Speaker Well, think first of all, it’s he’s a professional. In other words, many times have gone to studios and no one is even ready. His his set is already Brackley. Go in and sit down. So there’s no case. He tries to take the nervousness out of when you start photographing with him. The set is already there. It’s sort of just walks in, looks and be sure that everything’s OK. And then he takes the picture. But it’s the whole setting. He starts creating an atmosphere. First of all, you know, no noise of talking about his energy and his sympathy here, which I think is incredible. You first. The first time I met Dick, I was sort of overwhelmed. Of course, I really knew who he was and I’d never been photographed in my life. So I came in and went when I worked as a model in Paris. We had to carry a huge bag with all our shoes, all our makeup. We came into the studio with curlers in our hand. Just like a brief brush. And we immediately started counting the minutes. When you worked and here we had all the time of the world. It was a makeup comes in and looks at you, talked to you and tries to put you at ease. Also, he makes kind of a happy atmosphere. And my immediate response to Dick was food. We’re always talking about food. I’m always eating. And he’s always eating. OK. We started off with a restaurant, a Chinese restaurant in Real in Paris called Impo Celeste, which he went to. I think he still goes to its best Chinese restaurant in the world. And so we went there and, you know, that’s how we were. And since then, we always talked about food at one of the collections that I went as. And when I was in Harper’s Bazaar during Paris collections, we did a party, a Russian party. I don’t know why Russian, but that was what started it. Just to give you an idea of how he starts things off. There were two assistants who were Russian girls, and he started the party with everybody drinking a whole glass of vodka. The minute you came in and the two Russian girls were singing the song, you had Google this whole glass of vodka before you even started. In the meantime, I was cooking a huge Brazilian meal in the back, and this was during a sitting. This was like a whole party that went on. So what he does is create a kind of an atmosphere. And, you know, he’s very solicitous about, you know, and then once he starts, it’s very friendly. It’s it’s more than that. He like he is completely involved. And so you you just only relate when you forget about everything else. And this is really, I think, one of the things that because I’ve seen with other photographers in which you’re sort of so worried about what you’re doing, you can’t really concentrate. Whereas with Dick, it is with me. I mean, he would have told me to cross my eyes in one picture. And I did. I mean, you know, I really wasn’t worried about liking I or anything. I mean, I knew that it would, no matter what he did, would be extraordinary. Dick was a photographer who he knows exactly the minute he takes the picture, he knows when he has it. And then maybe two or three years later. Ari, I got it. That’s it. It’s not a case of taking 36 rolls. Let so many photographers do. He knows exactly when he has a picture that he wants. So that immediately is easier for a thing because you know that he knows exactly what he wants out of a picture and you get it.
Speaker What else can I say about Dick Dick? As I said, he’s a perfectionist. He thinks about anything that could happen wrong sitting. It’s already prepared for that. So there is a kind of confidence that you get when you work with.
Speaker The direction has an idea.
Speaker Mutation for verbalizes through collaboration through all of you about a more.
Speaker As I said, the sitting is all set up. You have no sheet paper normally when he always worked there before he did his other location shots. It was all set up. Exactly. You knew where you were sitting and you just did. You did whatever you could at that angle. You mean whatever you had to do exactly that. And he knew. And since I had have really been involved in close, I knew what he wanted out of how the clothes should look. And that helps. Then, of course, photography changed. It wasn’t as formal as it did when I started. I mean, the first pictures Dick took of me were 1958. And I’d been working Balenciaga, Givenchy before that. So I knew I was a runway model. It wasn’t that I hadn’t had a know how to move or something because it was already there, but I didn’t know how to use my face and that I left up to him. He knew what he wanted out of it. And also, it was so funny because years later, like I think about two years ago, he said to me, Did you know? You seem so untouchable. And I didn’t know what he meant. But when I first started photography, I never been photographed. I didn’t know what it was like to use the same kind of expressions. You’ve also you had to come in and be enormously grants so no one would even touch your clothes. You just walked in and out because she was always worried that the buyers would come and start looking at your clothes to see how the clothing later you walked in and like, God forbid you should even touch me. Right.
