inexhaustible, photogenic.

his patience was not. The old restlessness was back. “Familiar-
A Hurrell portrait of Dolores Del Rio made in 1937.
ity breeds contempt” was admittedly one of his pet theories. He
O P P OSI TE : This portrait of Myrna Loy was made for the March
had to calm himself, though, because this was one job he could
1935 issue of Vanity Fair. “You look at those old studio portraits,”
not quit. It helped his moodiness if he got out of town, so in wrote Loy in 1987, “and you say: ‘My God! Were there people that
really looked like that?’ Scrupulous attention was given to achiev-
August 1935 he took Katherine to New York for a short vaca-
ing an ideal of beauty. It was considered a treasured, wonderful
tion. The cream of Gotham society demanded portraits, and thing.”

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 was Stephen McNulty. They didn’t know when—or if—George had to do was go to some friend’s house,” he said, “and boom,
was coming back. So they hired this McNulty. Come to find out there was a big gathering. But I didn’t like standing around. I
he was a male model and this portfolio was something he’d got preferred, if I had to get drunk, to sit down with a friend or two
together from all his pals’ portfolios. He gave himself away by and get drunk. I’d just play at it and keep chattering away, being
putting oil in a lens to make it ‘shoot faster.’ Metro lost a lens non compos mentis about things you didn’t even want to talk
and he lost his job.” about.” Interestingly enough, the few stars with whom Hurrell
Meanwhile, Hurrell was in Ensenada, shooting the locals socialized liked fishing, not drinking. There was Johnny Weiss-
with Ted Cook, a Los Angeles Examiner columnist. Hurrell had muller, with whom Hurrell would go to Mexico, and Robert
gone there to paint landscapes, but he met Cook, stopped paint- Taylor, who enjoyed fishing more than acting. “We would gab,
ing, and started shooting. When Joan Crawford started clamor- not about the studio, but about where the salmon were running,”
ing for portraits, the vacation ended. In January 1936 Hurrell recalled Hurrell.
took time off and drove to Carmel to visit a new friend, the pho- When Hurrell came back to earth, there was much to be
tographer Edward Weston. “He was an artist,” said Hurrell in grateful for. By 1937 he had been accepted into International
1980. “He knew composition. He had an innate quality. I can’t Photographers, Local 659. Its house organ, International
think of any other photographer who had it, including the great Photographer magazine, voiced the sentiments of the film capital
Steichen. Now Steichen had a semblance of greatness about him, when it described Hurrell as “one of the ace portrait photogra-
in a different vein, but he didn’t have that simple quality that Ed phers of the day.”
had. I think of Weston as just so great, instinctively. No matter
what he did, no matter how he approached it, nobody could
match him. Everything that he did had an original quality to it.”
In May Hurrell went back to Mexico. In July he returned OVERLEAF, LEFT TO RIGHT: Hurrell did glamour poses of Bar-
bara Stanwyck in 1937 for Esquire, yet his favorite from the sitting
to New York, where he signed a contract to supply Esquire was a killed shot. “I played romantic music that went with her
with one Hollywood glamour portrait per month. Back in Los rather ethereal mood that day,” recalled Hurrell.

Angeles, he spent weekends shooting abstracts with Ted Cook. Hurrell shot Loretta Young for Love Is News in 1937. “She had an
This work was exhibited in April 1937 at the Chouinard Art attitude about posing,” said Hurrell, “a vigorous, energetic quality,
a feeling of excitement, of turning on expressions. Loretta knew
Institute. On the day after the opening, the two artists headed that she had to have a sparkle in her facial expression, and she
for Ixcatepec. worked at that.”

If Hurrell could not escape the pressures of work with OPPOSITE: Betty Grable was years away from stardom at Twen-
travel, painting, or fine-art photography, he partied. “All you tieth Century-Fox when Hurrell made this 1937 Paramount portrait.

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 THE ICONS

By the late 1930s, the word glamour had gained currency in the American actresses Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard,
connection with motion-picture stars. In years to come, jour- and Jean Harlow had been inducted into the pantheon. These
nalists, essayists, and historians would refer to movie stars Hurrell subjects are bona fide icons. Hurrell would later claim
as “screen queens,” “love goddesses,” and “superstars.” It was that he gave an equal amount of effort to every subject, yet there
not until the 1970s, however, when journalist John Kobal was were some who simply made better photographs.
writing about Hollywood portrait photography, that the word “There were only a few who possessed that indefinable
icon was used to describe a movie star. “The people in these quality,” wrote Norma Shearer years later. “They had an aura,
photographs are not real people,” Kobal said in a 1974 interview. something that set them apart. They were special. They glit-
“They are icons. In those Depression days, stars had to be re- tered. We have no new Hepburn or Harlow or Crawford. After
moved from reality, from anything that had to do with mundane them, they broke the mold. They were young, but they were not
everyday life. It was as if the gods were stepping down from afraid to portray women who had lived and loved. They were
Mount Olympus to momentarily deal with mortal problems.” not afraid to be different. Each star was beautiful and glamorous
In the course of his research, Kobal interviewed George in her own individual way.”
Hurrell numerous times, and, as we shall see, passed many Hurrell had been commissioned to shoot Katharine Hep-
hours with him. Yet Kobal never learned that the artist had for burn for a magazine feature on Paul Flato jewels. “I had never
years been exposed to religious icons. Hurrell had spent his seen anyone quite like Katharine Hepburn before,” recalled
childhood as an altar boy, looking up at life-size, lifelike plaster Hurrell. He was accustomed to stars who arrived with an en-
saints. The statues situated around the sanctuary were typi- tourage or at least with a stylist, but Hepburn showed up alone.
cally illuminated by candles from below and by spotlights from “She came striding into my studio in slacks and a corduroy coat,
above. Thus, the glistening bounce light in Norma Shearer’s carrying a black velvet evening dress over one arm.”
eyes is reminiscent of the sparkle on the glass eyes in a statue of “It will take me only a moment to change,” said Hepburn
the Blessed Virgin. And, just as the most memorable representa- as she ducked into the dressing room. Hurrell was just setting
tions of the Virgin are both universal and particular, Hurrell’s his lights when she bounded into the shooting area. “I’m ready,”
greatest work in his fourth period was accomplished with
subjects whose appeal transcended individual characterizations; O P P OSI TE: Katharine Hepburn brought a whirlwind of energy
to Hurrell’s studio. “She’s such a spontaneous personality, a glib
in other words, stars who were immensely popular—and who,
extrovert,” said Hurrell. “She talks and talks. She’s amusing when
defying the passage of time, have remained so. By the 1990s, she’s chattering away.”

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 she said. “Where do you want me? I think maybe if I sat in a Hurrell. “She was a real professional. Whatever you asked her to
chair where I would be comfortable, it might be better. I don’t do, it was always fine with her.” Lombard was often compared
like being photographed, so it helps if I can have some support to Garbo because of her classical beauty and her ability to turn
to my back.” mannered poses into sincere expressions of emotion. “Carole
Hurrell was still using music to draw out his subject. Lombard has a knack for striking poses that are stately and
Hepburn talked over his records. Hurrell played a 1935 song, graceful without being artificial,” Hurrell said in 1939. “Or-
“Lulu’s Back in Town.” Hepburn listened for a moment and dinarily I don’t like the poses of actresses, but I like Carole’s.”
then said, “Don’t you have anything more up to date?” Hurrell Lombard understood lighting. No star was 100 percent camera-
tried “Slumming on Park Avenue.” It amused Hepburn. Hurrell proof and each had learned what angle to avoid. Lombard had a
got a few shots, and then, before he knew it, Hepburn was at the slight scar on her left cheek, the result of an automobile accident.
front door, waving good-bye. Hurrell looked at Al St. Hilaire, She also had a strong jaw, which she trusted Hurrell to minimize.
and they both said, “Whew!”
Hurrell worked numerous times with Carole Lombard.
O P P OSI TE: Carole Lombard knew that George Hurrell was
Like Norma Shearer, she was conversant in lenses, filters, and
making her look glamorous, but there was no word for this type of
lighting. Unlike that star, Lombard was content to let the artist image until the 1970s, when John Kobal popularized the term icon.

direct the session; but she was a superb model, endlessly inven-
ABOVE: Hurrell made these portraits of Carole Lombard for
tive and enthusiastic. “She never gave me any trouble,” said general publicity in 1937.

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 A B OV E : Carole Lombard looks cool in this photo, but “Georgie” O P P OSI TE: Here is the finished product of the setup at left, a
is visibly warm. “If I have a special talent,” said Hurrell, “maybe it’s 1937 portrait of Carole Lombard.
because I work hard at it and try my damnedest. It’s mostly sweat.”

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 “I have to use a top light with her,” he said, “because a flat light divorces, and one husband’s death. To Hurrell, she was “just
would emphasize her jaw and that’s one thing she is particular a big, healthy, happy girl.” Behind this carefree facade was a
about. But she’s a lot of fun to work with.” conflicted child-woman. “Jean used to come into my dressing
The fun was not only in the artistry. Sometimes Lombard room,” recalled Jeanette MacDonald. “She had the one next to
would bring her fiancé, Clark Gable, with her, and then she’d mine. She was a very unhappy young girl. She always played
tease him. “She could swear so fast a truck driver couldn’t keep
up with her,” recalled Hurrell. “Gable got so embarrassed that O P P OSI TE AN D ABOVE: This cluttered shooting room was
he’d turn red in the face. The more he tried to get her to quit, the not Hurrell’s; it was the gallery at Paramount Pictures. The finished
images betray nothing of this mundane setting.
more she’d swear, just to aggravate him. She had him wrapped
around her little finger.” Lombard had learned in her adoles- OVERLEAF: Hurrell made this series of portraits to publicize Wil-
liam K. Howard’s 1936 comedy-mystery The Princess Comes Across.
cence to use profanity to ward off mashers. With colleagues like
In it, Carole Lombard plays a Brooklyn actress trying to crash
Hurrell, it was in fun and it never interfered with the work. Hollywood by pretending to be a Swedish princess. Lombard was
often compared to Garbo or Dietrich, so in this film she took the re-
If any star was an icon, it was the instantly recognizable
semblance all the way, as these photos indicate, in a good-natured
Jean Harlow. By 1934, she was a veteran of fifteen features, two spoof of the exotic star phenomenon.

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 such sluts on the screen. Really, she was one of the first so-called boycott forced the studios to accept a reconstituted Production
‘immoral creatures.’ At heart she was a young, naïve, nice girl Code and appoint him head of an enforcement office, the Pro-
who was being exploited by the studio and really wanted to be duction Code Administration (PCA). This was in July. By Au-
just somebody’s wife. That’s what she told me.” This conflict gust, when Harlow’s film was released, it had gone through four
could be seen in Harlow’s portraits. When she turned off the titles, been rewritten and partially reshot, and was called The
sex allure and became soulful, her expressions were a little too Girl from Missouri. Hurrell would also be affected, since sugges-
sad. Still, she enjoyed the sexy poses. tive advertising art was also forbidden. The white-hot Harlow
In the spring of 1934, Harlow was filming Born to Be that Hurrell had created would soon be a fading memory.
Kissed, and Hurrell was engaged to shoot poster art. This time, In keeping with Hollywood’s newfound propriety, M-G-M
he convinced her to go as far as partial nudity. She did not decided to modify Harlow’s image. Hurrell had done a dignified
require much convincing. In fact, she would sometimes disrobe sitting with Harlow in July, but her scoop-necked white dress
without warning. “She’d come in with something just wrapped was still too revealing. A series of sittings was scheduled for late
around her,” said Hurrell, “and then, ‘accidentally’ drop it. September and early October. The first to photograph her, on
That was her entrance. That was her way of saying, ‘Let’s do September 24, was Russell Ball. His home layout was intended
some pictures here, man.’” This was different from Mae West’s to publicize Jean Bello’s latest decorating spree. In control again,
nudity, which was planned for one part of the session. “Harlow Mrs. Bello managed three more home sittings. The next was by
would just drop her dress and be nude underneath,” recalled a woman photographer from Seattle named Gene Hanner, who
Hurrell. “Not in a seductive way; she just had no shame or shot Christmas art on the morning of October 18. In the after-
inhibition about her body.” If Hurrell did shoot nude photos noon, Hurrell showed up to shoot Harlow with the same hairdo
(or seminude, which Harvey White had done), they were never but different gowns.
used by Howard Strickling and the publicity department; they There was a reason for this piggyback shoot. Strickling
were not even seen by them. Shooting this kind of material was had finally managed to get a full page for Harlow in Vanity Fair.
part of the ritual established by Harlow and Hurrell. “Harlow After this superb photograph was published, everyone wanted a
was not frightened of the camera,” said Hurrell. “She reacted to portrait with a polar-bear rug. Hurrell had to buy one. “I actu-
it, and in some strange way, I was the third party. They were the ally began to hate the popularity of that rug,” said Hurrell. “I
conspirators.” thought it was artificial.” Still, he was proud of having his work
Born to Be Kissed ran into trouble with Joseph I. Breen. The appear in Vanity Fair, and pleased with the image of Jean it pre-
new head of the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) was orches- sented. “My inspiration for the lighting of that shot came when I
trating a grassroots campaign against “immoral movies” and his posed her in front of the fireplace.”
ally, the Legion of Decency, had singled out West, Shearer, and
Harlow. “The heat is really turned on the industry,” Harlow O P P OSI TE: Hurrell coaxed a mysterious look from Jean Harlow
in this portrait for Dinner at Eight publicity. “At her age, Harlow
wrote her friend Stanley Brown. “But it isn’t turned on where it
wanted fun and youthful excitement,” said Hurrell. “Being the great
should be turned on.” Breen soon took care of that. A national actress didn’t make much difference.”

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 More photos were needed. Hurrell returned to 214 South
Beverly Glen Boulevard a few days later, for Harlow’s fourth
shoot in less than a month. No one complained, then or later.
“It was always a joy to have a sitting with her,” he said, “because
you never stopped laughing. I didn’t have to fall on my face for
her.” The concept of this shoot was to make Harlow look con-
templative, almost austere, so three classic-looking gowns were
chosen. The first was of white ribbed crepe. Hurrell set up
portable flats in the kitchen, and then pulled a hassock from the
living room and put a lime-green sofa cushion on it. Then he
posed Harlow in a series of meditative attitudes. Harlow next
donned a velour gown of forest green, and Hurrell began to
shoot more moody images. He swung his boom light over her
head, creating precise shadows. She changed to black velvet
and the images became more abstract. “She was very sensi-
tive to suggestions,” recalled Hurrell. When Hurrell worked
with her in May 1935, it was the last time he shot her as the
Platinum Blonde. Hurrell shot her at his studio in a wig from
Reckless and a gown from China Seas, and then as he preferred
O P P OS I T E : This portrait was made in the spring of 1935 her—supine. A month later, M-G-M softened Harlow’s look
with a hairstyle from Reckless and a gown from China Seas.
still further. When Hurrell next photographed her, for Irving
Note the shadow patterns cast by the boom light. “My style is
designing,” said Hurrell. “If a portrait doesn’t have a design or Thalberg’s production of Riffraff, she was wearing a lackluster
a composition, it doesn’t have strength in the face. That’s why I
“brownette” wig.
use spotlights.”
In 1936 no one in Hollywood believed in death. “We were
A B OV E : “Harlow was spirited and loved having a good time,”
talented,” said Hurrell. “We were working. We were making
said Hurrell. “She held the unofficial dice record at the Agua
Caliente Casino in Mexico, with thirty-four straight passes.” money and assumed it would always be so. We didn’t fret and
worry about it. We were too busy being alive. We were the chil-
dren of the gods.” On September 14, 1936, Irving G. Thalberg,
age thirty-seven, succumbed to pneumonia. The “Boy Wonder”
had spent the last three years of his life as an independent pro-
ducer, making some of the most profitable and acclaimed films
of his career, many of which starred his wife.

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 In March 1937, Harlow turned twenty-
six. To the world, her life looked blithe and
privileged, but it was laced with frustration and
resentment. One evening Rosalind Russell began
to admire Harlow’s famous polar bear rug, then
noticed that the bear’s fangs had been damaged.
“What happened to his teeth?” asked Russell.
“I kicked ’em in,” Harlow answered, in a sad
comment on her home life.
Harlow came to Hurrell’s studio for a sitting
that would combine wardrobe from the already
completed Personal Property with wardrobe from
the upcoming Saratoga. As soon as Hurrell saw
her, he knew something was wrong. “I could tell
she wasn’t well,” he recalled. “She looked heavier,
and she faded fast.” The added weight was the
result of bloating. Hurrell dealt with it by shining
a bright light on the background behind her
waist, then opaquing the negative to approximate
her former slimness. He could not disguise her
wan, defeated mood. Less than three months
later, Harlow died of degenerative kidney disease.
A sad postscript occurred when William Powell
called Hurrell. “I hardly recognized his voice,”
recalled Hurrell. “The underlying, mocking tone

OV E R L E A F L E F T TO R I G H T: To make this
October 1934 portrait, Hurrell sat Harlow on her
living room floor and had her lean back on the
cushion of her sofa; none of which explains the
magic of this image.

This portrait was made in 1935 at the fur salon in

the Bullocks Wilshire department store.

LEF T: In many Hurrell portraits, his subjects ap-

pear to be flowers or birds.

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 was gone. He sounded strained and wounded.” Powell asked for ally. She was one star who never, ever believed her publicity. But
a set of prints from the last sitting. Hurrell obliged him. Powell the girl was driven like you’d drive a team of horses. They just
was well-nigh devastated by the passing of the woman whom worked her to death.”
many assumed he would marry. A few months later, Powell had
to be photographed in connection with his latest film, Double
O P P OSI TE: Jean Harlow was in failing health when she posed
Wedding. When he arrived for his appointment, Hurrell was
for Hurrell in April 1937.
shocked at his appearance. He had lost weight and his eyes were
ABOVE: William Powell did not want to be photographed while
still red from weeping. “I genuinely liked Jean,” recalled Hurrell.
he was mourning, but the studio held him to his contract. Hurrell
“Even after she became big box office, she never changed person- was not able to cheer him.

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 THE PATRON

In 1934, after all his success, George Hurrell was still beholden connection with a specific film. The other half were done to
to Norma Shearer. She had taken him from a downtown salon experiment. “Each time, she seemed a different personality or
to the loftiest photo job in Hollywood, and when he had impul- presented me with a different side of her personality,” said Hur-
sively chucked it, she had single-handedly kept him from being rell. “She was never static. Never let herself stagnate. She was
blackballed. She was his patron. She was also a world-famous always thinking ahead.”
figure, an artist who used the acclaim she had won and the Shearer routinely auditioned photographers and cinema-
power she had earned to advance the status of women in film. tographers, grading them on their ability to flatter her. In the
To historian Lewis Jacobs, Shearer was a prototype, “the ultra- portrait gallery, she preferred Hurrell, because she knew what
civilized, sleek and slender, knowing and disillusioned, restless, he could accomplish. Because of him, she was considered one
oversexed and neurotic woman who leads her own life.” To of the great beauties of the 1930s. And she performed for his
San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle, Shearer was camera as she did for the movie camera. Hurrell told Movie Mir-
“something new, a nice young woman who wants sex as much as ror that he never lit Shearer from below, even though generally
a man does, and goes after it.” To coworkers and fans, Shearer this was an effect he liked. “Strangely enough,” wrote Marquis
was “The First Lady of M-G-M.” In the liberal atmosphere of Busby, “it will appear that Norma’s chin is too full, and that her
pre-Breen Hollywood, she had brought her patrician beauty cheeks are chubby, of all things.” She continued to monitor the
to a series of slightly scandalous and highly profitable films: A strabismus in her left eye. Corrective surgery was not a possibil-
Free Soul, Strangers May Kiss, Riptide. “If I just stayed sweet ity, so she used exercise to keep it from wandering. “She knew
and appealing,” said Shearer, “I fear the roles I played would how to handle the eye thing,” said Hurrell, “because she would
be very dull.” When her films began to earn more than Garbo’s, always focus just out there. She could never look at anything
Shearer became a prestige artist, required to make only one close.” The result was a knowing, seductive stare, as much a
a year. Shearer trademark as her sculpted profile.
With so much time off, Shearer needed to occupy herself,
so she reared two children, shopped for film properties, and
O P P OSI TE: In 1935 Shearer was preparing for George Cukor’s
worked with Hurrell to refine her image. Of the sixteen sit-
film of Romeo and Juliet, so she wore fashions that would put her in
tings they did between 1929 and 1936, only half were done in the right frame of mind.

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 With the enforcement of the Production Code, Shearer’s In 1935 Shearer’s work with Hurrell grew increasingly dra-
vehicles assumed a more conservative tone, but her portraits matic. She chose hairstyles and wardrobe that would give her a
continued to personify the modern woman—intelligent, sexu- timeless look, favoring draped velour or black velvet to set off
ally aware, and in control. The control extended to Hurrell. He her bone-white face. Hurrell responded to these challenges with
had to accede to her use of a whiter-than-white makeup known a series of images that were unprecedented in their boldness
as Silver Stone Number One. He also had to allow the use of and sophistication. Indeed, they approached abstraction and
a full-length mirror in the gallery, as well as the questions it transcended the purpose for which they were created. Intended
occasioned. “She worked in front of that mirror so much,” said to prepare Shearer fans for a new film, they assumed their own
Hurrell. “I don’t think she was ever in the dark about how she importance. Each image was a film in itself, telling its own story.
looked in front of the camera.” In these transporting photographs, Hurrell created a firmament
“My experience in silent pictures served me well,” wrote for the star pictured there.
Shearer. “I had learned that you can’t fool the camera. It creeps
up and peeks inside. It sees through you like an X-ray. It discov-
O P P OSI TE: From 1929 to 1936, Norma Shearer and George Hur-
ers your innermost thoughts, so your expressions must be inti-
rell collaborated on a series of extraordinary images.
mate. The trace of a smile, the flicker of an eyelash can transmit
OVERLEAF, LEFT TO RIGHT: An October 1934 portrait of Norma
a chain of thoughts. Irving taught me that no matter what bags
Shearer.
of tricks you’ve accumulated, what comes out of you must be
This 1935 portrait was made with a full-length mirror next to Hur-
real. It must come from the heart.”
rell’s camera. Hurrell was not too keen on this practice.
In pursuit of this artistic verity, Shearer was demanding,
PAGE 186: This is Moonyean, the nineteenth-century girl who is a
both of herself and others. “Norma is a very strong-minded girl,”
ghostly presence in Smilin’ Through.
Thalberg once said. “I have a fierce power of concentration,”
PAGE 187: “You can’t fool the camera,” said Shearer. “It creeps up
concurred Shearer. She could be deadly serious, but she could
and peeks inside.”
also be funny. If the mood in the gallery grew tense, she would
PAGES 188-189: “The trace of a smile, the flicker of an eyelash can
break into a rendition of “When My Baby Smiles at Me.” As
transmit a chain of thoughts,” said Norma Shearer. These portraits
Hurrell remembered, “She ribbed me for years about it.” were made by Hurrell in October 1934.

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 THE MUSE

While George Hurrell was working on the Sunset Strip, virtu- a couple of hours left. Lo and behold, there she was, waiting to
ally every star of the Golden Era came to him for portraits. It have her picture taken. ‘Don’t you like this dress?’ Or ‘Isn’t this
was easier to make a list of who did not. Charles Chaplin, Cary the most adorable hat?’ (She’d been down in wardrobe, carry-
Grant, Lana Turner, and John Wayne never came to Hurrell ing on.) And she came to him because she had this instinct that
Photography, in most cases because of contractual restrictions. these photographs were important to her career.”
There were very few stars Hurrell did not photograph. Yet In 1935 Crawford had been at M-G-M for ten years and
as busy as he was with his cast of thousands, he sometimes had seen stars come and go: John Gilbert; Lillian Gish; William
appeared to have only two clients—Norma Shearer and Joan Haines, her close friend. She knew the inconstancy of fame. If
Crawford. Given his creativity and his need for change, Hur- there was a way to hold on to stardom, she was going to find it.
rell should have grown tired of working with the same people. “The studio didn’t make me a star,” said Crawford. “The public
He did not. These actresses approached their sessions with as did. On Our Dancing Daughters the exhibitors discovered
much enthusiasm as he did. “They made themselves available,” that I was box office. They put my name on the marquee. They
he said. “They liked doing it. They had fun.” gave me star billing. The studio didn’t.” This was true, because
Joan Crawford liked being an actress. She liked making the film was about a trio of girls, but she was the only one of the
glamorous movies. “To walk onto a set at nine in the morning three who became a star. “Joan had begun to show that she was
in a beautiful evening dress,” said Crawford, “perfectly coiffed, an actress,” recalled Norma Shearer. “Audiences weren’t watch-
made up to perfection, with men in dinner jackets, and then
start playing a love scene, that’s pretty exciting.” To walk into O P P OSI TE: Joan Crawford inspired George Hurrell over a
period of sixteen years and thirty-three portrait sessions. She was
Hurrell’s gallery was exciting, too. Why else would she have his muse. “I photographed Crawford literally thousands of times,”
done thirty-three sittings with him in sixteen years? Most of recalled Hurrell. “Each sitting was a new experience for both of us.
For one thing, she constantly altered her appearance, the color of
these were scheduled to publicize a specific film, but many were
her hair, eye makeup, eyebrows, mouth. Yet with all the changes
not. “Sometimes Crawford would show up at the M-G-M gal- there was a classic beauty, a weird kind of spirituality.”

lery at the end of the day,” said Joan Rose, a photo archivist who
OVERLEAF, LEFT TO RIGHT: A portrait of Joan Crawford by
knew Hurrell in his later years. “George had finished shooting George Hurrell, early 1934.

somebody who didn’t like having his picture taken and was out
“Crawford was a natural at posing,” said Hurrell. “She had an
of there by three. And Crawford would know that George had instinctive sense of design and of herself.”

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 L E F T: A 1934 portrait of Crawford made for W. S. Van
Dyke’s Forsaking All Others. “Joan Crawford has the
clearest conception of what it takes to make a photo-
graph interesting,” said Hurrell at the time. “She knows
what to do and when to do it.”

O P P OSITE: A portrait of Crawford made in spring

1934 for Sadie McKee. “In most cases, I’d get the star at
the peak of her expression,” said Hurrell. “At least what
I would figure was the peak. And doing that would give
the face life and excitement.”

ing just those dancing feet. They were watching that fabulous It was said with less-than-total accuracy that Garbo got
face.” Once Crawford discovered what Hurrell could do for the art, Shearer got the production values, and Crawford paid
that face, she became his most loyal client, surpassing even his for them. The M-G-M ledgers would show that the big money
patron. really came from the Marie Dressler, Tarzan, and Jeanette
“I admired her spirit,” said Shearer. “She cared how she MacDonald-Nelson Eddy films. But Crawford believed that her
looked and was willing to fight for what she wanted. She wanted films were underwriting “those mammoth Thalberg produc-
a lot and I’m happy to say she got it. It didn’t take her long to tions that Miss Shearer used to do.” No matter that Shearer’s
catch up to me.” Crawford had envied Shearer’s position at Marie Antoinette came out the year that Crawford’s films were
M-G-M from the beginning. “I tried to watch everything Norma losing money and she was labeled “box-office poison.” Craw-
did,” said Crawford. “She was that wonderful being, a star.” In ford was competing with Shearer and her unlimited access to
time, Crawford’s attitude hardened. “She made no bones about Hurrell. Crawford insisted that Shearer had not really dis-
her jealousy of Norma Shearer,” recalled her then-husband covered him. “Ramon Novarro discovered George Hurrell in
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. “But Norma was unquestionably given Laguna Beach,” said Crawford, who then tried to get more time
most of the plums.” with him than Shearer.

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 “Joan and I ran neck and neck,” recalled Shearer, “even we went to her house,” said Hurrell, “I always started at nine or
though we weren’t running the same course. There should ten in the morning. I brought a truckful of canvas and covered
have been no rivalry, if such there was, as we were completely her white rugs so we couldn’t dirty them.” Her house had been
different in type and temperament. We should have been decorated by William Haines in a white-on-white Georgian
friends, and I wish we had.” In later years, Crawford and Revival style, and Hurrell made ample use of it. “My assistant
Shearer would socialize, but in 1935, even though Thalberg and I would go in and search through the house to see what
was personally producing No More Ladies for Crawford, and would make the best-designed backdrop,” said Hurrell. “We’d
she was dining at their home, she was grimly determined to latch onto some architectural detail like a column or a vase or
monopolize Hurrell. In 1933 he had shot four sittings of her maybe a decoration on the wall. But it had to have the glamour
for one film, Dancing Lady. In 1935 she was determined to set touch. In those days, there was no ‘walk in and shoot ’em in the
some sort of record. There were sessions for No More Ladies, kitchen’ stuff. Everything was selected for shape and for glamour.
for I Live My Life, and a very involved home sitting. “Crawford In terms of design, a chair is as important as a nose.” Whether
would work at it,” recalled Hurrell with a chuckle. Once she it was a chair, a candelabra, or a chaise longue, it could under-
was in front of his camera, politics, competition, and rivalry score a grand pose.
were forgotten. “I loved posing,” said Crawford. “It was hard While Crawford was upstairs dressing, Hurrell (who was
work, but I loved it!” never invited there) would be visualizing his setups. “I would
“She was the most serious,” said Hurrell. “She relished a start out with some kind of different approach before she even
full day’s shooting. She’d put Bing Crosby records on.” arrived,” said Hurrell. “Every time there was a different kind of
“I loved torch songs,” said Crawford. “I was always sad lighting, to a certain extent, or different background or poses. In
listening to Bing Crosby’s records.” a sense, she used this opportunity to present a new image, one
“Once when I was photographing her on the set of a pic- that might possibly work for her screen personality.” Hurrell
ture,” recalled Hurrell, “we had to stop so she could listen to a was working with Al St. Hilaire and a new Eastman Kodak film,
Bing Crosby broadcast. There was no radio on the set, so her Super Sensitive Pan film. It let him shoot at exposures as short
limousine was wheeled in. Joan tuned in the program on the as a tenth of a second. He had to be fast. When Crawford came
car’s radio and sat and listened until it was over.” downstairs, she was ready to work. “She would just go from one
After 1933, Crawford never came to Hurrell’s studio. She pose to another. Practically everything she did was a picture.
preferred the individuality of posing on sets or at her home, She loved to be photographed. She kept me hopping, trying to
which was located at 426 North Bristol Avenue. “Whenever keep up with her quick changes from one pose to another. I had

OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: These portraits of Crawford O P P OSI TE: A portrait of Crawford made in early 1934 for
were shot in early 1932, but not in connection with a particular film. Chained.
“She had this instinct that these photographs were important to
her career,” said Hurrell’s confidante Joan Rose.

Hurrell shot these 1934 fashion photos of Crawford in Adrian

gowns to publicize (clockwise) Sadie McKee, Chained (the black
gown and the white gown), and Forsaking All Others.

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 to have Al handle the lights. I didn’t have time to handle them mobile. I’d be all over the place. To get her looking over there,
myself and catch those changes.” I’d go over there, you know. ‘Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!’ Like
“Hurrell would follow me,” Crawford said. “His camera was that! I had Al keep loading the film holders, and I’d check the
on wheels and he’d follow me around. How he used to move focus once in a while to be sure.”
that camera, shoot the picture, and move the key light with it, I’ll “Hurrell worked to catch you off guard,” said Crawford.
never know! He looked like an octopus! But it all got there!” “He’d talk to you constantly and his camera would go click, click,
“I used a fifteen-foot hose with a bulb on it because that click, click, click while I was saying ‘Nooowwww,’ or ‘Reeeee-
big camera was stationary,” recalled Hurrell. “We couldn’t run aaaallly.’ And he’d get pictures while I was talking, asking for a
around with it because the darn thing was on a tripod. But I was cup of coffee, whatever.”

O P P OS I T E : “I was always working for that look, that expression, not. I’ve always said my mother and father were both cameras. I’ve
because without the expression, it’s a dead face,” said Hurrell. never known anything but a camera. That’s why I’m so relaxed in
Music inspired Crawford to act out inner scenarios. “Hurrell always front of them, I think.”
played music,” recalled Crawford. “The later the hour, the gayer
the music. To give you that lift.” OVERLEAF: These famous portraits of Crawford were made
in 1935 for W. S. Van Dyke’s I Live My Life. “A lot of the things of
ABOVE: Hurrell found this background on a nightclub set built for Joan were done with one spotlight,” said Hurrell. “But you had
a minor film called Shadow of Doubt. In this Forsaking All Others to be careful you didn’t get a photograph of a face hidden in the
session, he made it a grooved cocoon. “Hurrell worked to keep you shadows.”
relaxed,” said Crawford. “I don’t know if he did that with everyone
else because many people are very conscious of the camera. I’m

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 Each segment of the session usually began with full-length get more highlights. When the light is too hot on your face, the
shots, and then moved closer and closer, until Hurrell was highlights burn out.”
composing with just a face. Sometimes he would lean Crawford After shooting the tight close-ups, Hurrell would let
against a white wall, with a long calligraphic shadow extending Crawford go, and the next segment would commence. “She’d
from her head. “I was always considering compositions,” said spend a whole day,” recalled Hurrell, “changing maybe into
Hurrell. “That came from having studied painting. So I’d com- twenty different gowns, different hairdos, changing her makeup,
pose with light if I didn’t have anything else.” Hurrell’s most changing everything. And she’d spend maybe an hour between
powerful images of Crawford were stark, like the black velvet changes, just getting herself ready for the next attire. Sometimes
gowns in which Adrian draped her. I shot 150 negatives in one day. Sometimes by four o’clock I’d
“Adrian taught me so much about drama,” said Crawford. be tired and suggest that we finish up, but Joan never wanted
“He dressed me in black for the dramatic picture. He said noth- to stop. She loved being looked at. ‘Let’s get one more, just for
ing must detract. Everything must be simple, simple, simple. luck,’ she’d say.”
Just your face must emerge.” Crawford was impressed when In late 1935, Hurrell went to Crawford’s home for a special
Hurrell drowned her in darkness with the dramatic effects he session. She and Franchot Tone had wed on October 11, and
pioneered in the Letty Lynton session. “Hurrell introduced the she wanted Hurrell to make the first portraits of them as a mar-
method of photographing me with an all-dark background and ried couple. Crawford also wanted to include her Dachshunds,
just one spotlight on my face,” said Crawford. Bübchen and Baby, which took time and patience. Then there
“A lot of the things of her were done with one spotlight,” were shots of Tone by himself. Finally Crawford started shoot-
said Hurrell. “Just a single light on the face, and everything else ing. She was indefatigable. She and Hurrell got so carried away
black. It gave a kind of dramatic look. But you had to be careful that they exposed five hundred sheets of film that day. St. Hi-
so you didn’t get a photograph of a face hidden in the shadows.” laire collapsed from exhaustion. Hurrell gave him the next three
Indeed, this kind of lighting did not work for everyone. The days off. Hurrell spent the weekend in Carmel with the Westons,
model had to have symmetrical features, and the negative had to painting landscapes.
be exposed so that it could be printed both in an enlarger and A few years later, in an International Photographer in-
by the machines that generated thousands of glossies. Using terview, Hurrell said: “Joan Crawford is the most decorative
one narrowly focused spotlight light required skill. “I used to subject I have ever photographed. There is a strength and vital-
get questions about the single light,” said Hurrell. “You were ity about her that prevails even in the finished print. If I were a
expected to throw what we call fillers, to fill the shadows. Us- sculptor, I would be satisfied with just doing Joan Crawford all
ing as little light as possible was also so that the people [his the time.”
subjects] weren’t too conscious of the lighting. If the light was
too strong, they were blinking and being disturbed. Then, too, a
O P P OSI TE: A portrait of Crawford made in connection with
low-quality light is better for skin texture in portrait work. You W. S. Van Dyke’s I Live My Life.

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 Shooting portraits of Crawford with Clark Gable—in this case for
W. S. Van Dyke’s Love on the Run—was a delight for Hurrell. “Clark
Gable is as natural before the still camera as on the motion
picture set,” said Hurrell at the time. Crawford was delighted to
work with Gable, too. “We always worked well together,” wrote
Crawford. “Harmoniously.”

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 OV E R L E A F, L E F T: Hurrell’s session with Crawford for Dorothy O P P OSI TE: This pose from the same session was not retouched
Arzner’s The Bride Wore Red in 1937 was their next to last before or released by M-G-M in 1941. The negative remained in Hurrell’s
M-G-M cut him off. possession, unseen until he gave me an unretouched proof print
of it in 1976. Thirty-four years later, I gained access to the original
OVERLEAF, RIGHT AND ABOVE: Hurrell and Crawford reunited camera negative and retouched it so that it would have the sheen
in early 1941 for a session in her home. “Joan loved to be pho- of a 1941 Hurrell portrait. It is published for the first time here.
tographed,” recalled Hurrell. “I think she’d rather do that than work
in movies!”

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 THE STRAW BOSS

In the spring of 1938, George Hurrell had been working at he did the thing that was guaranteed to set her off. He lit her
8706 Sunset for almost six years. This was a long time, con- from the right side. Engstead was surprised that Colbert did not
sidering how restless he was. Prior to this, he had lasted about argue. She let Hurrell shoot that side. What she did not let him
two years in any given situation. From all available evidence, he do was talk sexy. “That will be enough of that,” she snapped at
did not like to be tied down or hemmed in. The saving grace him. “I came here to work, not to hear a pornographic novel.”
of Hurrell Photography was that he had no boss. He was his A week later, Hurrell had the dubious pleasure of passing
own boss, with all the freedom that entailed. Of course it also the proofs to his client. “Colbert politely looked at the proofs of
entailed responsibility. Having gone to Catholic schools, Hurrell her right side,” said Hurrell. “Then she shrugged her shoulders
was scrupulously organized and frighteningly conscientious. and tossed them away.” There were other sittings with Colbert,
Even so, six years was an awfully long time. The pressure was with similar results. “She’d never let you shoot her except from
telling, and cracks were starting to show. one angle,” said Hurrell. “I fought her many times on that. But
There were a number of episodes. One was when Para- she had very fixed ideas and nothing could budge her. She’d
mount Pictures sent Claudette Colbert to Hurrell. She was tear them up.”
hitting her stride and was known to be cool and business-like. Another episode occurred one afternoon when Hurrell
Like Carole Lombard, she had been in an auto accident and had locked both the front door and the screen door of his
had to be careful how she was photographed. The bones in studio. He was in the darkroom with a young actress when he
and around her nose had healed in such a way that the right heard a persistent knocking at the front door. He waited for it
side of her face was slightly different from the left. She had been to stop. It continued. Someone was trying the hasp. Hurrell
photographed on the right many times in her early films, but and his guest hurriedly put on their clothes and left by the back
cinematographer George Folsey told her to avoid it. When Col- door, hurrying down the stairs to the alley that led to Fountain
bert became powerful enough to do so, she laid down the law: Avenue.
no more close-ups from the right. Her right side became known Hurrell was sitting in his living room, flipping through
as the “Dark Side of the Moon.” And she became known as the a magazine, when his wife, Katherine, came in. “Where were
“Fretting Frog.” you?” she asked. “I thought you had a client.”
John Engstead was at that time a Paramount publicity di-
rector. He oversaw Colbert’s portrait sessions and accompanied
O P P OSI TE: Anna May Wong was listening to “All God’s Chillun
her to Hurrell Photography. When Colbert sat down for Hurrell, Got Rhythm” while George Hurrell shot this masterpiece.

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 “Why, no,” he dissembled. “She canceled. So I went for a Hurrell because she was in trouble with Paramount. Her last
walk.” few films had not done well at the box office, and she wanted to
There were some clients whose sessions Hurrell would give her publicists some exciting new portraits to use before she
have liked to cancel. International Photographer magazine began filming Angel with Ernst Lubitsch. Unlike some actors,
called Hurrell’s April 1937 session with Marlene Dietrich “a she took her portrait sessions very seriously, at one point saying
big assignment.” Shooting the highest-paid actress in the mov- that they meant as much to her as her movies. She knew the
ies certainly was also a big headache. Dietrich was coming to power of light.
Dietrich had been brought to Hollywood from Berlin in
1930 by director Josef von Sternberg. Paramount planned to
O P P OS I T E : Over a period of eleven years, Hurrell saw Joan
Bennett try a number of looks. In 1938, not long after she made this
make her the next Greta Garbo. Sternberg did better than that.
portrait, she darkened her hair and boosted her career. Using light, shadow, styling, and settings, he created an original.

A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: The facade of George Hurrell’s

Dietrich became an overnight sensation. To a certain extent, she
studio featured a window display of a recent portrait; this one is of owed her ascendance to lighting. Lee Garmes was cinematogra-
Dolores Del Rio.
pher on her first American film, Morocco. He began lighting her
Hurrell subscribed to Condé Nast publications in order to study the from the side, the so-called “Rembrandt lighting” effect. “My
work of George Hoyningen-Huene, so he was pleased to meet the
God! I can’t do this,” he exclaimed when he saw the rushes.
artist when he came to Hollywood on assignment in 1934. Hurrell
made this portrait of Huene at that time. “It’s exactly what Bill Daniels is doing with Garbo at Metro.” He

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 did not want Dietrich to look like a carbon copy of Garbo, so he ABOVE: David Selznick hired Hurrell to
shoot Madeleine Carroll on the set of The
moved her key light to a very steep position. It brought out her
Prisoner of Zenda.
cheekbones and eyelids. She looked startlingly different, in fact,
R I GH T: When Hurrell photographed actress
unique. “The Dietrich face was my creation,” Garmes recalled
Sigrid Gurie for Samuel Goldwyn, she insisted
in 1970. that her ocelot pose with her. “My style was
considerably cramped,” said Hurrell mod-
Sternberg was fascinated by the possibilities that this effect
estly, because he did accomplish what is the
offered and embarked on a creative journey that took him and most difficult kind of photograph, an animal
Dietrich through seven films. He experimented with a variety portrait.

of lights, filters, and poses. In each successive film his effects

became more refined. By 1935, Sternberg had given Paramount
a visual style—top-lit, diffused, and exotic. No one, other than
Hurrell, had such a marked influence on Hollywood photog-

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 O P P OSI TE : Anna May Wong came to Hurrell when she signed
with Paramount to do a series of stylish B films.

TH I S PAGE : Hurrell’s last year at his Sunset Strip studio yielded

a wonderful variety of images. Clockwise from top left: Susan Hay-
ward, Dolores Del Rio, and Margo.

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 LEF T: Claudette Colbert was happy with George Hur-
rell’s portraits but only up to a point.

OPPOSITE AND OVERLEAF: Marlene Dietrich

required that Hurrell position a full-length mirror next
to the camera so she could adjust her poses. “She didn’t
want to be in doubt about it,” said Hurrell. “She wanted
to know what she was doing.”

raphy. Sternberg was steeply lit and soft-edged. Hurrell was And this applied to Marlene Dietrich. “I just refused to have it
bounce-lit and sharp-edged. When Dietrich came to Hurrell, there,” he said. “I insisted that she could be freer, more spon-
she had learned enough from Sternberg to light her own close- taneous.” Hurrell’s style required both spontaneity and mobil-
ups. Hurrell was used to Norma Shearer’s questions about ity. He was using two boom lights, and both of the light stands
fill light, yet he was unprepared for the degree of control that were on wheels. So was the camera. The mirror was not. “That
Dietrich intended to exercise. mirror had to be as close to the lens as possible,” he said. The
First there was the mirror. Dietrich was used to having a camera was immobilized. And Hurrell was constrained. “Mar-
full-length mirror next to the camera so that she could adjust her lene would strike her own poses and when she was ready, she’d
pose. Hurrell had put up with Shearer’s full-length mirror for a say ‘Shoot, George. Shoot.’ Well, if I didn’t like it, I’d say, ‘Well, I
time. “There are stars who want a mirror alongside the camera,” don’t like that.’ And we were off on a rough track.”
he said, “so that they can decide whether or not they’re posed While Dietrich was in the dressing room, changing
to advantage. They don’t want a photographer. They want an costumes and sprinkling gold dust on her hair, Hurrell would
electrician.” Finally Hurrell got fed up. He would have none of it. quietly roll the mirror away from his camera. As soon as she

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 returned, she would say, “Where’s my mirror?” Hurrell reluc- Photographer for a full-page example of his most recent favorite.
tantly restored the mirror to its position. Because of Garmes When the magazine hit the stands, he got an irate call from Flagg,
and Sternberg, Dietrich would not—could not—be lit in any demanding to know why his unretouched face was in a maga-
way other than with the key light high above and on axis with zine for the entire world to see.
her nose, the so-called “north light” or “Paramount light.” This There was more stress for the self-employed artist. He
light emphasized the symmetry of her face, sculpted her cheek- had come to expect a certain number of subjects from Howard
bones, and gilded her eyelids. “She always had to have that face Strickling at M-G-M. In July 1937 M-G-M hired a well-known
right the way she wanted it,” said Hurrell. “That light over her European portrait photographer named Laszlo Willinger, and
head. She’d see it in the mirror. She’d watch for it—this shadow this time there was an ironclad contract. “After what happened
and this look. If you didn’t get it, then all hell broke loose.” with George,” said Willinger, “Metro was not going to take any
Curiously enough, Dietrich did allow an occasional devia- chances. My contract even included television rights.” In short
tion from the formula, with the key light angled slightly to one order, Hurrell was informed that M-G-M could no longer afford
side. And when Hurrell shot her in profile, she couldn’t very to send contractees to his studio. Hurrell was not able to appeal
well see herself. For the most part, though, every pose was to his patron. In the aftermath of Thalberg’s death, Norma
designed and approved by Dietrich before Hurrell squeezed Shearer had taken a leave of absence. She was not able to inter-
the bulb on his shutter release cable. A sitting scheduled for cede, nor was Joan Crawford, whose popularity had taken a sud-
two hours stretched to six. He was not master of the situation. den dip. Louis B. Mayer had waited five years to punish Hurrell
For this trying assignment, he was paid $1,000. “Those sultry, for his insubordination; he was finally able to do so. Hurrell’s
sexy poses were mostly her creations,” he recalled. “I never last sitting with an M-G-M star was in October, when he shot
knew anyone who was so hot for pictures of herself.” Hurrell Joan Crawford at the completion of her film Mannequin.
would later speak of other sessions with Dietrich, but there is no Hurrell was losing patience. He was fed up with having to
evidence that they worked together more than once. The experi- deal directly with clients, even if they were movie stars. “I got
ence had not been a happy one for either party. Paramount used tired of being a business man,” he recalled, “having to greet
the photos, but Angel ran into trouble with the censors, was people, and sit and discuss with them whether they liked the
severely re-cut, and, in this diminished form, failed at the box picture or not. Before that, I just took the picture and ran.” But
office. Dietrich was released from her contract. When Hurrell he could hardly run from his own reception area. There were
later encountered finished prints from the sitting, he had forgot- questions, and no one but the artist could answer them. One
ten the stress. “I had to admit,” he said, “that these were some of day, a star looked at her finished print and criticized Hurrell’s
the best photos I’d ever taken.” retouching. “That’s not my mouth, George.”
Another episode occurred in 1937, when Hurrell made “Well, if it isn’t your mouth, whose is it?” sputtered Hurrell.
a portrait of the illustrator James Montgomery Flagg. The ac- “I don’t know, but it’s not mine. Fix it,” said the unnamed
claimed artist was visiting Hollywood to create portraits of stars star, whose studio was paying $1,000 for photos of her and her
such as Jean Harlow. Hurrell was taken with one of the poses
O P P OSI TE: Dietrich would find the exact lighting and position
he had shot; Flagg’s skin tones looked painterly, even without
she wanted and would then say: “Shoot, George. Shoot!” Hurrell
retouching. Hurrell gave it to the editors of International did not care for her exigent style.

