STAR GLOW: Sid Avery Captured Young Hollywood Shining with Health and Success

 

 

Steve McQueen in his 1957 Jaguar XKSS  ©mptv

Via The Albuquerque Journal
By Kate McGraw / For the Journal on Fri, Feb 1, 2013

 

 

There is a wistful melancholy about viewing the photographs that Sid Avery took during Hollywood’s most recent golden age, the 1940s to 1960s. Audrey Hepburn has bicycled up to the camera to show off her rather smug Cairn terrier. Steve McQueen is admiring his new pistol, as well as his new Jaguar. Marlon Brando has stopped playing his bongo drums long enough to give the photographer a pensive pose. Elizabeth Taylor is stretching her shoulders into the sun on the set of “Giant.” Rock Hudson has stepped out of the shower and gleefully grabbed a ringing phone – he looks very gay, in every sense of that overused word.

Marlon Brando, At Home With Bongos, 1955

©mptv

Dean Martin, like his contemporaries, is happy and self-satisfied as he readies a song for recording. All of them are shining with health and youth and success, with not a thought for any disease or age that might lie ahead. Only Frank Sinatra looks slightly wary, as if he sensed perhaps, on the edge of the frame, some intimation of mortality.

Frank Sinatra with camera, Capitol Records

©mptv

These and other photographs by the late Hollywood photographer Sid Avery, fill a major exhibition opening today at Monroe Gallery of Photography on Don Gaspar. The exhibition, which will be up through March 24, is being opened concurrent with the publication of a new book: “The Art of the Hollywood Snapshot.” Avery’s son Ron, curator and archivist of his father’s work, will attend the public reception.

Elizabeth Taylor Sunning Herself on the Marfa, Texas Set of "Giant"

©mptv

Monroe Gallery of Photography, owned by Sidney and Michelle Monroe, specializes in classic black and white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery features work by more than 50 renowned photographers and also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers. The Avery show, of which all prints are for sale, is a major coup, Sidney Monroe said. “He was one of the greatest names in Hollywood photography in the 1950s and ’60s,” Monroe said.
The book, he added, “is a sumptuous, long-overdue tribute to Avery’s prolific talent.” The text of the book was written by Ron Avery. It was edited by Tony Nourmand and additional text was written by Alison Elangasinghe and Bruce McBroom. The design is by Graham Marsh.


Avery (1918 – 2002) was born in Akron, Ohio, and introduced to photography when he was 7 years old. By the time he was 20, he had begun to photograph celebrities in nightclubs for fan magazines. In 1939, at 21, he opened his own Hollywood studio for portraiture and publicity photographs.   From 1941 to 1945, Avery was assigned to the Pictorial Service in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in London and Paris. In London, the young man supervised the Army’s official photographic history of the war.


In 1946, Avery re-established his studio in Hollywood, where he got celebrity portrait assignments from Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. He also became the photography editor of Photoplay, the movie magazine of the time. In 1947, while he was continuing to contribute to numerous magazines, he formed Avery and Associates to photograph commercial accounts. Avery directed television commercials and developed innovative special effects.


In 1985, Avery retired from directing and producing TV commercials to begin assembling the Motion Picture and Television Photographic Archive, which many regard as his greatest legacy. The foundation’s purpose was to preserve, document and exhibit the work of notable photographers.


His own archive, called mptvimages, now has more than a million historic Hollywood images on file and is recognized as one of the great archives of Hollywood imagery. Ron Avery runs the archive today. The new book was created entirely from its depths and includes never-before-seen pictures, contact sheets and other materials.


Avery was best known for capturing the private moments of legendary Hollywood celebrities like Taylor, Hudson, James Dean, Brando, Humphrey Bogart and Hepburn, who were showcased in his book, “Hollywood at Home.” He was the only photographer to shoot both the original 1960 cast of “Ocean’s Eleven” and the cast of the 2001 remake, recreating his iconic group shot around a pool table. He believed in capturing moments.


Avery taught at the University of California at Los Angeles and lectured at several other institutions and at museums. His own works are included in numerous museums and private collections.


Sid Avery died in 2002 at age 84. His work, however, lives on – and in that way, so do his subjects.