Speaker So, you know, I must have had this in me when I was photographed with them. And since you’ve changed so much that they haven’t really I just really didn’t know any better.
Speaker That was part of it. I don’t know what I told you that story, but I was the first non Caucasian it was ever put into a magazine, and I didn’t know that. And when it when the pictures came out, he was the one who when they brought it to the publisher, he said, no, I can’t publish this picture. She’s not white. Everybody in the south is going to cancel the subscriptions. And he said, if you don’t publish here, I won’t sign the contract. You were supposed to sign another seven year contract with Bizarre. And I never knew this until about 20 years later. So it’s quite incredible, man, in that sense, I think is someone that is almost.
Speaker Scary because he’s when you beat him.
Speaker He has this boyish, incredible, energetic personality. And yet there’s a wall of steel behind it. You pull a rabbit. OK, let’s go. That’s it. That’s work, you know. And he has this. And there’s always that control and it’s under control, but with a velvet glove. When I first was going to be photographed by him, one of the models from my shot name said to me, you’ll see. You’ll just drop you off. What did she mean? I mean, I didn’t think I was gonna be photographed by him for the rest of my life. It seemed so silly. I was just glad he was gonna photograph me even once. But there is that thing that people say that he saw take somebody and squeeze everything, as it were, and then drops. Which is true about a lot of people who have a lot of talent. They have to go on because he always needs input, because the one of the most curious and inquisitive people I know and maybe that’s what keeps him going all the time and that’s normal. I mean, what are you supposed to be photographed by him for the rest of your life?
Speaker I mean, there are other people see for but I remember being told that right at the very beginning sort of surprised me because I hadn’t been in this in the States and in that position, I didn’t quite know what it was.
Speaker And my transition for a model from a model to an editor was also Dick’s doing. Diana Vreeland had left for Vogue and they were sort of looking for someone to come in and between him and Nancy White. But I think was mostly Dick’s influence that I got that job, but I didn’t even know what I wanted to take it. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I’d never seen a fashion magazine at that point in my life.
Speaker So I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do. And I said, don’t worry. You’ve been in the studio anyway. So that same thing. Single, single.
Speaker And that’s what started the career of eleven years and so many wonderful years working with him and things like that.
Speaker All the trips that we took and said, oh no, God, I mean, yeah, if you know where I came from.
Speaker It would, wouldn’t seem that way because I was born in Shanghai and then I went to live in South America.
Speaker But I’ve never looked at a fashion magazine. I wasn’t into that at all. I had no idea. And when I went to Paris, it was just by accident. I came the model because the directors of Violence Chaga saw me at a cocktail party and asked me if I wanted to be a model and liked it. Two weeks later, I was a model, so I had no aspirations. I had no idea what the business was or anything like that. So you never really know. I really didn’t know what it was about. It wasn’t that I dreamed of ever being a model because I never seen a magazine before I went to Paris.
Speaker What fashion was it, what it was about or did the business of it? I wasn’t part of my idea. I thought I was just gonna get married. That was it.
Speaker How did you both.
Speaker Well, I thought it was very luck.
Speaker I thought it was a lot of fun, but I didn’t know what it was going to last and I wasn’t trained for anything. So what I really had no idea what was gonna happen to my life. I never planned to until today. I never planned anything I wanted to the next it just sort of happened.
Speaker I said, no, never work with it again.