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 mouth. Hurrell had no choice but to unretouch the negative and sometimes comforter for people who didn’t photograph as well
then re-retouch it. He did not like it one bit, and quoted James as they’d expected.” By the summer of 1938, Hurrell was bored
McNeill Whistler: “A portrait is a picture with something wrong silly. “Just about the time I was threatening to drink my hypo
with the mouth.” [i.e., sulfuric-acid fixing bath] to ensure a forced vacation,” he
“I’m not a good straw boss,” Hurrell said later. “I had to be said, “Warners sounded me out on a job.”
everything—businessman, retoucher, salesman, collector, and

A B OV E : Hurrell shot a great variety of poses during this session. O P P OSI TE : Dietrich allowed Hurrell to move her key light to her
Dietrich usually required that he keep the key light on axis with her left for this pose, but she still retained control over the sitting. Hur-
nose, as Josef von Sternberg had done. “If you didn’t get it, then all rell was irked until he saw the results.
hell broke out,” said Hurrell.

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 CHAPTER 4

WARNER BROS.

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 “OOMPH!”

George Hurrell’s fifth period of artistic development began work at the so-called “San Quentin of Hollywood”? Surely he
in September 1938, when he became a full-time, contracted must have heard about Jack L. Warner, whom Fortune magazine
employee of Warner Bros. An article in the Hollywood Reporter, called a “jocose penny watcher.” He and his brothers, Harry,
written by a Warners publicist, described Hurrell as an “interna- Albert, and the late Sam, had come from nickelodeons and
tional portrait photographer” whose pictures had been “a regular Rin-Tin-Tin movies. Albert Warner described his studio as
feature in class magazines and other publications.” An M-G-M “The Ford of the Movies.” Jack Warner recycled scenarios and
publicist would not have described Esquire as a “class maga- patrolled soundstages. He turned off lights left burning by errant
zine,” but then Warners knew what “class” meant, even as they employees. He had three portrait galleries. Why would he want
were acquiring it. Warners had attained major-studio status by to spend money on Hurrell?
making the first sound films, and then by specializing in histori- The idea of Warner Bros. as a gritty, rushed, proletarian
cal biographies, musicals, gangster films, and confession films. studio is not accurate. The Busby Berkeley production number
“For a while we were known as ‘Murder Incorporated,’” said “Lullaby of Broadway” in Gold Diggers of 1935 required as
producer Hal Wallis, “because the pictures we made were hard- much taste and skill as the Agnes de Mille ballet in M-G-M’s Ro-
hitting and tough.” Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and I Am a meo and Juliet. Warners’ photographers customarily produced
Fugitive from a Chain Gang set new standards for realism. “Jack 500 key set stills per film, a luxury that not even M-G-M could
L. Warner was tough,” said producer Henry Blanke. “We were approach, so Warners sets had to look good. Furthermore, like
tough as a studio. That was our philosophy. If the other studios every other studio, Warners was hiring pretty girls. “Who wants
were tough, we’d be tougher. Our characters had to talk like real to look at an ugly dame?” asked producer Bryan Foy.
people.” When Wallis replaced Darryl Zanuck as production Warners had top-notch cinematographers. “Sol Polito
chief, Warners’ staff of writer-producers began essaying prestige just worked like a dog,” recalled writer-producer Robert Lord.
projects, in part because the PCA had banned gangster films.
OVERLEAF: Humphrey Bogart was playing second-lead crimi-
Whether they were prestige pictures or programmers, Warners
nals at Warner Bros. during the two years that George Hurrell
ground them out. worked there, so Hurrell never photographed him in his starring
“It was not called the motion picture industry for nothing,” roles. Still, the portraits they created have a thoughtful, brooding
quality.
said screenwriter Julius Epstein. “It was like working at con-
O P P OSI TE: Errol Flynn had shot to stardom overnight in
veyor belts in a factory. Warners turned out a picture a week.”
Captain Blood, one of the few Warners stars who had not spent
Why would Hurrell leave the autonomy of his own studio to years in B pictures.

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 “Photographed women a ‘tick’ on the hard side. Very quiet. Hurrell was being wooed because Warners needed the
[Cinematographer] Tony Gaudio was a much more traditional boost he could supply. After a couple of good years, the studio
Italian. Under pressure he would scream, yell, and curse in was in the red. Prestige pictures such as The Adventures of
two languages. Really good with women stars. Used filters and
gauzes and made them softer. Ernie Haller was wonderful with
O P P OSI TE : Moving to Warner Bros. gave George Hurrell a new
women, too. Made Bette Davis look lovely in Jezebel.” One day
type of subject. “I’m a mug,” said John Garfield. “Just a mug.” It
on the set of a Davis film, Olivia de Havilland saw Ernest Haller made sense for Hurrell to shoot him on the Warners backlot rather
than in the gallery. Hurrell did not need to pick up the pace with
arguing with assistant director Jack Sullivan, who then pushed
Garfield. “There was a frantic air about him that I understood
Haller. From across the set came a woman’s voice. “You leave because of my own restless nature. He couldn’t sit still. Thank God
Ernie alone!” It was Bette Davis. “She was like a volcano going I worked quickly, because I was able to catch him. He lent action to
his shots.”
off !” recalled de Havilland. “She was that violent.” Yes, Warners
ABOVE : Maggie Ettinger was still publicizing Hurrell. Thanks to
was tough. “There was not the Norma Shearer elegance you
her and Warner Bros. publicist Robert Taplinger, Hurrell became
found at Metro,” said actor Ray Bolger. famous.

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 Robin Hood were costly. Hurrell had shot a portrait of Errol Victor Hugo Restaurant in Beverly Hills. Hurrell was spending
Flynn as Robin Hood earlier in the year and impressed the money to mount exhibitions at the Laguna Beach Art Gallery.
studio’s publicity chief, Robert Taplinger, who could tell that If he gave up his studio and went to work in Burbank, he would
Hurrell was tired of managing his own studio. In June Taplinger be paid less than Elmer Fryer, a Warners veteran who shot
offered Hurrell the job of head portrait photographer for two portraits. There would, however, be a regular paycheck and no
years at $350 a week, with options for two renewals. On July 11, ledgers to maintain. On July 20, Hurrell signed a contract with
Hurrell wrote to Taplinger, saying, “Your figures were 350-350, Warners. On August 1, he wrote his last check to Montgomery
400-450, and 500. . . . If you would rearrange the figures to read Properties, for $75, and closed down his operation at 8706
350-400, 400-450, and 500, it’s a deal. In other words, an ad- Sunset Boulevard.
vance of $50.00 in the second year. This is on a fifty-two-week On September 1 Hurrell made a twenty-minute drive
basis, of course. With kindest regards, Sincerely, Georgie.” His through the Cahuenga Pass and reported to work at Warner
request was refused. Bros-First National. The hyphenate referred to Warners’
Hurrell had to think. He was enjoying a comfortable exis- acquisition in 1931 of First National’s assets and its sprawling
tence, but he did have expenses. He and Katherine were renting Burbank facilities. Warners built new stages there but retained
a large apartment at 1360 North Crescent Heights Boulevard. its white colonnaded building on Sunset and the Vitagraph lot
She was used to shopping at Bullocks Wilshire and dressing on Talmadge Avenue. When Hurrell went to work in Burbank,
for functions such as the baby shower for Joan Blondell at the he took over the most sophisticated portrait gallery in Hol-

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 lywood. It was spacious, well appointed, and well staffed. One canvas.” Hurrell’s contract excluded any outside work; he gave
of three galleries situated in the center of the lot, Hurrell’s up Lux, but kept his Esquire account, with the provision that he
new quarters had a storage loft and doors tall enough to admit shoot only Warners starlets for the publication. Up to this time,
upright scenery. Working in the other two galleries were Elmer he had been shooting color with the unwieldy three-plate Grum-
Fryer and Scotty Welbourne. Other photographers—Madison bacher camera. He switched to Kodachrome 8x10 transparen-
Lacy, Buddy Longworth, and Eddie Stone—shot “cheesecake” cies for his Esquire portraits and for the occasional Warners
and “leg art.” This pinup material was aimed at unpretentious color. Black-and-white remained his unchallenged province.
publications like Film Fun, Snappy, and Screenies. Warner paid The look of Hurrell’s fifth period of work was in keeping
these photographers up to $500 a week. Their nubile subjects with the typical Warners film: topical, hard-hitting, and slick.
got $50 a week for six months; then they put on their street The studio’s fare appealed to a proletarian audience, but it had
clothes and disappeared. to compete with the M-G-M gloss and the Paramount glow.
The Warner Bros. stills lab was as imposing as its galleries. So did Hurrell. His work gained a new look, a hard, lacquered
The lab employed a full-time film processor, six retouchers, ten reflectivity. There were technical reasons for this. First, he
printers, five print finishers, and turned out more than 100,000 changed film stocks. For six years he had been using Super
prints a year. Most of them went to theaters and newspapers, but Sensitive Pan, even after Eastman changed its base from the
the important ones went to the fan magazines. “Those fan maga- unstable, inflammable nitrate to the easily storable diacetate. But
zines were the greatest star builders that ever existed,” declared the new “Safety Film” base made no difference to the film’s sen-
longtime publicist Teet Carle. Publicity was Warners’ life blood. sitivity. It was rated at ASA 125, the equivalent of present-day
It was no coincidence that Hal Wallis had started as a publicist fif- ISO 125. In the late 1930s, Eastman introduced a number of
teen years earlier. Jack Warner thought enough of the department “fast” new films: Super XX, rated at 200; Panchro Press, rated
to have it situated near his office and he checked in every morn- at ASA 250; Super Panchro Press, rated at ASA 400; and the ev-
ing when he arrived. In fact, he checked everything at his studio. er-popular Tri-X, which was at that time rated at ASA 500. Film
“Jack Warner even worried about how much paint was being was becoming more sensitive without becoming unduly grainy.
used on the sets,” said producer Henry Blanke. “He arrived each Hurrell chose Panchro Press because of its dramatic contrast. It
morning in those days, early, and went to each set. He was a real made even contact prints sparkle and allowed him to shoot at an
boss.” Hurrell was advised to look busy if he saw Warner coming. amazing tenth of a second—with his new 10-inch Goerz Celor
Warner saw him first, but in a good light, literally. Taplinger
decided that Hurrell was a fine-looking fellow, so why not pub- O P P OS I T E , L E F T TO R I G H T: This Hurrell portrait was the
first Hollywood photograph made of Vincent Price.
licize him? Taplinger had him shoot a self-portrait and began
placing stories about him, items such as “Landmark in Holly- Nell O’Day was a stage and screen veteran when she came to
Warners for one film, Saturday’s Children, but she nonetheless got
wood” and “Studio Photographer Confesses.” Within a year, he the starlet treatment.
was the subject of eight features. A colorful interview subject, he
OVERLEAF: It was a red-letter day when Hurrell photographed
began to receive his own fan mail. He had been shooting movie Ann Sheridan for the “oomph” campaign. These photographs
stars for Lux soap, so Taplinger got him onto the Lux Radio comprise a valuable record of his technique. They also show an
amazing transformation. Sheridan looks like a giggling child while
Hour, where Cecil B. DeMille introduced him, saying that “Hur-
Hurrell is teasing her, but when he finishes, she personifies the
rell is to a portrait camera what Rembrandt was to paint and eternal feminine.

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 lens stopped down to F/16. At this f-stop, his prints had an when he had Maureen O’Sullivan lie across a black satin pillow,
almost scientific clarity. hair cascading toward the camera. He discovered that shooting
Hurrell also changed lights. His new workplace was down on a supine woman whose head was pointed toward the
equipped with not one but two boom lights. He had neglected camera gave a look of unmistakable eroticism. “The power of
to patent his invention, so it was being manufactured by many glamor [sic] in a photograph consists of the evocation of sexual
companies—Bardwell McAlister, Otto K. Oleson, and Beattie. surrender,” wrote Josef von Sternberg. Hurrell experimented
Warners used the “Boom Lite” sold by Beattie’s Hollywood with this effect over and over in his Esquire series. “You know,”
Hi-Lite Company for the nominal fee of $68. This lightweight he said years later, “glamour to me was nothing more than just
adaptation had superior maneuverability, enabling Hurrell to an excuse for sexy pictures, for saying, ‘Come on, we’re going to
light his subject from angles that would be inconceivable with take some sexy pictures.’” He finally perfected this effect with a
light stands. Using two boom lights at once made his work soar contract player named Ann Sheridan.
to new heights, both literally and figuratively. Further aided by
the “boom” of the boogie-woogie music from a cabinet phono- O P P OSI TE : Ann Sothern got the Hurrell treatment in 1940 for
graph, he went to work. Lloyd Bacon’s Brother Orchid.

This was where Hurrell went into high gear, leaving ABOVE: Hurrell’s “oomph” portraits of Ann Sheridan elevated
her to stardom. “When people asked me what ‘oomph’ meant,” she
competitors and imitators behind, drawing from his own life to
said, “I told them that it was the sound of a fat man bending down
create tangible images of intangible fantasies. It began in 1933, to tie his shoelaces.”

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 In 1938, the columnist Walter Winchell wrote: “There is Davis. A knock-down, drag-out fight. You didn’t always win, but
this young Ann Sheridan and she’s got an ‘umphy’ quality.” No it let them know you were alive. This Hurrell thing did give me a
one knew quite what this meant. “Winchell used to make up foot in the door.”
those words,” said Sheridan. “But there it was in print, and Bob Once again, a series of Hurrell photos had changed the
Taplinger was looking for something that would get the studio course of a career. If he knew about it, he did not care. He had
into the papers. Mr. Warner had been sitting in his barbershop no investment in the studio’s long-range plans. The most impor-
chair reading a paper, and not finding his name in it, had called tant thing to him was the next subject. “They are all sexy,” he
Bob.” Taplinger seized on this item, changed the spelling to said in 1940. “Every one of them. They are the wickedest-look-
“oomph,” and called Hurrell. ing women in the world. And my job, when they come to me, is
“They got George Hurrell to take sexy-looking photos to make them look even more wicked.” He did it by turning on
of me,” said Sheridan. “He didn’t know what ‘oomph’ was his formula—full force.
either, so he made me sit on a bear.” Combining the word, the “I latched on to this big bear rug,” he recalled. “I don’t
animal, and the young lady created a sensation. Sheridan was know why or how, but I got hold of it and one of the things I
suddenly a name. She had bargaining power. “That ‘oomph’
thing snowballed,” she said. “Before then I had no parts worth
remembering. Molls and nurses. Whenever I tried to go for a
ABOVE AN D O P POSITE: Hurrell photographed John Payne in
part, they’d say, ‘Oh, but you’re not an actress.’ I had to fight June 1939 for George Amy’s Kid Nightingale.

for everything at Warners. From the casting director up to Jack

OVERLEAF: The Warner Bros. portrait gallery was the largest
Warner. Everybody seemed to have to fight. Even Cagney and and best-equipped in the industry.

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 used to do was get them to lie on that rug. I’d get carried away it.” In October 1939, Hurrell told Coast magazine that his rule
and say, ‘Lie down.’ was, “Shoot for the sex angle first; you should try something
“‘What do you mean, lie down?’ I’d get a reaction like that. else only if that fails.” There was one time it did fail, and badly.
And then, when I had them on the floor, I’d shoot down and Shortly after Hurrell set up shop at Warners, Olivia de
automatically it changed the whole business of what they were Havilland came to him for a session. She had been having a hard
going to do and the character of it.” The business was often time at the studio, which was overworking her and ignoring her
more goofy than sexy. One writer heard Hurrell say as he aimed pleas for better parts. The stress was taking a toll. She was on
the camera: “Oh, you’re so good to me!” Another heard him say, the verge of a breakdown. She would burst into tears without
“One more—for a hot cup of coffee!” A third heard, “Give!” In warning or control. A neurologist friend helped her find a
the studio, Hurrell was a law unto himself; at least he wanted to regimen and get through her crisis. He was the only help she
give that impression. got. “Jack Warner was totally indifferent,” she said. When de
“Every now and then,” said Hurrell, “I run across some Havilland went to Hurrell’s gallery, she was hardly in the mood
new actress who approaches my studio with genuine fear. She for a performance. Unfortunately, he went into the lewd routine
has heard that I am a man who takes sexy pictures. And that he had shown H. Allen Smith. Olivia de Havilland turned rigid,
most of the time I do it by concentrating on the bosom. She stood up, and told George Hurrell to shut up.
doesn’t know what will happen to her once she gets into my How seriously did Hurrell take these sensational exercises?
studio. Will I order her to take off all her clothes right then and “There are friends,” wrote Esquire, “who testify that after he
there? She suspects as much.” had spent a day photographing the oomph girl in all her glory,
A born showman, Hurrell knew that hyperbole garnered he spent nine hours painting the gnarled trunk of a pine tree.”
newsprint. Reporters knew that there was never any question of A tree would be more cooperative than his next Warner Bros.
familiarity between artist and model. Sessions were conducted subject.
only during work hours and in the presence of two assistants,
a makeup artist, wardrobe person, and a publicist. Hurrell
enjoyed this sexy, silly act, and the press did, too. A New York
O P P OSI TE: “Bogart was very serious about the work,” recalled
writer named H. Allen Smith wanted to know more. Hurrell was Hurrell. “He would strike poses that were familiar, and then he’d
far enough from Hollywood to be candid. “Well,” he admitted, say, ‘Okay, kid, let’s do something different.’ The music in the gal-
lery was always loud and furious.”
“it’s chiefly the things I say that bring on those expressions
OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: James Cagney was the actor’s
in a gal’s face.” Allen did not believe him. Hurrell stood up to
actor, a song-and-dance man who could do Shakespeare and
demonstrate. everything in between, but he had one problem: his coloring made
him photograph like a blank screen. “I never saw him without heavy
“Hurrell began bouncing around, pretending to be snap-
makeup,” said Hurrell. “He had sandy hair and pale eyebrows, and
ping pictures and talking like a 42nd Street pitchman who sees a after he’d darkened them, why, I helped by putting the front light
cop coming. And the things he said! The things he says to those up high, unless he was wearing a hat. He was usually serious, and
he handled a sitting just as professionally as he handled a charac-
actresses to get them wrought up! When he had finished we ter in a script.”
recovered sufficiently from the shock to ask: ‘Do you mean that
Hurrell found Flynn as engaging in the gallery as he was on the
you really say those kinds of things to actresses?’ He did mean screen, a truly charming man.

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 OPPOSITE: Errol Flynn was ambivalent
about the stardom that The Adventures of
Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk brought him.
“I was labeled a ‘swashbuckler,’” said Flynn. “I
felt used. Used by the studio to make money.
Used by the press for fun. Used by society to
provide a dab of color.” While he was being
used, he managed to paint Hollywood his
own shade of red, but Hurrell found him very
pleasant to work with.

LEF T: Hurrell said he could have made Ol-

ivia de Havilland “sexier” if she had cooper-
ated. Even so, he did coax some captivating
looks from her.

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 SHINY WAX FRUIT

In late 1938, George Hurrell spent his days at Warner Bros. After all, she was a unique Hollywood commodity: “The
and his evenings in a new house with Katherine. The rental was Actress” more concerned with performance than with appear-
above Sunset, at 1348 North Miller Drive. Things were going ance. She used no full-length mirrors on set, and apparently
well at Warner Bros., even though the studio was ending the had no vanity. Then Bob Taplinger decided that Davis must
year with a loss of $1.9 million. The company had struck gold be glamorized. She was less than enthusiastic. “I don’t want
with Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, and 1939 would be a different some glamour girl stuff,” Davis said. “I want to be known as a
story. Flynn would have two hits in release, Davis would have serious actress, nothing else.” She had seen Hurrell’s portraits
a phenomenal four, and Hurrell would have two of his most of Crawford, whom she called “that mannequin from Metro.”
sympathetic subjects. She was unimpressed by the effects Hurrell achieved with
Davis had struggled for years to be acknowledged as Crawford’s skin. “I don’t want to look like a piece of shiny
something more than a minor leading lady in drab, cheap little wax fruit,” sniffed Davis. Whatever Davis thought of Hurrell,
movies. “I was made to trudge through the professional swamp at posing for publicity was in her much-contested contract, and
Warners, brimming over with frustration and rage,” recalled Da- she had no choice but to show up. Hurrell greeted her, at first
vis. “I dreamed that someday Warners would give me the glossy effusively. “You’re the most glamorous gal in pictures and I’m
productions that M-G-M gave its players. The girl I was playing going to prove it!”
would never have a gown by Adrian with a supersonic collar like “Go easy on the glamour, George,” she warned. “I’m not
the one Joan Crawford wore.” Davis made a film with Crawford’s the type.”
husband, Franchot Tone—Dangerous—and she won an Acad- Sensing he had perhaps come on too strong, Hurrell looked
emy Award for it. However, she had to fight Jack Warner in court Davis in the eye and said, “You’re beautiful, Bette.” Then he
before she was given quality scripts like Jezebel. By the time Hur- turned on the phonograph, loud. Davis asked why he played it
rell encountered her, in the fall of 1938, the actress was Warners’ for his subjects. “I don’t play the music for them,” he answered.
biggest moneymaker. An exhibitors’ poll declared her America’s “I play it for myself. I’ve got to keep myself pepped up.”
most popular star. “Bette Davis was the queen and we all knew Davis was used to being the performer, but that day Hurrell
it,” a retired Warner Bros. hairdresser told historian-filmmaker was on stage, playing the madcap, running to and fro, singing
James R. Silke in 1975. “She made the money, not the brothers.”
The fan magazines were festooned with portraits of her
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell’s most prestigious—and ultimately
by Elmer Fryer, but the portraits were mostly in character. rewarding—assignment at Warner Bros. was Bette Davis.

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 with Cab Calloway records, pushing a light, tripping over the had refused to divorce her husband, bandleader Harmon Nel-
thirty-foot hose that ran from the shutter release bulb. “All I had son, Wyler married actress Margaret Tallichet. On the rebound
in my hand was a bulb,” said Hurrell. “The shutter would open Davis took up with Howard Hughes. To complicate matters,
and close based on the air pressure in that bulb. The subject Nelson caught them in the act and threatened blackmail. Davis
wouldn’t know when the actual photograph was being taken managed to avert that but had to submit to a divorce. Thus,
because I would make much more noise pushing the air out of when she arrived at Warners to begin shooting Dark Victory, she
that bulb than the shutter would make. This would defeat their was, by all accounts, a mess.
interest in holding a pose.” By the time of their next session, Davis’s usual cheer had
Davis began to respond to Hurrell’s zaniness. “I don’t returned, but she could still impart whatever mood Hurrell
remember what I said to her, but it broke her up so much that required. “She had the ability to switch from a gay, laughing
tears would run down her face. That caused makeup problems, pose to a completely dramatic attitude in a matter of seconds,”
but her smiles were real, not forced.” When Davis saw the he recalled. Robert Taplinger needed something unusual for
proofs, she exclaimed, “Hell, these are fine!” the centerpiece of the “Study This Face” layout. Could Hurrell
After this success, Taplinger commissioned a session to make Davis look transfigured, spiritual? What was needed was
comprise a new ad campaign. “Study This Face” challenged the apotheosis of Bette Davis. To accomplish this goal, Hurrell
Hurrell to create new faces for the most recognizable face at implemented new techniques.
Warners. The campaign was intended to promote Davis’s film, When shooting the average portrait, he used 500-watt
Dark Victory. In it, she played a spoiled, willful society woman lights. “If you can keep the light low-key,” said Hurrell, “that’s
who discovers that she has terminal cancer and then musters the to your advantage. People aren’t too conscious of the lighting—
courage to put her life in order. Hurrell’s camera saw not only or blinking.” He found that 500- or even 200-watt lights were
Davis’s sensitive portrayal but also her emotional turmoil. better than 1,000-watt lights. Lower wattages were less hot and
“There was something in her face that I’d not seen before,” they allowed for more bounce light, which made for a translu-
said Hurrell. “I’d always considered her attractive yet now she cent skin texture. “When the light is too hot,” warned Hurrell,
had a special kind of beauty. I played classical music, which “you lose highlights.”
I didn’t often do for her, because we both liked upbeat tunes. To get the desired effect, Hurrell broke this rule. He put
When I looked through the lens, there was a compelling force a 1,000-watt spotlight two feet away from Davis’s face and
about her, a kind of inner anguish that could only mean that she purposely overexposed the film, shooting various angles. Then
was going through a difficult time emotionally.” Hurrell could he underdeveloped the film, thereby retaining the highlight
not ascertain the reason for her sadness but felt that it gave the detail that would ordinarily have been lost. His next step was to
portraits an added resonance. In fact, it was rumored that she retouch the negatives as usual. He then projected two of these
was distraught over a harrowing series of events. While making
Jezebel earlier in the year, she and her director William Wyler
R I GH T: Hurrell used a special lighting process to make Bette
had embarked on an extramarital affair. In September, when she Davis look transfigured for an ad campaign.

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 LEF T: A “Study This Face!” ad used Hurrell’s work to
advertise Dark Victory.

O P P OSI TE: “An actress’s success is as much dependent

on her photographic beauty as on her acting ability,” said
Hurrell. “She must maintain the illusion of perfection.”

negatives onto one sheet of direct positive film, creating a double gallery, but Hurrell wanted to work on the magnificent castle set
exposure in the darkroom. The result was an image combining that Anton Grot had designed for Michael Curtiz’s film of Max-
technical wizardry and dreamy beauty. well Anderson’s play, Elizabeth the Queen. Taplinger got approv-
By the summer of 1940, Hurrell was feeling the old itch al for the additional crew members this required and scheduled
again. Working feverishly in the same room for nigh-on two years a session with Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. She had objected to
had gotten to him. “You think about shooting people day in and the new title, The Knight and the Lady and Warner promised to
day out for two years at a stretch,” he said, “especially when they change it. After filming with Flynn for a week, she learned that
are the same kind of people—to keep getting variety is madden- the title had not been changed. She stormed Warner’s office.
ing.” One way to get variety was to shoot on standing sets, but “A queen doesn’t take second billing,” she screamed at Warner.
it was expensive. Taplinger preferred that Hurrell stay in the “And I don’t take second billing!” The title was changed to The

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 Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. After enduring this and the artist. “I’d seen him pull this stunt on others,” recalled Hurrell.
okaying an on-set session, Warner was slightly piqued. “But this was the first time he pulled it on me—and the last.”
While waiting on the castle set for the stars to arrive, Hur- Hurrell’s final Warners session with Davis was in the sum-
rell chatted with a gaffer. A peremptory question came from mer of 1940, for William Wyler’s The Letter. She was at the peak
behind him. “Well, what are you doing?” asked Jack Warner, of her fame, but Hurrell was slowing down. Still, his images
who looked like a foreman castigating a goldbricker. were no less carefully composed, dazzlingly lit, or emotionally
“Waiting to take some shots, Mr. Warner.” charged. His fifth period of creative development was no less
“I’m not paying you to stand around talking,” said Warner, inspired than its predecessors.
who walked away, and then laughed with his associates at Hurrell’s Hurrell was growing restless again. In December 1939 he
expense. The humiliation of this pointless incident stayed with and Katherine had sailed to Hawaii for a vacation. “I want to

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 get my feet back into the soil,” he had explained. In July 1940, OV E R L E A F L E F T: This was one of Bette Davis’s favorite por-
traits. It was made in 1940 during the photo session for William
Hurrell left Warner Bros. for a three-week unpaid vacation.
Wyler’s The Letter.
He went to New York and worked for some ad agencies. His
OVE R LEAF R I GHT, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
absence stretched to six weeks. Bert Six had to finish Davis’s
This Schuyler Crail photograph shows Hurrell and his assistant, Al
portrait art for The Letter. Warner put Hurrell on suspension. Harvey, shooting Bette Davis in character as Empress Carlota for
William Dieterle’s Juarez. At this point Hurrell was using two boom
He did not care. In September, when his contract was up, he
lights.
declined to renegotiate it. Hurrell worked off the six weeks
When Hurrell shot Davis, he never knew who she would be (clock-
of his suspension, and then, on October 15, he went to Jack
wise from top right), Empress Carlota, a French governess, or
Warner’s office, told him what he thought of his cheap stunt on Queen Elizabeth. “Hurrell’s studies of me were an immense contri-
the soundstage, and then turned on his heel and walked out. bution to my career,” said Davis. The two artists worked together a
dozen times between 1938 and 1974.
Hurrell was jumping ship again, but this time he knew where
he would land. PAGE 260: Playing the eponymous spinster in The Old Maid
required Davis to age onscreen, so Hurrell had to photograph her
in various age makeups, much as he had done with Norma Shearer
A B OV E A N D O P P OSI TE : Bette Davis was dealing with per- for Strange Interlude seven years earlier.
sonal problems when Hurrell made these studies of her. “George
Hurrell was the greatest,” said Davis. “He took fantastic portraits PAGE 261: This Kodachrome portrait of Bette Davis was made by
of me.” Hurrell to help promote interest in The Old Maid.

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 CHAPTER 5

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 THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS STAR

George Hurrell had continued his friendships with Maggie With construction under way, Hurrell loaded his Buick
Ettinger and Helen Ferguson. When he moved to fashionable station wagon with camera gear and drove to New York with
Beverly Hills, they made sure that the world knew about it. his former Warners assistant, Al Harvey. As he had done years
He and Katherine had saved most of his Warner Bros. wages, earlier, he leased a space in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and spent
so they could afford a commercial space at 333 North Rodeo a few months shooting socialites such as Doris Duke and Helena
Drive. Hurrell had learned a great deal from the Warners facility. Rubinstein. When he returned to California in January 1941,
He envisioned a studio where he could shoot both portrait and the studio was not ready, so he rented a small space at 8404
commercial work. He still had the Esquire account and was Sunset Boulevard to shoot his monthly Esquire work.
free of Warners’ restrictions. He could shoot for whomever he In August 1941, he finally opened his smart new studio.
wanted. He commissioned architect Douglas Honnold to design One day in November, he was surprised to find Greta Garbo in
a functional, elegant studio on the Rodeo Drive premises. his reception area. “Alloo, Mister ’Urell,” she said in her distinc-
Like 8706 Sunset, 333 was a narrow storefront set in a com- tively low voice. “I thought I would come by and see how my
mercial property. Unlike it, this space extended behind neigh- new tenant is doing.”
boring shops, giving the gallery a width of forty feet. The gallery, “You’re my landlady?”
reception area, and offices had airy twenty-foot ceilings. This “Yes,” she said. “It pleases me very much to have you on
height was broken by a catwalk and second-floor darkrooms. On my property. Show me around, please.”
the first floor there were also a women’s dressing room, a men’s Hurrell gave her the grand tour, and when she commented
dressing room, and a storage room. Hurrell’s wry theatricality on the lightweight Korona camera, he saw that here was another
came into play with the interior decoration, which was executed movie star who was “very astute and completely knowledge-
by Joseph Copp Jr. Hurrell painted the brick-and-plaster walls able.” She was also pleasant and chipper, even laughing occa-
pink so they would photograph properly, and because Katherine
forbade pink at home. The focusing cloth on his new Korona
view camera was dyed the same shade of red as the roses on the OVER LE AF AN D OPPOSITE: In 1941 George Hurrell photo-
graphed Veronica Lake in a gown from Mitchell Leisen’s I Wanted
wallpaper in the women’s dressing room. The reception desk Wings. These portraits are confused with ones made earlier by
was the sawed-off base of a huge gold column. Writing in U.S. Eugene Robert Richee because Lake wears the same gown. The
way to recognize Hurrell’s images are by the hot light spilling over
Camera magazine, G. T. Allen called the studio “a triumph of Lake’s head, shoulders, and breasts, which was perhaps the artist’s
modern design.” way of caressing this subject.

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 sionally. “I found out she was a happy person by nature,” said
Hurrell. “Why hide it? She liked to look grim and dramatic, as
if the world were coming to an end. But that wasn’t the only way
for her to look.”
As Garbo started to leave, Hurrell popped the question:
“How about some shots?”
“Oh, no, no, Mister ’Urell,” she said with a smile. “I am
not photographed anymore.” She waved and was gone. Hurrell
could not conceal his disappointment. He had hoped to make
up for the perceived failure of his 1930 sessions with Garbo, but
she was not about to cooperate. “She was probably the sexiest
gal among the whole bunch of them,” he said in 1969, “but that
wasn’t what she was selling.”
Garbo had bought the building in October for $68,750.
What Hurrell did not know was that on October 3, she had had

C LO C KWI SE FROM TOP LEFT: When George Hurrell left

Warner Bros. and opened another studio, he was free to photo-
graph anyone he chose. This is his portrait of the author M. F. K.
Fisher, whom he knew as Mary Frances Kennedy in Laguna Beach
fifteen years earlier.

Hurrell photographed the celebrated debutante Gloria Vanderbilt

for a Vogue magazine assignment. Vanderbilt was seventeen and
about to marry the agent Pat DiCicco.

Visitors to Hurrell’s studio on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills were

greeted by a 40x50 enlargement of his recent work. Who better
to represent him than his muse?

Hurrell may not have been welcome at M-G-M in 1941, but thanks
to Joan Crawford, his photographs were. This is how Howard
Strickling shipped prints of them to favored recipients.

This portrait of Crawford was shot on 8x10 film so it could be

enlarged to mural size without losing quality.

Even though Hurrell had severed connections with Warner Bros.,

the company had to pay for Barbara Stanwyck’s session at his new
studio.

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 LEF T: Betty Hutton had just come to Hollywood when Hur-
rell photographed her in late 1941. She was energetic and
vivacious yet he chose to show her vulnerability. In three
years Hutton would be Paramount’s highest-grossing star.

O P P OSI TE: Paulette Goddard was often photographed

in a bathing suit or a bathtub. Hurrell made her look sexy
without these effects.

her last session with Clarence Bull. Her next film, Two-Faced anybody like Norma Shearer. Nor was there anybody like Joan
Woman, was a qualified failure; it made money but retakes had Crawford. Or Greta Garbo, for that matter. I found a great satis-
pushed its cost to the point where it needed the foreign market faction in each one as a personality. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have
to make a profit, and with World War II being fought, there was been able to make any pictures.”
no foreign market. Garbo was still signed to do another film, but The stars that Hurrell had spent a decade polishing were
M-G-M could find no suitable project. She returned her money burning out one by one. This was the Twilight of the God-
to Louis B. Mayer and left the studio. She did not fully realize it, desses. An era was ending. “There was a certain kind of fantasy,
but her career was over, and within a year, many of her contem- a certain imagination that is not accepted now,” said Ann
poraries would also leave Metro: Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDon- Sheridan thirty years later. “The world is too small. Those were
ald, Joan Crawford, and Norma Shearer. glamorous days.”
“I’m often asked,” said Hurrell. “‘Who was your favorite In 1941 there were changes behind the camera, too. Para-
star?’ Well, there can’t be any favorite star—they were all so mount’s publicity department was “reorganized,” which meant
different! There was nobody like Jean Harlow nor was there that Eugene Robert Richee and John Engstead were fired. This

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 ill wind blew good things to Hurrell. While the department was Paramount was sending the delicious Paulette Goddard. Bar-
being restructured, Paramount sent its most important players bara Stanwyck had been sent by Warners and then by Goldwyn.
to him. Veronica Lake had been shot by Richee shortly before Bette Davis was also making a film at Goldwyn, William Wyler’s
the axe fell. Apparently Paramount was not pleased with his The Little Foxes. Goldwyn publicists had the task of selling her
work, because they wanted Hurrell to shoot her in the same to the public in an unsympathetic, heavily made-up period role,
costumes she had worn for Richee. The studio needed an image so they hired five noted photographers to interpret her Regina
for a “Personality Poster,” so Lake was rushed to Rodeo Drive in Giddens: Ned Scott, Charles Kerlee, Paul Hesse, James Doolit-
a limousine, directly from the set of Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s tle, and George Hurrell. Hurrell’s portraits were by far the most
Travels. She was tired, hungry, thirsty, and cranky. Recalled Hur- flattering, with spectacular lighting effects facilitated by the new
rell: “Veronica angrily blew her ‘peek-a-boo bang’ off her right Super XX film, and by Kodachrome color transparency film.
eye and demanded: ‘Well, where do you want me?’” Despite Even M-G-M called Hurrell in 1941, albeit at the behest of
this inauspicious start, the session produced superb images. an old friend. Joan Crawford requested that he shoot a fashion
Paramount got the “Personality Poster” and then some. layout in her home, and they worked together for the first time
As 1941 drew to a close and the film industry counted
revenues of $800 million, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Everyone
took a nervous breath and kept working. George Hurrell was no O P P OSI TE: Paulette Goddard was one of Hollywood’s smartest
stars and a sparkling conversationalist. “I always looked forward to
exception. His first few months in Beverly Hills had been out-
my sittings with Paulette,” recalled Hurrell.
standing, and he had just bought a house at 3309 Tareco Drive,
ABOVE: When Hurrell came to the Goldwyn Studios to shoot
overlooking the Cahuenga Pass. He was loath to have his work
Davis for The Little Foxes, he hung up his coat and rolled up his
interrupted when every major studio was sending stars to him. sleeves; soundstages were not air-conditioned in the Golden Era.

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 in four years. His studies of her revealed a new poise, as well as O P P OSI TE: In 1941 Warners lent Bette Davis to Samuel Gold-
wyn for The Little Foxes, William Wyler’s film about the poisonous
the same timeless beauty. Whenever he was asked for a favorite
power of avarice. To impersonate the icy Regina Giddens, Davis
image, he would present something from this elegant sitting. wore a special rice-powder makeup created by Perc Westmore.
Hurrell shot this portrait on Kodachrome transparency film.
He would admit that Crawford was his favorite subject, but he
resisted the term glamour photo as a literal description of work ABOVE: “George Hurrell shot magnificent pictures,” said Bette
Davis, “but his photographs of me as Regina were the best of all.”
with her or anyone else. “All of us glamorize everything,” said
Hurrell, “including the documentaries who glamorize filth and
squalor. Even Weston does it, taking a picture of a gnarled tree
trunk. It’s a question of emphasizing . . . the dirt or the beauty.”
When pressed for a formula, Hurrell would grudgingly say,
“Bring out the best, conceal the worst, and leave something to
the imagination.”

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 THE OUTLAW

One of George Hurrell’s first jobs in his grand new studio

was a propitious one. He was being paid the astounding
sum of $4,000 to glamorize an unknown. Jane Russell
was a twenty-year-old receptionist in a Van Nuys chiropo-
dist’s office when Howard Hughes saw photos of her in
photographer Tom Kelley’s studio. Hughes signed her to
a contract in January 1941 and cast her in The Outlaw, a
Freudian retelling of the Billy the Kid legend. The film was
finished in March and promptly submitted to the PCA,
where it provoked polysyllabic censure. “Bathycolpian”
was the word used to describe the offending portions of
Russell’s anatomy. Hughes was outflanked. He used an
optical printer to darken Russell’s cleavage in offending
shots, and the PCA reluctantly gave the film a seal. Just as
The Outlaw was about to go into limited release, it ran into
problems with local censors. Then Twentieth Century-Fox
refused to distribute it. While Hughes contemplated his
unshowable movie, he heard about Hurrell’s new studio.
Hughes’s publicist was the irreverent, irrepressible Russell
Birdwell. He called Hurrell. A session was scheduled.
Hurrell must have sensed history in the making,
because he invited the noted photographer Will Connell
and writer G. T. Allen of U.S. Camera to witness the first
of several sessions with Russell. The result was a word-for-
word transcription of a Hurrell session:

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 AS APPOINTMENT TIME NEARS,
Hurrell and his assistant pull out the lights—a power line and six lamps. nant of his tempo and rhythm. It is the music, both the tonic and George’s
The assistant pulls the green curtains half closed over the north windows, other self, to whom he talks, mumbles, and shouts. He bends, twists, trots,
George throws some chintz cushions from the sofa onto the model stand, dances his tripod to the position he wants, crooning, “Now, let’s see,”
covers them with a bearskin rug. That’s the extent of his preparation. The whispers to Jane, “Look,” points, presses the bulb.
model arrives—Jane Russell. George has never shot her before. He George’s “Shooting Blues” song strings out to half-hour length.
studies her a moment, says to her publicity man [Russell Birdwell], “She’s Sung to any music:
a good-looking girl.” Now let’s see
Jane: “I feel like a guinea pig.” Where was we?
Geo: “You won’t when we’ve finished with you.” Now we’re getting places and doing things.
Jane goes into the dressing room, puts on a creation of satin and That’s it. That’s what the doctor ordered.
lace. . . . Now we’re getting places and doing things.
Geo: “Kind of housewifey, don’t you think? Try the other one. It Now let’s see where was we?
might be better, simpler. All this dizzy design up here might not be so It’s funny stuff, this bizness.
good.” Now let’s see the best picture of the year.
Jane changes and comes out. That’s it.
Jane: “Did you say the other one was fussy?” Oh, Little Joe
George groans: “The first one was best.” From Chicago
Jane changes back. Where was we?
Geo: “Ah, yes. This will have the boudoir flavor, which we want.” That’s it.
George puts Jane on the bearskin, tries different poses, all It’s good.
recumbent, pulls at her dress, walks off, and starts the phonograph, pulls Too good.
the green curtains completely shut, snaps on the lights, squints through Much too good for them.
the camera, slides up to the model stand. “Can’t you lose this leg?” It’s the picture of the age.
Jane obeys. George fusses some more with the folds of her satin That’s good, just the way it is.
skirt. Jane pulls a comb through her hair, tucks comb and mirror out of It’s the picture of the age.
sight. Music, hot and boogie-woogie, floods the studio, low in volume, But good.
but insistent. With the music, George’s timing changes from that of a Ah, the frightful significance of it all!
shuffling, thinking, puttering man to a dancer come to life. Rhythmically flashing through the sitting, George’s actions form a
From this point, the shooting of Jane is a process that defies repeat pattern, a work pattern, repeated as often as the bulb is pressed.
explanation, a process lightning-fast, sensitive, unified, as George fox- At each exposure, George is at lens position, checking the direction of
trots his camera tripod over the cement floor, seeks the right camera Jane’s eyes. If it isn’t what he wants, he shoots again. If it’s right, he glides
angle, shifts a light before the assistant can reach it, changes an angle of into the next. It’s a symphony, and you don’t interrupt to ask the whys
Jane’s arm and wrist. and hows of shading. Yes, there are lights, six to begin and one to finish.
The big studio falls out of the picture. There is nothing except the Changes flow from one arrangement to the next too fast to be checked
magic circle of light, the camera, George, and the model, nothing except or diagrammed. Hurrell’s right when he says, “A man’s a goat to try to
the music which is around them, part of George, the powerful determi- explain how he shoots.”

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 Befitting Hurrell’s importance in the world of photography, the Russell’s expressions in the second session were much
U.S. Camera article was part of a major feature on him, one of more convincing than those in the first. She was studying acting
many to appear in the coming months. with the venerable Madame Maria Ouspenskaya. Whatever
The concept of Hurrell’s next session with Jane Rus-
sell came from a barnyard seduction scene in The Outlaw. “A
haystack!” he shouted at Birdwell. “I’ll shoot Jane Russell in a OVERLEAF: In 1941 George Hurrell made these poses of Jane
Russell in his new studio for the aviator-filmmaker Howard Hughes.
haystack!” In short order, a truck from a Santa Monica feed-and-
seed store backed into the studio through the twenty-foot-high A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Photographer Will Connell caught
Hurrell directing Russell in her first session.
doors, unloaded a half ton of hay, and drove off. “We just had a
haystack there,” said Hurrell. “But one funny thing about it is This is the transformation of Jane Russell, as accomplished by the
setup in the previous illustration—except that she is obviously il-
that I realized, ‘She can’t get up on the hay. She’s going to keep
luminated by only one light. Why was a second boom light hanging
falling off.’ So I had to put steps under the hay just to get her up over her? We’ll never know.

there. She was a great gal.”

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 strain of Stanislavski she was miming, it worked; she became a
lusty frontier gal.
Hughes had thoughtfully designed and constructed a canti-
levered brassiere for Russell to wear under her silk jersey blouse.
“You could see the seams of a regular bra,” said Russell, “so
Howard wanted to design one that was seamless. He was ahead
of his time. Well, it didn’t work so well. I put my own bra on and
covered it with Kleenex. They looked and looked and said ‘It’s
going to work.’” Russell was caught in the proverbial whirlwind
of publicity. A “star photographer” did not register with her.
“You know,” she said in 2010, “I was photographed by so many
people that year, that this was just another one. Mr. Hurrell was
nice and all, but I didn’t think about it until the pictures began
appearing everywhere.”
Birdwell used Hurrell’s photos aggressively—make that vio-
lently—to promote The Outlaw. A citizen could not turn a cor-
ner without being confronted by the sultry girl in the haystack.
The campaign worked. Everyone wanted to see if the film was
as racy as the images implied. “Jane Russell, not yet seen on the
screen, is still busting out in all our magazines,” wrote Hedda
Hopper in the Los Angeles Times. “And I do mean busting.”
Hughes continued to stall, but the haystack pictures had
a life of their own. Everyone knew who Jane Russell was. “You
don’t make a star on the strength of a photograph,” Hurrell
stated in 1980. Perhaps not, but you can make a celebrity. It
may have been to Russell’s advantage that The Outlaw remained
unseen until 1943. While the film sat on a shelf, Hurrell’s images
made Jane Russell a household name.

