Here are some of the masters of this style of photography.
| George Hurrell was a photographer who made a significant contribution to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Covington, Kentucky, Hurrell originally studied as a painter with no particular interest in photography. He first began to use photography only as a medium for recording his paintings. |
In the late 1920s, Hurrell was introduced to the actor Ramon Novarro, by Pancho Barnes, and agreed to take a series of photographs of him. Novarro was impressed with the results and showed them to the actress Norma Shearer, who was attempting to mold her wholesome image into something more glamorous and sophisticated in an attempt to land the title role in the movie The Divorcee. She asked Hurrell to photograph her in poses more provocative than her fans had seen before. After she showed these photographs to her husband, MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, Thalberg was so impressed that he signed Hurrell to a contract with MGM Studios, making him head of the portrait photography department. Over the next decade, Hurrell photographed every star contracted to MGM, and his striking black-and-white images were used extensively in the marketing of these sta0rs. Among the performers regularly photographed by him during these years were silent screen star Dorothy Jordan, as well as Myrna Loy, Robert Montgomery, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer, who was said to have refused to allow herself to be photographed by anyone else. In the early 1940s Hurrell moved to Warner Brothers Studios photographing Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Errol Flynn, Maxine Fife, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, among others. Later in the decade he moved to Columbia Pictures where his photographs were used to help the studio build the career of Rita Hayworth. In 1984 when Joan Collins was asked to pose for Playboy at the age of 50 she insisted that the only photographer she would accept was Hurrell, he photographed Collins in a nude 12 page layout and the issue became a bestseller.
Examples of his work:
| Clarence Sinclair Bull, along with George Hurrell, virtually invented celebrity portraiture as we know it today, capturing with rare artistry a breathtaking roster of stars in brilliant and often surprising ways. His magical and dream-like photographs (in particular his collaboration with Greta Garbo whom he photographed almost exclusively from 1929 until 1941) became the classic images of Hollywood and were instrumental in fixing the essential look of a star and in setting standards of beauty. |
Bull’s days at MGM included 200 of his enduring portraits of such legendary film stars as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivian Leigh, Spencer Tracy, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and, of course, Greta Garbo. His accomplishments also include winning four Academy still photography exhibition awards.
Examples of his work:
| Ernest Bachrach was one of the most influential and admired of all the Hollywood portrait photographers. He headed the photographic department at RKO from its inception in 1929 until his retirement in the late 1950’s. He shot and custom printed most of the portraits of the stars employed by RKO during these decades, among them Dolores Del Rio, Fred Astaire, and Katharine Hepburn. Bachrach was also a frequent contributor to American Cinematographer and International Photographer. |
For Gloria Swanson, who had been photographed by everybody, “there was no other photographer in the world,” recalled Bob Coburn. She first met Bachrach after having left Hollywood for Paramount’s Astoria studio in New York in 1923, and he became the still photographer on the films she made there. When Swanson formed her own company in 1926 and moved back to Hollywood, Bachrach went with her and shot the stills and the portraits for those films, among them Sadie Thompson and Queen Kelly (both 1928) and The Trespasser (1929).
Bachrach explains that, as a rule, it is advantageous to know his sitters relatively well. Like a director, he plays upon their emotions and induces the mood and expressions he desires.
Perhaps the most difficult subject of great photography is the person who is recognized and admired for his or her perfect beauty. There exist many photographs of classically beautiful women – such as Hedy Lamarr and Dolores Del Rio – whose flawless skin and perfectly balanced features left not only their generation but also their photographers speechless. The way to photograph them was to keep the face expressionless; animating the face distorted the perfection. Dolores Del Rio quickly became reduced to the clothes she wore and the sets she decorated, like any other extraordinary but inanimate object. Her career in America was restricted because of her kind of beauty. How rare, then, to find portraits like the ones Bachrach took of her in the years she worked at RKO. These photographs convey a near-mystical quality and reveal a glimpse into a quiet but decisive Latin temperament.
In Bachrach’s words: “Portraiture is very closely akin to cinematography. The cinematographer has very little need for accessories in the making of close-ups; all he needs is a face and some lights and shadows. And that is all the portrait artist needs. Occasionally – but only occasionally – minor props are useful.”
The eccentric and vital Katharine Hepburn was a subject close to Bachrach’s heart. Her dancer’s body made her a wonderful model; her intelligence, enthusiasm, and flair made her face a source of inspiration for his camera. Hepburn, as serenely lovely as Del Rio and as enigmatic as Garbo, was still an American original.
Examples of his work:
| Laszlo Willinger (April 6, 1909 in Budapest, Hungary – August 8, 1989) was photographer most noted for his portrait photography of movie stars and celebrities during the 1930s and 1940s.
Taught photography by his mother, also a photographer, Willinger established photographic studios in Paris and Berlin in 1929 and 1931 respectively, and at the same time submitted his photographs to various newspapers as a freelance contributor. |
He left Berlin in 1933 when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, settling and working in Vienna where he began to photograph such celebrities as Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Pietro Mascagni, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Max Reinhardt.
By the mid 1930s he was travelling through Africa and Asia before being invited by studio photographer Eugene Robert Richee to move to the United States. After establishing a studio in Hollywood, California, Willinger became a frequent contributor to magazines and periodicals, providing magazine cover portraits of some of the most popular stars. Willinger was one of the first Hollywood photographers to experiment in the use of color.
In later years, shortly before his death, Willinger had been accused of stalking some celebrities of the time, including Charlie Chaplin. An investigation into the matter led to the uncovering of thousands of personal pictures of the male comedy star.
He died of Heart Failure in 1989, leaving his devoted wife Yvonne.
Examples of his work:
I have been an artist most of my life and have adopted photography as my primary medium. I have fallen in love with the beauty and sexuality exhibited by the classic Hollywood glamor shots and I have set out to re-create that lost art.