Speaker I’ve heard a lot about it, but I mean, I would not be first. I’ve worked with hero Jimmy Moore, Bill Solano, Sokolsky and all of those. But of course, Dick was Kingpin, you know, and with Hero, it’s very technical. It’s very detached. He was a very warm push when you know him, but he’s very aloof normally and the studio is very quiet. Whereas, Jacques Dix, you think you’re going to go start dancing and you get up? It’s always the latest music. It’s really loud. It’s full of beans and all that sort of thing. You sort of practically want to take you away from yourself. It’s swinging into something else and get you going. I’ve seen Dick when he’s absolutely exhausted after a day of doing editorial, then at Moonlight with him. And we do advertising. We have to do leg long with Susie Parker. And it was always the same and she was always shirt Rajwant, different flowered and it was a shirt with a belt. And so I had to get a big hat or a bunch of flowers. We put wind and we know which started again. But Dick always had a bottle of champagne, which was it came and she started a glass of champagne before she went on the set. But he could pull himself to get. No matter how tired he was and give himself all over again another city, it was never you never felt the pressure was being photographed, never saw that part of him when he was like, oh, God, here we go again. He never showed that. It was always the same kind of enthusiasm because he knew he had to give that to that person. Otherwise they would never give him what he wanted.
Speaker Some of the movements.
Speaker That’s right. Is that how you and other models is this?
Speaker Well, you know, come in.
Speaker And he’d have normally it was a kind of a small setting in which Dick photographed nude was like a six by 10 space in which the lighting was set up. And you got to be photographed. These were much broader scale. It was much wider. Where he was photographing, you were used to use a lot of bank lights. And then he started using strobe. And it was a he changed from his usual beauty lighting, as you call it, to strobes at that moment. And then there were two bangs of strobe. And then, you know, you sort of you had a long piece in which you had like three feet to run and then jump.
Speaker And he would tell you higher. And you didn’t even know how the hell you going to jump higher with heels and the dresser. The wind was blowing. Come on high. And you just sort of just did it, you know? And then you had to look good at the same time.
Speaker It wasn’t easy. But I saw that. I mean, he did Shrimpton now. Daniel Luna myself. I don’t know who else he did, but that was the beginning. As far as I’m concerned, there were two times in which Dick did a complete cutaway, that famous issue of April of 1965, in which he did the whole issue, in which I did the whole issue with him. And we went to London and we photograph the Beatles and all the people with long hair and any kind of interesting personas that he met along the way. Dick’s on your beauty was quite incredible because even before.
Speaker There was a girl who was married to a friend of mine and she really looked like a Peruvian Indian and I would never have dared to bring her to anybody else. And he saw her beauty and he she’s on the cover of one of the issues. And there’s also a profile of him, she and sort of a long kind of nose.
Speaker And then we did a huge ad that sort of hollered her nose. But it wasn’t the conventional beauty. And he always saw that, which was so fantastic. And that’s what he also saw on the Spanish girls. I mean, there were 19 with enormous, incredible figures, big busted and very skinny and these huge noses, which was not the conventional beauty or sort of a pat nose, blond blue-eyed. I mean, this was just the opposite. And he did see the beauty in those women, which no other photographer in fashion ever did.
Speaker Sitting’s unusual news stories of how the story.
Speaker Well, that was an incredible series.
Speaker I think that story just sort of said, well, what happened was I went to the World’s Fair.
Speaker And in the Spanish pavilion, they had some fashion for about four fashion, those parts of Gaza. I can’t remember the other three fashion designers who were not well known, certainly not in America, but maybe were in Spain. And one of the shows I showed the twins, not yet Anna Maria. And I thought they were spectacular, but I would never have dreamed of bringing them to anybody else. So I brought them to Dick and photographed them. He got very enthusiastic about it. And we talked about what we could do. And no one had really taken someone who was from, you know, usually Bjork brought, you know, blonde, blue eyed girls to India and photographed them against temples. At that point, and this was the first time someone of that nationality and of that feeling and of that blood. Was photographed in the settings in Spain. So after we got these two girls, we had another meeting. Dick and I and he said, well, he said, you’re a Marine. I mean, they’re fantastic. But I couldn’t possibly get an American male model to be photographed with them. They’d be eaten alive, to be eaten alive. I mean, he just wouldn’t work with them. And so I started thinking of who we could use. And one day he calls me terribly exciting, says, listen, I have lunch, let’s have lunch with 21. You’re going to meet this man. So we’ve met this man who is called Elio. And I can’t even think of the second name Elio. And Alia was Brazilian and didn’t speak a word of English, but he did speak Portuguese, which I speak. So Dick and I had lunch with Mila 21, and it was like this translation.