R I G H T: Hurrell shot this pose of Jane Russell with his camera

elevated above the bales of hay in his studio. To look through the
camera, he had to climb a ladder next to it. “I would be up that
ladder, focus, down again, and shoot the picture in maybe two or
three seconds,” said Hurrell. “I worked so fast—it was as if I were
out of control. I had to do it fast, all that yelling, hollering, moving
things around, keeping up the pace. You can’t just stand there, say-
ing, ‘Look this way. Look that way. Now smile.’”

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 COLUMBIA PICTURES

In 1942 the “Hurrell” stamp was appearing on the backs of retouch until you couldn’t put any more lead on the emulsion,”
many different types of photos: portraits, products, and events. said Hurrell, “because that mucilage retouching fluid only held
The swanky studio at 333 North Rodeo Drive was so busy that so much lead and then it got slippery. So you’d have to work on
Hurrell had to hire photographers to cover parties and night- the base side of the neg. My God, she wanted her face ironed
clubs. Hurrell continued to shoot (and give interviews) but he out!” Russell did not want her contours changed; she wanted
was not needed at his studio every day. Robert Taplinger chose the smoothness she had had at M-G-M—nine years earlier.
this time to tempt Hurrell with another offer. Taplinger had left Hurrell’s most important subject at Columbia did not care
Warner Bros. and was working for Columbia Pictures, the small- how her pictures looked. Rita Hayworth was Columbia’s answer
est of the major studios. The studio at Sunset and Gower was to everyone else at every other studio. She was a dancer, a glam-
upgrading its product, and Taplinger knew Hurrell could bring our girl, and even an actress. Hurrell was expected to register
distinction to it, if Rodeo Drive could do without him for a year. all these aspects, and he usually did. “She had a nice personal-
In July 1942, Hurrell went to work for Columbia Pictures as ity,” he recalled, “but could be rather subdued. But if she was
head portrait photographer. He was working on Sunset Boule- experiencing a case of the blahs, all I had to do was place a
vard again, but this was a far cry from the Strip. tango, samba, or rumba record on the phonograph, and her
Columbia was run by the redoubtable Harry Cohn, and it spirits would perk up.” As photographers such as Robert Co-
was run cheaply. “The stills gallery was located below street lev- burn would discover, Hayworth’s concentration was a sometime
el, beneath hair-dressing and makeup,” recalled Hurrell. “The thing, but her innate sensuality was worth the extra effort. “Rita
place was barely adequate—a cubicle compared to the galleries projected,” said Hurrell. “She was a very emotional person. It
at Twentieth and Warners.” He adjusted to it, but occasionally was all instinct, and that comes across in a picture. It’s alive.”
went shooting on sets or even on the roof. Still, he found the In the fall of 1942, Hurrell found himself distracted by per-
cheapness of the studio oppressive. One day Cohn called him sonal problems and unengaged by his work. It was bad enough
on the carpet for spending $30 to rent a negligee from Western to toe the line for an autocratic penny pincher, but worse to do it
Costume. Waving his riding crop, Cohn shouted at him, “If I in the service of uninspiring material. He was approaching forty,
were you, I’d use our own wardrobe! Savvy?” but he had to expend the same energy in order to jump from
Despite these limitations, Hurrell made quality images.
Rosalind Russell earned the honor of being his most-retouched O P P OSI TE: Rita Hayworth posed in her own clothes for this Hur-
subject; she habitually returned prints for more work. “You’d rell portrait.

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 LEF T: George Hurrell needed to shoot Fred Astaire
and Rita Hayworth dancing on the set of William A.
Seiter’s You Were Never Lovelier, but his 8x10 camera
shutter was too slow to freeze them in motion, so he
took them to the roof of a soundstage and used a 4x5
Speed Graphic to make this shot.

O P P OSITE , CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT:

Joseph Cotten used this Hurrell portrait to shop for a
studio contract after his Hollywood debut in the contro-
versial Citizen Kane.

Hurrell worked well with Rosalind Russell as long as he

met her retouching requirements.

This portrait of Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth was

shot with the 8x10 camera, so the artists had to move
into a pose and hold it for a fiftieth of a second, or
more, depending on the intensity of the lights and the
speed of the film.

“Rita Hayworth has a slumbrous, seductive quality all

her own,” said Hurrell in 1942. After seven years in Hol-
lywood, the actress was coming into her own.

one banal subject to another, while hamstrung by cheap settings Dunne,” recalled Hurrell. “Her attitude was, ‘Here I am, Mr.
and talentless “talent.” Even though he was losing steam, he Hurrell, why don’t you do something with me?’ Do what?
never compromised his work. Even in cut-rate circumstances, he There was nothing I could do.”
never cut corners. His other subjects were starlets such as Marguerite Chap-
Irene Dunne was doing a series of trendsetting screw- man and Adele Mara. The portraits he made of them were
ball comedies, but the ladylike star did not lend herself to the pleasing, but lifeless. “You can’t work with a person and be
Hurrell treatment. He had shot her in 1931 at M-G-M and in exactly cold blooded,” said Hurrell, “because there’s got to be a
1936 at Universal (for Show Boat), yet she always appeared rapport, there’s got to be that quality, that something that rings
uncomfortable when posing for him, much the same as Olivia de between the two of you. If it doesn’t, well, you might as well quit
Havilland, as if expecting an assault. Dunne dutifully reported and go home.”
to Hurrell and was grimly cooperative. “Irene Dunne was Irene

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 CHAPTER 6

THE FALL FROM GRACE

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 WAR AND SCANDAL

George Hurrell was impatient in the extreme. When he felt In years of working with ambitious young women, Hurrell
imposed upon, hemmed in, or just plain bored, he did not had been tempted more than once, but as far as anyone knew, he
negotiate. He picked up and left. First it was his parents’ home. had resisted. “I was a real romantic young fellow,” he recalled.
Then it was a succession of art schools and apprenticeships. In “A lot of that came from being with these gals so often. They’d
1932 it was Hollywood’s biggest studio. In 1938 it was his own put themselves in your hands, so to speak, to develop this kind
studio. In 1940 it was Warners’. By 1941, he was in command of of effect. And the two of you were tied so closely together that
his emotions. Or was he? An article in Motion Picture described after a long session, you got to the point where you were almost
a restive artist. “He’s a compact bundle of nervous energy,” making love to the gal. And one thing could lead to another.”
wrote Roger Carroll. “He’s quick-witted, quick-motioned, and Hurrell was mercurial in the best of circumstances, but in
quick-spoken, with a broad, mobile face, a pair of appraising 1941 he became especially moody. There was a sudden dis-
brown eyes, and a thick thatch of brown hair that’s never under agreement between him and Katherine, and she left for Mexico.
control. Away from his studio, he’s brisk and restless and looks “Upon my return,” she later told a judge, “he met me at the
vaguely unhappy.” This “vague” unhappiness would get him station and acted very strangely. He told me he had met a girl
into trouble. model and that he was in a jam with her. He said matters were
The trouble began in May 1941, when Hurrell returned complicated because she was the niece of a studio executive.”
from the busman’s holiday at the Waldorf. His Rodeo Drive When Katherine asked Hurrell what he was going to do
studio was still under construction, so he worked out of 8404 about it, he told her that he was in love with the girl—and living
Sunset Boulevard, where he functioned as head of Esquire mag- with her. Katherine and Hurrell separated on March 11, 1942.
azine’s West Coast photographic department. He was beset and Hurrell filed for divorce on September 16, 1942, charging
besieged, what with portraits of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, extreme cruelty. He asked for a restraining order against his wife,
a monthly layout for Esquire, the new home at 3309 Tareco claiming that she had hidden his clothes, books, and $40,000 in
Drive, and a procession of beautiful young models. “I would cash. The order was granted on October 23. A week later, Hur-
pick a gal,” said Hurrell, “and do a kind of bedroomy-looking
thing. Kind of cheesecakey but more subtle. Dave Smart, who
OVERLEAF: Throughout 1942 and 1943, Hurrell could not escape
was the owner, wanted it that way. But so did I. Stars didn’t like his creation. His pictures of Jane Russell were ubiquitous.
to be shot that way, so most of the time I’d take second-degree
O P P OSI TE: When George Hurrell photographed Gilbert Roland
actresses.” in 1942, war was in the air.

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 LEF T: Janet Blair was one of the actresses Hurrell
photographed at Columbia Pictures before he was
drafted into World War II.

O P P OSITE: When Hurrell returned from the Army

Air Force in April 1943, he had a pleasant assignment,
to photograph Mae West for Gregory Ratoff’s film The
Heat’s On.

rell received a letter. “I had been drafted into the First Motion given the previous January, gushing about Katherine’s beauty
Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Force,” he said. On and glamour—while he was philandering. Louella Parsons came
November 2, 1942, he left for Monterey, California, to become to Katherine’s defense, calling her a “gallant lady.” That Parsons,
a private. Several days later, he found himself peeling potatoes who was a long-time client and booster—and Maggie Ettinger’s
with composer David Rose. “We looked ruefully at each other,” cousin—would side publicly with Katherine, did not bode well.
said Hurrell, “and then burst out laughing.” On December 31, Katherine sued Hurrell for divorce, after
On December 16, Katherine Cuddy Hurrell testified in Hurrell’s attorney, George Stahlman, read an affidavit in which
court that Hurrell knew very well where his personal effects Hurrell dropped “all charges of impropriety or dishonesty.”
and funds were. Then she came forth with some newsworthy The uncontested divorce was granted on March 2, 1943, and
revelations. “He became infatuated with a model whom he included a property settlement in which Hurrell paid Katherine
photographed while I was away,” she told the judge. The story ten dollars a month until the war ended. After that, he would pay
was all the more hurtful because of an interview Hurrell had $300 a month in alimony, for five years or until she remarried.

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 (On July 19, 1946, Katherine married Twentieth Century-Fox She was familiar with the Disney company because her aunt Lil-
producer Ralph Dietrich.) By the time of the divorce decree, lian was married to Walt.
Hurrell was serving his tour of duty in, of all places, Culver City. Hurrell’s old friend Pancho Barnes had acquired a number
Hal Roach Studios had been converted to a production unit of influential friends in her years as a flier. One of them was Gen-
for military films. “I shot stills of personnel involved in training eral Henry (“Hap”) Arnold, who was Commanding General
films produced by the unit,” said Hurrell. of the U.S. Army Air Forces. She asked him to see if he could
One day in March 1943, Hurrell got leave, drove to Long do something for Georgie. “I was at the Pentagon after that,”
Beach, and married the twenty-four-year-old model Phyllis said Hurrell, “shooting mostly portraits of generals.” Hurrell’s
Bounds. Like Katherine, Phyllis was from Washington state. For military stint brought him close to a huge audience for his
a young model, Phyllis was surprisingly well-connected. She art—soldiers—and he saw it from their point of view. “When I
had been married twice; first to a filling station attendant at the was in the army,” he said, “those photographs of Jane Russell
Walt Disney Studios, and then to a writer at the same studio. haunted me everywhere I went; every boat, every locker room,

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 every latrine.” Howard Hughes was making a star, and, in a ing quickly, and she’d come up with a one-liner. It would break
way, Hurrell was boosting morale. He shot propaganda posters me up!”
showing an RKO starlet named Margie Stewart giving advice to In August 1943, M-G-M released the musical comedy
departing soldiers. “Please get there and back,” said the caption DuBarry Was a Lady. It featured the song “I Love an Esquire
under her glamour photo. “Be careful what you say or write.” Girl,” with lyrics praising “those lovely pictures by Hurrell.”
Then, as quickly as it had begun, Hurrell’s tour of duty ended. This sort of fame was of small comfort to Hurrell when bad
In April 1943, because of his advanced age of thirty-eight, he press and financial problems were vying for his attention. In
was mustered out. He quietly returned to Columbia. October 1943, he left the Columbia Pictures portrait gallery and
Hurrell soon found the work mundane and unchallenging. returned to 333 North Rodeo Drive. His fifth period of artistic
He was photographing starlets, not an unpleasant task, but his development was ending.
greatness lay in his ability to tap a subject’s depth, even unique- Hurrell continued to shoot for Esquire, but Hollywood as-
ness. If the subject was naïve, there was little he could elicit, even signments began to dwindle when the press hinted that in 1941
if she was attractive. “It’s a physical quality first of all,” he said. he had asked Katherine to hide the funds he later accused her
“But they have to think sexy, too. It has to be a combination. Just of stealing. It was implied that he had done this to prevent his
the physical quality without thinking doesn’t work.” There was creditors from seizing them. “As a partner in a mining company,
little he could do with bland starlets. “Except for Rita, there was he owes that concern’s creditors $29,433.” In March 1944,
nobody to shoot there,” said Hurrell. “Adele Mara. Marguerite Hurrell declared bankruptcy.
Chapman—she was one you couldn’t do anything with. She These reverses put the artist back where he was in 1927,
didn’t inspire anything. Just a funny dame, sort of.” but he was no longer a young man, and the jaunty grace of the
Hurrell’s only interesting subject at Columbia in 1943 Jazz Age was gone. The world had changed, and photography
besides Rita Hayworth was Mae West, who was making her first
film in three years, an ill-advised, unfunny comedy called The
C LO C KWI SE FROM TOP LEFT: In 1944 Hurrell photo-
Heat’s On. Looking at West’s voluptuous curves and smooth
graphed Joan Bennett in and around her home, which was at 515
skin, Hurrell found it hard to believe that she was fifty. The South Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills. “I wanted to shoot her in
natural light,” said Hurrell. “Dietrich or Shearer would have im-
sexy persona she had created at Paramount had survived the
mediately questioned why I wasn’t using reflectors for fill light and
slings and arrows of censorship, more or less. “I found her to whether the sunlight, filtering through the branches of a grape
be the same witty, down-to-earth lady,” recalled Hurrell. “The arbor, was casting unwanted shadows, but Joan was unconcerned.”

only change was that she had grown more cognizant of tech- Fanny Brice needed photos while Hurrell was still in the service, so
he got leave, rented the Christy and Shepherd Studios on Hol-
nical aspects. Her knowledge of lighting and camera angles
lywood Boulevard, and made portraits of her as radio’s beloved
was truly astonishing.” West was still writing her own ribald Baby Snooks.

dialogue, too. “Her brilliance was sometimes hidden under a

In 1942 George Hurrell’s personal life brought him into the orbit of
rather vague manner,” said Hurrell. “I’d be lulled along, shoot- the renowned Walt Disney.

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 with it. Large-format cameras and posed pictures were shunned scopic flash. Hurrell could adapt to new technology, but how
by news editors. “A new form of photography was started by far could he go in the politically charged climate of Hollywood?
Life magazine,” recalled Bette Davis. “Their photographers Philistine publicists wanted him to demystify the stars; the stars
started using the candid camera, which meant you never posed would not cooperate. “I’d get bored with movie stars,” he admit-
for them, and for the most part were unaware that they had ted later. “They’re all a pain in the ass. So I’d go to New York.
taken a picture of you. This meant that the photographs taken in
this way were less static.” The photos were less pretty too. “Life
in the raw is seldom mild,” said Life, and candid pictures proved A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell also made shots of Joan
Bennett indoors. At this time he was still using the Bardwell McAli-
it. Candids were taken only with medium- or small-format cam-
ster boom light but had adopted a “Sky Pan” for use as his key
eras. They were never retouched. “The glamour ended when we light. No one could accuse Hurrell of being predictable.

stopped using 8x10 cameras,” said Hurrell.

Hurrell’s New York studio was located at 102 West 40th Street,
Lighting techniques were in a state of flux, too. Conserva- near Park Avenue.

tive M-G-M portrait photographer Clarence Bull was experi-

O P P OSI TE: For the next six years, Hurrell was signing his work
menting with scientist Harold E. Edgerton in the use of strobo- for advertising agencies.

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 I wouldn’t know what I was going to do, but I would get there
and figure it out.”
In 1946 the peripatetic artist did just that. First, however,
he shot his thirty-third (and last) portrait sitting with Joan Craw-
ford. It was for her first film with Twentieth Century-Fox, Otto
Preminger’s Daisy Kenyon. Then Hurrell took his wife, Phyllis,
and their one-year-old daughter, Victoria, to New York, where
he rented a converted carriage house at 102 West 40th Street,
near Park Avenue. Two more children were born to him and
Phyllis; Clancy in 1946 and Alexandra in 1948. In 1952 Hurrell returned to Rodeo Drive and shot a few
For six years Hurrell shot a combination of editorial and portraits. His clients included Maureen O’Hara, Arlene Dahl,
advertising work. When he shot with the carbro color process, Yvonne de Carlo, and the film star who would soon be the toast
the separation negatives and matrices were processed by the of Las Vegas, Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich knew as much about
photographer Paul Outerbridge, whose pioneering work in photography as any studio pro, and she had requirements: a
color photography had been derailed by a scandal involving spotlight on axis (the so-called “Paramount Lighting” devised
sexual fetish images. (Until a Supreme Court decision in 1968, by her mentor, Josef von Sternberg), cloth diffusion instead of
shooting full frontal nudity was against the law, regardless of glass diffusion, a slight “tilt” to the back of the view camera to
artistic context.) elongate her legs, and a full-length mirror in which she ap-
In 1947 television was beginning to attract attention. Hur- praised each pose. Hurrell had not worked with her since 1937,
rell tried to get in on the action by producing his own show, but he remembered that mirror.
Camera Highlights, on WABD, the New York affiliate of the When Dietrich came to Rodeo Drive, Hurrell brushed
DuMont network. Hurrell would do interviews, give advice, and aside her requirements. He shot her without the “Paramount”
demonstrate photographic technique. Due to poor scripting and key light, without diffusion, and without the mirror. When Diet-
production, the show only lasted a few episodes. Variety praised rich reviewed the unretouched proofs, she was less than pleased.
Hurrell’s on-camera presence, however. For the next five years, “George,” said the fifty-one-year-old star, as she frowned at
his charm was mostly confined to the world of advertising. them, “you don’t take pictures as well as you used to.”
In 1950 Phyllis helped effect an alliance with her uncle. “But Marlene,” Hurrell answered, “I’m fifteen years older.”
Walt Disney was desirous of getting into television production Dietrich got the point. She destroyed the negatives and took her
but wanted to do it without committing his company name. In business to John Engstead, who was compliant. Hurrell was fed
December Hurrell joined with Walt’s brother Roy, Gunther up with silly starlets and aging queens. He closed the Rodeo
Lessing, and Paul Pease to form Hurrell Productions. The unit Drive studio and began to devote himself full time to Hurrell
would function on the Disney lot, filming a variety of projects. Productions.
Because of advertising commitments, Hurrell remained in New Years earlier, Hurrell had toyed with the idea of becoming a
York and Phyllis began producing. director of photography. “Joan Crawford wanted me to become

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 a motion picture cameraman,” said Hurrell, “but I couldn’t She was also creative, inventive, and industrious. And she was
stand it. I was too energetic, too nervous. I lasted two and a half consistent in a way that her husband was not. Before the year
days.” Portrait photographer Ted Allan remembered the M-G-M was over, Hurrell left for New York, and Phyllis took over the
tryout, which took place in the mid-’30s. “Hurrell couldn’t cut company.
the politics,” said Allan. “He started yelling, ordering these guys Hurrell went to work for the J. Walter Thompson adver-
around. You can’t do that on a set and last any length of time.” tising agency, shooting ads for Flair and Revlon. On May 18,
Of course that was years earlier. Hurrell had mellowed. 1955, Phyllis Hurrell was granted a divorce and awarded $600
Ensconced on the Disney lot, Hurrell Productions was a month in child support, as well as a substantial property
going strong for two years. Then there was a conflict. Hurrell settlement. Not long afterward, Hurrell married his third wife,
wanted to produce a series based on the legend of Zorro. He Elizabeth Willis, in Elton, Maryland, and moved to Connecticut
negotiated a deal with Mitchell Gertz, who had acquired rights to start a new family. “I’d get bored with New York,” he said,
to the character from its creator, Johnston McCulley. Hurrell “so I’d move out to the suburbs. I’d get bored with the suburbs
negotiated with Gilbert Roland to play Zorro, and scouted loca- and move out to the country. I’d get bored with that goddamned
tions in Mexico. Just as everything was set to go, Walt Disney train ride in and out every day. And then I’d just get bored.”
took a look at Roland and said, “He’s too old.” Meanwhile, new technology was revamping every studio and
“If that’s the way it’s going to be,” Hurrell said to Disney, darkroom in the country. As America rocketed to new prosper-
“you can have it then. To hell with it.” Disney, sensing that Hur- ity, Hurrell went into a tailspin.
rell was about to bail out, offered to buy Hurrell Productions.
“You can’t have my name,” said Hurrell. “My name is mine.”
Hurrell became increasingly “argumentative,” according to
Phyllis. On September 10, 1954, he and his wife separated. On
November 24, she filed for divorce, claiming that his behavior
was hurting their production company. “He has a violent tem-
O P P OSI TE: This 1942 portrait of Marguerite Chapman shows
per,” Phyllis testified, “and argues all the time, upsetting me and that Hurrell’s use of color was as audacious as his lighting design.
The reproduction in magazines of the period muted the colors to a
the children.” For the record, Phyllis was known to be a tough
certain extent, so Hurrell’s hues looked softer in print than they do
cookie, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, rough-talking boss. in this, the original Kodachrome transparency.

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 THE LEAN YEARS

George Hurrell’s downward trajectory began in 1956, when he “In 1962 Hurrell came to me because he knew me from
summarily left the East Coast and moved to Laguna Beach. He Metro,” recalled Ted Allan. “I was in with Sinatra and Bill
rented a two-bedroom apartment over a gas station but found Daniels and that gang, working all the time, and Hurrell needed
nothing to do in the suburbanized art colony, so he moved his work badly. He was awfully pleasant and humble then.”
growing family to a tract home on Allott Avenue in Van Nuys Allan helped Hurrell get hired onto the Sinatra Rat Pack
and surveyed the job market. There was aerospace and there film Sergeants Three. His title was unit still photographer and he
was television, which was consuming the movie industry. One of was paid $500 a week. It was a long way from being head portrait
the most formidable men in television was “Uncle Walt” Disney. photographer, but by the late 1960s there were no portrait gal-
When Hurrell had trouble finding work, it occurred to him that leries, let alone portrait photographers. It was newsworthy when
he and Disney had not parted on good terms. Hurrell had not he was hired in 1967 to shoot “special art portraits” of Julie
been blackballed. He had been away too long, and the industry Andrews as Gertrude Lawrence for Robert Wise’s Star! Hurrell
had changed too much. In 1959 he tried to raise backing for shot the portraits with a medium-format camera, but on sets he
portrait studios in both Hollywood and Laguna. He failed. was made to shoot “scene stills” in 35mm. It was grueling, and
Grim years followed. Hurrell was trying to raise three it was not portraiture. “There’s no way you can shoot portraits
children and pay child support for three more. “The great Hur- with a goddamned Nikon slammed up against your eyes,” said
rell is available to create the super-jet photos you need for your Hurrell. “You have to be able to communicate with your subject.”
Marilyn Monroe production,” he wrote producer Jerry Wald Stuck with a small-format camera, he had to use strobo-
on April 8, 1960. He did not get that job, or any other. He had scopic flash. “It’s beyond me how anyone can keep that sparkle
no choice but to buy small-format cameras and shoot whatever in their eye with a flash going off in their face,” said Hurrell.
work he could find. At one point he was reduced to standing Clarence Bull had come to agree. “Those speedlights are the
outside the Beverly Hills restaurants where he had once eaten,
grabbing shots of arriving stars. Even though he was there as the O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell’s star portraits found a new use in
the 1950s when Hollywood studios began selling their film libraries
representative of a small agency, it was a shameful comedown. In to television. Movies from another era were suddenly available for
the era of rock and roll, his genius was worthless. George Hur- viewing around the clock and had to be advertised in local papers.
It was disconcerting, though, to see a young Shirley Temple in Heidi
rell, once the most famous photographer in Hollywood, was a on the afternoon movie and to then see an adult Temple on her
forgotten, humbled man. own show in the evening.

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 worst thing that ever happened to photography,” said Bull in novel about a transsexual who takes Hollywood by storm.
1975. “Strobe lighting doesn’t have enough variety,” added Day after day Hurrell stood in the shadowy perimeter of
Hurrell. “It’s too flat and too much of one source. That’s why I a soundstage at Twentieth Century-Fox, patiently waiting, an
use spotlights.” These issues concerned the quality of portrait enigmatic figure in flak jacket and khaki pants, bedizened with
photography. Publicists did not care about photography. “How Nikons. He peered through black horn-rimmed glasses and
many rolls of film did you shoot?” was the question Hurrell rubbed his gray Van Dyke beard while director Michael Sarne
heard most often. “I take a hundred shots and end up with one tried to calm a feud between West and Welch. Seventy-six-year-
so-so shot I would have rejected before,” he lamented. old West had a contractual stipulation that allowed her to wear
For a man approaching retirement age, Hurrell was essay- costumes of only black or white, a sure way to stand out in a
ing a hopeless task. The unit still man operated in a stressful color film. Welch had shown up in a white dress. As the long-
universe where he had all the responsibility and none of the haired young director tried to referee these divas, Hurrell stood
authority. Ordered to grab shots of uncooperative actors during on the sidelines and sighed. In the old days, he had called the
rehearsal, he was then prevented from getting too many shots by shots. Now he waited for them.
pushy assistant directors. In the behind-schedule flicks of the Outside the buzzing soundstage stood a tall, elegant young
’60s, the still man was the scapegoat, constantly being elbowed man in a corduroy sports coat, watching studio employees come
out of the way. For Hurrell, being chided by a mogul was one and go. He was a journalist from England. The unit publicist
thing; being shoved by some punk was another. Yet there was did not want him to overhear the sniping between Welch and
nothing he could do about it. “Working on a movie now,” said West. There had been a lot of bad press. “I’ve never seen so
Hurrell in 1969, “is like being a combat photographer.” The many personality conflicts on one picture,” admitted Richard
once-outspoken artist kept quiet and tried to shoot. Zanuck, studio president, production chief, and son of Darryl F.
The Los Angeles Times reporter Frank Taylor witnessed one Zanuck. The publicist was loath to have a foreign journalist add
of Hurrell’s trials during the making of George Stevens’s The to the firestorm of gossip, so there he stood, in the glare outside
Only Game in Town. At an on-set birthday party for Elizabeth the door, holding his note pad. His name was John Kobal.
Taylor, Hurrell was instructed to shoot both the cake and the Hurrell grabbed a quiet moment to shoot West in her Edith
star. Only the soundstage work lights were lit; the stage was Head gown, and they made the best of it, recalling the session in
dark. “You can’t expose film without light,” said Hurrell. 1933 when she had dropped her peignoir. Here they were, two
“Mrs. Burton won’t permit flash guns,” sniffed an assistant. fading legends, stuck on this stupid excuse for a movie. Even
Being treated this way must have been unbearably demean- so, it was show biz and they were working. They were troupers.
ing for Hurrell. Yet this is how he saw out the ’60s—paying The unit publicist knew that Kobal was interested in Hollywood
for his children’s education. His credits included Beneath the history, so when Hurrell got bored and wandered outside, he
Planet of the Apes, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and introduced them.
Justine. In October 1969 he was working on a troubled produc- “George, this is John Cueball,” said the publicist. “He’s
tion, Myra Breckinridge. Because the film starred Raquel Welch from London, covering the show. He’s a real film buff.”
and Mae West, he was allowed to shoot portraits, but they were
off-set, small-format, and rushed. The stills he shot were among
O P P OSI TE: In 1967 Hurrell was hired to shoot Julie Andrews for
the oddest he had ever done; the film was based on Gore Vidal’s Robert Wise’s Star!

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 “Hi!” said Hurrell, shaking Kobal’s hand with a very thing more than illustrations. In his books, the pictures were
strong grip. thoughtfully and cleverly chosen, telling the story as well as
“Hi,” said Kobal, rubbing his hand. “Did you ever photo- the text did. His books emphasized the process by which stars
graph Miss West before?” were made and were the first to credit photographers. Until this
“Oh, yeah, sure, when she first came out here. I even did time, the one and only book to credit Hurrell had been Joan
some nude shots for her own private use.” Crawford’s 1962 autobiography, which was aptly titled
“So she’s not a man?” A Portrait of Joan.
“God, no,” chuckled Hurrell. “She’s a small woman, very Kobal’s books explored the mythology of stardom and
voluptuous, not the way the gals were in those days, you know. considered the correspondence of movie publicity to religious
They all wanted to be very slim so they would look good in iconography. He was fascinated by Rita Hayworth, who he felt
clothes, but Mae had the best figure I’d ever seen for the kind of had created glamour from a deprived and bitter life. By the time
round, curvaceous sort she was.” Hurrell was surprised that this he met Hurrell, Kobal had authored nine books. Commuting
aggressive young man was less interested in Myra Breckinridge between New York and London, he cultivated patrons in the
than he was in Hurrell’s early work. Kobal wanted to hear sto- art world and laid the foundation for the Kobal Collection, a
ries about his favorite, Rita Hayworth. He wanted to hear about photographic rental agency. He began to interview stars and
the old M-G-M days, about “Joan and Norma.” Hurrell was filmmakers, building an impressive archive of lore and images.
puzzled. Why would a journalist care about that stuff ? “You’re a As his name began to appear in the London press, he started his
writer?” Hurrell asked in his flat, scratchy voice. own climb to celebrity.
“Of course,” Kobal answered in a booming, slightly ac- Writer David Chierichetti was then a budding film histori-
cented voice. “But I’m something of a collector as well.” an, accompanying Kobal on interviews and acting as a technical
“A collector,” repeated Hurrell, hearing this word for the interpreter. “John was at that time very young and agreeable
first time in the context of his own work. and moving in all directions,” recalled Chierichetti in 1995.
It was on that day in 1969, between two soundstages at “He liked to regale people with his tales of Hollywood.” With
Twentieth, in the smoggy glare of what was now called “LA,” his good looks and booming banter, Kobal cut a stylish figure
that George Hurrell began his return from the ashes. at parties, an Edwardian dandy steeped in silver nitrate. He was

#
grand, expansive, and quotable.
“He was a lot of fun to know, but he always wanted at-
John Kobal grew up in Linz, Austria, and then in Canada tention,” said Chierichetti. “He appreciated attention more
and Britain, a “child of the cinema,” as he once told me. He than he appreciated real friendship. He would use people up.”
worked as an actor and then as a writer, all the while collect- Horror collector David Del Valle remembered it differently.
ing the movie stills that lay in stacks inside theater storerooms. “John was guarded until he was sure you were sincere,” said
Eventually, his collection was large enough to be marketable. Del Valle. “Then he was loyal, making sure you were included
Kobal was marketable too. He had a flair for essay, an eye for in his circle, meeting Warhol or whomever. But, yes, he had his
design, and a winning charm. He made connections in the moods. When he was depressed, he would grab a file of Dietrich
publishing world and wrote books on Garbo and Dietrich. His portraits and flip through it, stroking these stills. Before long, he
were the first books to use “motion-picture stills” as some- felt better.”

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 LEF T: One of the few Hollywood assignments granted to George
Hurrell in the 1950s was an on-the-set portrait of Peter Lawford
while he was filming a series at NBC.

Friends and employees alike never knew what to expect work was far superior to what he was doing in 1969. He was
from Kobal, honest praise or withering derision. “There was a shooting stills in order to raise his children. He and Elizabeth
duality about him,” said Matthew Daniels, a former employee. had three: Daphne Ann, born in 1956; George Edward Jr., born
“He could be sharing some secret about Dietrich with you, and in 1959; and Michael Anthony, born in 1960. When John Kobal
in the next breath telling you to stack your dishes properly.” visited the Hurrell home in North Hollywood, he saw their
“He was one of the most generous men I ever knew,” said pictures on the wall, and a few half-finished paintings, but no
Del Valle. “I wouldn’t have a still collection if not for him. But if Hollywood portraits. Why not?
you encroached on his favorites, say Dietrich or Hayworth? “After you’ve looked at them half a dozen times,” said Hur-
Uh oh!” rell, “you just get tired of looking at them.” But the Hollywood
“John was a true Gemini,” said the actor and astrologer stuff was what Kobal had come to see. He sat in Hurrell’s den
Jeremiah Sullivan. “The meaning of the word! He had two as the photographer brought out a few boxes. Kobal tore into
personalities. Coffee in the daytime and alcohol at night.” In one them, blowing off dust, asking question after question of the
thing, however, Kobal was consistent: he respected Hollywood serene old man. “Hurrell had now reached a point in his life
photography of the Golden Era. when it seemed that his career was over,” wrote Kobal. “He saw
Hurrell respected it, too. He did not put it in the same cat- no chance of its return and didn’t think about it or pine for it,
egory as Edward Weston’s work, but he admitted that his 1930s and everything about ‘those days’ made him laugh a lot, like you

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 might find yourself laughing on awakening and retelling this
incredible dream you just had.” Kobal could not fathom why
Hurrell had so few pictures and why they were boxed and kept
out of sight. “If I look at them for any length of time,” Hurrell
explained, “I start to wonder why I did this or that. Pretty soon I
hate the picture.”
Kobal was incredulous, but had no time to object. Each
“old” photo rising from a box silenced him. “Hurrell’s work
became clearer, stronger, increasingly hypnotic, and we both
came to a discovery about the uniqueness of these people he’d
photographed. A Crawford, a Gable, a Shearer became a forceful
presence in the room, and words like ‘old’ meant a craft now lost.”
Before long, Kobal was calling each photo an “image.” He
was looking for symbolism in poses and props. He was likening
the subjects to Botticelli angels and Raphael Madonnas. When
he used the word “icon” it was not George who had created it,
but “Hurrell.” At age sixty-five, George Hurrell became “Hur-
rell.” A photo was not a movie still. It was “a Garbo by Hurrell,”
or a “Hurrell Crawford.” Or just “a Hurrell.”
After three interviews, John wrote an article that ran in the O P P OSI TE: Hurrell photographed Ethel Barrymore in 1932 when
she was making Rasputin and the Empress, the only film she made
July 1971 issue of British Vogue. The magazine was not distrib-
with her brothers, Lionel and John. She did not see it until the late
uted in Los Angeles, so the highly complimentary piece (titled 1950s, when MGM put it on Los Angeles television. “I thought I
was pretty good,” she said, “But what those two boys were up to I’ll
“Hurrell”), had no effect on its subject’s career. Hurrell appreci-
never know.”
ated the trouble Kobal had gone to, but what was the point if
ABOVE: Mae West was seventy-six and George Hurrell was
it did not lead to any work in LA? And anyway, these were old
sixty-five when he shot this portrait of her for Michael Sarne’s
photos. What could you do with them? John Kobal had an idea Myra Breckinridge. The last time she had been shot on a set—in
what to do with them, and he began to work on it. 1943—Hurrell had been her photographer. No one in Hollywood
could quite understand why Mae West was appearing in this
Three years passed. Hurrell was seventy. One day he was very strange film. “It can’t miss,” she said quixotically. “The older
approached by Bette Davis, who was collaborating on a critical people will come out to see it, and now I’ve got this young crowd
interested in me, too.” Myra Breckinridge was a colossal flop, but it
biography with writer Whitney Stine. Hurrell used medium introduced Hurrell to a young man who would change the course
format and shot book jacket portraits of them. When Stine of his life.

proposed the idea of a bio, Hurrell was friendly but noncom-

mittal. He did not let on that he had been working with John
Kobal, preparing notes for the Trewin Copplestone Publish-
ing Company in London. On May 13, 1974, Hurrell wrote to
Kobal: “This is getting to be embarrassing. I get all churned up

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 smiles behind the counter froze, until Kobal blithely peeled off a
few one hundred-dollar bills.
“John just went through box after box and held them up
to the light,” recalled Morrissey. “He recognized what they
were because he’d been collecting the same stills already. So
he simply took packs of them. And then boxes full.” Kobal had
achieved something remarkable. What he had first seen in an
Austrian theater was now contained in the 8x10-inch sliver of
history he was holding up to a hotel room light. He spent soli-
tary hours identifying and labeling each precious negative.
Then he had cheap contact prints made, rushed them to
Hurrell, and left for London. In November 1974 Kobal mounted
a unique exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, “Hol-
lywood Still Photography, 1927 to 1941.” Interspersed with vin-
tage prints from the Kobal Collection were contact prints made
from his New York acquisitions. The handsome, well-curated
show created a sensation in London, making a celebrity of John
Kobal and establishing the primacy of his collection.
In January 1975 Kobal received a letter from Hurrell. “I’ve
to get on the book and then calls pour in, and what can I do?” tried to get some writing done,” said Hurrell, “but it’s such a
In short order, he had gotten several TV pilots and a series of slow procedure with my shooting schedule. Also, most of the
executive portraits for Rockwell International. Then Raquel notes land in the wastebasket when I reread them.” Hurrell
Welch wanted him on her new film, The Wild Party. What could closed by saying that until he retired (in 1976), he would have
he do? no time to write a book, “ . . . if there is a book market left for
John Kobal was in New York, gathering material for a Hollywood stills of the glamour era.” The tone of Hurrell’s letter
Hurrell book and supplying stills for Interview magazine. was typical Hollywood: “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
Paul Morrissey was there, having just directed Andy Warhol’s
Frankenstein. Kobal told Morrissey a curious story: he had gone LEF T: Hurrell made this portrait of John Kobal in December 1975,
to a certain lab in the photo district where it was possible to when they were contemplating a project.

order prints from the old studio negatives that were stored there. O P P OSI TE: When John Kobal interviewed Ann Sheridan in 1966,
According to Kobal, the following exchange had taken place in he was also writing books on Garbo and Dietrich, and wanted
to hear Sheridan’s thoughts. “You see, John,” she said, “Dietrich
this den of Chanel-scented ladies and purple-shirted men, all is glamour! Like Garbo was, still is, glamour. There is a mystery
of whom responded to his grandiose charm. “I understand you to them—and I never had that, dear. I don’t think any American
personality had it. We couldn’t possibly touch it. We were just well-
have things on file that you’re dumping,” said Kobal. “Would
dressed, well-made-up motion picture actresses. We never had the
you mind if I went through them and took what I want?” The mystery, the touch these women had.”

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 THE COLLECTORS

In 1931 actor Richard Cromwell sculpted a plaster mask of Joan still in the hands of commercial buyers because as an art, it has
Crawford and presented it to this idol of millions. George Hur- no collectors’ market.” Hurrell dismissed the possibility that any
rell photographed Crawford in her dressing room with the mask, Hollywood portrait might be mistaken for art. Since 1929, he
and the only significance of the gift was that of publicity ploy. In had known that its only value was to sell the next movie. “I saw
retrospect, Cromwell’s gesture clearly prefigures the idolatry of that photography was strictly commercial,” he said in 1942. “As
the movie still collector. The image is sharply etched: an epicene an art, it simply has no market with collectors. I concluded that
male yearning for a female icon. The icon is physically remote, I must make photos that startle, that intrigue and hold interest.
but her qualities are attainable—beauty, glamour, power. They Tomorrow, most photos are forgotten.”
are attained by amassing photographic images of her, collectible What Hurrell did not know was that Hollywood movie
artifacts that reflect her on-screen life. In the 1970s, the persona stills were being collected. They were not looked on as fine art,
of the collector would emerge as a cultural influence. but they were increasingly valuable commodities in an interna-
In the early 1960s, though, the public perception of old tional underground market. He had thought that John Kobal
movie stars and their memorabilia was reflected only in macabre was one of a kind. In actuality, movie still collecting had been
scenes from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Strait going on since the early 1950s, made possible by the largesse
Jacket. Former glamour queens (and Hurrell subjects) Bette and indifference of the film industry.
Davis and Joan Crawford were depicted as eccentrics who Since 1930, every Hurrell negative had yielded perhaps
related with their memorabilia as psychotic reinforcements or as twenty oversize prints and a thousand 8x10 glossies. This
reminders of their own decay. The memorabilia had no intrin- meant that there might exist 1.1 million prints of Joan Crawford
sic value. Hurrell portraits were just old “glossies.” They had alone. These prints were given away, and then each negative was
served their purpose. They had gotten the world’s attention, shipped to New York, where studio management paid to store it.
and, like spent firecrackers, they existed only as scraps of paper, M-G-M’s negatives were stored in a combination repository and
waiting to be swept up and thrown away. Some were thrown
away; many were not.
O P P OSI TE: This 1931 portrait of Richard Cromwell with his sculp-
As early as 1940, when he was watching Edward Weston
ture of Joan Crawford suggests the inchoate longing of a collector
struggle to survive, George Hurrell had said, “Photography is for his idol.

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 C LO C K W I S E F R OM TO P LE FT: In What Ever Happened to
Baby Jane? Bette Davis shows how some retired stars relate with
their memorabilia.

While collectors were saving George Hurrell photographs from de-

struction, the artist was creating new images, albeit in a different
style. He shot this for The Donny and Marie Show in 1976.

In 1975, to own an original 1934 print of a Norma Shearer portrait

by Hurrell was a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Crawford had Hurrell photograph her with Richard Cromwell’s

sculpture.

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 laboratory called Apco Apeda, the remnants of the once-promi- from “old movies.” At a quarter a throw, these pieces of paper
nent commercial portrait studio, Apeda. When a movie was reis- were of no interest to multi-million-dollar corporations.
sued, Apco lent the negatives to National Screen Service. When Furthermore, many studios were in transition at this time,
prints were needed in Culver City, Apco printed the negatives. so they did not notice that repositories were now printing origi-
By the 1960s, Apco was printing the “negs” for another group: nal studio negatives for collectors and for stores. When John
collectors. Kobal learned of this, he thought it might solve his research
The still collector cult was born when thousands of young problems. He wanted to write a book about George Hurrell, but
men came to Los Angeles in the postwar boom, drawn by the was stymied by the poverty of Hurrell’s collection. He began to
vaunted glamour of Hollywood. Hurrell collector Bill Chapman, order prints from Apco, which had the M-G-M and Universal
for example, came from Kansas City, Missouri, with a Master’s negatives, and from VitaPrint, which had the Warners, Colum-
Degree in Art, to avail himself of the opportunities that only a city bia, and RKO negatives. He also began to cultivate collectors.
of this size had to offer. Where else could you find bookstores When I arrived in Los Angeles in 1973 to pursue a graduate
that also sold pictures of movie stars? There were mountains of degree in film production, there was an established community
movie stills lying around Los Angeles. Wartime paper drives had of still collectors. I learned about them through their latest initi-
not made a dent in them, and no one threw them away. “You can ate, a young but accomplished collector who was also attending
throw away a newspaper, but a still is different,” said still collec- the University of Southern California. When I gave a speech at
tor Richard Braff. “It’s cruel to throw away a real photograph.” the Ambassador Hotel in honor of veteran cinematographer Lee
As the demand for movie stills increased, bookstores such Garmes, this collector invited me to see his collection of stills
as Larry Edmunds on Hollywood Boulevard became movie from Strange Interlude. I expected to see photos that recorded
memorabilia stores. When movie magazines and newspapers Garmes’s cinematography. Instead, I saw stunning portraits of
failed, inventories doubled overnight. When a silent-film actor Norma Shearer. I turned one over and saw a purple stamp that
died, bookstore employees would rush to the widow’s home read: “Photo by Hurrell.”
with cash and return with boxes of stills. Studio basements “Who was Hurrell?” I asked.
yielded stills, especially at night. Legend has it that a studio My ignorance could be excused. It was a result of the
guard named Ken Hollywood spent weeks on the graveyard cultural climate. Nineteen-fifties Hollywood, like the pharaohs
shift carrying boxes of “key set stills” from the basement of a of yore, had tried to erase every vestige of the previous dynasty.
certain movie studio in Culver City, the studio that had lost Old movies were derided as “corn,” then tolerated as “camp.”
its hyphens in the ’50s. These stills were soon available for Norma Shearer was attacked by Pauline Kael and Richard
purchase in a store on Gardner and Melrose. In those early days, Schickel, and stamped in the public’s mind as the untalented
stills sold for a quarter and the supply was endless. obsession of a myopic executive. But when the studios one by
Movie studios did not interfere with the stores. How could one dropped their libraries into television, something hap-
they? They had no legal claim. They had never bothered to pened—the Morning Movie, the Early Show, the Late Show. In
copyright the negatives. They had not copyrighted the stills. 1957, when I achieved the age of reason, twenty years of studio
They had given the stills away. More importantly, the stills were product was on view. There were naysayers, many of them

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 in Hollywood. “I wouldn’t say the old films have any future Bill Chapman was both a Judy Garland and a Greta Garbo col-
on television,” said Frances Marion, who had written dozens lector. Dore Freeman was the Joan Crawford collector.
of them. Bookkeepers at MCA, NTA, and MGM would have The atmosphere at Myron Braum’s was redolent with oat-
to contradict her. Old Hollywood was the new product, and meal cookies, English Leather, and envy. Half a dozen middle-
children like me wondered why the air in films like Grand Hotel aged men sat on sofas, trading stories and passing prints. With
looked silvery; it would be years before I learned about diffusion his slight stammer and irrepressible smile, Myron was a genial
disks and glamour lighting. host, and sometime referee. The competition for new stills
In the early 1970s we began “Rediscovering the America appeared friendly, but there was an undercurrent of one-upman-
Cinema.” The classics—and Shearer—bounced back, first on ship and obsession. I watched, listened, and learned.
college campuses and then in revival houses such as Berkeley’s Every collector I met that year was upset that the stores
Telegraph Repertory, where Shearer’s performance in the 1931 were now charging as much as three dollars apiece for original
Private Lives got standing ovations. The directors, writers, stills. Collectors were forced to buy less, but they kept on buy-
and cinematographers of the Golden Era were enshrined in a ing. They were compelled to buy. Each new purchase cried out
cinematic pantheon, but there was no room in it for still pho- for company in its file folder. And beyond the quirks and the
tographers; hence my ignorance of Hurrell. Once I discovered constancy of collecting, there was a common theme: idolatry.
this unknown artist, though, I began to venture off campus for a Collecting still photos brought the collector closer to the magic
biweekly treasure hunt. of the star. “It’s like they want to touch their idol,” said David
In 1974 Hollywood Boulevard was a fetid, smoggy Del Valle. “And if they collect enough photographs, say, enough
backwash, a cultural void. Its fabled glamour had long since to reach the size of a human being, well they’ve brought them
evaporated, leaving a shabby thoroughfare beset by inflation, back from the dead. It’s a little like necrophilia.” Stills also
recession, and an energy crisis. What had once been golden was extended the movie experience; they were something tangible
now barely tinseled. I was not put off by the shabbiness; I could after it ended.
not see it. I saw a shimmering mirage of past glories, and beyond When I met Myron Braum, he was using his collection
that, a treasure trove. A hundred million movie stills beckoned to write a book, The Films of Norma Shearer. I helped him by
me to Hollywood Boulevard. supplying frame enlargements I had made from a 16mm print
Braving the polyester glare, I walked from shop to shop, of Marie Antoinette. I was thrilled to be involved with a book.
looking in file after file, box after box. I found the occasional Much of my emotional connection with Hollywood came from
Hurrell original, and I also found a network of kindred spirits. books in the Oakland Public Library. I was in awe of authors
There was a group of still collectors that congregated at the such as Raymond Lee (Gloria Swanson), Marc Ricci (The Films
Hollywood apartment of a friendly, gentle fellow named Myron of Greta Garbo), and, most of all, Daniel Blum (A Pictorial
Braum. Myron hosted small parties at 1535 North Las Palmas History of the Talkies). Their books had been my grammar-
Avenue, where guests could buy stills, discuss films, or just school bibles. If I had known that these writers were collectors,
peruse Myron’s Norma Shearer collection. Each collector had and how they acquired their collections, I might not have been
his or her specialty. Joanna Morgan was a Greta Garbo collector. so admiring. The film and theater historian Miles Kreuger

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 recounted the tale of a Manhattan tea party hosted by actress later, I saw copy prints of the Delgado photos. They were on
Fritzi Scheff, where her retired friends were talking about their sale at a movie memorabilia convention. Sitting at the dealer’s
careers. “It’s very modest of you, Fritzi,” said actress Hazel table was the obese Bob Shurl. Twenty years later, when Shurl
Dawn, “not having pictures of yourself on display.” reached four hundred pounds, he committed suicide.
“Oh, I used to have lots of pictures,” replied Scheff, “but I Collector stories could be as macabre as they were appalling.
lent them to Daniel Blum for one of his books and the publisher Another collector jammed so much ill-gotten gain into his apart-
lost them.” ment that his boyfriend threatened to leave him. The collector
“Suddenly there came the sound of teacups dropping to could not stop collecting. The boyfriend had a breakdown and
saucers all around the room,” said Kreuger. “Every actress there became disabled. “I guess the collection won out,” he told any-
could tell the same story.” one who would listen. After he died, I offered my condolences
I was hearing similar stories in Los Angeles, where the pick- to the collector. “I know it’s kinda sad,” he said after a poignant
ings were much better. The elderly animation artist Marcel Del- pause. “But I guess it gives me more room for my collection.”
gado allowed a young collector named Bob Shurl to borrow his
priceless, one-of-a-kind King Kong production shots, ostensibly
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: When Hurrell saw a portrait of
to make copies. Shurl brought them back on time but then made
Hedda Hopper he had made in 1932, he vividly remembered her
a hasty departure. Poor Delgado discovered that Shurl had voice coming out of the phone.

made copies, all right, but had kept the originals. And Shurl had
Robert Taylor’s complexion lent itself handsomely to Hurrell’s
given Delgado a false name and phone number. Several years retouching technique.