If you go WHAT: Sid Avery: “The Art of the Hollywood Snapshot”
WHEN: Today through March 24; opening reception 5-7 p.m. today.
Coincides with the publication of the new book, “The Art of the Hollywood Snapshot”
(The exhibition contunues through March 28, 2013)
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar
CONTACT: (505) 992-08

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: JAMES DEAN WOULD BE 80 ON FEBRUARY 8, 2011

Richard C. Miller: James Dean during the making of "Giant"

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)

"I, James Byron Dean, was born February 8, 1931, Marion, Indiana. My parents, Winton Dean and Mildred Dean, formerly Mildred Wilson, and myself existed in the state of Indiana until I was six years of age. Dad's work with the government caused a change, so Dad as a dental mechanic was transferred to California. There we lived, until the fourth year. Mom became ill and passed out of my life at the age of nine. I never knew the reason for Mom's death, in fact it still preys on my mind. I had always lived such a talented life. I studied violin, played in concerts, tap-danced on theatre stages but most of all I like art, to mold and create things with my hands. I came back to Indiana to live with my uncle. I lost the dancing and violin, but not the art. I think my life will be devoted to art and dramatics. And there are so many different fields of art it would be hard to foul-up, and if I did, there are so many different things to do -- farm, sports, science, geology, coaching, teaching music. I got it and I know if I better myself that there will be no match. A fellow must have confidence. When living in California my young eyes experienced many things. It was also my luck to make three visiting trips to Indiana, going and coming a different route each time. I have been in almost every state west of Indiana. I remember all. My hobby, or what I do in my spare time, is motorcycle. I know a lot about them mechanically and I love to ride. I have been in a few races and have done well. I own a small cycle myself. When I'm not doing that, I'm usually engaged in athletics, the heartbeat of every American boy. As one strives to make a goal in a game, there should be a goal in this crazy world for all of us. I hope I know where mine is, anyway, I'm after it. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Dubois, this is the hardest subject to write about considering the information one knows of himself, I ever attempted."


"My Case Study" to Roland Dubois,
Fairmount High School Principal, 1948

Richard C. Miller



James Dean had one of the most spectacularly brief careers of any screen star. In just more than a year, and in only three films, Dean became a widely admired screen personality, a personification of the restless American youth of the mid-50's, and an embodiment of the title of one of his film "Rebel Without A Cause." En route to compete in a race in Salinas, James Dean was killed in a highway accident on September 30, 1955. James Dean was nominated for two Academy Awards, for his performances in "East of Eden" and "Giant." Although he only made three films, they were made in just over one year's time. Joe Hyams, in the James Dean biography "Little Boy Lost," sums up his career:


--"..There is no simple explanation for why he has come to mean so much to so many people today. Perhaps it is because, in his acting, he had the intuitive talent for expressing the hopes and fears that are a part of all young people... In some movie magic way, he managed to dramatize brilliantly the questions every young person in every generation must resolve."

Richard C. Miller

Richard C. Miller

Richard C. Miller

Text Source: The Official Site of James Dean

All photographs ©  Richard C. Miller Trust

RICHARD CRUMP MILLER: August 6, 1912 - October 15, 2010

Richard C. Miller James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor take a break from filming "Giant"

It is with profound sadness that we share the news of the passing of Richard C. Miller. Miller was an American photographer best known for his vintage carbro prints, photos of celebrities, and work documenting the building of the Hollywood Freeway.

Photographer Richard C. Miller poses on a shoot with model Norma Jeane Dougherty in 1946. He would later photograph her again more than a decade later, when she was known as Marilyn Monroe, on the set of "Some Like It Hot."

Richard Miller's interest in photography began when he was a child and toyed with his father’s 3¼x4¼ folding roll-film camera.  His passion for photography led to his increase in knowledge about established photographers, and when he found out Edward Weston was moving nearby he went over to introduce himself. The rest was history. (See more of Miller's biography here.)

There was a resurgence of interest in Miller's photography in spring 2009, when a collection of his images was shown alongside the work of Paul Outerbridge at the J. Paul Getty Museum.  (See the Los Angeles Times article about selections for the exhibit here.) Monroe Gallery of Photography began to represent his work that same year, and featured his photographs from the making of "Giant" at Photo LA in January, 2010.


Read the Los Angeles Times obituary here.

Listen to Richard C. Miller in an interview "Breakthrough Photographer" with Patt Morrison on 89.3 KPCC, recorded on April 2009 and aired 3 July 2009, here.

See more of Richard C. Miller's photographs here.

Richard C. Miller: James Dean besides his car during the filming of "Giant"