Speaker He was a diplomat, very handsome, sort of mysterious, romantic looking, almost like out Valentino sort of type, and someone who danced the tango actually, as far as I was concerned. So we had lunch and sort of talked to him and then. What do you think? I said, my God, it’s terrific, but we’ll do it. He says, Cheena, I don’t care what you do is get him. OK. So I have to compose a letter to you. And I sent this letter off saying, nobody, please do this for us. You’d be invited to Spain and these fabulous girls. And, you know, and he had sort of a question. He wasn’t sure what he could pose them, you know? So we said, don’t worry about it. It’ll be just think about it as a holiday and so on, so forth. And we didn’t know what kind of an answer. So he got an answer. He said, I don’t know why he’s coming, but it’s either for you or for me. And I said, listen, I’m sure it’s for you. So then the date came when which we had to leave to go to Spain. And Dick, in the meantime, had been terribly sick. Yeah. I mean, his stomach. And he was like really like a 98 pound weakling or something. He was really, really sick. And this whole trip had been set up and he was going to go. So we got to Spain that morning and he was just out of it. He had to go and lie down. So he told me to go to the airport to meet Elio. So I went with the dollar Ed in Spain, whose name was Betsy Buckley. And we got there. And suddenly from far, I see someone running towards me, not God, with this guy. It was l’oeil team lifted off my feet, kissed me in the mouth. And I so I thought, oh, my God, what is he thinking? You know? So we drive through Madrid and I’m saying all this proud you’re gonna have them. And he was saying, we are going to have a wonderful time. And this is what started the trip. Aleo was kind of randy, to put it mildly. So he looks after everything that worked. So we were in this hotel and I don’t know how it happened, but this long corridor, just two doors. And it was mine and his.
Speaker And I think everyone thought that I had set this all up and I said this. I don’t know what we’re going to do. This is you I want to know for two weeks. We got to keep him here. All right. What next thing about this? So we went out for dinner and then we went dancing. And Elio was I mean, my neck was out of shape from how he was dancing. OK. Got back to the hotel and the next minute, I know he’s running around my hotel room and I feel as if I’m 50 years old running around him and saying this is just the beginning of the trip. We’ll wait a little bit. He appeared in my doorway in silk satin pajamas with too little. What would you call those tiny bottles of champagne? Ready.
Speaker But anyway, so that started the trip and it went from myself to Betsy to Anna Maria and Natalie. I mean, no one was safe on this trip. And of course, she could hardly speak. And he didn’t speak Spanish, didn’t speak Italian. Who was a hairdresser. Enzo was a hairdresser. They speak English. So I was the only one who could practically understand him. So he thought that the only way he could get her out running after the girls and this incredible trip came through, we went to all the Goudey women, to the Gouty Gardens to be photographed. They were very Mouly pictures and they kept you special film.
Speaker I think you used them infrared lighting and all that to get that happen to was that very early in the morning or just at the sunset that we had photographed. So everything had to be prepared and set up and Spain. And so it was just beautiful because it hadn’t been even built up at that point when we went there. So we photographed on the rocks and be photographed in this Moorish house and photographed in the gardens. But it was these three people who were so extraordinary and beautiful, and partly it was because he couldn’t speak. So he always had this remote air about him and he was sort of just stuck and he didn’t really know. How to relate to anyone. So you get this mood of three people, almost like an not in your only movie that were three lonely people and you couldn’t quite tell what they were about, whether he was married to one. He was a lover of the two of them. The two girls were. And that was an incredible atmosphere and elegance because they were all three were incredibly elegant people that that came through. And it was sort of a strange look at fashion for that one.