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 Hurrell had no contact with the collector world, and his darkroom. I was warned not to expect much in the way of
view of the art market was correct—so far. These collectors did salary or raises, but I was free to use the studio and darkroom
not value their stills as fine art or as self-sustaining artifacts. after hours. Room 303 became my home away from home, an
The stills were looked on as pieces of a giant, never-to-be- enchanted retreat where I learned large-format photography and
completed puzzle. Film director Paul Morrissey watched these practiced Hurrell techniques on family and friends.
collectors from the vantage point of Andy Warhol’s Interview My boss laughed at me for trying to practice an outmoded
magazine. “To them,” he said, “It was ‘Oh, I’ve got another technique. Everyone else was using 35mm cameras and strobes
Garbo.’ Or, ‘Oh! I’ve got another Crawford!’ It was never that to “tell it like it is.” I used a view camera, incandescent lights,
these were great photographic art.” That was John Kobal’s and pencil retouching. Why? Because the Hollywood glamour
vision. technique, more than any other, made my subjects look good.
To me, Hurrell’s photographs were something else, a path Because of Hurrell, I believed that physical beauty should not
beyond my film studies. His work showed me that it was pos- only be recorded but also enhanced.
sible to use light as both a means and as an end. To that extent, In 1975 the casting director Marvin Paige generously re-
I did perceive it as fine art, and I wanted to learn more. When ferred actors to me. (He referred actress Fifi D’Orsay to Hurrell,
I abandoned my film studies, the boss at my work-study job at too.) I photographed Anna Lee, whom Paige had gotten onto
the USC School of Dentistry created a full-time position for me.
I became a staff photographer, shooting portraits of dentists in
ABOVE: These were two of the exquisite Hurrell portrait prints
a well-appointed studio, and making prints of them in a spiffy that Dore Freeman had in his collection.

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 General Hospital. I also photographed Henry Wilcoxon, whom of a preying mantis in a bath towel. My teeth on edge, I tried to
Cecil B. DeMille had cast as Marc Antony in the 1934 Cleopa- look through his file cabinets. Within twenty minutes, he was
tra. While perusing my portfolio, Wilcoxon stopped and made asking me to rub his back. I had gone there to look at forty-year-
a comment. “You must have a good ‘camera-side manner,’” he old photos, not a forty-year-old torso, so I beat a hasty retreat.
said. “You’re able to photograph thought.” I was not sure how In Hollywood, there was the casting couch and the “collecting
to accept this compliment. I wanted to do better. I wanted to couch.”
learn more. At my first visit to MGM, Dore Freeman took advantage
Another Hollywood veteran who helped me was Dore of my preoccupation with a key stills book from Gone With the
Freeman, the head of the stills department at latter-day Wind, and ran his predaceous fingers through the curls at the
MGM. I had met him during my first summer at USC, when back of my neck; this, after a mere two hours of acquaintance.
I boldly walked into the Thalberg Building with a fellow When I went to his home, I made sure to bring along a friend,
student named P. R. Tooke, and asked to meet someone who the same young collector who had introduced me to Hurrell’s
had known “the great stars of the Golden Era.” A nonplused work. Freeman could not molest both of us, so the evening pro-
receptionist sent us down the hall, where we met this executive ceeded to its stated purpose: to look at his collection of Hurrell
who hired Hurrell to shoot stills. Freeman was also on a first- prints. My friend and I sat nervously on the couch as Freeman
name basis with Norma Shearer, Merle Oberon, and of course, carried several boxes of 8x10 prints to us. When he opened
Joan Crawford. In the collectors’ world, Dore Freeman was the them, we were stunned. Then we competed for adjectives. “In-
“ultimate Joan Crawford collector.” credible!” “Fabulous!” “Unbelievable!”
Freeman was also an unrepentant lecher, and no young man Dore Freeman had what was probably the best collection
who entered his home was safe from his advances. My friends of custom-printed Hurrell originals in the world: we saw Jean
tried to treat it as a joke, calling him “that tacky old queen with Harlow, Norma Shearer, and of course, Joan Crawford. (When
the turquoise jewelry.” John Kobal called him “that old spider Crawford had gotten Freeman a job in the M-G-M publicity
monkey.” After all, Freeman was in his sixties and most of us department in the 1930s, one of his duties was to discard key
were in our twenties. Kobal was also compassionate. “You won’t set stills of artists whose contracts had expired. Somehow the
always be twenty-five,” he told David Del Valle. “One day you’ll proscribed photos never made it to the incinerator.) Hundreds
be his age, and maybe you won’t behave that way, but for now, and hundreds of mint prints, unseen since the ’30s, emerged
appreciate why he does.” There was plenty to appreciate. Dore’s from nondescript Kodak boxes. Myron Braum’s collection
usual opening line was: “Wanna fuck a pretty actress?” Suffice it was beautifully organized and concentrated, but this was “far
to say that he was neither. out!” This was the only way to see what Hurrell had done at
Sexual tension was an element of the scene, but not all M-G-M—in one superb, creamy, silvery double-weight 8x10
collectors were as subtle. A collector named Jim Jeneji greeted after another, for hours and hours and hours. Freeman almost
me bare-chested and proceeded to show me his in-progress hair had to throw us out. We could not stop looking.
transplant plugs. I did not find them sexy. When I went to visit I was not surprised that my friend wanted to return to Free-
Marvin Paige on a Sunday morning, I was treated to the sight man’s house a few days later. I was surprised that he went alone,

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 and more surprised when he showed me a print of Jean Harlow rell only had about seventy-five prints. He also had five hundred
that Freeman had given him. “He actually gave you this?” negatives, but they were mostly unretouched (“killed”) poses.
“Mm hm,” my friend answered. Then he produced another Stine had sold the book on the basis of the photos. If Hur-
still, and I gasped. It was MG42141, a 1934 portrait of my rell did not have them, if he could not get them from the movie
favorite star, Norma Shearer. Of all the thousands of stills I had studios (who also did not have them), or from the recently
seen at Freeman’s house, it was the one that had stayed with me, spurned John Kobal, well, the deal was off. Then Stine remem-
the one I now coveted. Hurrell had shot Shearer over a mirror- bered his Bette Davis project, the effusive fans, and their photos.
topped table, and used the light bouncing from the mirror and He brought this up to Hurrell, and Hurrell remembered Dore
from wax flowers to turn Shearer into an icon. It was a master- Freeman, the head of publicity at MGM—the Joan Crawford
piece. My friend handed it to me. “This is for you,” he said. collector. Of course! Collectors!
“For me?” I asked in disbelief. “Oh, my God!” I stared at But collectors were funny people, not inclined to part with
the print, and then turned to him. “Well, you really are my best precious originals, especially for the year that a publisher would
friend!” Then I paused. “Wait a minute. How did you get Dore need to keep them. Freeman was no different. (He had heard the
Freeman’s two best stills?” Daniel Blum tales.) He would, however, allow his prints to be
“How do you think I got them?” he smiled inscrutably. copied. That was where I came in. By this time, my copy work
“Oh,” I said, and sighed. “Welcome to Hollywood.” I did was good enough to sell to both collectors and authors. I had
not berate him—or return the still. I was becoming a hard-core been pestering Hurrell for a year, but he had not been interested
collector. What he did with Freeman was his business. I had in meeting a USC Dental School photographer. Now he needed
MG42141. Now, I thought, if I can just get Hurrell’s phone copy work, so he agreed to an audience. A meeting was set for
number. Saturday, November 1, 1975.
I continued to call Freeman, and when he saw that I was From the outside, 122 South Almont Drive was not
sincere and serious, I no longer needed a chaperone. I showed unusual. It was not built in the Normandie Village or Mother
him my lighting experiments, he critiqued them, and we became Goose architecture that one might expect for such a singular en-
friends. He lent me dozens of stills to study (and copy), and clave. So when George Hurrell entered Dore Freeman’s home,
appraised numerous portrait experiments. He even gave me there was a moment of silence. Even this show biz veteran was
Hurrell’s phone number. I was on my way. taken aback. Before him was an array of Joan Crawford material
Hurrell had gotten good news from Whitney Stine. Two unmatched anywhere in the world, and roughly 40 percent of
years of shopping had paid off. The John Day Company in it had been created by him. Everywhere he looked, he saw Joan
New York wanted to publish a pictorial biography that was to Crawford—in stills, in oversize portraits, in lobby cards, in sheet
be called The Hurrell Style. Hurrell agreed to do the book, as
long as he would not have to spend a lot of time on it or actually O P P OSI TE: Shearer wore this ensemble when she attended the
write anything. Stine interviewed him several times, borrowed opera and theater with her husband in the fall of 1934. This print
was sitting with a hundred others in a Kodak photo paper box in
his scrapbook of clippings, and then realized that there was a
Dore Freeman’s hall closet. The studio had told him to throw them
problem. The publisher expected to use 300 photos, but Hur- in the trash thirty years earlier, when Shearer left the studio.

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 music, in posters, in oil paintings, and even in life-sized cutouts. followed Freeman into the dining room to look at my portfolio
This was Freeman’s shrine to the woman with whom he had of portrait work. Hurrell flipped through it, turned to Freeman:
carried on a fifty-year, long-distance love affair. “I thought you said he needed help.” Then he turned to me
I was introduced to Hurrell, and he began to stroll around and said, “You don’t need any help. These are fine.” He closed
the house, studying each item of Crawford memorabilia. He my portfolio. “You have a good feeling for black and white.” I
was short, stocky, and full of verve. I thought that he looked thanked him, and then we got down to business, going through
more like a beatnik artist than a studio photographer. He asked Freeman’s collection.
Freeman if Joan had ever been to his home. Freeman answered As we went through binders and boxes, I asked ques-
no, with some regret but no resentment. His notion of a star was tions like “Why do you use a pin spot for a fill light instead of
that of a being set apart, unfettered by social obligations, a no-
tion born of forty years in the studio system. Then he produced
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: This oddly lit 1934 portrait of Jean
his latest letter from Joan, as if to affirm their unique bond. Harlow was hidden in a box at Dore Freeman’s.

On the archway over the dining room hung a life mask of

When this photo of Mae West emerged from Freeman’s “Miscella-
Joan Crawford made in 1953. Hurrell chuckled at it, and then neous” box, Hurrell said, “I shot that with 4x5 film.”

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 him questions about his work. My questions usually prompted
memories.
On seeing a 1932 image of Hedda Hopper, he said, “That
was before she got so big-headed as a gossip columnist. After
that, she used to call me up and try to get gossip out of me. I
wouldn’t tell her anything, and she’d start cursing at me: ‘You
goddamned son of a bitch!’”
Occasionally I would bring my own work for him to cri-
tique. One time, Betty walked into the room, saw my portfolio,
and said, “Well, are you going to be the next Hurrell?”
“One’s enough!” snapped the original Hurrell.
I never forgot the awkward silence that followed.
As 1975 turned into 1976, George Hurrell became increas-
ingly fussy about the prints I was making for him from my copy
negatives. In one case, I went to the trouble of copying a friend’s
print of Norma Shearer from the historically important first sit-
ting. My friend express-mailed the print from New York. Then
I rushed to shoot it at USC, rush-processed it, and rush-printed
it. I drove to North Hollywood with it, only to have Hurrell say,
“You need more skin texture on the left side of her face here.”
“But look at the original,” I said. “There’s no skin tone
a double broad?” Hurrell was surprised that I knew so much there. It’s pure white.”
about his technique. He made some preliminary choices, and “Well,” he drawled in that raspy voice of his. “Burn it in.
then he treated us to lunch at the Hamburger Hamlet at Beverly Put some tone in there.”
and Robertson, and reminisced. “Joan’s problem was that she “Okay,” I said, feebly, thinking to myself, How the hell am I
couldn’t stand getting old,” he said. He had last seen her in going to do that? Indeed, the result was rather muddy-looking,
August 1972, “on some silly show at Universal.” She had but when I delivered it, he grunted, paid me, and took it. Before
been drunk. long, the copy work slowed. When it stopped altogether, I knew
For the next six months I shot copy negs of Freeman’s why. Hurrell was getting prints of his work from an unlikely yet
Hurrell originals. Sometimes I would deliver them to Hurrell’s obvious source.
home on St. Clair Avenue in North Hollywood and sometimes
he would come to my Santa Monica apartment and treat me to ABOVE: Dore Freeman was Joan Crawford’s most ardent fan.
dinner at Casa Escobar. He liked Mexican food. When I visited His home was a shrine to her. A life-sized cutout of this Hurrell por-
trait stood at the entrance to his dining room. If not for collectors
him, I met his wife, Betty, and his son, George Jr., and drank gin-
like him, the aesthetic legacy of Hollywood’s Golden Era would
and-tonics with him. I brought old movie magazines and asked have been incinerated.

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 CHAPTER 7

RETURN FROM
THE ASHES

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 THE NEGATIVES

In 1975 John Kobal was in New York, still acquiring original Kobal would help him with—guess what—his own book project.
studio negatives and still trying to have them printed properly. John Kobal swallowed hard when he heard that Whitney Stine
By the 1970s, most photo labs were unwilling (or unable) to was writing it and it would be titled The Hurrell Style.
enlarge 8x10 negatives. They would only make cheap contact Kobal recovered himself, went to Gary Essert of the Los
prints, and when Kobal complained that the prints were too Angeles Film Exposition (FILMEX), and showed him the
contrasty and not properly balanced, a lab tech would snap at contact prints. Essert agreed to underwrite an exhibit of large
him: “What do you expect? It’s an old negative!” Kobal did not prints of Hollywood photography. Kobal triumphantly returned
know enough about photography to challenge this excuse for to Hurrell and together they went to Bob Olson Photo BlowUps
sloppy work. He was stuck. “John never bothered to learn the on Beverly Boulevard, another link in the chain of events leading
very basic work of photography,” said David Chierichetti. “He to Hurrell’s return.
couldn’t make a print.” Kobal showed the cheap contact prints On February 27, 1976, the Los Angeles Municipal Arts
to Paul Morrissey and asked his advice. Morrissey studied them Department, in association with FILMEX, presented Dreams
and said, “John, you know these portraits are among the best for Sale at the Barnsdall Park Municipal Art Gallery in East
ever done by any photographer. You have some extraordinary Hollywood—in the same Hollyhock mansion where Hurrell had
negatives here.”
“What does that mean?” Kobal asked. “What do I do?”
OVERLEAF: Of all the sessions Hurrell did in late 1976 and early
“What we have to do,” answered Morrissey, “is present
1977, his portraits of Bianca Jagger looked the most like the glam-
them as fine art photographs—printed on matte paper, 8x10, our portraits he had done in the mid-1930s.
gallery style.”
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell began a comeback campaign in
“Oh, no, no, no,” objected Kobal. “That’s not Hollywood! 1976, when John Kobal sent him this camera negative. Hurrell had
Hollywood is big, big, BIG!” Kobal needed enlargements to shot it in 1937 for the Twentieth Century-Fox film Love Is News.
“Hurrell did what we call poster art,” recalled Loretta Young in
prove his point, but the New York labs were impossible. He flew 1987. “Tyrone Power and I went to his studio for a full day. Tyrone
to California. At a fortuitous moment, he rang up Hurrell (who was the most beautiful thing in the world anyway. He was pret-
tier than I was. But, you know, Hurrell made everybody, male and
was still seeking pictures for his book). Hurrell agreed with female, look great. What’s the word? Idealized. Yes, I like that. I
Kobal about the enlargements. Yes, 8x10 negatives could be like looking at the beauty in the world—more than the ugliness.” To
Loretta Young’s credit, she was a lifelong Hurrell booster, and her
enlarged to ten feet without a loss of quality. Of course, Hurrell dislike of ugliness did not stop her from going to Skid Row missions
did not have a darkroom, but he would help Kobal, that is, if to feed the destitute.

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 delivered prints to the Laguna artist, Julia Bracken Wendt, fifty The 200-print show ran only a month, but its influence was
years earlier. The opening-night reception was a splashy, well- far-reaching. Kobal got a book deal from Dover Press to publish
publicized affair, attended by celebrities, art patrons, politicians, a monograph on the show, Hollywood Glamor Portraits, and
socialites, but few collectors. “With this show,” said Simon Hurrell’s book project was given an early push by all the media
Crocker, who was later Kobal’s manager, “John Kobal became attention Kobal was getting. Hurrell’s photos made up only a
more than just another collector of old stills. He separated him- tenth of the show, but they were most prominently displayed,
self from the pack. It was because of his intellectual inquisitive- and one of his 1934 portraits of Joan Crawford was the cover of
ness and that creative capacity he had, that people began to look the program. He was pleased, but reminded Kobal that he had
at Hurrell and these others differently.” been in a show before. In July 1965 the Museum of Modern Art

O P P OS I T E : In April 1976, when Hurrell was finishing his book, he A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: In February 1976 John Kobal, with
sent a newly made print to Joan Crawford. “I’ve always thought Hurrell’s help and counsel, mounted a groundbreaking exhibition.
the soulful, tender beauty in the enclosed print was among our
best efforts,” he wrote. “The depth of feeling and emotion you Hurrell’s pictorial autobiography was released in the fall of 1976
expressed in this pose has a dramatic quality that only a great ac- and promptly sold out.
tress could reveal.” For whatever reason, Crawford did not provide
an endorsement quote for his book. She may have been too ill, for
she died on May 10, 1977.

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 in New York mounted a show called Glamour Poses. Hurrell’s to embody the larger-than-life glamour of “Olde Hollywoode.”
work was in the company of Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, and He was too big for Braum’s living room. He had a resounding
Richard Avedon. voice and every third word was italicized. I quickly noticed
Dreams for Sale was generating much more publicity, (but pretended not to) that Kobal suffered from a strabismus.
though, and that impressed Paul Morrissey, who still felt that I had seen this in some family members over the years. Recog-
Hurrell’s Hollywood work could be presented as fine art pho- nizing this as a handicap, as something that must have caused
tography. He suggested to Kobal that they discuss this idea with him pain as a child, I could understand a little better why
Hurrell. Kobal put him off. He was too busy with interviews, Kobal was such a bombastic self-promoter. I was impressed by
parties, and research. He was now working on a new project, him and he was impressed by me—at least by my photography.
a biography of Rita Hayworth. To that end, he was canvassing In turn, I praised his books. “A lot of people have liked them,”
various collectors, including the generous Myron Braum, who he said.
knew how much I admired Kobal’s books and that I had not “They’ve really helped me—”
been invited to the reception by George Hurrell, Marvin Paige,
or Dore Freeman. On March 31, 1976, Braum introduced me to
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Hurrell began to get calls for por-
John Kobal. trait work after his book came out. This is Anne Archer by Hurrell.

I had met some colorful personalities in my first three

This is Keith Carradine, shot in conjunction with Hal Ashby‘s Bound
years in LA, but Kobal was in his own category. He had come for Glory.

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 “In fact, they’ve liked them so well that they’ve taken to and Barrymore profile-to-profile pose from Grand Hotel. He
copying photos out of them,” he averred. paid me thirty dollars and headed for the door.
“Oh, really,” I said, and nodded, while thinking to myself, “Don’t you want an envelope?” I asked.
“What? There are photos in your Garbo book with huge moiré “Naw, that’s all right,” he said, rolling up the 8x10 glossies
patterns on them because you copied them out of The Films of and shoving them into his oversized pants pocket. After he left,
Greta Garbo!” I wondered why he would want that profile-to-profile image if
The conversation turned to Hurrell and I showed Kobal someone else had shot it. Then I decided that he must surely
some prints that I was going to lend Hurrell for his book. “Oh, know what pictures he had shot.
that profile-to-profile shot of Garbo and Barrymore from Grand Attribution was a problem. If the print had no Hurrell
Hotel isn’t one of Hurrell’s.” stamp on its back and if you had not seen it in a 1932 issue of
“No?” I asked. Photoplay with a Hurrell credit on it, you had to wonder. “My
“No,” he answered. “It was made by a stills man called Fred original set was stamped ’cause I would send it out that way,”
Archer. There was a photographers’ strike or something and Hurrell told Kobal in 1969. “But if the studio, say, Paramount,
Hurrell couldn’t work, so they had to get somebody who wasn’t made the prints, then they didn’t stamp them. I used to try to get
in the union.” them to do so. Sometimes they did—M-G-M did. I gave them a
“Hm,” I said, not convinced. “That’s interesting.” stamp, but some of the studios wouldn’t bother.” A lot of people
For all his bombast and prevarication, I enjoyed Kobal and were wondering about attribution that year, because the images
I could see why he was accomplishing so much. “There’s no in the show and in the book invited collection. In the summer of
money in film books,” he said emphatically but impressed me 1976, Bill Chapman turned the focus of his collecting from Judy
as the quintessential author. Yet I could see why a number of Garland to George Hurrell, and began referring to himself as
collectors were bad-mouthing him. One night he kept me wait- “the first Hurrell collector.”
ing twenty-five minutes in his room at the Sunset Plaza while he So did a young man named Louis D’Elia, but he had been
hollered into the phone about his Rita Hayworth book. “What collecting since 1967, when Claire Steinberg, his photography
she needs is her own Norton Simon! Well, of course she’s going teacher at Pacific Palisades High School (and the first female
to see me, you fool!” editor of Popular Photography magazine), recommended that
“John had strong opinions and was not afraid to express he study Hurrell’s work. D’Elia did not know (or care) who the
them,” said Simon Crocker, Kobal’s manager. “And he did ride old stars were. He was fascinated by the art. Thirteen years later,
roughshod over a lot of people. He made enemies.” After our he met Hurrell through a chance encounter at Producer’s Photo
first meeting, I was not one of them. I was an incipient fan. Lab. The old artist and the doctoral student hit it off. They
I was starstruck the next night, too. George Hurrell visited lunched on a regular basis as D’Elia completed his degree at
my apartment to look through my own collection of originals. UCLA. Hurrell was interested in D’Elia’s studies and willing to
He stopped at a print of Virginia Bruce with her head sideways chat about his work. There were probably other people collect-
and said, “What the hell was I trying to do here?” He continued ing Hurrell. The important thing is not who was first, but that
looking, and finally selected one image, my print of the Garbo they were collecting at all.

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 Morrissey kept after Kobal, and they finally paid a visit to Morrissey and Kobal went through the negatives later, argu-
Hurrell. Holding a selection of Hurrell negs in his hand, Mor- ing about selections. “John liked certain corny, kitschy things,
rissey said, “Listen, I think if you print these and sign them in like somebody holding up a mirror and smoking a cigarette,”
a limited edition, these things can go into art galleries.” Hurrell recalled Morrissey.
was skeptical, but Morrissey persisted. “I said I was going to get “Look, John,” he said. “We’re trying to compete with Stei-
them printed somewhere,” said Morrissey, “and that he could chen and all those portrait photographers. We’re trying to say
supervise, but he said, ‘No, no. I’d like to print them myself.’ He that these are not movie kitsch. We have to go totally into formal,
was a short, very strong guy, like a little bull, really. He said, ‘I dramatic portraits.”
have a garage, and an enlarger. If you can get me a dryer, I can They took some negatives back to Hurrell and then
print here.’” returned to New York, where Morrissey started to sound out

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 LEF T: Hurrell and Kobal
worked side by side in a
garage darkroom, making
prints for a gallery and
publishing venture. These
1933 portraits were among
the images Hurrell printed.

investors. On June 7, 1976, Kobal received a letter from Hurrell, Before long, he grew impatient and began printing Kobal’s
in which he sent an agreement for Kobal to sign. He was opti- negatives at the Christy and Shepherd Studio in Hollywood,
mistic about his forthcoming book. The publisher had chosen five blocks from where I was living. East Hollywood was more
252 photos and it was at the press. “And the goose hangs high,” economical than Santa Monica, especially if you wanted to
said Hurrell in closing. [This 1880s expression meant that the continue collecting.
goose was suspended high enough to prevent foxes from steal- I was still collecting and still making calls to Hurrell. I
ing it.] would ask for stills I had lent him, or offer to print for him in the
Kobal did not sign anything that Hurrell’s lawyer had sent USC darkroom. As his name regained currency, I found him less
but instead asked Hurrell to hold off until Morrissey came and less chatty, and he usually terminated the conversation with
through with his investors. Hurrell reluctantly agreed to wait. “I’m just too goddamned busy.” Click. John Kobal tried to ratio-

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 nalize it. “Some rather odd people have gotten George’s ear,” he see what I did with his new work, he would surely hire me, both
said. But I continued to hope. to retouch and print. Perhaps I could become his assistant on
On July 17, 1976, I supplied a 4x5 view camera, lights, shoots, too. This would be a worthy direction for my energies.
and twenty sheets of Tri-X so that George Hurrell could shoot I called Hurrell to make an appointment. He started in with
a twenty-first birthday portrait of the same friend who had his rote response of “I’m too goddamned busy.” I said that I just
introduced me to his work two years earlier. I acted as photog- wanted to show him something; it wouldn’t take too much of
rapher’s assistant. To the best of my knowledge, it was the first his time. He told me to come to Christy and Shepherd’s on the
time Hurrell had used a large-format camera in twenty years. I morning of August 6. I cleared the tracks so that I could take
snapped the shutter for him when he was ready with each pose. my lunch break early and drive to Wilton and Fountain with the
Watching him work was a treat, although he did not jump, prints.
holler, or dance. Not that he lacked the energy; my friend was On that day, as luck would have it, there was an emergency
too excited to need Hurrell’s famous brand of coaxing. I sup- oral surgery that had to be photographed, and I was tapped for
plied music, though, and Hurrell appreciated that. His work, the job. It ran past noon. I dropped the intra-oral camera off in the
both indoors and out, was incisive and sure. Years of small-for- studio and hustled my Volkswagen Squareback to Fountain Av-
mat grab shots had not diminished him. His compositions were enue. When I entered the lab, I was told that Hurrell had just left.
both startling and air-tight. The USC tripod had no receptacle I called Hurrell from work in the afternoon, but he was not
for film holders, so Hurrell just dropped them into those expan- home yet. Then I got off work and went to the house where I
sive pants pockets. I had just seen Francesco Scavullo shooting was renting a room. The house was quiet. None of my room-
Margaux Hemingway in Lipstick. This was much more fun. mates had returned from work. I went to the phone in the
As Hurrell was leaving, I proffered a pitiful $75 for his time. living room, and looking up at some framed prints of my recent
He reluctantly took it, and then kindly and patiently made sure portrait work, I dialed Hurrell’s number.
that I understood how to print the negs after retouching them. Betty Hurrell answered. “Yes, he’s here,” she said. “Let me
“Print them down,” he said. “Y’know, for the highlights, not for see if he can come to the phone.” I thought this was a little odd.
the shadows. So the highlights will shine. Oh, well, you know I waited. Then I heard his voice. Or what I had to assume was
what to do.” Then he ambled out of the garden and drove to his voice. It was not the voice of the man I had come to know. It
Christy and Shepherd’s to print Kobal negs. sounded to me like the voice of a drunken madman. I could not
Processing Hurrell’s negatives in the USC darkroom was as make out a word. Then he hung up on me. I just sat there. My
momentous for me as processing Edward Steichen’s negatives head was pounding. I was nauseated.
had been for Hurrell in 1928. The difference, of course, was that I could barely comprehend what I had just heard. It was not
Hurrell was not standing behind me. I wanted his input. I felt the coherent. It was not human. It was possessed.
need to work more closely with him, and to work with him. Better
than anyone in his orbit, I understood his technique. I could be a O P P OSI TE: In July 1976, I was hoping to work with Hurrell. I bor-
great help to him, especially as he was getting busy with glam- rowed a Calumet 4x5 view camera, a 240 mm lens, and lighting
equipment from my job at the University of Southern California
our portraits again. With this in mind, I retouched and printed
School of Dentistry so that he could shoot large-format film for the
several of the portraits he had shot of my friend. If Hurrell could first time in twenty years.

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 I tried to reconcile this with the artist whom I had come to rell Style, and now it would also be part of their “art gallery
respect, to idolize. Yes, Hurrell could be gruff, even curt, but I deal.” He acknowledged receipt of $1,500, reported that he
had never seen him angry, or as in this case, out of control. was setting up the darkroom, but again asked for a more formal
Out of control? No, he sounded more like he was out of his agreement. He was concerned that something could go awry
mind. Perhaps there was more to his legendary moodiness than and leave him with an “infinitesimal” return. Paul Morrissey,
anyone knew. meanwhile, was negotiating with photographer Peter Beard and
I immediately mailed the prints and the negatives to my Kenyan investor Harry Horn to back the Hurrell venture. Then
friend. I told no one what had happened. I tried not to think Hurrell’s book hit the stores.
about it. I did not want to be entrusted with such an ugly secret. The Hurrell Style had only 185 plates, and its layout and
I wanted to forget it, but it stayed with me. As a result, two years choice of images left much to be desired. So did its text, which
passed before I could bring myself to speak to Hurrell. Whitney Stine had culled from Hurrell’s clippings and other
Kobal was moving forward with his project, and bestow- secondary reference material. Fine art photography dealer David
ing treasures on the artist. On September 29 Hurrell wrote to Fahey was then working for the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery. “The
Kobal, thanking him for a negative of Loretta Young and Tyrone Hurrell Style was poorly designed and poorly edited and terri-
Power from the 1937 portrait sitting for Love Is News. He had bly reproduced,” he said, “but it was the first chance anybody’d
already used a print of it for the cover of the forthcoming Hur- had to see these pictures. It was a ‘better than nothing’ kind of

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 thing.’” I was disappointed that Hurrell had not used any of for him. At first they were on speculation, and then they were
the images in Dore Freeman’s collection, which to me was the well paid. Nineteen seventy-seven dawned bright and prosper-
essential Hurrell collection. John Kobal thought that Hurrell ous for Hurrell.
had used too many “also ran” shots, lesser images. “I don’t The Hurrell Style was earning a tremendous amount of
know who George listened to!” Kobal said. “Dog’s dinner!” My press, and Marysa Maslansky let Hurrell use her home for
collector friend turned up his nose at it. Nobody liked Hurrell’s shooting sessions. The first art director to hire the well-publi-
book—nobody but the public. cized old artist was Lloyd Ziff of New West Magazine. Hurrell
In the fall of 1976, people were hungry for glamour. Mov- shot an editorial spread that included John Dean and Bianca
ies were gritty and grainy, and celebrity photos unflattering. Jagger. Everyone in Los Angeles saw the issue and Maslansky’s
Disco had arrived, and we were looking for our reflections in a phone began to ring. In short order, Hurrell shot Morgan Fair-
mirrored ball. The Hurrell Style and Kobal’s Hollywood Glamor child, Joan Rivers, Tom Waits, and Liza Minnelli.
Portraits were splashes of expensive cologne. Both books did In May, Hurrell finally signed a contract with Paul Mor-
extremely well. Even before his book tour, Hurrell became a rissey, Peter Beard, Harry Horn, and John Kobal. The contract
frequent interview subject, for publications ranging from the Los specified that he print a variety of portfolios, each containing
Angeles Times to Hollywood Studio Magazine. He was articulate, twenty prints. The contract did not specify how many portfolios
his reminiscences fresh and piquant. he was to print, what they would contain, how much they would
He finally retired from Local 659, but still needing work, sell for, or how they would be sold. It made Hurrell and Kobal
he looked for a photographer’s agent. Paramount’s head of dependent on the marketing skills of the “Photo Publishing
publicity, Arthur Wilde, sent him to Marysa Maslansky, who Company,” which comprised Morrissey, Beard, and Horn. The
was a West Coast photographers’ representative for the Parisian company was contracted to pay Hurrell and Kobal each 25 per-
agency Sygma. “I had absolutely no idea who he was,” recalled cent of the gross, minus costs or one-sixth of the gross, if greater.
Maslansky. “He came to my home, which was also my office, Hurrell was ready to roll, except for two minor problems.
and he showed me really bad party pictures he’d taken with First, Los Angeles was in the midst of a drought. The water
a motor-driven Nikon. And then he said, ‘Oh, but you know, shortage was imposing use restrictions, a hindrance to an archival
in the old days, I used to do these kinds of pictures.’ And he printer. Second, when he went to buy photographic paper (Agfa
showed me some incredible black-and-white portraits.” Portriga Rapid PRW 118), all the stores were sold out. Black-
“That’s what you should do again,” said Maslansky. and-white photography, especially on fiber-base paper, was in
“Oh, no. Nobody wants those anymore.” eclipse. Companies like Agfa were slowing production of their
“Let me try,” she said. “Maybe they will.” black-and-white product. Hurrell ordered Agfa paper with the
In December 1976, George Hurrell’s publisher announced company’s money and then did what he liked least. He waited.
a second printing, and the artist tried shooting another large- In the months since he had gotten the negatives from Kobal,
format portrait, this time of Tere Tereba, a designer friend of he had been working in Tom Kelley’s lab on Seward Street and
Paul Morrissey’s. The old workhorse was happy to be under the had made an impressive set of Joan Crawford prints. I was used
black cloth again. Marysa Maslansky began to find assignments to looking at soft, silvery vintage prints at the homes of col-

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 lectors. I had found the show of large prints at Barnsdall Park would do). They were alive. Joan Crawford looked as if she was
imposing, but felt that the printer’s use of Kodak Mural R paper about to speak.
had made most of the enlargements too contrasty. Nineteen-thir- On May 10, 1977, Hurrell’s favorite subject died. On May
ties studio negatives were routinely processed in a three-step de- 20, Hurrell wrote to John Kobal: “It was sad indeed to hear that
veloper called Pyro. The resulting density was usually contrasty, Joan Crawford is gone. She passed away in her sleep, so the
dictating the use of a low-contrast paper. Kodak Mural R, the dear girl did not suffer, altho [sic] her desperate loneliness in
paper used at the Barnsdall Park exhibit, was only manufactured recent years was suffering enough. Right to the bloody end, she
in one contrast grade, “Normal”; hence, the contrasty look. maintained that ‘STAR’ image, which is more than the others
Not until I saw the set of twenty-five Crawford prints did I have done. God Bless Her.”
realize the extent of George Hurrell’s mastery. The images were
unseen poses from the greatest sittings: Possessed, Letty Lynton,
Chained. The prints were 11x14 images floating on 16x20-inch A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Bette Midler by Hurrell.

paper, the so-called “gallery matte” cropping. These were better

Liza Minnelli by Hurrell.
than anything I had seen in his book, better than any print in
OV E R L E A F, L E F T TO R I G H T: Natalie Wood by Hurrell.
the show. They were even better than the vintage prints from
the 1930s. They were the best prints he had ever done (or ever Bianca Jagger by Hurrell.

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 THE BIG HURT

By mid-1977, Paul Morrissey had sent Hurrell $5,000 to cover Laguna Art Museum was helping him promote The Hurrell
expenses, and, despite the shortage of utilities and supplies, the Style with a show of his early work. The promotion included
printing was coming along. There was no shortage of energy. At a limousine, a motorcycle escort, searchlights, and a black-tie
seventy-three, George Hurrell was still capable of making thirty celebrity banquet. Fifty years after he had left the art colony,
custom prints a day, a healthy total for a lab tech half his age. Hurrell was remembered. His book continued to sell, and he
Some days John Kobal worked with him, moving prints from was in demand.
tray to tray so that Hurrell could build up speed at the enlarger. He wrote to Kobal on October 3 from Bermuda, where
Working for long hours in close quarters should have created he was a guest speaker on a Cunard cruise ship. He was happy
a bond between the two men. Perhaps Kobal believed it had. to report that his latest portrait commissions were Lockheed
Perhaps he began thinking of himself as a creative director. He executives and that the Agfa Portriga Rapid PRW 118 was
began to suggest ways to improve each image. Hurrell did not finally arriving. Once back in Los Angeles, he resumed printing,
always agree. as well as shooting and giving interviews, but his letters to Kobal
One day Hurrell was cropping an image. Kobal thought it evinced a concern with Paul Morrissey’s long silence. What was
looked better without cropping, so as to show an ostentatiously happening with their marketing plan?
decorative pedestal. “It’s supposed to be a picture of Joan, not of Kobal was now moving full speed on a book that would
a pedestal,” barked Hurrell from the enlarger. Kobal deferred to showcase all the Hollywood portraitists. He was interviewing,
Hurrell’s judgment this time, but just as often, Kobal would offer among others, the witty, acerbic Laszlo Willinger, and the mod-
some insight that had never occurred to the man who had origi- est, well-spoken Ted Allan. Both of them had succeeded Hurrell
nally created the image. Hurrell would agree, and a collaborative at M-G-M in the ’30s. He was also interviewing eighty-year-old
interpretation would result. “They never really became friends,” Clarence Sinclair Bull, the dean of them all, and Hurrell’s one-
said David Del Valle. “George tolerated him.” George Hurrell time boss. I was fortunate enough to visit Bull several times. Sit-
Jr., was more frank, saying, “My dad never liked Kobal at all.” ting in his quiet Brentwood living room, listening to him recall
When they were not printing, the two men busied them- Greta Garbo, was like having an audience with the Dalai Lama
selves with separate exhibitions. Kobal opened The Golden in Lost Horizon. Bull was wizened, wise, and patient. When
Dream in Holland, and then Hurrell and the Hollywood
Photographers at the Chicago Museum of Science and Technol-
ogy. Hurrell returned to Laguna Beach in triumph, where the O P P OSI TE: David Bowie sat for a portrait by George Hurrell.

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 LEF T: In 1977 Hurrell and Whitney Stine were traveling
to book signings.

O P P OSITE: Hurrell painted with words as well as

light when he photographed Harlow, transporting
her to another place and eliciting erotic expressions.
In this sitting Harlow’s skin looks different because she
insisted on wearing a makeup base. She and Norma
Shearer were the only stars to whom Hurrell made this
concession.

asked about Hurrell, he replied, “George was a good photogra- everything else breaking down, the best thing to do is salvage
pher, but he always used that same light.” what we can from this experience.” Kobal turned the salvage
When Kobal wanted to check quotations and compare facts, work over to a new manager, Simon Crocker. “It was pretty un-
he wrote Hurrell. In a letter dated January 3, 1978, Hurrell set salvageable,” recalled Crocker. “Basically, John and George were
him straight: “I am not free to give away my secrets on lighting, delivering their part of the bargain. Paul and Harry and Peter
etc. from now on. Your book will have to depend on whatever had never really got their end together. It was dragging on and it
information you have.” Kobal was startled. What was wrong with was hard work for George to make these prints. He was an old
George? Then, without warning, Hurrell stopped printing. man. He’d signed an agreement in good faith, and they weren’t
On Sunday, February 12, Paul Morrissey went to see him. really delivering.”
“Look, I don’t want to do this anymore,” said Hurrell. “Why But Morrissey and his partners could not deliver. They
don’t you take whatever I have and let’s quit.” Morrissey asked were learning what Marysa Maslansky had already learned. “I
why. “Well, I don’t think I’m going to see a lot of money out of took George’s work to the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, this man
this. It might take too long.” Morrissey took the prints and noti- who handled fine art photographs,” recalled Maslansky. “He
fied Kobal. looked at the photographs and laughed me out the door.”
“I regret that my health and my age is catching up with me,” Hawkins had opened his gallery at 9002 Melrose Avenue in
Hurrell wrote Kobal. “At 74, I don’t have time to waste. I would February 1975. Interspersed with prints by Steichen, Stieglitz,
like this matter to end in a friendly fashion and I’m sure you will and Adams were a few Hurrells and Bulls, priced at $75. “I
too. I deeply regret this turn of events.” He felt that since the haven’t sold one,” Hawkins told Morrissey. Wherever Morrissey
company had gotten nine sets of twelve prints each from him, he took Hurrell’s prints, he heard the same thing: “Hollywood
could bow out of all financial interest. “The garage roof sprang glossies are not fine art photographs.”
a dozen leaks during this past recent rain storm we have had,” On February 25, Kobal wrote Morrissey, telling him to rea-
he continued, “so the garage has been unworkable. With me and son with Hurrell, and to remind him of all the work and money

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 he (Kobal) had expended to get the project rolling and line up Morrissey spoke with Hurrell; he would not change his
exhibitions in Chicago and Paris. “The book he did with Whit- mind. Kobal and Simon Crocker came to Los Angeles, first
ney Stine came about as a result of the interest I had started to stopping to show more prints to G. Ray Hawkins. “No one in
create with my exhibitions,” said Kobal, “and not the other way this town is interested in these kinds of things,” Hawkins told
around. Paul, I don’t begrudge him the deals he can make on the them. “The studios have been giving them away for years. There
side with the Laguna Art Museum or whomever—but it isn’t fair is never going to be a market for this stuff.”
that those who come along as a result of the hard work I have Kobal and Morrissey then met with Hurrell, who pro-
done should benefit while I lose. Talk to him, but don’t pressure ceeded to drop a bombshell. “Well, I’ve been offered a whole
him. He’s a decent man.” bunch of money by this other group,” he said coldly. “They’ll

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 print my negs somewhere and all I have to do is sign them. from me. He turned these negatives over to his mysterious new
They say it’s going to bring in hundreds of thousands of partners and continued shooting celebrities.
dollars.” After eight years of cultivating Hurrell, John Kobal had
Kobal was at first stunned, then outraged. “He admired been dumped. He went back to his book, angry and betrayed.
George so much that he bit his tongue and kept quiet,” recalled “John basically felt that he got fucked by both sides,” said
Crocker. “He held himself in at a time when he would have lost Crocker. “He didn’t get paid by his partners, and he got blamed
it with anyone else. He knew George was behaving like a cantan- by George. He felt for George, because Paul, Harry, and Peter
kerous old bastard. But George was a great artist.” had really not come through. And John had been in the trenches
“We didn’t make an issue of it,” said Morrissey. “I said, ‘If with George. And he thought George was being really unfair.
you want to do that, George, it’s perfectly okay. Do whatever you Now John was no saint. He could be pretty bloody difficult, and
have to do.’ We couldn’t have been friendlier about the whole sail close to the wind, but in this instance, he played fair. And he
thing. George gave John back his negs.” At least they thought was hurt.” A bigger hurt was on the way.
he had. In 1978, while still employed as a staff photographer at
In actuality, Hurrell kept more than a few, including the Love USC Dental School, I was securing portrait commissions of my
Is News neg of Loretta Young and Tyrone Power. In addition, he
had shot a copy negative of every new print he had made from A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: A Hurrell portrait of Alex Haley,
author of the bestseller Roots.
a Kobal negative. He had also made a copy neg of the Garbo-
Barrymore profile-to-profile Grand Hotel print he had gotten A Hurrell portrait of Neil Diamond.

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 own. One of them was a glamour portrait of actor Susan Tyrrell. folio of George Hurrell prints, Rich roared, “This man is a ge-
As was customary, I delivered the proofs not to her, but to her nius!” He pointed out the influence of Vermeer and Rembrandt
manager, Carl Parsons, who also managed Lainie Kazan. “You on Hurrell’s lighting and opined that Hurrell must have been a
know George Hurrell, of course,” said Parsons. painter as well as a photographer. A meeting was arranged. He
“Yes, I do.” and Hurrell hit it off. Then he asked Hurrell what he could do
“Then you must have heard that some friends of mine are about securing enough images for a show and a portfolio.
getting him on the right track. It’s a much better arrangement Hurrell told him not to worry about that. He had found new
than he had with Kobal and those others.” I was obviously (and images of Hepburn, Gable, and others. What he did not tell Allan
happily) ignorant of what was becoming a messy business. Rich was that some of them were Kobal negs and others were
As it transpired, Hurrell’s new partners had contacted “killed” poses; i.e., shots rejected by the star, the studio, or the
Kobal and Crocker. “They were trying to buy original negs from photographer. These killed negatives had lain unseen in Hur-
us,” said Crocker. “John refused. They became nasty, saying that rell’s garage until the summer of 1975. He had been desperate for
they knew guys who fitted one-arm bandits, and if Hurrell got prints to show Whitney Stine and potential publishers. He had
upset, these guys would get upset. And they couldn’t be respon- grabbed the best of the “kills,” sat down at a small light box, and
sible for the consequences. John, being John, walked out. After done just enough retouching to make the killed shots look like the
we were out of there, and standing at the elevator, John turned to famous, fully retouched poses from the same sittings. (Of course,
me and said: ‘God damn it! They were threatening us, weren’t he did not have to do this to copy negatives such as the one of my
they?!’” Kobal put away the Hurrell prints and began to work print from Grand Hotel; they had already been retouched.)
on a Clarence Bull portfolio. Hurrell ingratiated himself with his Presenting partially retouched kills as fully retouched
new partners. original negatives was perhaps the artist’s prerogative. On the
Allan Rich was a New York actor who was blacklisted and other hand, presenting copy negatives as originals was unethical.
then became a Wall Street broker, then an art dealer, and finally He must have known that. He must also have known that certain
an actor again. A bit part in the 1973 film Serpico led him to agent images were not his. He must have known that he had not shot
John Crosby at ICM. “Mr. Crosby, I can do anything that Lionel Greta Garbo on the set of Grand Hotel. But then, maybe he had.
Barrymore could do, anything Eddie Robinson could do, in fact Maybe Kobal was talking through his hat.
anything Jack Barrymore could do. Do you think you could get My curiosity was piqued, so I did some research at the
me a job?” Crosby sent him to Jeffrey Fisher, a casting director on USC library. By perusing the trade magazine International
the TV show Barretta. Fisher asked him what he’d been doing Photographer, I determined that the event Kobal had cited was
all these years. “I’ve been living the parts you want me to play.” apocryphal. There was no camera strike in late January 1932; it
In 1979, Rich was playing an art dealer. The Allan Rich Gal- was more than a year later. But, as it turned out, he was right. In
lery at 787 Madison Avenue had done well with artists such as another magazine, I found a credit. Fred Archer had made the
Miró, Calder, and the flamboyant Salvador Dalí, possibly because famous profile-to-profile pose—not George Hurrell. And why?
of Rich’s show biz bent. Rich laced his pitch with an overripe Because Hurrell had made such a bad impression on Garbo
huckstering. With a narrowed eye and a rasping growl, he almost during the Romance sitting in April 1930 that she stipulated he
dared a customer not to buy. When someone brought him a port- never photograph her again.

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 Nevertheless, Hurrell presented this copy negative, and and press kit. Then he did a mass mailing, and began to call in
several others, as his own unseen work. Years later, I was able to old favors.
print other negatives from this same sitting. On the edge of the On July 27, 1979, George Christy, the influential Hollywood
negatives, sure enough, was the M-G-M lab imprint of January Reporter columnist, devoted his entire “Great Life” column
27, 1932. This proves that Hurrell could not have shot it. Since to Hurrell and the portfolio venture. The column began with
he insisted on processing his negs outside the M-G-M lab, his a flourish: “When Vogue photographer Richard Avedon met
negs never had dates on them. Of course, there’s one more item George Hurrell, he fell to his knees in obeisance and whispered
of proof: the lighting of the profile-to-profile shot is distinctly Hurrell’s name with ecclesiastical reverence.” Allan Rich also
unlike the other shots he did for Grand Hotel and distinctly un- had a quotation in Christy’s column: “I feel like Ambroise
Hurrell—no boom light or bounce light. Vollard when he discovered Renoir.” Said Christy: “I’m not
Allan Rich may not have been able to differentiate between somebody to toot my own horn, but I do think I wrote the first
levels of Hurrell achievement or authenticate credit, but he knew major piece about George. I’d like to think that I was somewhat
genius when he saw it. And he was shrewd. He knew about Hur- instrumental in his revival.”
rell’s book, knew the art market, and saw the potential of a smaller In the summer of 1979, John Kobal was in hot pursuit. He
portfolio. He went after Hurrell, who at first played hard to get. was working with Clarence Bull to print portfolios of that artist’s
In May 1979 Marysa Maslansky was in the hospital, having work. Progress was slow but steady; Bull was 83 and frail. Time
her second son. “When I came home,” she recalled, “I found was running out, so Kobal took a portfolio of ten prints to gal-
out that George had signed with Allan Rich. He had never even lery owner Edward Weston [no relation to the photographer Ed-
consulted me.” Rich sat down with Hurrell and they chose ten ward Weston]. Weston did not laugh. He admitted the possibil-
negatives. Hurrell got to work on the scaled-down portfolio, ity of marketing Bull. Kobal promised to deliver 100 portfolios.
with help from Knight Harris at Producers Photo Lab. “He Weston agreed to wait. Kobal returned to London, leaving Paul
oversaw every print and okayed each one before he signed it,” Morrissey to have the prints completed and signed by Bull. Sud-
said Rich. “Out of 5,000 prints, there were maybe five where the denly, in September, Clarence Bull died. Morrissey called Kobal
washing wasn’t exactly correct. He did a wonderful job.” with the sad news. There was a pause, and then Kobal asked,
Then the new company, Creative Art Images (CAI), did “Did he finish signing the prints?”
what is called a “buyout.” Rich and his partners, Ron Davis and Allan Rich, meanwhile, had recruited photographer
Irv Resnikoff, paid Hurrell $180,000 for the ten negatives in the Helmut Newton for his media barrage. In December 1979,
first portfolio. These negatives were then “retired”; i.e., they Newton wrote this ode on Beverly Hills Hotel stationery: “I
were put into a vault, never again to be printed. In this way, the vividly remember, as a young photographer in the early For-
portfolio was guaranteed to be a limited edition. Its wholesale ties, discovering the portraits of George Hurrell in the pages
price was set at $1,500, and retail at $7,500. Rich then mar- of Esquire . . . women and men of such beauty and perfection,
shaled resources in three areas: public relations, art galleries, and the likes of which I had never seen before in any photograph.
the film community. He had thirty years of connections in each. How were they done, I asked myself, these stunning pictures of
First, he found an aggressive public relations firm, the Irvin gorgeous women posed on white satin and polar bear rugs? I
Atkins Agency. With them, he designed a combination of tirage discovered for the first time the word glamour.”

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 THE HURRELL PORTFOLIO IMAGE THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVE

THE EDGE OF THE NEGATIVE

Allan Rich’s style was arrant, but it worked. By the end ABOVE: George Hurrell did not make this famous photograph of
Greta Garbo and John Barrymore on the set of Grand Hotel, yet he
of 1979, everyone in Los Angeles wanted to see these vaunted
planned it for his first art publishing venture.
portfolios, and everyone wanted to know where to buy them. When he rented a print of it from me in early 1976, John Kobal
warned me that Hurrell had not really taken this picture. It sounded
The hurdle that had stopped Morrissey and Maslansky was the
implausible. Would a photographer forget what he had shot? Years
fine art gallery. It did not stop Allan Rich. He went to G. Ray of detective work followed. In the meantime, Hurrell included the
Hawkins and pitched his marketing plan. After four years of say- image in his first portfolio, claiming authorship.
To prove that Hurrell had shot the picture, it would be necessary
ing no, Hawkins relented. He agreed to give Hurrell a one-man to see that the edge of the negative was blank. Because Hurrell re-
show in June 1980. What changed his mind? “When Allan Rich fused to let the M-G-M lab process his film, his negatives were not
flashed (per that lab’s practice) with the identifying data of date,
approached me and explained his pricing and marketing strate- film, exposure number, and photographer. Thus, if he had shot the
gy,” said Hawkins, “I thought it really made sense. Of course, his picture, the edge of the negative would be blank.
When I finally tracked down a vintage proof print showing the
theatrical hype was a problem at certain levels of the art world, edge, it was not blank. This shows that the edge of the film was
but his concept was brilliant. He was applying the principles of exposed on January 27, 1932, for production number 603 (Grand
Hotel), exposure 1,682—in other words, someone other than Hurrell
marketing limited edition lithographic prints to fine art photogra-
shot it.
phy. This was something that no one had ever thought of before.”

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 THE MILESTONE

Allan Rich was never content to rest on his lau-

rels—or wait for them. In early 1980 he rushed
George Hurrell to Chicago, Tulsa, San Francisco,
and Palm Springs, showing prints, arranging
interviews and press conferences. Anxious for
media, he risked his Hawkins show by having
Sotheby Parke Bernet prematurely auction one
of the portfolio prints, an image of Marlene
Dietrich. The image was printed from a fully
retouched original camera negative. Fortunately,
Rich chose to make Hurrell’s first splash with
the genuine article, not a hastily retouched killed
shot. The Dietrich image was judiciously chosen
and perfectly printed. The print fetched a sur-
prising $1,100, and his June date was not jeopar-
dized; in fact, it was given a boost. Early interest
led to an auction at Christie’s in May. Dietrich
sold for $1,300, and Gable for $1,100.
Interest continued to build, but the G. Ray
Hawkins Gallery would be the test. How would
Hollywood portraits fare in such a setting? Real-
izing the potential of this show (and wanting
more money), Hurrell insisted that Creative Art
Images buy vintage prints from him and include

LEF T: Marlene Dietrich was the first image in the

1980 Hurrell portfolio to get attention.

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 LEF T: Art dealer Allan Rich entered George Hurrell’s
orbit with a novel proposition. Why not sell photo-
graphs in limited edition portfolios, as if they were
lithographs?

O P P OSITE: Hurrell made this portrait of Jean Harlow

in her living room on October 19, 1934, for Vanity Fair.

them in the show. Rich agreed, and he paid Hurrell an addi- NO ONE but Betty (our bookkeeping brains) will ever know.”
tional $30,000. And so Hurrell sold 230 precious, irreplaceable One can only speculate what Marysa Maslansky would have
vintage prints—for a paltry $130 apiece. They joined the ten thought of this gesture.
newly struck “modern prints” in the gallery on Melrose Avenue. On June 14, 1980, the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery became the
This was one decision that Hurrell would have reason to regret. first art gallery in America to exhibit a Hollywood portrait pho-
While the show was being readied, Hurrell shot portraits, tographer in a one-man show. Just two weeks after his seventy-
many of which Allan Rich arranged. Rich did not ask for a com- sixth birthday, George Hurrell became an art world milestone.
mission when he sent him Sylvia Kristel, star of Just Jaeckin’s Interviewed by Hawkins’s assistant, David Fahey, Hurrell
Emmanuelle. Hurrell charged her $1,500. “He made her look said, “You don’t make a star on the strength of a photograph.”
so damned vulnerable,” said Rich. “Sylvia! Now who else could The photographs on the gallery walls might not agree. Each of
have done that?” The 1980s were here, and the glittered shellac them was playing its part in Hurrell’s stardom. But were they
of the previous decade was flaking. Hurrell could expect more art? “With every kind of photography,” said Fahey, “there is a
clients who wanted to escape their strobe-lit pasts. Rich knew time when it starts to transcend its original function, whether
everyone, and loved to refer, but there was a possible conflict commercial, utilitarian, or journalistic, and it becomes art,
of interest; after all, he represented Hurrell as an artist, not as a collected by museums and sold at galleries. If Arnold Newman
photographer. and Alfred Eisenstaedt had been based in Los Angeles, their
On June 5 Hurrell wrote to Rich about Sylvia Kristel. “You subject matter would have been Hollywood. They weren’t more
will receive 25% of the fee. This goes for the future, too—so important than Hurrell because they photographed East Coast
there. We can’t have you working your ass off for nothing—and personalities and not movie stars.”

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 In late June, my USC collector friend and I visited the Please accept my apology. Your book is great, the VERY BEST
Hawkins Gallery, curious to see what Hurrell treasures were that’s been done on Hollywood.” The show was as impressive as
being offered. I knew about the show, not from Hurrell, but from the book, a testament to Kobal’s taste and industry. Its only flaw
a flyer at the rental darkroom in Los Feliz where I was making was its location, in the Museum basement, in a hallway leading
prints for clients. I had cut the USC umbilical in October 1979 to the restrooms.
and gotten a job as unit still photographer on a Sylvia Kristel Within months, Hurrell was counting receipts from two
film, Alan Myerson’s Private Lessons. I learned my lesson; I auctions and five shows. He was shooting regularly, and was a
never shot stills on a movie again. And Sylvia was not vulner- guest on talk shows hosted by Dinah Shore and Rona Barrett.
able. She asked me how I got so many ugly people to pose for December 5 was “George Hurrell Day” in Manhattan, fol-
my portfolio. lowed by an interview with—who else—Interview. Crawford
As I looked at the juxtaposition of vintage prints and and Gable were gone. Garbo and Dietrich were hiding. George
modern prints, I wondered what John Kobal would think of this Hurrell was everywhere. And, if he could not literally be every-
show. An eager gallery employee tried to sell the portfolio to where, there was the near-ubiquitous Rich. In a letter to Rich
my friend and me. We counted the number of prints that were dated September 30, 1980, Hurrell wrote: “I am relying on you
either kills or copies. There were four out of ten: Clark Gable to pass judgment [for authenticity] on any prints that turn up
was a killed negative from the Dancing Lady sitting; Katharine in the marketplace.” Hurrell was concerned that unauthorized
Hepburn, Joan Crawford from Chained, and the Grand Hotel prints of his work (from Kobal’s negs, for example) could dimin-
profile shot were copy negs. My friend withheld his opinion un- ish the value of the CAI portfolios. Yet this begs the obvious
til he was safely out of earshot, ambling down Melrose Avenue. question. If Rich could not see the inconsistency in Hurrell’s
“Most people sell out when they’re young and they have to,” he portfolio, how could he see it elsewhere? Hurrell was not worry-
sneered. “Why would Hurrell sell out at his age? That portfolio ing about that.
is shameful!” One day in 1980, I gathered my courage and called the
John Kobal was catching up. In December 1980, Holly- master, excited about an original negative of Norma Shearer that
wood Portrait Photographers, a show of 112 prints, opened at had fallen into my hands. I thought he might like to print it. He
the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Not coincidentally, heard my voice and immediately assumed that I was trying to
Alfred Knopf was publishing Kobal’s new book, The Art of the inflate its value through my connection with him. “If you want
Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers. “Why did he have to me to sign any print you make from it,” he said, “that’ll cost you
say ‘great’ Hollywood photographers?” Paul Morrissey asked. $250.”
“The title didn’t need that. But that was John. Gilding the lily.” I said thanks, but no thanks, and hung up, stung and de-
The opening was attended by many of the artists being exhib- flated. My only concern was that he should be printing his port-
ited. Ted Allan, who had replaced Hurrell as Kobal’s printing folios from original negs, not from kills or dupes. I wondered if
partner, was there, as well as Laszlo Willinger, who customarily I was the only person who saw this—and thought it fraudulent.
refused Kobal’s printing advice. Hurrell was also there, and he Years later, I broached the subject to Rich; he flatly denied it. “I
pointedly snubbed Kobal. A few days later, Kobal received a
note. “My wife Betty balled [sic] me out,” wrote Hurrell. “She O P P OSI TE: This 1937 portrait of Constance Bennett was one of
said I was not very circumspect in greeting you at the exhibit. the vintage prints included in the Hawkins show.

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 LEF T: John Kobal continued to work on behalf of the art idiom
that he had discovered, named, researched, and publicized.

O P P OSI TE: Hurrell made this portrait of Jascha Heifetz at War-

ner Bros in 1939. It was included in his portfolio series.

made him put in writing that these were original negs,” he said. made from an original negative and b) a print made from a copy
“Had he given me dupes, I could have sued him. And that I negative, would silence this sophistry of truth and prerogatives.
would have done.” There is no comparison between the two—unless you want to
I asked David Fahey about the issue of an artist’s printing sell portfolios.
copy negatives instead of originals. “There are instances where His “Portfolio I” contained a killed negative of Clark Gable.
original negatives are scratched, damaged, or lost,” he replied. It was indeed Hurrell’s work, and it was an original camera
“Then it’s entirely the artist’s prerogative to make a copy nega- negative. But it had been hastily retouched and then printed by
tive from an existing print and to make prints from it and call a hired lab tech with an excess of diffusion. The Crawford copy
them original prints. There’s nothing that says that a picture is neg had been shot from a print made from the original neg lent
more important because it’s from the original negative. That’s an by Kobal. It is easy to tell an original Hollywood negative from a
implied perception. If George, as the ultimate deciding figure, copy negative: the original has retouching on its emulsion side,
says, ‘This print from my copy negative is as good as any print I but a copy does not. All the pretty gallery lighting in the world
would make,’ one can only take it as truth.” could not improve the contrast in these prints. They were dupes
Implied perception? Truth? Didn’t Ansel Adams say, “All and they looked like dupes.
truth is in the negative”? To anyone in the art world—to an Representing dupes as products of his studio-era oeuvre, in
untrained eye—a side-by-side comparison of: a) a Hurrell print the same caliber as his pristine prints of Jean Harlow on the po-

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 lar bear rug, or Marlene Dietrich, was a betrayal of Hurrell’s art. than my doctors claim because I came through it all without any
Representing the profile-to-profile shot of Garbo and Barrymore problems at all, altho [sic] the equipment is a little heavy for the
as his own work was worse than that. A scandal had sent Hurrell old horse.” His earnings helped Marysa Maslansky leave Sygma
plummeting before. And art fraud was the stuff of scandal. To and open her own Sunset Strip photo agency, Visages.
paraphrase Rich: I could have exposed Hurrell. But that I would In 1981 Hurrell’s face grinned from the pages of Petersen’s
not do. I was awestruck, and I still hoped to work with him. PhotoGraphic, Los Angeles, Us, the Los Angeles Times, and Life.
Hurrell sailed into 1981 with a flush that rivaled his 1930s Allan Rich began hawking Portfolio II. Unbeknownst to him,
success. Revved up to an unnatural speed, the veteran photog- Hurrell had created this one entirely from killed poses, even
rapher went to Paris and labored on an entire issue for French though he could have gotten retouched studio negs of his work
Vogue, came back and shot album covers for Melissa Manchester from Kobal, me, or a dozen other sources. Meanwhile, Rich
and Chevy Chase, and glamour portraits for Frank Perry's ill- approached the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
fated attempt at Crawford-bashing, Mommie Dearest. In a tem- proposing that Hurrell be given a special Academy Award. He
porary rapprochement (effected by a check in the mail) Hurrell was turned down. No matter; the Library of Congress soon
wrote Kobal. “I am back in harness,” wrote Hurrell, “shooting added a Hurrell portfolio to its permanent collection of photo-
big film again. Everything in Paris was 8x10, thirty pages done graphs. There was a flurry of publicity. Hurrell had crossed a
in a week’s time, working night and day. I must be healthier new threshold. The man who had spent his life creating celebri-

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 ties was himself a celebrity, insulated from the vicissitudes that they had not done much for Hurrell when he shot them. Then
had spoiled his middle age. Had he outgrown his impatience Chapman pulled some 11x14 glossy prints out of an envelope. I
and restlessness? caught my breath. My pupils dilated. I was looking at a complete
“Familiarity breeds contempt’ has always been one of my selection of poses from Hurrell’s 1929 sessions with Ramon
pet theories,” he told Fahey. Rich smelled something brewing. Novarro, the work that led an unknown painter to the gates of
“I’ve dealt with a lot of great artists,” he said. “They all have Hollywood. I had heard about it, read about it, but because
difficulty with commercial people. They’re frightened of being Hurrell had neither prints nor negatives from it, I had never seen
taken advantage of.” Hurrell had no reason to worry about that. it. No one had. Yet here it was, in a tiny shop in the Hollywood
He was on top of the Hollywood heap, famous and unassailable. ghetto. “Where did you get these?!” I asked.
Only his own demons could unseat him. When a forgotten print “Oh, I bought them from Eastman House,” Chapman an-
lifted him to the summit of the art world, they almost did. swered offhandedly. “They’re selling off some of their duplicate

#
Hurrells, you know, of lesser people.”
I was sorry to hear Novarro described as “lesser,” but in
At the bottom of the Hollywood heap, at the neglected inter- truth he was a has-been only five years after posing for these
section of Las Palmas and Yucca, Bill Chapman was doing studies. I asked Chapman if I could shoot copy negatives for
business as Chapman’s Picture Palace, a modest movie-still myself.
emporium. At age fifty-five, he was still ferreting out Hurrells. “Oh, I don’t think so, really. I don’t want to have them
The gallery madness spawned by Rich and Kobal affected spread all around. They’re valuable, you know.”
him, as it affected all the collectors. It made his collection more I knew the images were valuable. I did not know how valu-
precious; it made adding to it more expensive. Like the poster able. Until the spring of 198l, no one did. There was one image
collectors, he was more apt to trade than to buy. Every so often among them that I recognized from the walls of the Hawkins
he found a bargain—a Hurrell portrait of an obscure starlet. Gallery. It was “The New Orpheus.” But there was something
More often, though, he was importuned by some hard-up col- about it that struck me as odd. The print at the gallery was 41⁄2
lector wanting to sell him prints at inflated prices. It was tough x 63⁄8 inches; Chapman’s was an imposing 11x14. Hurrell was
being a collector. shooting 8x10 negatives in his studio on La Fayette Park Place,
Myron Braum, once the hub of the still collector scene, had and he had an 8x10 enlarger. How could he have made a print
decamped to San Diego. His last few months in Los Angeles so small from a large negative? Something did not add up.
were spent liquidating his collection of costume stills, since he The small print in the gallery was one of the 230 vintage
was loath to haul six file cabinets down Highway Five. He did prints that Rich had bought from Hurrell for $130 each and
not drive and besides, he had a new obsession: antique fashion then sold to Hawkins. “I didn’t really want to sell them to G.
prints cut from the pages of an 1840s fashion magazine called Ray,” said Rich, “but he kept insisting. I said to my partner, Ron
Godey’s Lady’s Book. I knew collectors were unpredictable, but Davis, ‘Forget it. Let’s put a big, hefty price on them. He’ll never
this shocked me. bite.’ So we put a $1,500 price tag on each of them. He bought
I was talking to Bill Chapman about it in his store one day six! And then he let one of them go to some anonymous Ameri-
in the summer of 1980 when he showed me his latest acquisi- can collector—the little Novarro print.” The Hawkins show had
tions. Simone Simon fashion shots did not do much for me; indeed been a success. No one seemed to notice that the little

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 print was not an original. As I well knew, Hurrell had used 8x10
film for the Novarro sitting. To make a print that small, most
likely for use in a brochure, he would have had to make a copy
negative. This was a dupe masquerading as an original.
In the spring of 1981, this selfsame print of “The New
Orpheus” turned up at Christie’s East. The ART Newsletter
reported on June 9: “The most feverish bidding of the Spring
Auction was for George Hurrell’s portrait of Ramon Novarro,
1930 [sic], 41⁄2 x 63⁄8 inches, estimated between $1,800 and
$2,200, but was bid up to the astonishing price of $9,000 in
a bidding fight among collectors Paul Walter, John Waddell,
and Pierre Apraxine of New York, with dealer Keith DeLellis
jumping in late in the bidding for a client. Apraxine was the top
bidder, setting a record for the photographer and for any Hol-
lywood portrait.”
In August, American Photographer revealed Apraxine’s
boss. “The Gilman Paper Company paid a staggering $9,000
for a portrait of actor Ramon Novarro by Hollywood portrait-
ist George Hurrell—an auction record price for a portrait by a
living photographer.”
George Hurrell now had his own category in the art
world. Oddly enough, the magazine quoted the director of
photographic collections at George Eastman House, Robert
OVERLEAF: This 1937 portrait of Gary Cooper was also in the
portfolio.
Sobieszek, who was apparently unaware that his staff had let a
much better print of “The New Orpheus” out the back door
O P P OS I T E , C LO C KWI SE FR OM TO P LEFT: Hurrell’s re-
newed visibility and the stewardship of agent Marysa Maslansky
a year earlier. “There is no relation at all between the auction
brought portrait commissions. This is Sharon Gless in 1980. price and the absolute value of a piece,” said Sobieszek. “Pic-

Rona Barrett helped publicize Hurrell, contributing to the mo-

tures aren’t being collected for their aesthetic or historic value
mentum of his comeback. as much as on the basis of what they will be worth later.”

A Hurrell photograph of Chevy Chase.

G. Ray Hawkins saw it differently. “In that photograph,”
he said, “George Hurrell captured the masculine sensitivity,
Hurrell photographed many R&B stars, including Lionel Richie.
sexuality, and strength of character of Ramon Novarro. There
A Hurrell portrait of Fleetwood Mac, made in conjunction with are moments when the most common of men and women will
the album Mirage.
become heroes. Hurrell captured that moment. At that point,
Hurrell could have walked away from his photography, knowing

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 he’d created a masterpiece. But happiness is knowing you can though his new security derived from the efforts of people like
do it a second time.” Rich and Maslansky, Hurrell begrudged them their managerial
“And I’m sitting at home one day,” said Rich, “and the guy imperative. He regarded his prosperity as his own doing. Little
calls me up and says, ‘That little Hurrell print brought $9,000! by little, he turned suspicious and resentful. The classic Hurrell
The highest price ever paid for a living photographer!’ I tell you, was returning.
I fell off the chair.” But what about Hurrell? “I think that $9,000
sale ruined our relationship,” said Rich. “I think it just hit him
in the stomach.”
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: A 1980 portrait of Barry Manilow
It must have stayed there, too, because Hurrell soon grew
by Hurrell.
difficult. While in London, Rich found a beautifully restored
A 1985 portrait of David Byrne.
view camera. He sent it to Hurrell as a gift. “I don’t like it,”
said Hurrell, and he sent it back. Then he wrote to John Kobal, A 1979 portrait of Aretha Franklin by Hurrell. Music stars had
become as iconic as film stars, and Hurrell was happy to glamorize
complaining that “The Boys,” as he referred to CAI, were “flirt-
them, considering the part that music played in his “camera-side
ing with postcard entrepreneurs, but I’ve discouraged it.” Even manner.”

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 CHAPTER 8

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 THE MACHINE

From 1982 through 1984, both Kobal and Hurrell had traveling He was tired of boring receptions. He was tired of fatuous
exhibits, and they were making money. Kobal now had a loft in questions about movie stars he had never known that well. He
Greenwich Village, as well as a flat in London’s Drayton Gar- was tired of shooting would-be stars who “just sit there like rag
dens. “It was like a movie set that hadn’t been struck,” recalled dolls and expect you to invent it or something.” He was tired of
David Del Valle. “You know, a couch that could have come from the New Hollywood, mistrustful of G. Ray Hawkins and Marysa
an Anna May Wong movie, a poster of Cocteau’s La Belle et la Maslansky, and genuinely suspicious of his partners.
Bête hanging over the fireplace, ostrich plumes in a jardiniere. Hurrell suspected that Allan Rich and CAI had concocted
He had a great eye for color and design. This man loved to live! the portfolio structure in order to take advantage of a tax loop-
And he did want to be famous.” hole that would grant huge breaks if the art was donated to an
In 1983 Hurrell was renting a studio from photographer institution within a certain amount of time. Was this true? It may
Richard Settle. Hurrell’s most notable subject that year was have been, but the real issue was not the mechanics of this ma-
Joan Collins, of TV’s Dynasty fame. “She’s the only star today chine; it was his dependence on it. It was tying him down, and
I can think of who has a vigorous amount of real glamour,” said what was he really getting from it? He brooded over that print of
Hurrell. Playboy magazine’s art director, Marilyn Grabowski, hit Novarro—and the $9,000 he had not gotten.
upon the happy idea of having Hurrell shoot nudes of Collins. On August 2, 1982, he visited Bill Chapman’s shop as the
When Hurrell finished, he complained to Marysa Maslansky, guest of honor at a small exhibit, The Genius of George Hurrell.
“I’m going to have to retouch those negs with a chisel!” What should be looking at him from a wall but an 11x14 print
An uncredited Playboy interviewer asked Hurrell if he had of “The New Orpheus”? He could not ask Chapman to take
ever been involved with any of his subjects. The artist almost lost it down, but its presence certainly made that $9,000 sale look
his composure, sputtering, “Whatever went on was just between stupid. All he said to Chapman was, “That’s one negative I wish
them and me!” His bursts of impatience, whether directed at I still had.” Another photo caught his eye. “Who is that?” he
cheeky journalists or at trendy galleries who were serving him to
the public with their hors d’oeuvres, bespoke a growing disen- OVERLEAF: This photograph was taken on June 14, 1980, at the
opening of the G. Ray Hawkins exhibition in Hollywood. Just two
chantment with his media-fed phenomenon. George Jr. hypoth-
weeks after his seventy-sixth birthday, Hurrell became an art world
esized that his father saw it all as a “Giant Publicity Machine.” milestone.
Allan Rich had gotten it rolling in 1979; now it was rolling too O P P OSI TE: Hurrell’s 1985 portraits of Diana Ross were among
fast and too far. Hurrell was tired of trying to keep up with it. his very best, recalling the high glamour of the 1930s.

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 LEF T: The Hurrell rediscovery made even portraits of
non-movie-stars valuable, which was only fitting, consid-
ering the integrity that Hurrell brought to every subject.
This is the sculptor Boris Lovet-Lorski.

O P P OSITE: Hurrell’s portfolio included a seminude

portrait of Anna May Wong shot at the same time as
her 1938 studio portraits. Because she had taken the
negatives from him, he had to make a copy negative in
order to print this image.

thought aloud. Then he chortled. “Oh, that’s my first wife! I original negative for a New York collector. If the collector had
thought she looked familiar!” the original Scott negative, what was this “Hurrell image”? In-
By this time, Hurrell was a little touchy about his “archive.” credibly, both editions sold. Hurrell was fooling the public and
Rich needed more portfolios. Each time, Hurrell had a harder fooling Rich. Was he fooling himself too?
time coming up with unseen images. In Portfolio III, five out of On June 1, 1984, George Hurrell turned eighty. Before
eight images (Anna May Wong, Charles Boyer, Gilbert Roland, long, the genius turned mean. The turning point was an as-
James Cagney, and Gene Tierney) were kills. One image, Ann signment to shoot Grace Jones astride a Kawasaki motorcycle.
Sheridan, was printed from a lackluster copy negative. The final Hurrell shot the assignment outdoors, but did not bother with
portfolio comprised only two images. It was called the Double the accepted practice of shooting at twilight to avoid glare on
Portfolio. The Dietrich portrait was a poorly retouched, overly the vehicle’s surface. The agency complained that Hurrell had
diffused dupe. The Bogart portrait was not even Hurrell’s work. not lit the motorcycle properly. It would not separate from the
It was a copy negative made from a 1948 Ned Scott portrait background and it looked too dark. All hell broke loose. Hur-
commissioned by Bogart’s company, Santana Productions. I’d rell was enraged, and fired everyone who was working for him
seen vintage prints with Scott’s stamps and even printed the or with him: Allan Rich, CAI, Marysa Maslansky, and G. Ray

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 Hawkins—everyone who had contributed to his current status. albeit without help or thanks. “I made an agreement with the
“George often ‘shot the messenger,’” said Hawkins. Cincinnati Museum to do a full retro, which I arranged,” said
Once again Hurrell had committed career suicide. Yet he Rich. “George found out about it and wrote Dennis Kiel [the
emerged intact, for once without Norma Shearer’s help. Perhaps assistant curator] a scathing letter. He wanted Dennis to call
it was the era of bad manners in which he lived. People talked in him—not me—directly.”
movie theaters and made dirty gestures through car windows. The show was a success, of course, eventually being ad-
Perhaps it was the vicious milieu in which he worked. “The opted by the Smithsonian Institution. “Incidentally,” adds Rich,
music industry is an open sewer,” said my collector friend, after “my company never charged any museum a dime. All the money
quitting a job with Soul magazine. Perhaps it was because Hur- went to Cincinnati and the Smithsonian.”
rell was powerful, a “living legend.” For whatever reason, the
calls kept coming.
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: A Hurrell portrait of Arnold
Art directors went around Marysa Maslansky in order to Schwarzenegger.

have Hurrell shoot the Talking Heads, Harrison Ford, and Paul
Hurrell’s session with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas caused
McCartney. Only Rich continued to represent his interests, problems for Allan Rich.

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 Smiling businessmen who sensed that the old man was number of them. It’s the most common theme in Hollywood:
floundering began to court him. “There were these guys,” re- drama. The Drama of Life. George mirrored that.”
called Rich, “in 1986, I think. Who knows? He went with these Hurrell had always displayed a kind of superiority to Hol-
guys, and they really raked him over the coals. I don’t know lywood. After all, he had never intended to become a photogra-
what the hell they did, but he called me and he said, ‘You’ve got pher. He had gone to Laguna Beach to become a painter. The
to get me out of this!’ So I got him out of it somehow. And he Hollywood connection was an accident. Perhaps that was the
came back to the fold.” deepest cause of his bitterness. He had never fulfilled the prom-
In 1987 G. Ray Hawkins’s assistant, David Fahey, was ise of his “artistic” talent. Photography, once seen as the bastard
working with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to honor stepchild of painting, had seduced him from his goal, and given
all the Hollywood photographers: portraitists, still men, and him a shallow, wayward life.
“special art” men. There would be a show and a book, both “Painters are individualists,” Hurrell once said. “They sel-
called Masters of Starlight. “Had I walked in there two years dom think alike. They’re rebels. But photographers think alike.
before,” said Fahey, “they would have laughed me out the door. They’re pretty much all alike.” Hurrell’s ambivalence toward
It has to do with timing. The right person goes in at the right photography was evident in the first hour of our first meeting.
moment, and all of a sudden, Hurrell and forty-three other pho- He told Dore Freeman and me that his favorite activity was tak-
tographers are in a major museum in a major city. It’s looked on ing off to Mexico on the weekends to paint landscapes. There
in a different context. That’s the key: hindsight.” was a kind of shy pride in the way he described it. Dore Freeman
Perhaps that was Hurrell’s problem. Like Marshall McLu- missed that entirely, and made the insensitive suggestion that
han’s “Forward through the rearview mirror,” Hurrell was stuck Hurrell do oil paintings of his great glamour portraits. Hurrell
between eras. He was profiting from the past, but living in a sniffed at this, closed up, and said no more about painting for as
present whose manners, culture, and mores were radically dif- long as I knew him. But I had heard it, and I never forgot it.
ferent. Polluted by cars and TV, his world had changed, and was After the esteem and celebrity of the ’80s, Hurrell still had
still changing. Said G. Ray Hawkins: “George didn’t under- the ambivalence, the confusion. There was also the darkness,
stand what was happening. When he’d been at the top, he was the private torment that I had stumbled on in 1976. Add to that
in charge of his life. He understood his job. He knew his place. his legendary restlessness, mix in some paranoia, and you have a
When you’re rediscovered, all that changes.” troubled—and troublesome—man.
There was also the possibility that he had not fully recov- Some people mellow with age, and come to terms with
ered from his fall from grace. “You know,” said Rich, “he was not their quirks. Hurrell could be insightful and introspective. More
a very happy guy. He was rejected for a long, long time. He was often, he was vinegary. Of course, he had his sweet moments.
really whacked around. I thought he was always haunted by that.” When Helmut Newton took him to the swanky Sunset Plaza
David Fahey saw Hurrell’s return from the ashes in a larger restaurant Le Dome, he was as sugary as the Old-Fashioneds
context. “What is the most popular thing in Hollywood? To they downed. He was “a kind gentleman” to Lou D’Elia, who
pump people up, make them superfamous, and then to tear lent him prints to copy, and to Bill Chapman, who had an ever-
them down. And then Hollywood loves a comeback, being all growing cache of Hurrell originals in his Hollywood Boulevard
very sympathetic. Look at Cybill Shepherd, John Travolta, any apartment. Chapman was willing to let Hurrell use them for

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 magazine spreads. When old Georgie turned on the charm, down, and got Hurrell to do more poses. In an hour, he had shot
everyone was happy. twenty more sheets of film. Now everyone was happy.
In 1989 Allan Rich arranged for Hurrell to shoot Kathleen “When the proofs came in,” said Rich, “they were glorious.
Turner and Michael Douglas. Rich provided his home for the And of course, which one was the best one? The first one. He’d
session. By 10:00 A.M. it was teeming with public relations hit it right on the money.”
people, hairdressers, makeup artists, and gophers, but no Hur- As the 1980s came to a close, the name “Hurrell” was
rell. At 11:00 A.M., the stars were made up and ready, but the becoming a generic term. Howard Mandelbaum, the owner of
artist still had not arrived. Twenty anxious minutes later, George Photofest, an agency that rents photographs to publications,
Hurrell strode in, followed by his son, who was carrying the said, “The word ‘Hurrell’ was starting to be used like the word
camera, tripod, and a lighting kit. ‘Kleenex.’ People would ask us for ‘Hurrells.’ And I’d ask them,
“George, are you ready?” Rich asked politely. ‘Do you want a specific star by him?’ And they’d answer, ‘No,
“Oh, yeah,” Hurrell drawled over his shoulder as he and no. We want those kinds of pictures. You know, the hair flowing
his son hurriedly set up. Then Hurrell walked toward Michael and the satin and like that.’”
Douglas. “What’s his name? You: what’s your name?” The combined efforts of Kobal, Rich, Hawkins, Maslansky,
“My name is Michael Douglas. Don’t you remember me? and others had trained the public to identify this idiom with
From The Streets of San Francisco?” Hurrell. Technology was keeping Hurrell’s classic subjects
“Oh, yeah,” Hurrell laughed. “I was on that show. Good. recognizable, too.
Very good.” He looked around the room. “What’s your name? While the stars of an earlier generation—Lillian Russell,
Oh, you’re Kathleen Turner. I remember you now. Well, okay. Anna Held, Sarah Bernhardt—were lost in misty anonymity,
Come here, honey. You sit over here on his lap. Allan, you put Hurrell’s subjects were immortal. Most films of the 1930s were
the music on.” extant, and many were now available for viewing in the home,
Rich assumed the role of disc jockey as Hurrell positioned thanks to videotape and cable networks such as American
a single spotlight and aimed it at the two superstars. Then he Movie Classics and Turner Network Television. The cathode
pushed the camera across the smooth hardwood floor, looked glow of some stars was pale when compared to the Hurrell im-
through it, jammed a film holder into it, pulled the slide, and ages in books, posters, calendars, datebooks, and magazines, but
said, “Okay. That’s . . . it!” Then he turned off the spotlight, sig- many more—Shearer, Gable, Crawford—had gained a secure
naled to his son, waved at everybody, and headed for the door. place in our cultural mythology. With their help, Hurrell kept
Rich rushed after him, saying sotto voce, “George, where chugging along.
are you going?” When David Fahey invited him to participate in the Masters
“That’s it,” said Hurrell. “It’s in the can. It’s perfect.” of Starlight show at LACMA, Hurrell could not be bothered,
“No, George. They’re here. You have to photograph them.” unless the show was devoted solely to him. Eventually he soft-
“I did. I told you. It’s perfect.” ened and gave prints to the show and to the book that followed,
The publicist did not agree and started to make a ruckus.
There was, after all, Hurrell’s $5,000 fee. Rich calmed everyone O P P OSI TE: A Hurrell portrait of Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren.

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 but he later disavowed any connection with the consortium that TV show Dallas. In his off time he was a West Coast equivalent
resulted from the show, the Hollywood Photographers Archive. of John Kobal, saving equipment that was about to be junked
This was another Hurrell trick. He would leave partners by the studios. In the loft of a Paramount soundstage he found a
in the lurch, on uncertain terms, and then vilify them to any- portable Agfa Ansco 8x10 view camera that had once been used
one who would listen. “He was funny,” said Fahey. “He would to make scene stills on sets. At Universal, he found the 8x10
talk about ‘those people’ as if he’d had enough of them and Eastman Century Studio Camera that had been used in the
was never going to deal with them again. Then I’d turn around portrait gallery by Roman Freulich and Ray Jones from 1928
and he’d be with them again, doing some project or opening to 1968. Hearn put together a package for me and I secured a
some show.” $5,000 bank loan. Now I was able to shoot classic Hollywood
I still had Hurrell’s phone number, and I still wanted portraiture with classic Hollywood equipment.
to work with him even though I had moved to the Bay area in Of equal importance was the Saltzmann 8x10 enlarger I
1981. The most obvious skill I had to offer was retouching. I bought from Edd. I no longer took 8x10 negs to other labs, hop-
was now proficient enough to retouch any 8x10 negative to the ing they would interpret them properly. I began to shoot more
polished smoothness associated with the Hollywood glamour of my clients on 8x10 film, and I began to contact the various
portrait. I knew Hurrell had more hundreds of unretouched repositories of original 8x10 Hollywood negatives, telling them
negatives in his garage. Why not approach him with the idea of that they could finally see their negs “printed like originals!”
doing portfolios that truly matched his classic work? As his fame A number of private repositories took me up on my offer,
had increased, my skills had evolved. Perhaps it was time to call and I began enlarging original Hollywood negatives—scenes, be-
again. I was hesitant, though. I remembered that remark about hind-the-scenes, and portraits—printed on Agfa Portriga paper
“the next Hurrell.” and dried on a huge Pako drum dryer, all in my parents’ garage.
I had never wanted to be “the next Hurrell.” I did not want Within a year, I had several sources of negatives, and as many
to be a Hurrell clone. I did believe that his technique was the still customers, sending me orders and checks, back to back.
best ever devised for capturing beauty on film. There had been My next wave of support came from a long-sought source.
an avalanche of advances—strobes, miniaturization, digitaliza- In January 1985, after sending numerous packages of sample
tion—but none improved on the creamy clarity of the Holly- prints, I finally got an appointment with John Kobal. He was
wood glamour portrait. I knew that none ever would. I perse- almost as famous as Hurrell, at least in Europe. Nine years had
vered. I continued to light, shoot, retouch, and print exactly as not slowed him. He was the same tornado of taste and oratory.
Hurrell and his colleagues had done in the 1930s: incandescent He picked up one of my sample prints, a scene still from The
light, not strobe; large-format negative, not medium or small for-
mat; lead pencil retouching, not airbrush or dye; and fiber-base O P P OSI TE: Hurrell bristled when impertinent journalists asked
paper prints, not resin-coated paper. I was a purist. about “sex with the stars.” He did, however, tell me that he had
dated actresses Conchita Montenegro and Mary Carlisle (pictured
Starting in 1982, my purism got some support. The first
here). But that was all he said. For all his sexy affectations during
came from Edd Hearn, who was an assistant cameraman on the shoots, Hurrell was the consummate gentleman with his subjects.

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 Women, and pondered it. “You really love these things, don’t Willinger. This led to contracts with other archives, including
you?” Photofest, Memory Shop West, and the Academy of Motion
“I guess I do,” I answered, taken aback by his directness. Picture Arts and Sciences. What I learned from John Kobal
“It shows,” he said, as usual, with conscious irony. “Let’s go!” and Laszlo Willinger (and from Ted Allan, to whom Kobal also
“Where?” introduced me) was something that I probably never could
“I want you to meet Laszlo Willinger.” have learned from the restless Hurrell. I learned to look at each
I rode with him to meet the seventy-four-year-old photogra- negative, to see it in a fresh and unbiased way, and then to make
pher whose portraits of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable now sold a conscious decision about how to interpret it.
at the Staley-Wise Gallery in New York. On the way from West After a few months with Kobal and Willinger, my printing
Hollywood to Van Nuys, we stopped at a lab to pick up proofs attained a new sophistication. I began, for example, to routinely
of vintage Willinger negs. I watched Kobal stand at the counter, “burn” (i.e., darken) the corners of each print, so that the view-
choosing images to present to Willinger. Kobal had the ability er’s eye would move inward, to the important part of the picture,
to flip through 8x10 prints as if they were playing cards, all the the eyes. I began to print with a bit of “diffusion,” to soften the
while judging them for composition, lighting, expression, pose, retouching on “big head” portraits. I even customized the physi-
and impact. His eye was infallible. cal presentation of the prints. I put half-inch borders on glossy
Sitting in Willinger’s living room an hour later, I noted prints and then ran them through the Pakosol and the dryer a
the difference between this Austrian-born artisan and Hurrell. second time—“unglossing” them slightly—so they would have a
Willinger had an old-world graciousness and a caustic wit. He lustrous finish, like the DuPont paper of the 1930s.
was unsparing in his print critiques. “Why didn’t you burn this I had known many of these techniques before, but Kobal
more?” he asked me. “It’s distracting.” and Willinger pushed me to use them in concert. As a result, I
“Well,” I explained, “my enlarger doesn’t focus perfectly reached a new level of technical mastery and artistic sensibility.
from edge to edge unless I stop down to F/16. And this neg was When my work appeared on dealers’ tables at movie conven-
so dense, that if I had to burn it, I would have been there for five tions, collectors would recognize them and say, “Mark makes
minutes.” them look better than originals!” Compliments were nice, but I
“Why not purchase a new enlarger?” wanted approval from the Master.
“Because he spends all his money on collectibles,” Kobal
cut in.
Unkind cuts and all, that afternoon yielded work and
O P P OSI TE: Hurrell’s 1985 portraits of Diana Ross were among
knowledge. I spent the next four years printing for Kobal and his very best, recalling the high glamour of the 1930s.

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 GENIUS AND MEANNESS

In 1986 I was ready to approach George Hurrell. I assembled “I’m not with those people anymore. You’ll have to pick it
a package of my prints, flew to Los Angeles, dropped it off at up from them. I can’t be responsible for your prints. If that’s all,
Visages, and waited. John Kobal visited me in San Francisco I—”
in February of that year. He was on a book tour for People Will “Mr. Hurrell, I just want to tell you that I’ve learned so
Talk, a collection of showbiz interviews. Fame was perplexing to much from your work, and after all these years, you are still an
Hurrell. To Kobal it was the elixir of life. inspiration to me—”
My next boost came in 1987, when I signed a contract with “Well, thanks. Look, I gotta run now. Bye.”
American Graphic Systems, a San Francisco book packager, to “Good-bye.”
write my own book, Hollywood Portraits: 1929–1941. Using my Harvey moved a print from one tray to another. “Child,” he
still collection, I wrote about my mentors: film editor Chester said, “Hurrell just changed the channel on you.” That was the
Schaeffer, cinematographers Lee Garmes and William Daniels, last time I spoke to Hurrell, but it was not the last time our paths
and of course, George Hurrell. Just as I was finishing the first crossed.
draft, I got up the nerve to call Hurrell. Allan Rich was still plugging Hurrell, and Hurrell was still
I was in the garage darkroom at my parents’ home in letting him. “In ’87 we went to Jordan Marsh in Boston with
Castro Valley; that was one umbilical I had yet to cut. I was Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, and George
printing negatives of Jean Harlow for Carole York at Memory and Betty. We had a wonderful time. George could be the most
Shop West in San Francisco. Harvey Stewart, a clever, gar- charming man you ever met. Full of hell—and laughter. He loved
rulous friend, was acting as my lab assistant. He sensed what I to laugh. He loved Chinese food, too. We were friends. Until the
was up to. “Child,” he said in his Charleston accent, “are you silliness occurred.”
calling Hurrell again?” Rich had not been able to get Hurrell a special Academy
I knew Hurrell’s number by heart. He answered in his usual Award. The Academy claimed that there was no precedent
no-nonsense manner. Yes, he remembered me, and no, he could for it. Rich reminded them of 1940s awards to three still men,
not help me. “I’m too busy to do a book jacket for you. Any- Robert Coburn, Frank Powolny, and Roman Freulich. Rich
thing else?” aimed higher. Kobal shows featuring Hurrell prints had been
“Didn’t you get the package I sent to you at Visages? There
were prints in it that I did from one of your original negs. I
O P P OSI TE: George Hurrell’s 1985 session with Paul McCartney
restored the retouching on it, and—” was the happy collaboration of two legends.

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 touring under the auspices of the Smithsonian. Why not try the
Smithsonian? With his usual perspicacity, Rich went to work
on this, his most daunting project. What had Hurrell managed
to line up? A show of his recent work hung in the lobby of a
small Hollywood lab called Photo Impact.
The setting was not impressive, but it occasioned an inter-
view. Tricia Crane of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote:
“At 84, Hurrell is fiery, frank, and, at least initially, rather imperi-
ous. Taking a long look at his portrait of Brooke Shields, Hurrell
sighs. ‘I started out to be a painter, you know,’ he says wearily.”
Besides the sporadic photo shows, Hurrell dabbled in
teaching. Now that everyone knew what “the Hurrell Style”
was, everyone wanted to try it, thinking it could be learned as
easily as the lambada. The results were mixed. “I tried a couple
of times to teach,” he said. “I would always have to quit after
three or four sessions because of dumb questions like ‘Why did
you put the light there?’”
“I said, ‘Can’t you see? You see what the light’s doing. If
you can’t see that, throw that camera away!’”
Hardly obtuse, Hurrell adopted an anti-intellectual pose. “I
don’t go around thinking about photo theory. And I still insist
that most of this should come from inside you as an impulse. If
you don’t have that, the rest is incidental.” As often as he could,
he turned his back on “the rest”—interviewers, students, group-
ies. Then he was free to do what he liked best: go fishing, cook,
fool with an unfinished landscape painting—or head to a portrait
sitting with George Jr. “That was what he was really interested
in,” said his son. “The next job. The next portrait. Not a lot of
art gallery receptions and questions about old movie stars. That
whole Publicity Machine, that got old really fast. He hated that.”
In 1988, Allan Rich’s wooing of the Smithsonian paid off.
The Institution agreed to a one-man show for Hurrell. Rich
then scheduled a series of glittering receptions and prestigious
speaking engagements for his distinguished artist. George
Hurrell was about to receive his country’s highest artistic
honor, and with it, unqualified acceptance of the art form he

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 had perfected a half century earlier. For once, an artist would be
recognized while he was still alive.
Yes, George Hurrell was still alive. And he was quite well,
what with $5,000 portrait fees and portfolios yielding twice
that. He was a candidate for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
He was also the irascible artist who had once told L. B. Mayer
to go to hell. Hurrell enjoyed the benefits of fame, but he
bristled at its price. He had lived a media-fed phenomenon.
He had returned from the ashes of his first career. Now he was
sated with the demands of a second. He felt that he was being
fed to Allan Rich’s Publicity Machine, bit by bit.
Hurrell had long since wearied of art gallery openings. He
was sick of vapid compliments and tactless questions about the
same dead stars. Didn’t these jackasses know that there was a
caste system in Hollywood? You didn’t socialize with stars. You
worked for them. In the sixteen years he had shot in Crawford’s
house, he had never once been allowed to go upstairs.
Hurrell was sick of being called a genius by people who did
not know the difference between a view camera and a viewfind-
er. He was disgusted by leering interviewers who asked if he’d
slept with his subjects. He was fed up with the phonies and the
flakes. He’d had it with the hype.
Hurrell called G. Ray Hawkins about Allan Rich’s coup.
“Can you believe that guy? He actually expects me to go to
Washington, DC, for an opening!”
“But George, it’s the Smithsonian,” said Hawkins in mea-
sured tones. “This puts you in the company of Outerbridge,
and Steichen, and your friend Weston.”
“What’s in it for me?!” Hurrell demanded.

C LO C KWI SE , FROM TOP LEFT: Sherry Lansing sat for Hur-

rell in 1989, when she was president of Twentieth Century-Fox.

A Hurrell portrait of Dean Stockwell.

A Hurrell portrait of Tracey Ullman.

A Hurrell portrait of writer Henry Miller.

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 What could Hawkins say? receptions and canceled speeches. But Hurrell was still famous.
A limousine pulled up to the modest ranch-style home in And still working.
North Hollywood, and the driver scanned the porch. He saw no In the years since 1976, The Hurrell Style had begun to
luggage. That was odd. He had been told that the elderly couple look a bit second rate, especially when compared to books such
was ready. He got out, went to the door, and rang the doorbell. A as Kobal’s The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photogra-
grizzled, hostile old man answered it. “Yeah?” phers. Hurrell thought he deserved a book worthy of his new
“I’m here to take the Hurrells to LAX.”
“The Hurrells aren’t going,” snapped the man, and he A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: Harrison Ford’s place in film history
was secure when George Hurrell made this 1984 portrait.
slammed the door.
The limo driver called the dispatcher, and the dispatcher A Hurrell portrait of Kathleen Turner.

called Allan Rich. Two hours of frantic negotiations ensued.

O P P OS I T E , L E F T TO R I G H T: A Hurrell portrait of Doris Duke,
George Hurrell refused to go to Washington, DC, to be honored who was an art collector and philanthropist.

by the Smithsonian Institution. So George Hurrell did not go.

This Hurrell portrait of Loretta Young was made in her home to
Allan Rich had to clean up an embarrassing mess of fouled publicize a 1989 TV movie, Lady in a Corner.

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 stature. Publishing the definitive Hurrell book now became his epic, David O. Selznick’s Hollywood. I saw Kobal in June 1988,
quest. He entertained proposals from various publishers, most and with some trepidation presented him an inscribed copy of
notably Jack Woody of Twelvetrees Press, who had recently my newly published book, Hollywood Portraits: 1929–1941. He
done a large-format gravure volume, Lost Hollywood. Woody flipped through it, praising with faint damns.
courted Hurrell, but when the intractable old man demanded I then shot his portrait, which was for a cable TV show.
that the book contain only work shot after 1977, Woody was I was short of cash, and asked him if he would spring for the
aghast. The project was abandoned. rental of incandescent lights. He declined, and I was forced to
John Kobal had a string of hits. Rita Hayworth became a shoot with available light, at which he commented, “Oh, you’re
TV movie, his Hollywood portrait books were reprinted numer- doing me like George did Garbo, with a skylight.”
ous times, and Knopf published People Will Talk and Legends. “Right. Your tan should really look nice with this bounce
His twenty-seventh book was already in the works. It was light—”
tentatively titled DeMille and His Artists. His editor at Knopf, “That was the worst sitting George ever did. He shot me,
Vicky Wilson, gave him a green light to do the most extravagant you know.”
film book ever, a tome that would dwarf even Ron Haver’s 1980 “And Laszlo. And Ted. I know.”

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 Despite Kobal’s misgivings, the sitting went well. As he was Hurrell with the idea of doing a book. Schirmer was enthusias-
leaving, he showed me a carload of oversize landscape prints by tic about using prints from the Kobal Collection, which would
the esteemed William Mortensen. “Wow,” I said. “Where did make possible a complete survey of Hurrell’s work. Hurrell
you get them?” grew livid and said he would never consent to any project using
“I’m doing research for my book at the DeMille estate.” Kobal material.
I knew better than to ask if he had been given them or had Kobal, on the other hand, had never stopped sending roy-
simply helped himself to them. Perhaps those tales of wheelbar- alty checks to Hurrell for Kobal Collection postcards and gallery
rows and raincoats full of negatives had been true. commissions. “George always sent the checks back to us,” said
Despite his misgivings, the sitting went well. When he saw Simon Crocker. “He was sort of petty, really.”
the finished prints, he said, “You little genius. I look like I’m lit The rank of veteran collectors was thinning. Myron Braum
from within!” (He had not been; there was no coffee in the home died in 1986. Within a month, his Norma Shearer stills began
where I shot him. Or liquor.) to flood the collector’s shows. Dore Freeman lost his unique
Lothar Schirmer of Schirmer Art Books, who knew Kobal collection of double-weight 8x10 prints in the summer of 1981
quite well, asked him for Hurrell’s address. He approached when two men visited him, ostensibly to drink and talk. One

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 Dore Freeman died in December 1988, aged 77. Within a
week, collectors were fighting to get at his Crawfords. I broke
with the friend who had originally introduced me to the work
of George Hurrell. After telling me, “You’ll do anything to get
stills,” he stole a Hurrell portrait of Norma Shearer from me.
Photo archivist Joan Rose said: “The most distasteful experi-
ences I ever had in Hollywood were with collectors.” There is
honor among thieves, but not among collectors.
In 1989, John Kobal momentarily put aside his DeMille
book and edited a well-mounted monograph about Clarence
Sinclair Bull. He chose photos and used biographical notes he
had purchased from Bull’s widow. The book was titled, much
to his dislike, The Man Who Shot Garbo. I was working on my
second Hollywood Portraits book when I started getting frantic
intercontinental phone calls. Kobal needed images that existed
only in negative form in the Turner/MGM Collection housed at
the Motion Picture Academy. I used my connections there to get
them and print them for him, hoping that this was the first step
to writing the text of the Bull book. I was soon disabused of this
notion. I received a polite call from the actual author, Terence
Pepper, who was Curator of the National Portrait Gallery in
London. I helped Pepper with his research and then billed John
man occupied Dore in the den with sexual blandishments. The Kobal for printing—and legwork.
other man made his way down a darkened hallway, removed Kobal was irate when he got my $400 bill. Why? It wasn’t
eight boxes of stills, surreptitiously put them outside, and then coming out of his pocket! Then he rebuked me for using his
returned to the den. Days later, when Dore discovered his boxes name when filling out the required Turner Entertainment Cor-
missing, he proceeded to call every collector he knew—includ- poration release. I had to dun him twice. After a terse exchange,
ing me—and accuse him of the crime. The thieves went unpun- he did not speak to me for a year.
ished, and it was not long before the prints started showing up I spoke to Jeremiah Sullivan about this. His ex-lover, Mat-
at a now-defunct store on Hollywood Boulevard. thew Daniels, was working with Kobal on a manuscript. “Oh, let
John stew in his own juice,” said Sullivan. “He’s pissed because
O P P OS I T E : Roger Taylor, Brian May, Freddie Mercury, and John people know that Matthew is ghosting a lot of his chapters.
Deacon, the members of the rock group Queen, were shot by Hur-
He’s pissed because Matthew doesn’t want to sleep with him.
rell in 1986 at the West Hollywood studio he rented from photogra-
pher Richard Settle. And he’s pissed because you’re writing books. He may call you
‘the little genius,’ but to him you’ll always be the little tyro. Just
A B OV E : Hurrell photographed Farrah Fawcett at the same studio
in late 1981. ignore him and keep writing.”

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 Both of my books paid homage to Hurrell. My parents Rich and Davis resolved the problem by having Pomegran-
would point out the latest news item about Hurrell and ask if I ate pay a commission on future sales, but Rich had finally had
had given him a book yet. I was printing Hurrell negatives for enough of Hurrell. He cut off all contact with him. “Look, I felt
collectors, shooting in his style, and praising him in interviews sad about it,” said Rich. “And we could have sued George, but
about my work. Yes, it made sense that I give him an inscribed everything doesn’t have to end in a lawsuit. I have a philosophy:
copy of Hollywood Portraits. After fourteen years, I was still Turn the page and move ahead.”
hoping for work, for some acknowledgment from him, for George Hurrell was still angling for a book deal. While he
something. waited, there was a call from the one arena in which he had not
I called Hurrell and got his answering machine. I called worked since his return from the ashes: Madison Avenue. (The
again. Same thing. And no return call. I called again. And Kawasaki fiasco did not count; that was actually a tie-in portrait
again. No response. One day, when Harvey Stewart and I were of Grace Jones for MGM-UA’s A View to a Kill.) In October
printing—what else—Hurrell negatives, I picked up the phone. 1989, David Leddick, who had spent decades directing Revlon
“Maybe he’ll answer this time.” All I heard was Hurrell’s voice and L’Oréal ads, was hired as a freelance creative director by
on the outgoing message tape. My face turned red. I heard the the advertising firm of Avrett Free Ginsberg (AFG). The New
beep. I spoke. York agency was competing with forty-one other agencies for
“Hello, it’s Mark. Again. You have not returned my calls. the Campaign of the ’90s. Lorillard Tobacco was spending $26
Well, I guess you can do without my book. And without my million to reposition Kent Cigarettes. To find the best agency,
retouching. And without my printing. Well, anyway, thank you Lorillard was holding auditions. The theme was “Portraits of
for returning my calls. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Pleasure.” Frank Ginsberg, one of the partners of AFG, remem-
And fuck you.” I slammed down the receiver. Harvey just stared. bered a book, The Man Who Shot Garbo. He asked David Led-
For once in his life, he was speechless. dick to find someone who could shoot in that style.
About this same time, Allan Rich got his own surprise call. Leddick, an avid art collector, knew about Hurrell. He
His partner asked him, “Did we authorize George to use our called him, introduced himself, and explained that AFG needed
images in datebooks for Pomegranate Press?” Rich could not a knockout audition piece. According to Leddick, Hurrell was
believe that Hurrell would knowingly sell images owned by CAI, “very pleasant and wanted very much to do it.” He wanted to
but when he got the datebook, there they were, half a dozen know if he could shoot the audition in Los Angeles, and if he
exclusive images. CAI was not mentioned anywhere, and the could suggest talent.
captions were sophomoric and inane, making a travesty of the “I had no real objection to that,” said Leddick. “We were
work. (One example: “Norma Shearer was the Joan Crawford doing a talent search ourselves in New York. So I thought,
of her day.” How did she manage that?) “You can imagine how There’s no harm in that.”
angry we were,” said Rich. “When I spoke to the guy at Pome- Hurrell sent Leddick photographs of three subjects who
granate, I immediately found out that he had nothing to do with he thought would be good models. Leddick’s concept was to
it. He got the rights directly from George, and he thought he was imitate Clarence Bull’s dreamy 1934 portrait of Gary Cooper
getting the rights from the horse’s mouth.” smoking. He evaluated Hurrell’s submissions. “They were okay,

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 but not particularly movie star–looking. I don’t really know who Cosenza, took the call. “Where can we reach this man who shot
they were. I called him back, saying that I didn’t think that any Garbo?” asked the assistant.
of these people were right for our project and that we would take “Sorry. Clarence Bull has been dead for ten years,” said
care of the casting.” Hurrell turned on him. Cosenza. “But I can refer you to someone who shoots in that
“He suddenly became a different type of person altogether. same style. (He could do this because Kobal was not in the of-
It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He went into a very long fice.) The man in California who prints Bull’s negatives for us,
harangue about advertising people, how they always order you Mark Vieira.”
around and how they treat people terribly and how they cheat “Never heard of him.”
people. And he just blew his stack and said he didn’t want to do “Call him,” said Cosenza. “He’s good.”
the project and hung up.” I shot the Lorillard audition. My work got AFG the Kent
Leddick told Ginsberg that AFG could not afford to account. I got to shoot “Portraits of Pleasure.” And that was the
embark on a major audition with someone who might walk off last time my path crossed George Hurrell’s.
when they could least afford it. Ginsberg had an assistant call
the Kobal Collection’s New York office. Kobal’s assistant, Bob ABOVE : Hurrell made these portraits of Paul McCartney in 1985.

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 REFLECTIONS IN A LENS

Nineteen ninety arrived, and the culture continued to change. He had gotten as far as saying to David Fahey, “I would like you
Next to goatees, tattoos, and body-piercing, the glamour of old to represent me,” but nothing was ever finalized. Hurrell was
Hollywood was increasingly exotic. Jean Harlow was mistaken always talking about being taken advantage of. “At that point
for someone trying to look like Madonna. Videos of Joan in time,” said Chapman, “he was mad at John Kobal and Allan
Crawford persuaded viewers that there was more to her than Rich. I told him I didn’t care for them either. And he said, ‘Well,
the apocrypha of abuse. The term “pre-Code movies” entered at least we have something in common.’” Joan Rose said, “I
the lexicon and accelerated the Norma Shearer rediscovery. think George could get along with people as long as he didn’t
Everything old was new again, yet at age eighty-six, George feel nailed down or hemmed in.”
Hurrell had not snagged that second book he sought. Publisher In 1990, Graystone Books, in conjunction with the G. Ray
Lothar Schirmer was interested, but reluctant to base a book Hawkins Gallery, prepared to publish The Portfolios of George
on Hurrell’s insubstantial collection, so Hurrell began paying Hurrell. A series of postcards was printed in advance of the
visits to Bill Chapman, who by now had amassed 2,000 original book. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and Hurrell was
prints. Hurrell had some leverage there, because Chapman stamping it. “Postcards—how belittling can you get?” he wrote
wanted to rent Hurrell images to magazines through Joan Rose, to Allan Rich on June 28. “What else are you going to do to
who had gone from being a poster dealer to being a photo rep. degrade the value of a Hurrell photo? And since when do you
Hurrell wrote Chapman a letter, granting him permission to use have the legal right to do postcards or anything else besides the
his work. Then he brought art dealer David Fahey over to look original purpose described in our contracts. I guess it is time to
at Chapman’s collection. By this time Fahey was running the talk to a lawyer about your sneaky practices and claims. And—
Fahey-Klein Gallery and had edited a number of monographs. let this be the end of any further pretense of friendship.”
Doing a book with Chapman’s collection looked like a natu- Allan Rich responded on July 2, 1990, in a letter that
ral. “After two meetings,” said Rose, “I could see that it really began: “I have belittled you in the same fashion as the Rijks-
was not going to go anywhere. None of them spoke the same museum who published postcards of Vermeer.” After citing six
language.” museums and sixteen artists, Rich concluded: “I give these to
For a time, Rose acted as an informal rep, renting Hurrell’s you as a gift of recognition. I do hope that before you sue us, you
own prints to selected magazines, but from 1990 on, the grand
old man had no agent, either as a photographer, as an artist, or O P P OSI TE: In 1991 Hurrell photographed Natalie Cole for the
for the book contract he finally signed with Lothar Schirmer. cover of her album Unforgettable . . . With Love.

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 ing; nor did his marketability. Auctions and galleries were now
selling portfolio prints for $12,000 to $15,000 apiece. Every-
one should have been pleased. But the angry correspondence
continued.
The vintage prints of Novarro, Dietrich, and others that
Hurrell had given Fahey for Masters of Starlight in 1987 now
turned up in a catalog put out by Fahey’s former partners. The
poses looked identical to some of CAI’s exclusive portfolio
images. Rich was suspicious, and he wrote to Hurrell. On June
24, 1991, Hurrell replied, first disavowing any connection with
Fahey’s former partners, whom he described as crooks. Then he
explained photography to Rich.
“There may be similar images to the CAI negatives in MY
VAST COLLECTION—what I call ‘look-alikes,’ which are
mine and mine alone,” said Hurrell. “My years of photographing
movie stars—creating images—and shooting so fast that there
will be three or four negatives so similar in pose and expression
that even I cannot tell them apart. Perhaps your Novarro nega-
tive is a ‘look-alike’ and perhaps some of your other negatives
read your contract.” Hurrell shut up and Rich went back to writ- also may be. I wouldn’t know. I am still a busy photographer
ing the Motion Picture Academy, asking that Hurrell be given a making my living shooting—in the same old way—with the
special Academy Award. When Karl Malden turned him down, same old 8x10 camera—and with the same old clientele—movie
he gave up. stars—and as the saying goes, ‘It’s a living.’”
Portrait commissions enlivened 1990 and 1991 for Hurrell: I was able to compare the two images in question. They
Johnny Mathis, Warren Beatty, Sharon Stone, and Natalie Cole came from a Novarro sitting done in connection with the 1931
among them. At eighty-seven, Hurrell showed no signs of slow- film Daybreak. This is what happened: Hurrell supplied one of
his partially retouched killed negs to Rich in 1980 for Portfolio
II. Then in 1987, he supplied a vintage M-G-M print of a simi-
O P P OS I T E : Hurrell shot this portrait of Rita Hayworth in 1942.
When author David Stenn interviewed Hurrell in 1991 for Bombshell, lar pose to the competing entity. Unless you put them side by
Hurrell shared stories about Hayworth, too. side, they looked like the same image. Why was Hurrell protest-
ABOVE: John Kobal‘s death was a sad, premature end to a rich, ing so much? Surely he knew that the vintage pose was danger-
productive life. A significant part of our cultural history would be
ously close to the portfolio pose and would set off alarms. Was
landfill had he not applied himself to both gaining and sharing
knowledge. The portrait was made by me in 1988. he doing it to spite Rich?

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 After Hurrell signed the contract with Schirmer Art Books, per. As a result, they looked murky, flat, and lifeless. He shipped
he began to visit Bill Chapman, looking for images. “He would 300 mediocre prints to Germany and let Schirmer worry about
call me about ten minutes to nine. He couldn’t quite wait until screening them. Hurrell would have done better to buy the
nine A.M. to call. His voice was gruff: ‘George here.’” Then Hur- Chapman Collection, but he was either too proud or too cheap.
rell would visit, going through binder after binder of double- Once more, he sold the public a flawed vision of his work.
weight originals. Occasionally, he would stop and say, “I’d like When Hurrell printed for Schirmer, he made additional
to copy this. That way I can crop it, make it darker here and prints from the same negatives. “He wanted to leave something
there. You know, improve it.” for his children,” said Lou D’Elia, who was still dining with
Chapman was mystified by Hurrell’s newfound fixation Hurrell on a regular basis. D’Elia was a practicing neuropsy-
with “improving” his vintage prints, trying to make everything chologist and was also teaching at UCLA. Hurrell would call
dark, dark, dark. My suspicion was that he wanted to conform him and they would meet for lunch at Musso and Frank in
his work to the stereotype of “The Great Hurrell” that Rich had Hollywood or Cheerio in Santa Monica (until it closed in the
sold the media. “Rich really thought that Hurrell was the Rem- late ’80s). D’Elia noted the décor of the places Hurrell liked;
brandt of photography,” said G. Ray Hawkins. You would not dark wood paneling, red leather banquettes, and subdued light-
see a bright Rembrandt, reasoned Rich. So Hurrell’s prints must ing, usually from tiny spotlights. He asked Hurrell if there was
not look too bright—even if they had been lit as high-key images. any reason for always eating in places that had this look. “The
Chapman was not interested in lending photos, for copying bounce light from the white tablecloth and the red leather is flat-
or otherwise; he wanted to sell them. Hurrell was unwilling to tering,” answered Hurrell.
pay Chapman’s prices, so they parted company, but amicably. In 1990 Richard Settle was undergoing cancer treatment
Hurrell had heard from Kobal and Rose that Chapman had a and had to be away from his studio. Hurrell called him at least
reputation for being vindictive. “Look,” Rose said. “Bill has once a week to inquire after his health. Settle considered Hurrell
things you need. That I need. But he has a history of emotional a friend. Over a period of ten years, they had worked on more
problems. He was very effeminate. He was beaten badly as a boy than forty sessions together. Hurrell told him stories about the
and he was assaulted in the service. He’s never recovered from studio days, and even about Walt Disney. “Walt was allowed a
that. If you want to use his material and get through a project certain amount of liquor per day,” Hurrell told Settle. “When
with him, you’re going to have to kiss his ass.” he’d gone through that, he came to my office and got into my
Hurrell politely distanced himself from Chapman, at least bottle.” At one point there was talk of a star on Hollywood Bou-
until he could find another source. But he still refused to use levard for Hurrell. “I don’t want to be on a sidewalk,” said Hur-
photos from the Kobal Collection. Once again, Hurrell had rell. “I’ve been stepped on and walked all over by enough people
painted himself into a corner. Why? He had no choice but to as- in Hollywood.” Settle saw Hurrell wince when sycophants
semble a book from his own inferior collection. He began print- referred to him as a legend. “I’m not a legend,” said Hurrell.
ing copy negatives in his garage darkroom. The copy negatives “Legends are stuck up on a shelf and left there. I’m working.”
were of good quality, but he did ill-advised things with them. He In September 1991, George Hurrell was interviewed by
diffused them and burned them and printed them on matte pa- author David Stenn for Bombshell, a definitive biography of Jean

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 Harlow. Stenn’s editor at Doubleday was Jacqueline Onassis. famous Karsh of Ottawa. “I don’t want to be introduced to him,”
She suggested that Stenn commission a book jacket portrait by said Hurrell. “All we would do anyway is sit around and discuss
Hurrell. “I said he’d never do it,” recalled Stenn. “He’d made it photography. I don’t want to do that.”
clear he was turning down offers.” According to Bill Chapman: None of the people who idolized Hurrell knew that he
“Madonna wanted him to take her picture, so she invited him to derived real enjoyment, not from eating in overpriced, preten-
one of her concerts. He went, but he didn’t take her picture. He tious restaurants, but from fishing and cooking. “He loved to
said she was too masculine.” There was more to the story. Hur- fish,” said D’Elia. “His clam sauce spaghetti was a delicacy. He
rell and George Jr. were invited backstage but were made to wait really just enjoyed the company of his wife and children.” When
so long that Hurrell said: “To hell with her. Let’s go.” he had gone to Paris for Vogue (in January 1981) and the trip
Hurrell was declining other invitations. According to Joan ran over its expected length, he wrote D’Elia that “Betty is going
Rose, he dropped Helmut Newton because he was tired of an- to kill me if I stay here any longer.” He was joking, of course,
swering technical questions, even over free lunches at Le Dome. because he missed her as much as she missed him. “After
He told Bill Chapman that he turned down a chance to meet the the unhappy marriage with Katherine,” said D’Elia, “and the

A B OV E , L E F T A N D C EN TER : This portrait of Ramon Novarro ABOVE R I GH T: Hurrell ran afoul of his business partners when
was a killed shot. Hurrell made it for Jacques Feyder’s 1931 Day- he contracted with a competing art publisher, and worse, supplied
break. When Hurrell included the image in Portfolio II, he chose not an image that was too similar to the portfolio image.
to retouch the negative, which was not in keeping with the tradi-
tion of the Hollywood glamour portrait. A retouched version of this
image appears above, center.

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 trouble with Phyllis, George had finally found his soul mate. He standing order since 1931 had been a Manhattan and Steak
was very happy with Betty.” Diane, but he instead ordered a beer and Shrimp Louie. He
When David Stenn interviewed Hurrell at length about insisted that Stenn have the same. As he talked with Stenn, he
Harlow, Hurrell warmed to the writer. He admitted that there studied his face. “This is what I always do,” he told Stenn. “I
were people that he was actually interested in photographing: like to sit down with people first. I don’t like them to just walk
Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, and Pope John Paul II. Why in and expect me to go to work. I need to look at them, to see
was Hurrell so forthcoming? “Because I was able to tell him what’s there.” Stenn warned Hurrell that he was no Gary Coo-
things about Harlow that even he didn’t know. There was some per. Hurrell was unfazed. “Looks only get you so far,” he said.
reciprocity there. I think he was used to interviewers not doing “It’s what’s inside that takes you all the way there.” He confided
their homework.” Perhaps there were other reasons for Hurrell’s to Stenn that one of his famous portfolio portraits, a shot of Rita
affability. Stenn was an influential writer-producer on a major Hayworth leaning back on her elbow and laughing, was a last-
network. His editor was one of the most famous Americans of
A B OV E , L E F T TO R I G H T: David Stenn got a book jacket
the century. Hurrell, for all his defiant posturing, was impressed
portrait from Hurrell. The September 1991 session was Hurrell’s last
by power. He agreed to shoot Stenn. at Richard Settle’s studio.

The sitting was Saturday, September 14. Two days before,

Hurrell’s last movie-related job was shooting Warren Beatty and
Stenn took Hurrell to lunch at Musso and Frank. Hurrell’s Annette Bening for Beatty’s 1991 film Bugsy.

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 ditch attempt to wring emotion from her. “She was gorgeous, On October 28, 1991, John Kobal died of AIDS. No one I
but there was nothing else there. I had nothing to photograph, spoke with across years of research knows if he and Hurrell ever
so I just told her to lie down. She fell into a pose like that, and so reconciled. All I could confirm was that Kobal had never gotten
I shot her in profile.” over Hurrell’s betrayal. “George just wouldn’t talk to John,” said
Stenn’s sitting took place at Richad Settle’s studio. Stenn Simon Crocker. “I think he somehow convinced himself that
brought along a Benny Goodman compact disc, which worked John had gotten the better of him. But John always said good
wonders. Perhaps Hurrell, with his legendary record collec- things about George. I never heard him put George down.”
tion, had played that very recording (in a 78 rpm version) in his Kobal had written to me in early 1991. It was a rambling, ef-
Rodeo Drive studio fifty years earlier. Stenn was transported. fusive letter that did not say much, except “I’m lonely.” It ended
“I went into this sort of zone,” said Stenn. “He never on a plaintive note. “Be well, Mark. That’s the most important
stopped talking to me, but it wasn’t conversational. More like a thing. Be well.”
drill sergeant, giving orders. ‘Move your arm to the right. No, a “Had John lived,” said David Del Valle, “and gotten to be
little less. No, a little more.’ I mean, he was meticulous. older and more comfortable in his celebrity, he would have been
“And if he felt your energy slipping, he’d say ‘boo’ or a great teacher. Because he was always learning. I’d visit him
growl—or jump! He was spry. I don’t think he ever became an at the Marmont and he’d show me a picture and say, ‘Look at
‘old man.’ You know how some people just stay hip? He had this. No, really look at it! Notice this shadow here?’ He wanted
a young spirit. And whatever he was looking for, he wanted to to impart that knowledge to other people. We’ll never get to see
make sure he got it.” that side of him.”
Did he? How did the pictures turn out? What could What is John Kobal’s legacy? Without a doubt, it was he
an eighty-seven-year-old artist do? Stenn recalled his first who pushed the Hollywood glamour portrait into the world of
look at the prints: “You look at them and you think: Who’s art. Before Kobal, these photographs were scrap paper. After
that? Because you’ve never seen yourself look so good. And him, they were “images.” How did he do it? He got negatives.
at the same time, you think: Well, yes. This is the person that He got them first. He had them printed better. He had them
I always thought I was, way deep down inside—on my best printed larger. He showed them out of context. And he used the
day. Like he said, ‘It’s what’s inside that counts.’ That’s what force of his personality to sell them. This was his achievement, a
George got.” cultural epiphany.
Hurrell kept in touch with Stenn. He’d call up to chat. One of Hurrell’s last social engagements in 1991 was a visit
“Hello, David? This is George Hurrell, the photographer, call- to Bill Chapman’s apartment. Schirmer’s expensive folio, Hur-
ing.” In December, Stenn asked Hurrell whom he’d been shoot- rell’s Book of Stars, had just been published. Hurrell shared it
ing lately. “I haven’t been working,” answered Hurrell. “My with Chapman and Joan Rose. Together they turned page after
shingles have been bothering me.” Stenn sensed some deeper page of the large, heavy book. “Too dark,” said Hurrell over and
problem, but did not ask. Hurrell had not shot at Settle’s studio over again. “Too muddy.” Chapman glanced over at Joan Rose.
since Stenn’s session. She was looking at the ceiling.

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 In January 1992, the Vermont art gallery owner J. Grier had first been diagnosed with this disease in the late ’70s but
Clarke realized a cherished ambition. He was producing a had beaten it, or so he thought. He began chemotherapy, tried to
documentary about George Hurrell, Legends in Light. Hurrell complete the video, and then dropped out.
agreed to be his subject, as long as he did not use: “any photos The therapy continued through May. Hurrell called Chap-
from Allan Rich, CAI, the Kobal Collection, the Photographers man and made a lunch date for May 21. Hurrell was hospital-
Archive, etc., etc. etc.!” ized in Cedars Sinai. Clarke asked him to record voice-overs
Clarke’s video camera followed the revered artist from a from his hospital bed. Hurrell agreed. On May 16 a doctor came
shooting area set up in a hotel to a photo lab, and then to the to Hurrell’s bedside and told him that his life would soon be
Granada Buildings, to the suite where he had first shot Novarro ending. “Party’s over,” said Hurrell. “Time to go home.”
and Shearer. Hurrell was chipper, creating an abnormally jovial George Edward Hurrell died on May 17, 1992, fourteen
character, but as the weeks passed, he began to look drawn. days before his eighty-eighth birthday.
When he went to work on Sharon Stone, however, old “Geor-
gie” held back nothing. The images he created were masterly
and original. O P P OSI TE: A video camera preserved Hurrell’s ritual magic
in 1992, when J. Grier Clarke made the documentary Legends in
These were Hurrell’s last days behind a camera. In April
Light. One of the delights of the film is watching Hurrell light
1992 the “shingles” were diagnosed as bladder cancer. Hurrell Sharon Stone. Hurrell would be gone a few months later.

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 389 7/15/13 2:34 PM
 EPILOGUE

This artist’s life was a rare one. George Hurrell supported him- In closing, I can only consider the words of the people he
self with his art and he prospered with it. When it became passé, touched, and his own cryptic reflections.
he adapted himself to new techniques. Twenty-five years later, David Fahey said, “His real passion was painting. He al-
his art was powerful enough to give him a second career. This ways wanted to be a painter in Laguna. He really didn’t have the
one lasted fifteen years, surviving even his personal problems. appreciation for his own photography that everybody else did.”
How many artists have one career, let alone two? How many Allan Rich said, “The story of Hurrell is the story of an
have been so honored in their lifetimes? And how many have innovative American artist. And boy, that’s where the ball game
been ambivalent about it? is. What he was as a man was his problem. What remains is the
George Hurrell’s Hollywood has characterized the artist as brilliance of the human being. And a human being is so bloody
a complex, abstruse, and somewhat perverse man. Researching imperfect to begin with.”
his life granted no clues to his duality, other than his religious John Kobal wrote: “George wasn’t perfect. But almost. He
training, his refusal to discuss his parents, and the unhappy snaps his bulb and a bit of a man’s mortality is now become im-
experience I had with him. An artist’s work cannot be separated mortality, for at least as long as there is someone to see it, or until
from his life, but seeking the cause of his temperament is as the day that negative dies, disintegrates, and releases its stolen
frustrating as isolating the source of his creativity. When all is life back into the void.”
said and done, what does it matter? From what I have learned, In 1969 George Hurrell said: “I wish to hell I’d stayed
he found joy in his family and satisfaction in his art. That is what with painting, now that photography has gone to hell. I wish I’d
matters, not my unmet expectations of the man or some critic’s stayed with painting.”
opinion of his work. When I look at a Hurrell portrait, I see his My favorite George Hurrell quotation comes from a 1981
gifts, not his failings. The movement and emotion with which he interview: “I had no formal training in photography. I just knew
imbued a stationary piece of paper convey to me the pleasure he what I wanted to do. I followed my own drive and emotional
found in his art. That is what remains. And if this book conveys concepts. That’s part of it. You have to dream more.”
that, then the work I began with Hurrell in November 1975 has
come to fruition.

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 SELECTED
CHRONOLOGY

1925 Lewis Stone, Strictly Unconven-

tional
1931 Wallace Beery
Dorothy Jordan
Edgar Payne Dorothy Sebastian Ray Milland

1932
William Wendt Chester Morris, Robert Mont- Norma Shearer, Strangers May Kiss
gomery, Wallace Beery, The Big Lupe Velez

1926 House
Buster Keaton, Sally Eilers,
John Gilbert Joan Crawford
Wallace Beery
Anita Page
Julia Bracken Wendt Doughboys
Buster Keaton Lionel Barrymore
Frank Cuprien Greta Garbo on the set of Romance
Edwina Booth John Barrymore, Grand Hotel
Florence Barnes Ramon Novarro
Neil Hamilton Una Merkel
Joan Crawford (beach) Joan Crawford
Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, A
1928 Greta Garbo, Romance Free Soul
Mary Forbes Lon Chaney, The Unholy Three Gwen Lee
Florence (“Pancho”) Barnes Joan Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks Robert Montgomery, Shipmates
Jr.
Lilian Bond
Harriet Lake
1929 William Haines
Joan Crawford, This Modern Age
Neil Hamilton
Ramon Novarro Robert Montgomery
Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, The
Irene Homer Cliff Edwards Guardsman
Norma Shearer Leila Hyams Lois Moran, West of Broadway
Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Min Marion Davies, It’s a Wise Child
1930 and Bill
Grace Moore
Gwen Lee

Anita Page Jackie Cooper

Kay Francis, Passion Flower
Joan Crawford Erin O’Brien Moore
Marion Davies
Wallace Beery Marjorie King
Anita Page (home) OPPOSITE: George Hurrell
Johnny Mack Brown, Montana Joan Crawford (home)
Buster Keaton, Parlor, Bedroom, made this portrait of Norma
Moon Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Pos-
and Bath Shearer in 1931 to publicize
Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, sessed
George Fitzmaurice’s Strangers
Constance Bennett, Robert Mont-
Free and Easy Madge Evans May Kiss.
gomery, Adolphe Menjou, The
Buster Keaton, Free and Easy Easiest Way Anita Page
Norma Shearer Kathryn Crawford, Bert Lahr, Fly- ABOVE: On June 30, 2008,
Lili Damita
ing High Canada Post used it as the basis
Lottice Howell Marie Dressler for a postage stamp in its “Ca-
Anita Page, Our Blushing Brides Leila Hyams
Clark Gable nadians in Hollywood” series,
Kay Johnson Myrna Loy
honoring Shearer, and indirectly,
Raymond Hackett, Dorothy Janis Norma Shearer, Private Lives Hurrell.

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 Madge Evans Marian Nixon Jean Harlow, The Girl From Mis- Bill Robinson
Wallace Ford Mary Pickford souri Miriam Hopkins, These Three
Alexander Kirkland Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Anna Sten, We Live Again Merle Oberon
Jackie Cooper Eugenie Leontovich Mary Brian, A Private Scandal Joel McCrea
Norma Shearer, Strange Interlude Helen Chandler Joan Crawford, Chained Samuel Goldwyn
Nils Asther Myrna Loy Norma Shearer, The Barretts of Fritz Lang
Wimpole Street
Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Sally O’Neil Kitty Carlisle
Strange Interlude Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow, Dinner at Eight Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone
Joan Marsh Paulette Goddard, Modern Times (home)
Maureen O’Sullivan, Stage Mother
Jean Harlow Ethel Merman, Kid Millions
Nancy Carroll
Joan Crawford, Letty Lynton Eleanor Roosevelt
Mary Pickford
Jean Parker
1936
Erich von Stroheim, Hedda Hop- Jean Harlow (for first issue of Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard,
per, Melvyn Douglas, As You Esquire) Robert Montgomery
Romeo and Juliet
Desire Me Jean Harlow (home)
Norma Shearer Madge Evans Simone Simon
Robert Young Norma Shearer (Irene gowns)
Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Danc- Ida Lupino
Jean Harlow, Red-Headed Woman ing Lady Jean Harlow (Vanity Fair)
Luise Rainer
Anita Page Loretta Young, The House of Doris Kenyon
Jeanette MacDonald
Thelma Todd, Speak Easily Rothschild Ralph Bellamy
Rosalind Russell, Trouble For Two
Robert Montgomery, Letty Lynton Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone Joan Crawford, Forsaking All
(home) Carole Lombard, The Princess
Karen Morley Others
Comes Across
John Gilbert, Downstairs Jean Harlow, Bombshell
Josephine Hutchinson
Leslie Howard, Smilin’ Through Anna Sten, Nana
Jean Harlow (at Bullock’s [1])
1935 Joan Crawford, The Gorgeous
Jean Harlow Hussy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy Jeanette MacDonald, The Cat and
Frances Dee Irene Dunne, Show Boat
the Fiddle
Norma Shearer, Smilin’ Through Frances Dee
Loretta Young Joel McCrea
Joan Crawford Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Love
Constance Bennett, Moulin Rouge Merle Oberon, Dark Angel
Lilyan Tashman on the Run
Karen Morley Joan Crawford, No More Ladies
Joan Bennett Joan Bennett
Mary Pickford (book jacket
Norma Shearer Madeleine Carroll
1934
portrait)
John, Lionel, and Ethel Barrymore Franchot Tone Robert Taylor
Warner Baxter, Dangerously Yours Grace Moore Clifton Webb Constance Bennett
Irene Ware, Chandu the Magician Wallace Beery, Viva Villa! Margo
Boots Mallory
Miriam Jordan
Mae Clarke, This Side of Heaven Jean Harlow, Reckless/China Seas 1937
Janet Beecher, Gallant Lady Charles Farrell, Forbidden Heaven Shirley Temple
Laurence Olivier Norma Shearer, Riptide Johnny Weissmuller Alice Faye
Lupe Velez Mary Carlisle Jeanette MacDonald Loretta Young
Norma Shearer Ann Sothern Rosalind Russell Tyrone Power
Sally Eilers Constance Bennett, The Affairs of Joan Crawford, I Live My Life Warner Baxter
Joan Crawford Cellini
Shirley Temple, John Boles, The Ronald Colman
Fay Wray Littlest Rebel
Madeleine Carroll,
1933 Joan Crawford, Sadie McKee
Ginger Rogers, Change of Heart
Norma Shearer
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., The Pris-
Carole Lombard (color cover for oner of Zenda
Joan Crawford
Alice Faye Photoplay)
Mae West Robert Taylor
Franchot Tone Jean Harlow (at Bullock’s [2])
Carole Lombard Jean Harlow
George Hoyningen-Huene William Powell
Hedda Hopper William Powell
Marian Nixon, The Line Up Gene Raymond
Helen Hayes Robert Montgomery
Nelson Eddy

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 Joan Crawford, The Last of Mrs.
Cheyney
James Cagney, The Oklahoma Kid
Vera Zorina, On Your Toes
Claire Trevor, The Desperadoes
Joan Crawford
1969
Marlene Dietrich Justine
Bette Davis, The Private Lives of

1944
Carole Lombard Elizabeth and Essex Flare-up

Anna May Wong Margaret Lindsay Che

Fanny Brice 100 Rifles
Betty Grable Olivia de Havilland
Joan Crawford The Only Game in Town
Joan Crawford, Mannequin Bette Davis
Paul Muni George Brent Myra Breckenridge

Shirley Temple, Heidi Miriam Hopkins, The Old Maid 1945

Dolores Del Rio, Lancer Spy John Garfield Esquire 1970
Alice Faye Nell O’Day, Saturday’s Children Beneath the Planet of the Apes

1946 John Kobal

1938 1940 Joan Crawford
Jean Muir Helen Vinson J. Walter Thompson Agency 1971
Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Olivia de Havilland, Santa Fe Trail advertising
The Mephisto Waltz
Robin Hood Bette Davis, All This and Heaven, The Brady Bunch
Ronald Colman, If I Were King
Claudette Colbert, Bluebeard’s
Too
1952
Eighth Wife
1941
Marlene Dietrich 1972
Joan Bennett, The Texans Arlene Dahl
Mama Cass Elliott
M. F. K. Fisher Ann Sheridan
Anna May Wong, Dangerous to
Joan Crawford
1974
Know Maureen O’Hara
Charles Boyer Bette Davis, The Little Foxes Yvonne De Carlo
Janet Gaynor, The Young at Heart Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis

1954
Ball of Fire Raquel Welch, The Wild Party
Katharine Hepburn
Barbara Stanwyck, Meet John Doe
Ann Sheridan, Angels With Dirty
1975
Alexis Smith J. Walter Thompson
Faces
John Garfield Veronica Lake, I Wanted Wings
Humphrey Bogart Paulette Goddard 1957 John Kobal
Fifi D’Orsay
George Brent Betty Hutton Peter Lawford, The Thin Man
Keith Carradine
James Cagney Jane Russell, The Outlaw
Olivia de Havilland
1962 1976
John Payne 1942 Sergeants Three
Jane Wyman Tere Tereba
Michele Morgan
Paul Muni Margaux Hemingway
1964
Maria Montez
Errol Flynn, Anne Archer
Fred Astaire
Bette Davis, Dark Victory The Dick Powell Theatre
Rita Hayworth
Rosalind Russell The Loretta Young Show 1977
1939 Loretta Young Natalie Wood
Bette Davis, Juarez Mae West 1965 Joan Rivers
John Payne, Kid Nightingale Margie Stewart Julie Andrews, Star Bette Midler
Ann Sheridan “Oomph” Campaign Neil Diamond
Priscilla Lane 1943 1968 Tom Waits
Humphrey Bogart John Dean
Adele Mara Mod Squad
James Cagney, The Roaring Bianca Jagger
Marguerite Chapman Mannix
Twenties David Bowie
Rosalind Russell
Alex Haley

395

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 1979 Jamie Lee Curtis
Paula Prentiss
Desmond Child
Sherry Lansing
Warren Beatty
Annette Bening, Bugsy
Lionel Richie
Suzanne Pleshette Natalie Cole

1990
Aretha Franklin
David Stenn

1985
Chevy Chase
Johnny Mathis
1992
Erte
Diana Ross Pet Shop Boys

1980 Paul and Linda McCartney Sean Young

Rona Barrett
Laurie Hendler
1991 Raquel Welch
Arnold Schwarzenegger Sharon Stone
Sharon Gless Sharon Stone
Talking Heads
Clare Booth Luce Richard E Settle
Grace Jones
David Duchovny
Dolph Lundgren
1981 Michael Biehn
Tony Peck
Haute Couture Collection for Paris
Vogue
1986 Mario Van Peebles
Queen Jeff Fahey
Barry Manilow
Molly Ringwald
David Byrne
Fleetwood Mac
Lindsay Buckingham 1987
Faye Dunaway Alexander O’Neal
Brooke Shields Pointer Sisters
Jessica Lange
Farrah Fawcett
Ryan O’Neal
1988
Teaze
Basia
1982 Ry Cooder
Anthony Geary Bryan Murphy
Alexander Godunov Jefferson Wagner
David Soul John Sedler
Peggy Fleming Dean Stockwell
Lesley Ann Warren Tracey Ullman
Helen Reddy Barry Levinson
Morgan Fairchild Helmut Newton
Don and Cheryl Weinstein

1983
Eric Douglas 1989
Chris Lemmon Emilia Crow
Joan Collins John Candy
Glen Scott

1984 Ed Harris
ABOVE: Hurrell’s own reflection can be glimpsed on the back of
Jeff Daniels
Harrison Ford
President Ronald Reagan his camera.
Terri Garr
Loretta Young

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 COLLECTING HURRELL

George Hurrell’s photographs continue to be a presence in the although I have seen some on matte paper. The custom prints
marketplace, in spite of economic trends and permutations in of his work from this period that were made for M-G-M, the Fox
media. I would like to share a few highlights of my experience, Film Corporation, Goldwyn, and other studios were usually
both as a collector of Hurrell prints and as an archival printer. printed by the studio after Hurrell had made the artist’s proof
I hope that these will help the reader who would like to own a for them to match. Because of the quantity of custom prints,
photo by Hurrell or who just wants to know a bit more. there was no time for Hurrell, even with his assistants, to make
I will begin with studio portraits made between 1930 and them. Yet, with few exceptions, these are the best prints of Hur-
1943. During Hurrell’s first year at M-G-M, he made most of rell’s work, especially the M-G-M prints made between 1933
the 10x13 enlargements himself. These are known as “custom and 1937. They have clarity, a tonal range, and a consistency of
prints.” He always used the same enlarging easel, so these prints interpretation that make them superior to Hurrell prints of any
are identifiable by a tiny notch toward the left of the inside up- other period. Hurrell can thank Clarence Bull for the excellence
per border. It is possible that he filed the notch himself or that of the lab work, and collectors can also thank him because these
the easel was old and damaged. These prints are also recogniz- seventy-five-year-old prints look like they were printed yesterday.
able by their color; many of them faded a few years after Hurrell The 8x10 glossy prints were made by machine. Each
printed them because he used exhausted fixer. Important: a studio designed its own, but they all used a roll of paper that
print that has yellowed will not continue to yellow and fade was pulled through the machine and flashed by a contact print-
entirely. There is a finite amount of chemicals in the emulsion. ing device that held the negative. Hundreds, often thousands,
Hurrell’s M-G-M prints from 1931 and 1932 are mostly of prints were made in this way. Can we consider these 8x10
free of yellowing. And Hurrell was not using that original easel. glossies “collectible” Hurrell prints? They were rarely stamped
The custom enlargements from this period were 10x13 double- as Hurrell prints and they were usually printed lighter than his
weight paper with a luster surface, usually ink-stamped “Hur- custom prints, so probably not. Are there hard-and-fast rules for
rell” on the reverse or “blind stamped” (embossed) in the lower this? No. Are there M-G-M single-weight glossy prints stamped
right border, but rarely both. Hurrell occasionally printed on “Hurrell”? Yes. Are they collectible? Yes.
matte paper; these prints were intended as gifts for (or from) What about oversize prints from Paramount in 1937? That
studio employees; the heavy grain of the paper was meant to studio usually ignored Hurrell’s request that they stamp his
discourage unauthorized copying or publication. name on the back of his work. It may be that publicity director
Between 1932 and 1938, the custom prints Hurrell made at John Engstead disliked him, because Eugene Robert Richee’s
his own studio for private commissions were usually on 11x14 prints from the same period are stamped. A collector has to
double-weight glossy paper with narrow borders or no borders, know that Betty Grable was photographed by Hurrell at Para-

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Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 398 7/15/13 2:34 PM
 mount in 1937, even if the studio refused to stamp “Hurrell” lines I had learned from mentors who included Edd Hearn,
on the back of the print. Be careful! There are portraits of Betty Procopio Calado, Laszlo Willinger, Ted Allan, Clarence Bull,
Grable by Gene Richee and William Walling that look like Hur- and Hurrell himself. I processed the prints archivally according
rell’s work. The only way to be certain is to find one print from to Eastman Kodak standards. If stored properly, these prints will
the same sitting that is stamped. Or look for Hurrell’s toplight. last centuries. Like Hurrell, I used Agfa paper. In 2005 the fac-
I am often asked: “What happened to this single-weight tory closed. I switched to Ilford and was delighted by its quality.
photo? It’s smaller than 8x10. It has no border. But it’s stamped
‘Hurrell – Warner Bros.’ Is it genuine?” Yes. When Hurrell went
#
to Warner Bros. in mid-1938, he began using single-weight The Hurrell Estate retains rights to George E. Hurrell’s name,
glossy prints and customized his look further by trimming the image, and trademark. It has no connection to any other entity
borders. Are they custom prints? They may be. We can’t be selling Hurrell material or writing about Hurrell. It does grant
sure. But if they are stamped, they probably were printed by rights for reproduction and has a library of images available for
hand. Warner Bros. had a very large darkroom staff. rental through its website, georgehurrell.com.
Hurrell used stamps of varying sizes and fonts between 1928 The author would like, as much as possible given his
and 1943. He occasionally signed prints in pencil, sometimes resources, to answer questions that relate to Hurrell history
within the image and sometimes in the border, and usually his and chronology. Vieira would, however, like to clarify certain
full name. He evolved his distinctive single-name signature in the issues. He does not make appraisals or involve himself in Hur-
early 1940s. In the late 1970s he began signing prints with paint. rell business. As the text makes clear, he was never an employee,
Allan Rich and CAI retained the Hurrell portfolios and assistant, or protégée of Hurrell. As an artist in his own right,
a collection of vintage prints until 2002, when the entire Vieira interprets Hurrell’s work as he believes Hurrell would
group—and the rights therein—were sold to Michael H. Epstein have wanted.
and Scott E. Schwimer. For the next eight years, Mr. Epstein
marketed this material under the name hurrellphotos.com.
He acquired several hundred additional Hurrell negatives and
engaged me to print them, which I did, implementing the guide- O P P OSI TE: A 1934 portrait of Joan Crawford.

399

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Alpert, Hollis. The Barrymores. New York: The Higham, Charles. Hollywood Cameramen. Francisco: Pomegranate Communications,
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Baxter, John. The Films of Josef von Sternberg. Kobal, John. People Will Talk. New York: Alfred Silke, James R. Here’s Looking at You, Kid: Fifty
London, TBS, 1971. A. Knopf, 1985. Years of Fighting, Working, and Dreaming at
Bull, Clarence Sinclair, and Raymond Lee. Faces ————. The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Warner Bros. New York: Little, Brown, and
of Hollywood. Cranbury, NJ: A. S. Barnes, Photographers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Company, 1976.
1968. 1980. Steichen, Joanna. Steichen’s Legacy: Photo-
Crawford, Joan, and Jane Kesner Ardmore. A ————. Hollywood Glamor Portraits. New graphs, 1895-1973. New York: Alfred A.
Portrait of Joan. Garden City, NY: Double- York: Dover Books, 1976. Knopf, 2000.
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Dammann, April. Exhibitionist: Earl Stendahl, Garbo. New York: Dutton, Vista, 1965. Jean Harlow. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
Art Dealer as Impresario. Santa Monica: Kotsilibas-Davis, James, and Myrna Loy. Myrna Stern, Jean. Enchanted Isle: A History of Plein
Angel City Press, 2011. Loy: Being and Becoming. New York: Alfred Air Painting in Santa Catalina Island. Irvine,
Dance, Robert. Ruth Harriet Louise and Hol- A. Knopf, 1987. California: Society of Plein Air Painters,
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Lambert, Gavin. Norma Shearer. New York:
University of California Press, 2002. Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. _________. In Nature’s Temple: The Life and
Davis, Ronald L. The Glamour Factory: Inside Art of William Wendt. Irvine, California: The
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-
Hollywood’s Big Studio System. Dallas, South- Irvine Museum of Art, 2008.
Believe Saints. New York: Random House,
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Esquevin, Christian. Adrian: Silver Screen to John Day, 1976.
Pepper, Terence, and John Kobal. The Man Who
Custom Label. New York: The Monacelli Shot Garbo. New York: Simon & Schuster, ____________, and Bette Davis. Mother God-
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Eyman, Scott. Lion of Hollywood: The Life and New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1974.
Peters, Margot. The House of Barrymore. New
Legend of Louis B. Mayer. New York: Simon York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Trent, Paul. The Image Makers. New York:
and Schuster, 2005. McGraw-Hill, 1972.
Rooney, Darrell, and Mark A. Vieira. Harlow in
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Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways. New Russell, Rosalind, and Chris Chase. Life Is a
York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Banquet. New York: Ace Books, 1979.
Griffith, Richard, and Arthur Mayer. The Movies. Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hol-
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. lywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New
Gutner, Howard. Gowns by Adrian: The York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
M-G-M Years, 1928-1941. New York, Harry Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Coming of the New
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Shields, Scott, Ph.D., and Patricia Trenton,
Ph.D. Edgar Payne: The Scenic Journey. San

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 SIGNED ARTICLES
Albright, Thomas. “The Art of Capturing Hayes, Robert. “George Hurrell.” Interview 11, Massengill, Reed. “The Unsung Glamour of
Stars.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 27, no. 3 (March 1981), pp. 31-34. George Hurrell.” Flatiron News, September
1980. Hicks, Jerry. “A Brush with Art and History at 1995, p. 19.
Allen, G. T. “Hurrell Exposes Glamour.” U.S. the Laguna Art Museum.” Orange Coast, June Morrison, Barry. “Hurrell Has Focused on
Camera 5, no. 1 (January 1942), pp. 23-27. 2007, pp. 214-216. Stars.” Denver Post, October 11, 1977, pp.
_______. “Glamour Workshop.” U.S. Camera 5, Hurrell, George. “Glamour.” Esquire 6, no. 11 4, 10.
no. 1 (January 1942), pp. 74-76. (November 1936), pp. 45-46, 73. Morrison, Mark. “The Old Master Today.”
Apfelbaum, Sharon. “George Hurrell.” Palm _____________. “Glamour Portraits with Any Los Angeles 26, no. 1 (January 1981), pp.
Springs Life, December 1980, pp. 18-20, 64. Camera.” PIC, April 30, 1940, pp. 12-13. 139, 251.

Barrett, Sharon. “Shooting Stars.” Chicago Sun- _____________. “Interview.” International Nelson, Bradford. “Chaney Comes Back.”
Times, May 18, 1980. Photographer, September 1941, p. 3. Screenland (May 1930): pp. 32-33, 116-117.

Birchard, Robert S. “The First Super-Col- Jensen, George. “Movie Mag Pictures.” Rocky Parsons, Harriet. “Norma Talks About Joan!”
lectors.” Pop Twenty 1 (January 2012), pp. Mountain News, December 1, 1974, p. 25. Picturegoer 2, no. 96 (March 25, 1933), pp.
64-65. 12-13.
Jones, Carlisle. “Studio Portraits.” International
Borger, Irene. “George Hurrell’s Hollywood Photographer, March 1941, pp. 13-15. Quirk, May Allison. “Fulfillment of a Wink
Glamour.” Architectural Digest 49, no. 4 (Ramon Novarro).” Photoplay 43, no. 5 (April
Kapitanoff, Nancy. “Sixty-three Years of Shoot-
(April 1992), pp. 66, 70, 74, 77. 1933), pp. 58, 87.
ing the Legends.” Los Angeles Times Calen-
Boz, Napoleon. “Shooting the Stars.” Hollywood dar, December 15, 1991. Roman, Robert C. “Boris Karloff.” Films in
Studio Magazine 4, no. 5 (November 1969), Review 15, no. 7 (Aug.-Sept. 1964): pp.
Kendall, Read. “Around and About in Holly-
pp. 4-5. 389-412.
wood.” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1939,
Busby, Marquis. “The Camera Does Lie.” Movie p. 10. Schallert, Edwin. “Film Producers Shaken by
Mirror 5, no. 1 (December 1933), pp. 46-48, Clean-up Campaign.” Los Angeles Times, June
Knight, Christopher. “The Legends Created by
74. 10, 1934.
Photographer George Hurrell.” Los Angeles
Carle, Teet. “Backward Look at Glamor.” Hol- Herald-Examiner, August 25, 1982. _____________. “Norma Shearer Reveals Why
lywood Studio Magazine 5, no. 9 (January She Went Wrong.” Los Angeles Times, July 10,
Lacy, Madison. “An Interview with George
1971), pp. 8-10. 1932.
Hurrell.” International Photographer, January
Carroll, Roger. “He Glamorizes Glamour.” 1977, pp. 16, 17, 61. Stein, Jerry. “Hurrell’s Hollywood Photos Have
Motion Picture 63, no. 2 (March 1942), pp. Glamour.” Cincinnati Post, February 12,
LaSalle, Mick. “Lights Up on Hollywood’s
27-34, 62-64. 1987.
Hurrell,” San Francisco Chronicle, January
Carroll, Sidney. “George Hurrell: Glamour 16, 1995. Sullivan, Meg. “Hurrell’s Magic Camera.” Los
Monger.” Esquire 13, no. 3 (March 1940), pp. Angeles Daily News, September 18, 1992.
Lane, Virginia T. “Norma Shearer’s New Ward-
89, 111-12. robe.” Modern Screen 5, no. 4 (March 1933), Surmelian, Leon. “Studio Photographer Con-
Champlin, Charles. “Tending His Pose Garden.” pp. 40-42, 96-98. fesses.” Motion Picture 56, no. 6 (January
Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1976, p. 1939), pp. 38-39, 53.
Leider, R. Allen. “George Hurrell.” Celebrity 3,
C-1. no. 4 (April 1977), pp. 32-35. Tallmer, Jerry. “Rembrandt to the Stars.” New
Christy, George. “The Good Life.” The Hol- York Post, March 13, 1985.
Long, Rod. “The Man Who Made the Stars
lywood Reporter, July 27, 1979, p. 46. Shine.” Petersen’s PHOTOgraphic 9, no. 12 Taylor, Frank. “Still Photographer’s View of
_____________. “Too Much of a Good Thing (April 1981), pp. 63-64. Film Queens.” Los Angeles Times, June 1,
Can Be Wonderful.” Los Angeles Times, De- 1969.
Loynd, Ray. “Glamour Gallery of Hollywood.”
cember 21, 1969, p. 25. Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, January 4, Thirer, Irene. “Hurrell Waxes on Famed Lens
Crane, Tricia. “Grand Master of Glamor.” Los 1977. Subjects.” New York Post, November 13, 1940.
Angeles Herald-Examiner, January 29, 1988. Wayne, Hollis. “Hollywood Hot Shots.” Playboy
Fahey, David. “Interview with George Hurrell.” 38, no. 12 (December 1991), pp. 118-23.
G. Ray Hawkins Gallery Photo Bulletin 3, no.
3 (June 1980), pp. 1-6.
Haber, Joyce. “Shell Shock on the ‘Myra’ Set.”
Los Angeles Times, October 19, 1969, p. U-1.

401

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 UNSIGNED ARTICLES
“All in a Day.” International Photographer 9, no. “He Knows All the Angles.” Charlotte News, July Times, October 20, 1929.
3 (April 1937), p. 1. 26, 1941. “Portrait Studies.” International Photographer
“Auction Notes.” The ARTnewsletter, June 9, “How Hurrell Shoots.” Motion Picture, Novem- 12, no. 10 (November 1940), pp. 6-8.
1981, p. 8. ber 1940, pp. 48-49. “Shooting Stars.” People and Places, February
“Camera.” International Photographer 9, no. 3 “Hurrell.” Playboy 30, no. 1 (January 1983), pp. 1941.
(October 1937), p. 9. 161, 172, 234. “Short Takes: Hammered Out.” American Pho-
“The Camera Speaks.” Photoplay 52, no. 8 “Hurrell’s Magic.” The Coast, October 1939, pp. tographer 7, no. 2 (August 1981).
(August 1938), pp. 26-27. 18, 48. “Some Newsy Notes on Matters of Art.” Los
“5 by Hurrell.” PM, March 8, 1942, pp. 16-17. “Legal Tangle After Divorce.” Los Angeles Exam- Angeles Times, May 31, 1925, p. 34.
“George Hurrell.” International Photographer iner, August 29, 1944. “Tradewinds: News of New Products.” Inter-
13, no. 9 (September 1940), pp. 3-4. “Movie Glamour to Order.” Look 4, no. 18 national Photographer 9, no. 11 (December
“George Hurrell Leaves to Join Army Air Force.” (August 27, 1940), pp. 18-21. 1937), p. 6.
Hollywood Citizen News, November 2, 1942. “The Norma Shearer Irving Thalberg Loves.” “Trio of Major Units to Rise.” Los Angeles Times,
“He Distracts the Hollywood Stars.” Oakland New Movie 9, no. 5 (May 1934), pp. 32-33, October 2, 1927, p. E1.
Tribune, December 3, 1940. 70-71. “TV Ad Pair Divorced.” Los Angeles Examiner,
“Novarro with Impressions.” Los Angeles Sunday May 19, 1955.

UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS
“Interview on George Hurrell, Photographer, by “Norma Shearer Interview by Fred Watkins, “Popular Arts Project: Frances Marion, 1958.”
Robert L. Greene.” Oral History Library of 1958.” Unpublished document, author’s Columbia University Oral History Collection.
the Fashion Institute of Technology, 1987. collection. “Popular Arts Project: Jeanette MacDonald,
“Norma Shearer Arrouge Memoir Notes.” Un- “Popular Arts Project: Ben Hecht, 1959.” Co- 1959.” Columbia University Oral History
published document, author’s collection. lumbia University Oral History Collection. Collection.

AUDIO RECORDINGS
Crisp, Quentin. An Evening with Quentin Crisp. Pratt, George C. “Interview with Ramon No- Alice Adams, Lux Radio Theatre, January 3,
DRG Records, 1979. varro.” Rochester, New York, April 17, 1968. 1938.
Unpublished audio tape in the collection of
Matias A. Bombal.

G E O R G E H U R R E L L’ S H O L LY W O O D
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 DOCUMENTARY FILM
Legends in Light. Produced by Carl Colby and J. Grier Clarke. Directed by J. Grier Clarke, 1993.

WEB SITES
“Biography.” Hurrell Estate Web Site, georgehurrell.com

INTERVIEWS
Ted Allan, March 2, 1986 David Fahey, January 11, 1996 Anita Page, February 24, 1996
Richard E. Braff, November 21, 1995 Dore Freeman, December 2, 1975 Allan Rich, January 2, 1996
Clarence Sinclair Bull, November 2, 1975 G. Ray Hawkins, February 12, 1996 Joan Rose, November 1, 1995
Bill Chapman, November 29, 1995 George Hurrell, November 1, 1975 Jane Russell, August 30, 2010
David Chierichetti, December 3, 1995 George Hurrell Jr., January 27, 1996 Richard E. Settle, December 18, 2012
George Christy, December 27, 1995 John Kobal, March 31, 1976 David Stenn, December 2, 1995
J. Grier Clarke, December 20, 1995 Mick LaSalle, March 9, 1996 Jeremiah Sullivan, June 12, 1988
Simon Crocker, January 2, 1996 David Leddick, December 10, 1995 Jack Vizzard, January 16, 1998
Louis F. D’Elia, M.D., November 28, 2012 Howard Mandelbaum, December 29, 1995 Michael Vollbracht, December 22, 1995
David Del Valle, February 1, 1997 Paul Morrissey, December 21, 1995 Laszlo Willinger, April 25, 1987
Matthew Daniels, May 14, 1987 Marysa Maslansky, January 16, 1996

403

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 NOTES TO THE TEXT
INTRODUCTION THE GRANADA You wanted to be . . . Norma Shearer, unpub-
lished interview, 1958; author’s collection.

I’m a somewhat screwy . . . Hurrell, “Glamour,”

SHOPPES You can’t really be . . . Ibid.

p. 44. AND STUDIOS I knew that M-G-M owned . . . Parsons, “Norma

Talks About Joan!,” p. 13.
As long as I . . . “Biography.”
entirely new to . . . “Trio of Major Units to Rise.” gracious Norma Shearer . . . Jack Benny, spoken
I went to the Academy . . . Fahey, “Interview with
prologue of the M-G-M film The Hollywood
George Hurrell,” p. 4. The Dockweilers were . . . Kobal, People Will
Revue of 1929.
I got curious . . . Carroll, “He Glamorizes Glam- Talk, p. 260.
Oh, Miss Shearer, you . . . “The Norma Shearer
our,” p. 62. That slow pace . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,” p.
Irving Thalberg Loves,” p. 71.
One day . . . “Hurrell’s Magic,” p. 18. 32.
I was only too . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 260.
Because George was entrusted . . . Stern, En- A scientist and a . . . Steichen, Steichen’s Legacy,
p. 375. Norma came in with . . . Lacy, “An Interview
chanted Isle, p.86.
with George Hurrell,” p.17.
stubborn bacterial . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, Steichen was sort of . . . Fahey, “Interview with
George Hurrell,” p. 3. Welcome to my studio . . . Stine, The Hurrell
p. 1.
Style, p. 8.
No place . . . “Some Newsy Notes on Matters of I apologized for . . . Hurrell, “Glamour,” p. 45.
Now there is . . . Lambert, Norma Shearer, p.
Art.” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1925, p. 34. this hearty young man . . . Legends in Light
130.
(film).
a tough little gal . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three
Everyone takes me for a Spaniard . . . Stine, The
Years of Shooting the Legends.”
LAGUNA BEACH
Hurrell Style, p. 5.
The idea was to get . . . Kobal, People Will Talk,
Pete had photographically perfect feature . . . Ibid.
p. 260.
I’m old-fashioned . . . Quirk, “Fulfillment of a
picturesque cottage . . . Hicks, “A Brush with Art I was pretty nervous . . . Hurrell, “Glamour,” p.
Wink,” p. 88.
and History at the Laguna Art Museum,” p. 45.
215. Pete became more . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
A great deal depended . . . Busby, “The Camera
p. 5.
I had to make . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 260. Does Lie,” p. 74.
I was really inspired . . . Carle, “Backward Look
Rembrandt was my . . . Stein, “Hurrell’s Hol- It was my idea . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
at Glamor,” p. 9.
lywood Photos Have Glamour.” 260.
You have caught my . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
He made a portrait . . . Stern, In Nature’s I’m afraid my legs . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
p. 6.
Temple, p. 181. p. 8.
Every night we would . . . Pratt, “Interview with
They were all very . . . Fahey, “Interview with And I realized that she’d . . . Lambert, Norma
Ramon Novarro.”
George Hurrell,” p. 3. Shearer, p. 130.
My God, George . . . Apfelbaum, “George Hur-
Whoever catches the . . . “Biography.” And when my baby smiles . . . “When My Baby
rell,” p. 18.
Laguna Beach was such . . . Fahey, “Interview Smiles at Me,” words by Andrew B. Sterling
So I went to Murnau . . . Pratt, “Interview with and Ted Lewis, music by Bill Monroe; pub-
with George Hurrell,” p. 3.
Ramon Novarro.” lished by Harry von Tilzer, 1920. The record-
Pretty soon I was . . . Ibid.
ing played by Hurrell that day was most likely
William Wendt and His Work . . . Dammann,
Columbia 922D, recorded in Chicago on
Exhibitionist, p. 61.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was filming . . . The M-G- “WHEN MY BABY November 22, 1926, by Ted Lewis and his
band.
M film of Romance was released as The Road
to Romance.
SMILES AT ME” She didn’t like it . . . Ibid.
She laughed . . . Lambert, Norma Shearer, p. 130.
I was bored . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 260. Why, Ramon . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 7.
I’d used more than . . . Busby, “The Camera Does
She will never forget . . . “The Norma Shearer Lie,” p. 74.
Irving Thalberg Loves,” p. 71.
I hung the films . . . Hurrell, “Glamour,” p. 45.

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 We started stumbling . . . NSA, p. 119. She could ‘feel’ light . . . Clarence Sinclair Bull to When you get into . . . Fahey, “Interview with
Norma was like . . . “The Norma Shearer Irving the author, November 2, 1975. George Hurrell,” p. 4.
Thalberg Loves,” p. 71. There wasn’t any problem . . . Kobal, People Will Ya got the best comedy . . . Stine, The Hurrell
Why, I believe . . . Parsons, “Norma Talks About Talk, p. 265. Style, p. 29.
Joan!” p. 13. She wouldn’t allow anybody . . . Ibid. Howard, I want that small . . . George Hurrell
It was a tremendous . . . Ibid. I hummed and jumped . . . Stine, The Hurrell to the author, January 21, 1980; Stine, The
Style, p. 20. Hurrell Style, p. 21.
The gal who had been . . . Fahey, “Interview with
George Hurrell,” p. 5. I had to work . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three Years I was trying . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 262.

(caption) She ribbed me . . . Kobal, People Will of Shooting the Legends.” blending stump . . . George Hurrell to the author,
Talk, p. 260. She was going to do . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, November 1, 1975; terminology clarified by
p. 265. David Chierichetti, December 3, 1995.

She just sat there . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three I always tried to . . . Ibid., p. 266.

MORE STARS
Years of Shooting the Legends.” George Hurrell loved . . . Trent, The Image Mak-
On each sitting . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,” p. ers, p. 54.
THAN THERE 32. You know, George . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,

ARE IN HEAVEN She didn’t respond . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 23.
p. 265. Shearer was right . . . Ibid.

I didn’t care about . . . Fahey, “Interview with But you didn’t just tell . . . Fahey, “Interview with I tried to create . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,” p.
George Hurrell,” p. 5. George Hurrell,” p. 3. 34.

I didn’t care whether . . . Hayes, “George Hur- Finally, I almost fell . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, I jumped and hollered . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-
rell,” p. 31. p. 20. three Years of Shooting the Legends.”

I went in there . . . Fahey, “Interview with George There’s a crazy man . . . Pepper, The Man Who I used to hate . . . George Hurrell to the author,
Hurrell,” p. 5. Shot Garbo, p. 23. November 1, 1975.

Making pictures is not . . . Schallert, “Film Pro- Lon Chaney once told . . . Roman, “Boris Karl- That was just the rule . . . Kobal, People Will
ducers Shaken by Clean-up Campaign,” p. 2. off,” p. 396. Talk, p. 264.

The Culver City plant was . . . Marx, Mayer and I don’t want to talk . . . Nelson, “Chaney Comes The starlets knew the gallery . . . Ibid., p. 263.
Thalberg, p. 131 Back,” p. 33. (caption) The best male . . . Carroll, “He Glamor-
Whenever we weren’t . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, Don’t worry about . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, izes Glamour,” p. 64.
p. 263. p. 14. (caption) God, I deplore this . . . Stine, The Hur-
With George it was . . . Anita Page to the author, How about some straight . . . Ibid., p. 15. rell Style, p. 86.
February 24, 1996. (caption) The first time I ever . . . Carroll, “He (caption) Adrian was a loner . . . Gutner, Gowns
I was always fighting . . . Kobal, The Art of the Great Glamorizes Glamour,” p. 64. by Adrian, p. 131.
Hollywood Portrait Photographers, p. 211. (caption) I tried going a . . . Kobal, People Will
Clarence thought that . . . Fahey, “Interview with Talk, p. 265.
George Hurrell,” p. 5. (caption) The results didn’t . . . Kobal, The Art of
the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers,
THE GILDED CAGE
I found that . . . Carle, “Backward Look at
Glamor,” p. 10 p. 112.
When you got a . . . Laszlo Willinger to the
Clarence Bull was . . . Trent, The Image Makers, (caption) I made more photographs . . . Kobal,
author, April 25, 1987.
p. 54. People Will Talk, p. 267.
I always have butterflies . . . Stine, The Hurrell
I kept telling her . . . Fahey, “Interview with Style, p. 36.
George Hurrell,” p. 5. whimsical something . . . Busby, “The Camera
I was the “posy” type . . . Trent, The Image Mak- INVENTING THE Does Lie,” p. 73.

GLAMOUR PORTRAIT
ers, p. 54. Nice touch . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 38.
I felt a kind of . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 62. He was almost shy . . . Ibid., p. 70.
Please forgive me . . . George Hurrell to the The era of the sophisticated . . . Ibid.
The best tunes are . . . Hamann, On the Sets in the
author, November 1, 1975.
30s, p. 6. It was a love . . . Crawford and Ardmore, A
I was the one . . . Higham, Hollywood Camera- Portrait of Joan, p. 97.
Most of those portrait . . . Fahey, “Interview with
men, p. 67.
George Hurrell,” p. 4. When we went into . . . Ibid., p. 91.
I took a look . . . George Hurrell to the author,
I did enjoy shooting . . . Kobal, The Art of the Great get some sex . . . Ted Allan to the author, March
November 1, 1975.
Hollywood Portrait Photographers, p. 211. 2, 1986.

405

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 405 7/15/13 2:34 PM

 A white dress . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 41. (caption) She took direction . . . Stine, The Hur- . . along the south side of the two-lane paved
We were on the same . . . Ibid. rell Style, p. 41. road that was Sunset Boulevard.

When Jean wore . . . Ibid. (caption) He was a serious . . . Fahey, “Interview “About 1931, my father and my mother (Ger-
with George Hurrell,” p. 4. trude Ponet Montgomery) formed a corpora-
I’m not nervous . . . Busby, “The Camera Does
(caption) The serious moments . . . Fahey, “Inter- tion, Montgomery Properties, Limited, which
Lie,” p. 73.
view with George Hurrell,” p. 5. was eventually George Hurrell’s landlord. In
The poor guy was fidgeting . . . George Hurrell to 1951, it became the Montgomery Manage-
the author, December 1, 1975. (caption) the single most important . . . Esquevin,
ment. I’m sorry to have no personal recollec-
Adrian, p. 17.
She’d come the long . . . Eyman, Lion of Holly- tion of Hurrell; I was in college at the time. I
wood, p. 223. (caption) He was a really great . . . Kobal, People do remember that the entire building burned
Will Talk, p. 267. down twenty-five years later.
Yes, Howard . . . Eyman, Lion of Hollywood, p.
223. “About four years ago, two-thirds of the building
He’d rather go . . . Busby, “The Camera Does was rebuilt for Armani Exchange. The rest of
Lie,” p. 73. “I WISH I LOOKED the building is now being rebuilt for Wathne,
an outdoor clothing company from Iceland,
If you can put it there . . . Norma Shearer, unpub-
lished interview, 1958; author’s collection. LIKE THAT” presently operating in New York City.” (Letter
to the author, February 26, 1996).
crazy man . . . John Kobal to the author, March
Allow me to pay . . . George Hurrell to Norma At the end of February . . . Schlesinger, The Com-
31, 1976.
Shearer, July 16, 1932, Norma Shearer Col- ing of the New Deal, p. 69.
beauteous and fiery . . . Crawford and Ardmore, lection, Cinematic Arts Library, University of I admire and like Joan . . . Parsons, “Norma
A Portrait of Joan, p. 94. Southern California. Talks About Joan!,” p. 12.
His ‘presence’ was similar . . . Stine, The Hurrell There was nothing exactly . . . NSA, p. 404. erudite, urbane . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p.
Style, p. 53.
I can’t do the Garbo . . . Schallert, “Norma 68.
If I couldn’t work . . . Fahey, “Interview with Shearer Reveals Why She Went Wrong.” I wish I looked like that . . . Busby, “The Camera
George Hurrell,” p. 5.
They would build up . . . Fahey, “Interview with Does Lie,” p. 74.
To hell with the . . . Ibid. George Hurrell,” p. 4. I passed the door . . . Griffith, The Movies, p. 294.
A fight was brewing . . . Joan Rose to the author, What are you doing . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, The first time . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 264.
November 1, 1995. p. 78.
You could feel an . . . Borger, “George Hurrell’s
I told him . . . George Hurrell to the author, Strick called Norma . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three Hollywood Glamour,” p. 74.
November 1, 1975. Years of Shooting the Legends.”
George, I want you . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
On a weekend . . . Fahey, “Interview with George We’re sorry, Miss Shearer . . . Busby, “The Cam- p. 179.
Hurrell,” p. 4. era Does Lie,” p. 73.
So nice to meet . . . Ibid., p.101.
And while I had no contract . . . Kobal, People She was the Queen . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
Will Talk, p. 264. Harvey came to M-G-M . . . David Stenn to the
p. 25.
author, December 2, 1995.
I saw no reason . . . Ibid. I have to have . . . ““Interview on George Hur-
When you got her alone . . . Stenn, Bombshell, p.
What do you mean . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, rell, Photographer, by Robert L. Greene.”
171.
p. 77. Oral History Library of the Fashion Institute
of Technology, 1987 (hereinafter “Greene She had will . . . Ibid., p. 169.
My God . . . Fahey, “Interview with George Hur-
rell,” p. 4. Hurrell Interview”), p. 28. Hollywood’s youthful wizard . . . Busby, “The
I want a few snaps . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, Camera Does Lie,” p. 46.
Look. I’ve had . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 77.
p. 61. (caption) Norma’s New Wardrobe . . . Lane,
If you leave Metro . . . Mayer did, in fact, black-
I’ve spent a lifetime . . . Carroll, “He Glamorizes “Norma Shearer’s New Wardrobe,” p. 40.
ball Harvey White, Stephen McNulty, and
Ted Allan . . . Ted Allan to the author, March Glamour,” p. 62. (caption) It was hell . . . Kotsilibas-Davis, Myrna
2, 1986. glaring, gaudy, nightmarish . . . Peters, The Loy, p. 118.
George has quit . . . George Hurrell to the author, House of Barrymore, p. 271. (caption) I wish I looked . . . Busby, “The Camera
November 1, 1975. sprayed stucco . . . In 1996, the land owner, Does Lie,” p. 74.
(caption) Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford . . . Francis J. Montgomery, wrote: “About 1892, (caption) When illness rendered . . . “The Norma
Slug attached to Wirephoto dated November Victor and Nellie Ponet bought approximately Shearer Irving Thalberg Loves,” p. 71.
6, 1932. 280 acres, extending from Santa Monica Bou- (caption) She was warm, outgoing . . . “Hurrell
levard to the top of the mountain. Victor Po- Has Focused on Stars,” p. 10.
(caption) It started with the . . . Kobal, People
net died in 1914 and control of his business
Will Talk, p. 258. (caption) I was trying to . . . “Greene Hurrell
passed to his son-in-law Francis S. Montgom-
(caption) A top light on Myrna . . . Busby, “The Interview,” p. 12.
ery, who in 1924 built four store buildings .
Camera Does Lie,” p. 73.

G E O R G E H U R R E L L’ S H O L LY W O O D
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 (caption) Crawford had that kind . . . Fahey, “Glamour,” p. 45. It was always a joy . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three
“Interview with George Hurrell,” p. 4. (caption) I admired his work . . . Fahey, “Inter- Years of Shooting the Legends.”
(caption) I liked shooting on . . . Ibid. view with George Hurrell,” p. 4. She was very sensitive . . . Stine, The Hurrell
(caption) I was always fighting . . . Kobal, The Style, p. 41.
Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photogra- We were talented . . . Kobal, Hollywood Glamor

THE HURRELL STYLE

phers, p. 211. Portraits, p. x.
(caption) I lit men differently . . . Kobal, The Art What happened to . . . Russell, Life Is a Banquet,
of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photogra- p. 66.
We make Ann a star . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
phers, p. 121. I could tell she . . . Stenn, Bombshell, p. 210.
p. 116.
(caption) Bob Taylor wasn’t the . . . Stine, The I hardly recognized . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
Anoushka’s face could . . . George Hurrell to the
Hurrell Style, p. 89. p. 90.
author, July 17, 1976.
(caption) I wasn’t a sex symbol . . . Russell, Life Is I genuinely liked . . . Ibid., p. 41.
I took hundreds of exposures . . . Stine, The Hur-
a Banquet, p. 67.
rell Style, p. 117. This girl was driven . . . Joan Rose to the author,
(caption) You look at those . . . Kotsilibas-Davis, November 1, 1995.
Personally I like blue . . . Busby, “The Camera
Myrna Loy, p. 118.
Does Lie,” p. 74. (caption) She’s such a spontaneous . . . Surmelian,
(caption) I played romantic music . . . Stine, The “Studio Photographer Confesses,” p. 53.
If I posed Jean . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 41.
Hurrell Style, p. 123.
(caption) If I have a special . . . “Hurrell,” p. 172.
We had a run . . . George Hurrell to the author,
(caption) She had an attitude . . . Fahey, “Inter-
December 1, 1975. (caption) At her age . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three
view with George Hurrell,” p. 4.
Years of Shooting the Legends.”
I put him up . . . Ibid.
(caption) My style is designing . . . Ibid.
One day I made . . . Ibid.
(caption) Harlow was spirited . . . Stine, The
THE ICONS
along with a load of evening . . . Russell, Life Is a
Hurrell Style, p. 41.
Banquet, p. 63.
Those gals were products . . . Borger, “George
The people in these . . . Jensen, “Movie Mag
Hurrell’s Hollywood Glamour,” p. 74.
Pictures.”
You’d see them at parties . . . Kobal, People Will
There were only a . . . NSA, p. 187.
THE PATRON
Talk, p. 259.
I had never seen . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p.
Loretta Young was one . . . Stine, The Hurrell the ultra-civilized . . . Kobal and Durgnat, Garbo,
97.
Style, p. 134. p. 47.
She never gave me . . . Taylor, “Still Photogra-
I saw some pictures . . . Stein, “Hurrell’s Hol- something new . . . Mick LaSalle to the author,
pher’s View of Film Queens.”
lywood Photos Have Glamour.” March 9, 1996.
Carole Lombard has a knack . . . Surmelian,
She was a disciplined . . . Stine, The Hurrell If I just stayed . . . Schallert, “Norma Shearer
“Studio Photographer Confesses,” p. 53.
Style, p. 134. Reveals Why She Went Wrong.”
She could swear . . . Taylor, “Still Photographer’s
Just take a look . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. Each time, she seemed . . . Lambert, Norma
View of Film Queens.”
385. Shearer, p. 214.
just a big, healthy, happy girl . . . Borger,
What I liked . . . Ibid. Strangely enough . . . Busby, “The Camera Does
“George Hurrell’s Hollywood Glamour,” p.
Familiarity breeds contempt . . . Fahey, “Inter- Lie,” p. 74.
77.
view with George Hurrell,” p. 6. She knew how to . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
Jean used to come . . . “Popular Arts Project:
Howard looked at one . . . Ted Allan to the au- 267
Jeanette MacDonald, 1959.” Columbia
thor, March 2, 1986. University Oral History Collection, p. 1564 She worked in front . . . Ibid.
He was an artist . . . Fahey, “Interview with (hereinafter “MacDonald, CUOHC”). My experience in silent . . . NSA, p. 342.
George Hurrell,” p. 4. She’d come in with . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, She had this driving . . . Lambert, Norma
All you had to . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,” p. p. 267. Shearer, p. 109.
34. Harlow would just drop . . . Stenn, Bombshell, Norma is a very strong-minded . . . Thomas,
We would gab . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 89. p. 145. Thalberg, p. 164.
one of the ace . . . “All in a Day.” Harlow was not frightened . . . Stine, The Hurrell I have a fierce . . . NSA, p. 425.
(caption) Beery projected . . . Kobal, People Will Style, p. 97. She ribbed me . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 257.
Talk, p. 270. The heat is really turned . . . Rooney, Harlow in (caption) You can’t fool . . . NSA, p. 429.
(caption) Bill hated stiff poses . . . Stine, The Hollywood, p. 143.
(caption) The trace of a . . . Ibid.
Hurrell Style, p. 89. I actually began to . . . Borger, “George Hurrell’s
(caption) The advertising agency’s . . . Hurrell, Hollywood Glamour,” p. 77.

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 THE MUSE more, A Portrait of Joan, p. 96. Dietrich liked this, but she wondered how she
could see this in the mirror. The problem was
A lot of the things . . . Kobal, The Art of the Great
Hollywood Portrait Photographers, p. 112. solved by warping the wood of the mirror to
They made themselves . . . Kobal, People Will
approximate the degree of stretch in the view
Talk, p. 265. I used to get questions . . . Kobal, People Will Talk,
camera.
p. 261.
To walk onto a set . . . Ibid., p. 286.
I just refused . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 267;
She’d spend a whole day . . . Ibid., p. 260.
Sometimes Crawford would . . . Joan Rose to the Fahey, “Interview with George Hurrell,” p. 4;.
author, November 1, 1995. Joan Crawford is the most . . . “George Hurrell.”
Shoot, George . . . “Tending His Pose Garden.”
The studio didn’t make . . . Kobal, People Will (caption) I photographed . . . Stine, The Hurrell
I had to admit . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p.
Talk, p. 280. Style, p. 62.
109.
Joan had begun to . . . NSA, p. 214. (caption) Crawford was a natural . . . Borger,
James Montgomery Flagg . . . George Hurrell to
“George Hurrell’s Hollywood Glamour,” p.
I tried to watch everything . . . Crawford and the author, December 1, 1975.
77.
Ardmore, A Portrait of Joan, p. 13.
After what happened . . . Laszlo Willinger to the
(caption) Joan Crawford has the . . . Carroll, “He
She made no bones . . . Fairbanks, The Salad author, January 21, 1985.
Glamorizes Glamour,” p. 64.
Days, p. 152.
I got tired . . . Long, “The Man Who Made the
(caption) In most cases . . . Fahey, “Interview
mammoth productions that . . . Kobal, People Stars Shine,” p. 63.
with George Hurrell,” p. 5.
Will Talk, p. 280.
That’s not my mouth . . . George Hurrell to the
(caption) She had this instinct . . . Joan Rose to
Ramon Novarro discovered George . . . Crawford author, April 1, 1976.
the author, November 1, 1995.
and Ardmore, A Portrait of Joan, p. 96.
I’m not a good straw boss . . . Fragmentary
(caption) Hurrell worked to . . . Trent, The Image
Joan and I ran neck and . . . NSA, p. 215. clipping from the Oakland Post-Enquirer,
Makers, p. 54.
Crawford would work . . . Kobal, People Will October 20, 1939.
(caption) I was always working . . . Fahey, “Inter-
Talk, p. 260. Just about the time . . . Ibid.
view with George Hurrell,” p. 5.
I loved posing . . . Trent, The Image Makers, p. (caption) My style was considerably . . . Stine, The
(caption) Hurrell always played . . . Trent, The
54. Hurrell Style, p. 121.
Image Makers, p. 55.
She was the most serious . . . Christy, in The Hol- (caption) She didn’t want to be . . . Fahey, “Inter-
(caption) A lot of the things . . . Kobal, The Art of
lywood Reporter; Hayes, “George Hurrell,” view with George Hurrell,” p. 5.
the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers,
p. 34.
p. 211. (caption) Shoot, George. Shoot! . . . “Tending His
I loved torch songs . . . Trent, The Image Makers, Pose Garden.”
(caption) Clark Gable is as natural . . . Busby,
p. 54.
“The Camera Does Lie,” p. 74.(caption) We (caption) If you didn’t get . . . Ibid.
Once when I was . . . Busby, “The Camera Does
always worked well . . . Crawford and Ard-
Lie,” p. 74.
more, A Portrait of Joan, p. 93.
Whenever we went to . . . George Hurrell to the
author, July 17, 1976.
(caption) Joan loved to be . . . Stine, The Hurrell
Style, p. 62.
“OOMPH!”
My assistant and I would . . . Borger, “George
Hurrell’s Hollywood Glamour,” p. 77. international portrait photographer . . . Frag-
mentary clipping, author’s collection.
I would start out . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
260. THE STRAW BOSS For a while we . . . Schatz, The Genius of the
System, p. 214.
She would just go . . . Carroll, “He Glamorizes
Glamour,” p. 64. That will be enough . . . David Chierichetti to the Jack L. Warner was tough . . . Silke, Here’s Look-
author, December 3, 1995. ing at You, Kid, p. 119.
Hurrell would follow . . . Trent, The Image Mak-
ers, p. 54. Colbert politely looked . . . Stine, The Hurrell It was not called . . . Davis, The Glamour Factory,
Style, p. 110. p. 167.
I used a fifteen-foot . . . Kobal, People Will Talk,
p. 259. She’d never let you . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, jocose penny watcher . . . Schatz, The Genius of
p. 266. the System, p. 217.
Hurrell worked to . . . Trent, The Image Makers,
p. 54. Where were you . . . Richard E. Settle to the The Ford of the Movies . . . Ibid.
author, December 18, 2012. Who wants to look . . . Silke, Here’s Looking at
Crawford was a natural . . . Stine, The Hurrell
Style, p. 62. a big assignment . . . “All in a Day,” p. 1. You, Kid, p. 123.

I was always considering . . . Kobal, People Will My God! I can’t . . . Higham, Hollywood Camera- Sol Polito just worked . . . Ibid.
Talk, p. 261. men, p. 40. You leave Ernie . . . Ibid., p. 125.
Adrian taught me . . . Trent, The Image Makers, There are stars who . . . Independent photog- There was not the . . . Davis, The Glamour Fac-
p. 54. rapher John Engstead showed Dietrich how tory, p. 142.
her legs could be lengthened by using the
Hurrell introduced the . . . Crawford and Ard- Your figures were . . . Letter, George Hurrell to
“tilt” function on the view camera’s back.

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 Roy Obringer, July 11, 1938, Warner Brothers I don’t want some . . . Taylor, “Still Photogra- (caption) I always looked forward . . . Stine, The
Collection, Cinematic Arts Library, University pher’s View of Film Queens.” Hurrell Style, p. 114.
of Southern California. You’re the most glamorous . . . “Movie Glamor to (caption) George Hurrell shot magnificent . . .
Those fan magazines . . . Davis, The Glamour Order,” p. 18. Stine, Mother Goddam, p. 152.
Factory, p. 250. You’re beautiful, Bette . . . Stine, Mother Goddam,
Jack Warner even worried . . . Silke, Here’s Look- p. 110.

THE OUTLAW
ing at You, Kid, p. 121. I don’t play the music . . . “He Knows All the
Hurrell is to a portrait . . . Lux Radio Theatre air Angles.”
check, January 3, 1938. All I had . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,” p. 31.
Bathycolpian . . . Jack Vizzard (retired PCA cen-
Boom Lite . . . “Tradewinds,” p. 6. I don’t remember . . . Taylor, “Still Photogra- sor) to the author, March 20, 1998.
The power of glamor . . . Baxter, The Films of pher’s View of Film Queens.”
As appointment time nears . . . Allen, “Hurrell
Josef von Sternberg, p. 53. Hell, these are fine . . . Ibid. Exposes Glamour,” p. 26.
You know . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 261. There was something . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, A haystack . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 165.
There is this young . . . Ibid., p. 420. p. 144.
We just had a haystack there . . . Fahey, “Inter-
Winchell used to . . . Ibid., p. 420. She had the ability . . . Ibid. view with George Hurrell,” p. 6.
They are all sexy . . . “He Distracts the Holly- If you can keep . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. You could see the seams . . . Jane Russell to the
wood Stars.” 261; also, George Hurrell to the author, July author, August 30, 2010.
I latched on to . . . John Kobal, People Will Talk, 17, 1976.
Jane Russell, not yet . . . “Hedda Hopper’s Hol-
p. 261. You think about shooting . . . Hayes, “George lywood.” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1942, p.
Oh, you’re so good . . . “He Knows All the Hurrell,” p. 32. 12.
Angles.” I liked shooting . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. You don’t make a star . . . Fahey, “Interview with
One more . . . Carroll, “George Hurrell, Glamour 264. George Hurrell,” p. 6.
Monger,” p. 89. A queen doesn’t take . . . Dore Freeman to the (caption) I would be up that . . . Kobal, The Art of
Give . . . “Movie Glamor to Order,” p. 18. author, December 2, 1975. the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers,
Every now and then . . . “He Distracts the Hol- Well, what are you doing . . . Stine, The Hurrell p. 121.
lywood Stars.” Style, p. 150.

Well it’s chiefly the . . . Ibid. (caption) An actress’s success . . . Hurrell, “Glam-

Shoot for the sex angle . . . “Hurrell’s Magic,” p.

our,” p. 73.
(caption) Hurrell’s studies of me . . . Stine, The
COLUMBIA
18.
Jack Warner was totally . . . Silke, Here’s Looking
Hurrell Style, p. 222. PICTURES
at You, Kid, p. 121.
The stills gallery was . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
There are friends . . . Carroll, “George Hurrell,
p. 175.
Glamour Monger,” p. 112. THE PHOTOGRAPHER If I were you . . . Ibid., p. 178.
(caption) I’m a mug . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style,
p. 156. AS STAR You’d retouch until . . . George Hurrell to the
author, December 1, 1975.
(caption) When people asked . . . Kobal, People
a triumph . . . Allen, “Glamour Workshop,” p. She had a nice . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p.
Will Talk, p. 421.
76. 177.
(caption) Bogart was very . . . Ibid., p. 153.
Alloo, Mister ‘Urell . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, Rita projected . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
(caption) I never saw him . . . Stine, The Hurrell p. 164. 266.
Style, p. 156.
I found out she . . . Fahey, “Interview with George Irene Dunne was . . . Kobal, People Will Talk,
(caption) I was labeled . . . Flynn, My Wicked, Hurrell,” p. 2. p. 272.
Wicked Ways, p. 207.
She was probably the . . . Kobal, The Art of the You can’t work with . . . Fahey, “Interview with
Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers, p. George Hurrell,” p. 6.
112.
(caption) Rita Hayworth has a slumbrous . . .
SHINY WAX FRUIT I’m often asked . . . Fahey, “Interview with Carroll, “He Glamorizes Glamour,” p. 64.
George Hurrell,” p. 2.
I was made to . . . Silke, Here’s Looking at You, There was a certain kind of fantasy . . . Kobal,
Kid, p. 237. People Will Talk, p. 420.
I dreamed that some . . . Ibid., p. 235. All of us glamorize . . . . Allen, “Hurrell Exposes
Bette Davis was the queen . . . Ibid., p. 239. Glamour,” p. 25.

409

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 WAR AND SCANDAL THE LEAN YEARS I saw that photography . . . Allen, “Hurrell Ex-
poses Glamour,” p. 25.
You can throw away . . . Richard E. Braff to the
He’s a compact bundle . . . Carroll, “He Glamor- The great Hurrell . . . Letter, George Hurrell to
author, November 21, 1995.
izes Glamour,” p. 64. Jerry Wald, April 8, 1960, author’s collection.
It’s like they . . . David Del Valle to the author,
I would pick a gal . . . Fahey, “Interview with In 1962 Hurrell came . . . Ted Allan to the
February 1, 1997.
George Hurrell,” p. 5. author, March 2, 1986.
It’s very modest . . . Birchard, “The First Super
I was a real romantic . . . “Greene Hurrell Inter- There’s no way . . . Morrison, “The Old Master
Collectors,” p. 64.
view,” p. 19. Today,” p. 251.
Upon my return . . “Hurrell Divorce,” Los Ange- It’s beyond me . . . George Hurrell to the author,
les Examiner, March 3, 1943. (Fragmentary February 16, 1976.
clipping, author’s collection.) Those speedlights . . . C. S. Bull to the author, THE NEGATIVES
I had been drafted . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, August 12, 1978.
p. 179. Strobe lighting doesn’t . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty- John never bothered . . . David Chierichetti to the
He became infatuated . . . Los Angeles Examiner, three Years of Shooting the Legends.” author, December 3, 1995.
December 16, 1942. (Fragmentary clipping, How many rolls . . . Loynd, “Glamour Gallery of John, you know . . . Paul Morrissey to the author,
author’s collection.) Hollywood.” December 21, 1995.
gallant lady . . . Los Angeles Examiner, March I’ve never seen . . . Haber, “Shell Shock on the With this show . . . Simon Crocker to the author,
15, 1944. (Fragmentary clipping, author’s ‘Myra’ Set.” January 2, 1996.
collection.)
George, this is John . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, My original set . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
all charges of impropriety . . . Los Angeles Exam- p. 256. 267.
iner, January 1, 1943. (Fragmentary clipping,
John was at . . . David Chierichetti to the author, the first Hurrell collector . . . Bill Chapman to the
author’s collection.)
December 3, 1995. author, November 29, 1995.
I shot stills . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 179.
John was guarded . . . David Del Valle to the Louis D’Elia . . . Louis F. D’Elia to the author,
I was at the Pentagon . . . Long, “The Man Who author, February 1, 1997. November 28, 2012.
Made the Stars Shine,” p. 63.
There was a duality . . . Matthew Daniels to the And the goose . . . Letter, George Hurrell to John
When I was in the Army . . . Hayes, “George author, May 14, 1987. Kobal, June 7, 1976.
Hurrell,” p. 33.
John was a true . . . Jeremiah Sullivan to the The Hurrell Style was poorly . . . David Fahey to
It’s a physical quality . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, author, June 12, 1988. the author, January 11, 1996.
p. 266.
After you’ve looked . . . Wayne, “Hollywood Hot I had absolutely no . . . Marysa Maslansky to the
Except for Rita . . . Ibid., p. 268. Shots,” p. 119. author, January 16, 1996.
I found her to be . . . Stine, The Hurrell Style, p. 179. Hurrell had now . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. Hurrell finally signed . . . “Agreement, May 1,
those lovely pictures . . . The song “I Love an 257. 1977,” collection of Paul Morrissey.
Esquire Girl” was written specifically for the This is getting . . . Letter, George Hurrell to John It was sad indeed . . . Letter, George Hurrell to
film by Lew Brown, Ralph Freed, and Roger Kobal, May 13, 1974. John Kobal, May 20, 1977.
Edens.
I understand you have . . . Paul Morrissey to the (caption) Hurrell did what we . . . Stein, “Hur-
As a partner . . . “Legal Tangle After Divorce.” author, December 21, 1995. rell’s Hollywood Photos Have Glamour.”
A new form of photography . . . Trent, The Image I’ve tried to get . . . Letter, George Hurrell to John (caption) I’ve always thought . . . Letter, George
Makers, p. 57. Kobal, January 20, 1975. Hurrell to Joan Crawford, April 16, 1976.
The glamour ended . . . Loynd, “Glamour Gallery (caption) I thought I was . . . Alpert, The Bar-
of Hollywood.” rymores, p. 385.

THE BIG HURT

I’d get bored . . . “Hurrell,” p. 234. (caption) It can’t miss . . . Christy, “Too Much of
George, you don’t take . . . “Tending His Pose a Good Thing.”
Garden.” (caption) You see, John . . . Kobal, People Will
It’s supposed to be . . . David Del Valle to the
Joan Crawford wanted . . . “Hurrell,” p. 234. Talk, p. 420.
author, February 1, 1997.
Hurrell couldn’t cut . . . Ted Allan to the author,
My dad never . . . George Hurrell Jr. to the
March 2, 1986.
author, January 27, 1996.
He’s too old . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p. 266.
THE COLLECTORS George was a good . . . David Chierichetti to the
He has a violent . . . “TV Ad Pair Divorced.” author, December 3, 1995.
I’d get bored with the . . . “Hurrell,” p. 234. Photography is still in . . . Carroll, “George Hur- I regret that my . . . George Hurrell to John
(caption) I wanted to shoot . . . Stine, The Hurrell rell, Glamour Monger,” p. 111. Kobal, February 16, 1978.
Style, p. 185.

G E O R G E H U R R E L L’ S H O L LY W O O D
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 It was pretty . . . Simon Crocker to the author,
January 2, 1996.
THE MACHINE REFLECTIONS
I took George’s . . . Marysa Maslansky to the
She’s the only star . . . “Grand Master of Glam-
IN A LENS
author, January 16, 1996.
our.”
Mr. Crosby, I can do . . . Allan Rich to the author, any photos from . . . J. Grier Clarke to the author,
Whatever went on . . . “Hollywood Hot Shots,”
January 2, 1996. December 20, 1995.
p. 119.
When Allan Rich approached . . . G. Ray Party’s over . . . “Biography.”
just sit there like . . . Hayes, “George Hurrell,”
Hawkins to the author, February 12, 1996.
p. 32.
Painters are individualists . . . “Shooting Stars.”
The word ‘Hurrell’ was . . . Howard Mandel- EPILOGUE
THE MILESTONE baum to the author, December 29, 1995.
George wasn’t . . . Kobal, People Will Talk, p.
My wife Betty . . . Letter, George Hurrell to John 269.

GENIUS AND
Kobal, December 9, 1980. I had no formal . . . Morrison, “The Old Master
I am back in harness . . . Letter, George Hurrell Today,” p. 251.
to John Kobal, February 8, 1981. MEANNESS
The most feverish . . . “Auction Notes.”
The Gilman Paper . . . “Short Takes: Hammered At 84, Hurrell is fiery . . . “Grand Master of
Out.” Glamour.”

There is no relation . . . Ibid. I tried a couple . . . Kapitanoff, “Sixty-three Years

of Shooting the Legends.”
flirting with postcard . . . Letter, George Hurrell
to John Kobal, July 14, 1981. very pleasant . . . David Leddick to the author,
December 10, 1995.

411

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 411 7/15/13 2:34 PM

 INDEX
A Beatty, Warren, 383, 386 C 31, 132–35, 146, 153, 159, 190–211,
Beaumont, Harry, 70, 72–73 225, 250, 266–67, 268, 271, 273, 286,
293–94, 300, 306–7, 308, 310, 313, 314,
Abbe, James, 33 Beery, Wallace, 67–68, 70, 96–98, 120, Cagney, James, 244, 246, 360
316–17, 322–23, 330–31, 347, 348, 377,
Academy Awards, 45, 250, 349, 370, 383 140–41, 145, 146 California Art Club, 24, 26 380, 398–99
Adrian, Gilbert, 59, 60–61, 76–77, 86, 109, Bello, Jean, 94, 132, 170 Call Her Savage, 119 Crocker, Simon, 323, 325, 336, 337, 338,
250 Bello, Marino, 132 Camera Highlights, 293 339, 376, 387
Adventures of Robin Hood, The, 233–34, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 299 Cantor, Eddie, 141 Cromwell, Richard, 306–7, 308
249
Ben-Hur, 25 Captain Blood, 230–31 Crosby, Bing, 199
Alexander, Kenneth, 141
Bening, Annette, 386 Carle, Teet, 235 Crosby, John, 339
Allan, Ted, 154, 294, 296, 334, 347, 368
Bennett, Constance, 88–89, 346–47 Carlisle, Mary, 85, 366–67 Crowninshield, Frank, 33
Allen, G. T., 264, 275–76
Bennett, Joan, 98, 108, 119, 214–15, Carradine, Keith, 324 Cuban Love Song, The, 77, 80–81
American Photographer, 353 290–91, 292
Carroll, Madeleine, 216 Cuddy, Katherine, 133
Amy, George, 240–41 Berkeley, Busby, 230
Carroll, Roger, 286 Cukor, George, 180
Anderson, Maxwell, 254 Big House, The, 59, 67–68 Chained, 197, 198–99, 331, 347, 398–99 Cuprien, Frank, 22
Andrews, Julie, 296, 298–99 Birdwell, Russell, 275, 276, 278
Champ, The, 93 Curtiz, Michael, 254
Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, 304 Blair, Janet, 288
Chaney, Lon, 50, 60, 64, 67, 98
Angel, 215, 225 Blanke, Henry, 230, 235
Chaplin, Charles, 141, 190
Anna Christie, 57 Blum, Daniel, 310–11, 314
Chapman, Bill, 309, 310, 325, 350, 358, D
Archer, Anne, 324 Boardman, Eleanor, 38 363–64, 380, 384, 385, 387
Archer, Fred, 98, 325, 339 Bogart, Humphrey, 228, 230, 244–45, 360 Dahl, Arlene, 293
Chapman, Marguerite, 282, 291, 294–95
Arden, Elizabeth, 154 Bolger, Ray, 233 Chase, Chevy, 349, 353
Daisy Kenyon, 293
Arlen, Michael, 33 Bombshell (Stenn), 383, 384–85 Damita, Lili, 74–75, 85
Chierichetti, David, 300, 320
Arnold, Henry (“Hap”), 289 Bond, Lilian, 74 China Seas, 172–73 Dancing Lady, 127, 131, 132–33, 199, 347
Arrowsmith, 136 Booth, Edwina, 74, 90 Christy, George, 340
Dangerous, 250
Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Born to Be Kissed, 170 Daniels, Matthew, 301, 377
Chute, George Roger, 31
Photographers, The (Kobal), 347, 374 Daniels, William H., 38, 57, 59, 98, 112,
Borzage, Frank, 133 Citizen Kane, 282
Arzner, Dorothy, 136, 208–9, 211 215, 296, 370
Bound for Glory, 324 Clarke, J. Grier, 388
Ashby, Hal, 324 Dark Victory, 252, 254
Bow, Clara, 119 Clarke, Mae, 141
Astaire, Fred, 282–83 Davies, Marion, 45, 50, 58–59, 86
Bowie, David, 334–35 Cleopatra, 313
Avedon, Richard, 324, 340 Davis, Bette, 11, 233, 250–261, 271, 272–73,
Boyer, Charles, 360 Coburn, Robert, 280, 370 286, 292, 303, 306, 308
Braff, Richard, 309 Cohn, Harry, 280 Davis, Ron, 340, 350, 378
B Brand, Harry, 147, 153 Colbert, Claudette, 212 Dawn, Hazel, 311
Braum, Myron, 310, 313, 324, 350, 376 Cole, Natalie, 380–81, 383 Daybreak, 383, 385
Bacon, Lloyd, 238–39 Breen, Joseph I., 170 Collins, Joan, 358 de Carlo, Yvonne, 293
Ball, Russell, 59, 108, 170 Brice, Fanny, 290–91 Colt, Ethel, 115 de Chirico, Giorgio, 16
Bankhead, Tallulah, 89, 153 Bride Wore Red, The, 208–9, 211 Colt, Jackie, 115, 119, 220 de Havilland, Olivia, 233, 244, 248–49
Barnes, C. Rankin, 23 Brother Orchid, 238–39 Colt, Sammy, 115, 119 de Mille, Agnes, 230
Barnes, Florence Lowe (“Pancho”), 22, Brown, Clarence, 33, 62, 70–71, 109, Columbia Pictures, 11, 280 Deacon, John, 376–77
23–24, 25, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 46, 85, 101, 398–99
Connell, Will, 275, 277 Dean, John, 330
120, 153, 289 Brown, Stanley, 170
Conrad, Joseph, 24 Del Rio, Dolores, 153, 154, 215, 219
Barnsdall, Aline, 26 Bruce, Virginia, 325
Conway, Jack, 104–5, 140–41 Del Valle, David, 300–301, 310, 313, 334,
Barrett, Rona, 347, 352–53 Bugsy, 386 Cook, Ted, 159 358, 387
Barretta, 339 Bull, Clarence Sinclair, 46, 50, 52–54, 55,
Cooper, Gary, 351, 353, 378 Delgado, Marcel, 311
Barrymore, Dede, 115 56, 57, 59, 84, 94, 98, 101, 102, 105, 108,
109, 119, 120, 124, 127, 268, 292, 296, Cooper, Jackie, 93, 97 D’Elia, Louis, 325, 363, 384, 385–86
Barrymore, Ethel, 115, 119, 302–3
299, 334, 336, 339, 340, 377, 378 Copp, Joseph, Jr., 264 DeMille, Cecil B., 235, 313
Barrymore, Irene, 115
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 90 Cornell, Katharine, 26, 89 DeMille and His Artists (Kobal), 375
Barrymore, John, 96–97, 98, 115, 119, 303,
338, 341, 349 Busby, Marquis, 180 Cosenza, Bob, 379 Devil-May-Care, 34, 37
Barrymore, John, Jr., 115 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Costello, Dolores, 115 DeVito, Danny, 370
299 Cotten, Joseph, 282–83 Diamond, Neil, 338
Barrymore, Lionel, 96–97, 98, 115, 119, 303
Byrne, David, 354 Crail, Schuyler, 256, 259 Diamond Lil, 124
Baxter, Warner, 119
Crane, Tricia, 372 DiCicco, Pat, 267
Beard, Peter, 329, 330
Crawford, Joan, 11, 12, 50–53, 56, 60–61, Dick Whittington Photography, 116–17
Beast of the City, The, 94
67, 69, 70–73, 82, 84, 88–89, 94, 96–97, Dieterle, William, 256, 259
Beaton, Cecil, 33, 140 98, 101, 105–7, 115, 120, 122, 127, 130–
Dietrich, Marlene, 112, 136, 167, 215–16,

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 220–25, 226–27, 293, 300, 304, Flagg, James Montgomery, 225 Grabowski, Marilyn, 358 Hurrell, Alexandra (daughter), 293
342–43, 349, 360, 383 Fleetwood Mac, 352–53 Granada Shoppes and Studios, 26–30, 40 Hurrell, Clancy (son), 293
Dietrich, Ralph, 289 Flynn, Errol, 230–31, 234, 244, 247, Grand Hotel, 96–97, 98, 101, 102, 310, Hurrell, Daphne Ann (daughter), 301
Dinner at Eight, 127, 132, 170–71 248–49, 250, 254 325, 338, 339–341, 347 Hurrell, Edmond “Ned” (brother), 15
Disney, Roy, 293 Folsey, George, 212 Grant, Cary, 190 Hurrell, Edward Eugene (father), 15
Disney, Walt, 289, 290–91, 293, 294, 296, Fontanne, Lynn, 86–87, 88–90, 101, 112 Green Hat, The (Arlen), 33 Hurrell, Elizabeth (sister), 15
384 Forbes, Mary, 31 Griffith, David Wark, 38 Hurrell, Elizabeth Willis (wife), 294, 301,
Divorce in the Family, 97 Forbes, Ralph, 31 Griffith, William A., 23 317, 385–86
Divorcee, The, 45 Ford, Ford Maddox, 24 Grot, Anton, 254 Hurrell, Katherine Cuddy (wife), 11, 154,
Donny and Marie Show, The, 308 Ford, Harrison, 362, 374 Guardsman, The, 86, 89, 90 212, 215, 234, 250, 255, 264, 286,
Doolittle, James, 271 288–89, 291
Forsaking All Others, 194, 197, 199, 201 Gurie, Sigrid, 216–17
D’Orsay, Fifi, 312 Hurrell, Michael Anthony (son), 301
Fortune, 230
Double Wedding, 179 Hurrell, Phyllis Bounds (wife), 289, 293,
Foy, Bryan, 230
294
Doughboys, 59 Francis, Kay, 60–61 H
Hurrell, Randolph (brother), 15
Douglas, Michael, 362, 364, 370 Frankenstein, 141
Haines, William, 50, 62–63, 94, 97, 190, 199 Hurrell, Robert (brother), 15
Dreams for Sale, 320, 323–24 Franklin, Aretha, 354–55
Haley, Alex, 338 Hurrell, Russell (brother), 15
Dressler, Marie, 70, 82–83, 97, 194 Franklin, Sidney, 86, 102
Haller, Ernest (“Ernie”), 233 Hurrell, Victoria (daughter), 293
DuBarry Was a Lady, 291 Free and Easy, 59
Hanner, Gene, 170 Hurrell and the Hollywood Photogra-
Duke, Doris, 264, 374–75 Free Soul, A, 84, 180
Harlow, Jean, 11, 84, 90, 94–95, 104–5,
phers, 334
Dunne, Irene, 282 Freeman, Dore, 310, 312, 313–14, 316–17, 127–28, 132–33, 140, 160, 167, 170– Hurrell Photography, 116–17, 119–120,
Durante, Jimmy, 74 324, 330, 363, 376–77 79, 225, 268, 313, 314, 316, 336–37, 133, 212, 215
Freulich, Roman, 367, 370 344–45, 348–49, 370, 380, 384–85, 386 Hurrell Productions, 293–94
Fryer, Elmer, 94, 234, 235, 250 Harper, Franklin, 26, 30 Hurrell Style, The, 314, 320, 329–330,
E Harris, Knight, 340 334, 374
Harvey, Al, 256, 259, 264 Hurrell’s Book of Stars, 387
Eddy, Nelson, 77, 146, 194
G Hawkins, G. Ray, 336, 337, 341, 350, 353– Hurrell’s Hollywood Portraits (Vieira),
Edgerton, Harold E., 292 11–12
54, 358, 360, 362, 363, 373–74, 384
Elegance, 146 Gable, Clark, 11, 57, 74, 76–77, 78–79, 84,
Hayes, Helen, 86 Hutchinson, Eugene, 16, 22
Elizabeth the Queen, 254 86, 93–94, 97, 167, 206–7, 343, 347,
Hayward, Susan, 219 Hutton, Betty, 268
348, 368
Emmanuelle, 344 Hayworth, Rita, 280–81, 282–83, 291, 300,
Gable and Lombard, 12
Engstead, John, 212, 268, 293 324, 382–83, 386–87
Garbo, Greta, 11, 33, 38, 50, 52, 56–57,
Epstein, Julius, 230
59–60, 62–63, 64–65, 66–67, 85, 97, 98, Head, Edith, 109, 299 I
Esquire, 11, 15, 145, 156, 159, 230, 235, 112, 136, 163, 167, 194, 215–16, 264, Hearn, Edd, 367
244, 264, 286, 291, 340 267, 268, 300, 304, 310, 325, 334, 338, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,
Hearst, William Randolph, 84, 86
339–341, 349 230
Essert, Gary, 320
Heat’s On, The, 288–89, 291 I Live My Life, 199, 201–5
Ettinger, Maggie, 108, 114, 116, 120, 133, Garfield, John, 232–33
Heidi, 296–97 I Wanted Wings, 262, 264–65
233, 264, 288 Garland, Judy, 310, 325
Heifetz, Jascha, 348–49
Evans, Madge, 85 Garmes, Lee, 112, 215–16, 225, 309, 370 Ince, Thomas, 50
Hemingway, Margaux, 328
Ex-Wife (Parrott), 40–41 Gaudio, Tony, 233 International Photographer, 159, 205,
Henie, Sonja, 154 215, 225, 339
Genius of George Hurrell, The, 358
Hepburn, Katharine, 160–61, 163, 347 Interview, 304, 312, 347
George Eastman House, 353
F Gertz, Mitchell, 294
Hesse, Paul, 271 Isch, J. N. (“Nick”), 20, 24
Hesser, Edwin Bower, 85
Gibbons, Cedric, 59, 98
Fahey, David, 329–330, 344, 348, 350, 363, Hill, George, 67–68, 70
364, 367, 380, 383, 390 Gilbert, John, 33, 50, 81, 84–85, 94, 97, 190
Hold Your Man, 133, 135 J
Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr., 84, 120–21, 122, Ginsberg, Frank, 378–79
Hollywood, Ken, 309
194 Girl from Missouri, The, 170 Jacobs, Lewis, 180
Hollywood Glamor Portraits, 323, 330
Fairbanks, Douglas, Sr., 124 Gish, Lillian, 190 Jaeckin, Just, 344
Hollywood Portrait Photographers, 347
Fairchild, Morgan, 330 Glamour Poses, 324 Jagger, Bianca, 318, 320, 330, 333
Hollywood Portraits: 1929-1941
Fawcett, Farrah, 377 Gless, Sharon, 352–53 Jason, Leigh, 46
(Vieira), 370, 375, 378
Faye, Alice, 153 Goddard, Paulette, 140, 141, 268–69, Jeneji, Jim, 313
Hollywood Reporter, 340
Ferguson, Helen, 114, 116, 119, 122, 127, 270–71 Jezebel, 233, 250, 252
Homer, Irene, 31
133, 264 Gold Diggers of 1935, 230
Honnold, Douglas, 264 John Paul II, 386
Feyder, Jacques, 385 Golden Dream, The, 334
Hoover, Herbert, 30 Johnson, Kay, 60–61
Films of Norma Shearer, The (Braum), Goldwyn, Samuel, 136, 216–17 Jones, Grace, 360, 364–65, 378
310 Hopper, Hedda, 114, 116, 278, 311, 317
Gone With the Wind, 313 Jones, Ray, 94, 367
Fisher, Jeffrey, 339 Horn, Harry, 329, 330
Gopal, Ram, 145 Juarez, 256, 259
Fisher, M. F. K., 266–67 Howard, William K., 167
Gordon, Leon, 33 Justine, 299
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 81 Hoyningen-Huene, George, 140, 215
Goulding, Edmund, 98
Fitzmaurice, George, 85 Hughes, Howard, 11, 94, 252, 275, 277,
Grable, Betty, 158–59 278, 291

413

Hurr_9780762450398_4p.indb 413 7/15/13 2:34 PM

 K 59, 136 Moore, Grace, 57 Patrick, Gail, 153
Love, Bessie, 41 Moran, Lois, 81 Payne, Edgar Alwin, 16–17, 20, 24
Kael, Pauline, 309 Love Is News, 157, 159, 320–21, 329, 338 Morgan, Joanna, 310 Payne, John, 240–41
Karloff, Boris, 60 Love on the Run, 206–7 Morocoo, 215 Pease, Paul, 293
Kazan, Lainie, 339 Lovet-Lorski, Boris, 360 Morris, Chester, 67–68 Penn, Irving, 324
Keaton, Buster, 50, 76–77, 84–85, 94, 97 Lowe, Edmund, 108 Morrissey, Paul, 304, 312, 320, 324, 326–27, Penthouse, 119
Kelley, Tom, 275, 330 Lowe, Thaddeus, Sr., 23 329, 330, 334, 336–38, 340, 347 People Will Talk (Kobal), 370, 375
Kennedy, Mary Frances, 23, 266–67 Loy, Myrna, 92–93, 94, 118–19, 154–55, Mortensen, William, 376 Pepper, Terence, 377
Kerlee, Charles, 271 268 Motion Picture, 11, 286 Pepworth, Ella, 30
Ketcham, Myra, 30 Lubitsch, Ernst, 147, 215 Movie Mirror, 133 Perry, Frank, 349
Kid Nightingale, 240–41 Lundgren, Dolph, 364–65 Muray, Nickolas, 33 Personal Property, 177
Kiel, Dennis, 362 Lunt, Alfred, 88–90 Murnau, F. W., 37 Petterson, Inga, 30
King Kong, 311 Lux Radio Hour, 235 Myers, Carmel, 38 Photoplay, 84, 90, 325
Kobal, John, 160, 163, 299–301, 303–4, Myerson, Alan, 347 Phyfe, Hal, 90, 94, 108, 119
306, 309, 312, 313, 314, 320, 323–25, Myra Breckinridge, 299, 300, 303 Pickford, Mary, 116, 120, 122, 124, 133, 136
326–28, 329, 330, 334, 336–38, 339, M Playboy, 358
340, 341, 347, 348, 354, 358, 367–68,
370, 374, 375–76, 377, 380, 383, 384, Polito, Sol, 230
387, 388, 390
MacDonald, Jeanette, 77, 124–25, 145,
146–47, 148, 150, 167, 170, 194, 268
N Portfolios of George Hurrell, The, 380
Korf, Andrew, 55, 78, 109, 120 Madonna, 385 Portrait of Joan, A (Crawford), 300
Nana, 136
Kornmann, Eugene, 153 Magnificent Obsession, 150 Possessed, 70–71, 94, 331
Naughty Marietta, 146
Koverman, Ida, 30 Malden, Karl, 383 Powell, William, 143, 145, 177
Nelson, Harmon, 252
Kreuger, Miles, 310–11 Man Who Shot Garbo, The (Kobal), 377, Power, Tyrone, 320–21, 329, 338
New West Magazine, 330
Kristel, Sylvia, 344, 347 378 Powolny, Frank, 153, 370
Newton, Helmut, 340, 363, 385
Manatt, James, 86 Preminger, Otto, 293
No More Ladies, 199
Manchester, Melissa, 349 Price, Vincent, 234–35
L Mandelbaum, Howard, 364
Novarro, Ramon, 11, 25, 26–27, 31, 32–33,
34–37, 38, 41, 50, 62–63, 82, 84–85, 94, Princess Comes Across, The, 167
Manilow, Barry, 354 97, 153, 194, 350, 353–54, 358, 383, 385 Pringle, Aileen, 38
Lacy, Madison, 235
Mannequin, 225 Prisoner of Zenda, The, 216
Lady in a Corner, 374–75
Mara, Adele, 282, 291 Private Lessons, 347
Lake, Veronica, 262, 264–65, 271
Marie Antoinette, 194, 310 O Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,
Lamour, Dorothy, 142, 145
Marion, Frances, 116, 310 The, 254–55, 310
Lane, Virginia T., 112–13 Oberon, Merle, 149–150, 313
Marx, Samuel, 55 Public Enemy, The, 230
Lansing, Sherry, 372–73 O’Day, Nell, 234–35
Maslansky, Marysa, 330, 336, 340, 344, 349,
LaSalle, Mick, 180 O’Hara, Maureen, 293
353, 354, 358, 360, 362
Last Laugh, The, 37
Masters of Starlight, 363, 364, 367, 383 Old Maid, The, 256, 260–61
R
Laughing Sinners, 70, 72–73 Olivier, Laurence, 108
Mata Hari, 85
Lawford, Peter, 301
Mathis, Johnny, 383
Onassis, Jacqueline, 385 Rain, 122
Leddick, David, 378–79
May, Brian, 376–77
O’Neill, Eugene, 101, 112 Rasputin and the Empress, 302–3
Lee, Anna, 312–13
Mayer, Louis B., 11, 30, 50, 86, 94, 97, 98,
Only Game in Town, The, 299 Ratoff, George, 288–89
Lee, Raymond, 310 105, 108, 120, 127, 132, 147, 225, 268 O’Sullivan, Maureen, 89, 93, 239 Reckless, 172–73
Legends (Kobal), 375 McBurney, James, 20 Our Dancing Daughters, 56, 70, 190 Red Headed Woman, 94, 104–5
Legends in Light, 388 McCartney, Paul, 362, 370–71, 379 Ouspenskaya, Maria, 277 Reflected Glory, 153
Leigh, Vivien, 368 McCulley, Johnston, 294 Outerbridge, Paul, 293 Resnikoff, Irv, 340
Leisen, Mitchell, 262, 264–65 McElroy, Katherine Gertrude (“Gigi”), 23 Outlaw, The, 11, 275, 277, 278 Restless Sex, The, 45
Lessing, Gunther, 293 McLuhan, Marshall, 363 Ricci, Marc, 310
Letter, The, 255, 256, 258 McNulty, Stephen, 159 Rich, Allan, 339–341, 343–44, 347–48,
Letty Lynton, 101, 105–7, 109, 205, 331 Mercury, Freddie, 376–77 P 349–350, 354, 358, 360, 362–63, 364,
370, 372–74, 378, 380, 383, 384, 388,
Lewis, Ted, 42 Merman, Ethel, 140 Pagan, The, 34, 37 390
Life, 292 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 11, 24, 38, 46, 50, Page, Anita, 50, 55 Richee, Eugene Robert, 264, 268
Lippmann, Walter, 120 54
Paige, Marvin, 312–13, 324 Richie, Lionel, 352–53
Lipstick, 328 Midler, Bette, 331
Paint Box, 20, 24 Riffraff, 173
Little Caesar, 230 Miller, Henry, 372–73
Palmer, Ernest, 38 Riptide, 180
Little Foxes, The, 271, 272–73 Min and Bill, 70, 82
Paramount, 215, 225, 268, 271 Rita Hayworth (Kobal), 375
Lombard, Carole, 140, 144–45, 160, 162–69 Minnelli, Liza, 12, 330, 331
Parker, Jean, 140 Rivers, Joan, 330
Longworth, Buddy, 235 Monroe, Marilyn, 12, 296
Parrish, Dillwyn, 23 RKO Radio Pictures, 108
Lord, Robert, 230 Montana Moon, 50
Parrott, Ursula, 40 Rockwell International, 304
Los Angeles Times, 37, 41 Montenegro, Conchita, 85, 367
Parsons, Carl, 339 Roland, Gilbert, 286–87, 294, 360
Louise, Ruth Harriet, 38, 40, 46, 50, 52, 56, Montgomery, Robert, 67–68, 93, 98–99, 109
Parsons, Louella, 84, 108, 288 Romance, 24–25, 59, 62, 339

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 Romeo and Juliet, 180–81, 230 Silke, James R., 250 Tarzan the Ape Man, 89, 90, 102, 194 Warner Bros., 230, 250
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 124, 126–27 Simon, Simone, 147, 350 Tashman, Lilyan, 108 Waterloo Bridge, 141
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 124 Sinatra, Frank, 296 Taylor, Elizabeth, 299 Wayne, John, 190
Rose, David, 288 Six, Bert, 256 Taylor, Frank, 299 Webb, Clifton, 146
Rose, Joan, 190, 377, 380, 384, 385, 387 Smart, Dave, 286 Taylor, Robert, 150–51, 159, 311 Weismuller, Johnny, 89, 90–91, 93, 159
Ross, Diana, 12, 358–59, 368–69 Smilin’ Through, 102–3, 119, 120, 182, Taylor, Roger, 376–77 Welch, Raquel, 299, 304
Ruben, J. Walter, 146 186 Temple, Shirley, 153, 296–97 Welbourne, Scotty, 235
Rubinstein, Helena, 264 Smith, H. Allen, 244 Tender Is the Night (Fitzgerald), 81 Wendt, Julia Bracken, 24, 26, 323
Russell, Jane, 11, 274–79, 284, 286, 289, 291 Smith, Pete, 41, 46, 59 Tereba, Tere, 330 Wendt, William, 20–21, 22–23, 24
Russell, Rosalind, 146–47, 152–53, 177, Smithsonian, 362, 372–74 Thalberg, Irving, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 50, 55, West, Mae, 110, 112, 122–23, 124, 170,
280, 282–83 Sobieszek, Robert, 353 60, 70, 77, 86, 89, 90, 93, 97, 98, 119, 288–89, 291, 299–300, 303, 316
Sothern, Ann, 238–39 127, 147, 173, 182, 199, 225 West of Broadway, 81, 85
St. Clair, Malcolm, 20 Their Own Desire, 38, 40 Westmore, Perc, 273
S St. Clair, Norman, 20 Thin Man, The, 77, 145 Weston, Charis, 146
St. Hilaire, Al, 48, 50, 52, 56, 59, 60, 64, This Modern Age, 84 Weston, Edward (gallery owner), 340
Sadie McKee, 194–95, 197, 199 109, 119, 120, 124, 163, 199, 201, 205 Thompson, J. Walter, 294 Weston, Edward (photographer), 146, 159,
Sandburg, Carl, 33 Stahlman, George, 288 273, 301, 306
Tierney, Gene, 360
Saratoga, 177 Stanwyck, Barbara, 156, 159, 266–67, 271 Today We Live, 122 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,
Sarne, Michael, 299, 303 Star!, 296, 298–99 306, 308
Tone, Franchot, 133–34, 205, 250
Saturday’s Children, 234–35 Steichen, Edward, 33–34, 45, 159, 324 Torrent, The, 57 Whistler, James McNeill, 226
Scavullo, Francesco, 328 White, Emily, 20
Steinberg, Claire, 325 Trader Horn, 74, 77, 90
Schaeffer, Chester, 370 White, Harvey, 127, 132, 170
Sten, Anna, 136–37 Trial of Mary Dugan, The, 38
Schallert, Edwin, 54–55 Whitney, Elwood, 145
Stendahl, Earl, 18, 20, 24, 25 Trouble for Two, 146
Scheff, Fritzi, 311 Stendahl Art Galleries, 18, 24 Wilcoxon, Henry, 313
Turner, Kathleen, 362, 364, 370, 374
Schenck, Joseph, 45 Stenn, David, 383, 384–85, 386–87 Wild Girl, 108
Turner, Lana, 190
Schickel, Richard, 309 Sternberg, Josef von, 215, 216, 220, 225, Wild Party, The, 304
Twentieth Century Pictures, 147
Schirmer, Lothar, 376, 380, 384, 387 226, 239, 293 Wilde, Arthur, 330
Two-Faced Woman, 268
Schuster, Donna, 20 Stevens, George, 299 Williams, David, 94
Tyrrell, Susan, 339
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 362 Stewart, Harvey, 370, 378 Willinger, Laszlo, 86, 225, 334, 347, 368
Scott, Ned, 271, 360 Stewart, Maggie, 291 Wilson, Vicky, 375
Scott, Sir Walter, 70 Stine, Whitney, 303, 314, 320, 329, 336, 337 U Winchell, Walter, 240
Scura, John, 77 Stockwell, Dean, 373 Wise, Robert, 296, 299
Sea Hawk, The, 249 Stone, Eddie, 235 Ullman, Tracey, 373 Wodehouse, P. G., 119
Secret Six, The, 94 Stone, Sharon, 8–9, 383, 388–89 Unholy Tree, The, 60, 67 Woman of Affairs, A, 33
Secrets, 122 Strait Jacket, 306 United Artists, 133, 136 Women, The, 367–68
Seiter, William A., 282 Strange Interlude, 100–102, 105, 108, U.S. Camera, 275–77 Wong, Anna May, 212–13, 218–19, 360–61
Selznick, David O., 127, 132, 140–41, 216 112, 256, 309 Wood, Natalie, 332
Sergeants Three, 296 Strangers May Kiss, 84, 180 Woody, Jack, 375
Serpico, 339 Streep, Meryl, 386 V
Wright, Orville, 33
Settle, Richard, 377, 358, 384, 386–87 Street Scene, 136 Wyler, William, 252, 255, 256, 258, 271,
Valentino, Rudolph, 133
Shadow of Doubt, 201 Streisand, Barbra, 386 272–73
Van Dyke, W. S. (“Woody”), 74, 76–77,
Sharp, James, 70, 78 Strickling, Howard, 46, 52–53, 55, 56, 57, 80–81, 119, 146, 194, 201–5, 206–7
59, 75, 86, 90, 93, 98, 102, 108–9, 112,
Shattuck, Ross, 120 Vanderbilt, Gloria, 266–67
She Done Him Wrong, 112, 124
114, 116, 119, 124, 127, 132, 146, 154,
Vanity Fair, 154–55, 170 Y
170, 225
Shearer, Norma, 11, 12, 38–47, 50, 82, 84, Sturges, Preston, 271 Velez, Lupe, 74–75, 80–81 York, Carole, 370
86, 88–89, 100–103, 105, 112–13, 114, Vidal, Gore, 299
Sullivan, Jack, 233 You Were Never Lovelier, 282
116, 119, 120, 122, 127, 133, 136, 138,
140, 160, 170, 180–89, 190, 194, 199, Sullivan, Jeremiah, 301, 377 View to a Kill, A, 378 Young, Loretta, 153–54, 157, 159, 320–21,
220, 225, 233, 256, 268, 308, 309, 310, Sullivan’s Travels, 271 Viva Villa!, 140–41 329, 338, 374–75
313, 314–15, 336, 347, 376, 377, 380 Sunrise, 37 Vogue, 303, 349, 385 Young, Robert, 97
Sheets, Millard, 41 Swanson, Gloria, 89, 114
Shepard, Charles L., 30
Sheridan, Ann, 235–37, 239–240, 268, W Z
304–5, 360
T Wald, Jerry, 296
Sherman, Lowell, 112 Zanuck, Darryl F., 147, 230
Shields, Brooke, 372 Talking Heads, 362 Wallis, Hal, 230, 235 Zanuck, Richard, 299
Shore, Dinah, 347 Tallichet, Margaret, 252 Ware, Irene, 119 Ziegfeld, Florenz, 38
Show Boat, 282 Taplinger, Robert, 233, 234, 235, 240, 250, Warhol, Andy, 312 Ziff, Lloyd, 330
Shurl, Bob, 311 252, 254, 280 Warner, Jack L., 147, 230, 235, 240, 241–43, Zola, Émile, 136
Tarzan of the Apes (Burroughs), 90 250, 254–55, 256

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is not my first book about George Hurrell, but it is the first in which Campo Restaurant: Omar Sandoval; Baldomero Mendoza; Jay Richards;
I am a character, and the first in which I challenge assumptions about his and Rigoberto Benitez.
art. The need for accuracy has been greater than usual, so there is more to For thoughtful assistance I thank: Barbara Biane; Roberto Munguia;
acknowledge. Andrea Derujinsky; Richard Adkins; Christopher Belport; Richard Bann;
I thank the management of the Granada Buildings for maintaining the Joseph R. Hawkins, One National Gay & Lesbian Archives; Marisa Privit-
Hurrell legacy: Kevin Taylor, Leasing Manager; Jonathan Aryeh, Property era Murdoch of the BBC Scotland; and publicist Carol Morgan.
Manager; and Jeffrey M. Fish, owner. I thank Ruthann Markusen of Didi For guidance, I thank Jann Hoffman; Bryan Potok, L.C.O.; Ruben
Hirsch Mental Health Services, the current tenant of Hurrell’s first studio. Alvarez, M.D.; and the Rev. Dr. R. Scott Colglazier of First Congregational
I thank the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University. Church of Los Angeles.
I thank the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern I thank three photographic mentors: Donald Harris, Michael R. Ab-
California; in particular, Ned Comstock, Senior Library Assistant, USC bey, and Robert L. Hillmann. I wish to acknowledge those family members,
Cinematic Arts Library; and Sandra Garcia-Myers, Director, Archives of mentors, and friends and who are no longer living: my uncle Jack Costa;
the Cinematic Arts. I thank David W. Packard, the Packard Humanities my cousin Bernice Dransfield; Procopio Calado, Cal-State Hayward;
Institute. Robert Raiszk, Trojan Camera; Roy Johnson, Limelight Bookstore; Jerry
I thank these institutions and companies for photographs: the Los Morris, USC Dental; Dore Freeman, MGM; Carole Conroy, Memory
Angeles Public Library’s Photo Collection staff: Terri Garst, Acting Shop West; Arthur Lucia; Edd Hearn; George Bigham; Nell O’Day; David
Library Assistant; and Christina Rice, Acting Senior Librarian; I thank Merfalen; Norman Holmes; Francisco Sohom; Billie Tooke; Michael Vera;
Janet Blake, Curator of Early California Art, Laguna Art Museum; Jamie and Harvey Stewart.
Vuignier, the Kobal Collection at Art Resource; the Montgomery Manage- For encouragement and support, I thank: Matias A. Bombal; Howard
ment Co.; Bison Archives; the Pancho Barnes Trust Estate Archive; Clarke Mandelbaum; Ben Carbonetto; Jonathan G. Quiej; P. R. Tooke; Bruce
Galleries; April Dammann, Stendahl Galleries; Lily Yu and Andrew Weiss, Paddock and Pete Cullinane; David Chierichetti; Andrew Montealegre and
Andrew Weiss Galleries; Tom Conroy, Movie Still Archives; and Roy Marvin Bendana; Mary Mallory; Frank Coiro and Roseanna Giordano;
Windham, Baby Jane of Hollywood. Tom Smith; Paddy Calistro and Scott McAuley; Bill Pace; Bronni Stein
I thank these individuals for photographs: Connie Parker; Jack and John Connolly; Karie Bible; Deborah Thalberg and Jan Harrelson;
Tillmany; Michael F. Blake; Elaine Peschke; Peter Koch; David Stenn; Deva Harris; Gary Morris and Greg Battle; Darin Barnes; Louis Jacinto
Christina Rice; Darrell Rooney; John McElwee; David Wills; Lou Valen- and Kene Rosa; Lorenzo Sohom; Richard Potts and Richie Sommers; Jim
tino; David Chierichetti; Damon Devine; Martin Brodsky; Karl Ruddy; Schneeweis; Laurie Hendricks and Peter Milio; Vincent Estrada; Marian
and Alfred Chico. Mogel; Eddie Vela; Judy G. Drown; Joel Amromin; Joseph Caro; Ken Mc-
I thank Chuck Binder of Binder and Associates for graciously arrang- Mahon; Randy Pelish; David Noh; Marvin Paige; Kenton Bymaster; Daniel
ing the foreword. Mesones; Suzanne McCormick; Felix Pfeifle; Marguerite Topping; Brad
For research help I thank: Allan R. Ellenberger; Darrell Rooney; and Kim Hill; Fred Chico; Antonio Marroquin; and Damon Devine.
Eric Lynxwiler; Eric Evavold; and Jeff Britting, Archivist, the Ayn Rand I thank my literary agent, Deborah Warren of East West Literary
Institute. For help with the Hurrell chronology I thank: Garrett Mahoney; Agency, for her resourceful, creative work on my behalf. I thank my edi-
Sandy Tanaka; and Richard Settle. For manuscript review, I thank Janet tor, Cindy De La Hoz, for shepherding this heartfelt project to a worthy
Blake; David Chierichetti; P. R. Tooke; and Cari Beauchamp. conclusion.
I thank the people who saw me through a computer crash: Erica For everything else, I thank my family: Beverly Ferreira Rivera; Sue
Dorsey of Andrew Christian; and Lester Lopez of Emillio O. Couture. I Costa; Joan Semes; Dorothy Chambless; Michael Chambless; Lenore
thank Amanda Brooks and David Wills for Photoshop help. For suste- Griego; Matthew Griffiths; Guy and Shannon Vieira; and Steve and Janine
nance during writing and editing sessions, I thank my friends at Casita del Faelz.

G E O R G E H U R R E L L’ S H O L LY W O O D
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