Speaker At that point in time, it’s a story. There was a story there. Whatever you.
Speaker Well, I think for once, Dick was very involved in the lines, maybe because a lot of the pictures when silhouette and because they were like natural settings, rocks. So that the shapes became terribly important. And on I worked at Enzo and I worked the hairdresser in all kinds of shapes. And you will see all the girls are very sculptured. There was no fly away and everything was incredibly clean lined. And it was very stark. Was either black or white closes with only closed used.
Speaker And he used like natural shapes of rocks to sort of put them in to fitting into those shapes. He knew well, you know, what he was doing. You know, I mean, Dick always does. That’s why even the layout and all that were set in a way that those lines and absolutely came through. Yes. Annamaria and and Nathi are were twins and they were very, very close. I mean, they could talk to each other without saying anything, you know? And. They, too, had never been photographed in that way before. I mean, they were just models who started they were 19 at that time and I think they started about a year ago before that, just doing shows. They hadn’t been photographed in that way. So there’s a whole new atmosphere for everybody. And they had such a natural elegance that it wasn’t really necessary for Dick to, you know, tell you. I mean, they knew what to do about moving and so on.
Speaker I mean, I did have this translation. I was I was exhausted at the end of the day because I had to speak Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and English all day long. To translate everything Dick was saying, try to have a conversation where we out for dinner to keep everybody happy. And it was a very interesting trip, but it was a fun trip. It was a wonderful trip. As you’ll see in them, if you use any part of the movie, you’ll see how crazy it was and hectic and production trying to get everybody organized and nobody moving away and trying to find Elio because he was always slipping away. We were always worried he would disappear. But that was it.
Speaker And Dick in the meantime, was very sick during all this period in between photographs, he would lie down, were very strong.
Speaker That’s what’s most definitely take away. So strikingly different. Was that something I think Dick wanted everything to just fall.
Speaker I mean, he really he didn’t have control as he didn’t speak the language with either any of the three of them. You see, I would translate what he was trying to do, but it that mood that he had created was so strong. And the girls, they would talk to each other, they would whisper during the time, not move your head a little bit. And this sort of thing to each other. And they were not really involved with you except trying to get out of his way. And l’oeil, as I said, Dick would a move a little bit. And he he was a vain enough man to know.
Speaker And he had a certains presence and a sense of his own elegance that he knew Mollis, you know, how to move and all that. So it wasn’t.
Speaker But as I said, it was a take it was a kick out from what was fashion photography. I mean, right after that, it was the big youthful boom. I mean, it was, you know, Jean Shrimpton Twiggy. And I mean, these were women, you know, VVS they looked like women even. They were they were 19. There was like the whole culture was there. They brought it. They were from under RCA and they had all this fantastic Spanish pride and and, you know, dancer’s whole I mean, their whole body, you know, what was there? Are you. I mean, all this came out different kind of personality to the usual models that we had seen until they.
Speaker To summarize what was important about that series, people thought it was extremely important in its work history. Oh, absolutely. Summarize for us again just what?
Speaker I think, one, it was taking people in the country where they were, you know, just photographing them as people, models, perhaps because they had the stance. But real people, they looked really real. And he also was not a model. So he didn’t do the usual facial expressions or anything like that. He was just there. He wasn’t posing.
Speaker They created this atmosphere and they just work in that atmosphere, you know?
Speaker That was true, and as I said, they were women. They were not children. They were not little girls. They were not pretty faces. They were. There was a beauty to them that was.
Speaker From there. From their essence. And that was what was brought in, it was a really a very powerful story for that reason, I think. It wasn’t fake.
Speaker I can’t explain what I mean by that, except that it was people from their own earth. That whole thing came through. This was you could almost hear Spanish music. You could almost hear, you know, this tremendous drama going on because of them and because of where it was taken.
Speaker Quote, unquote. Right. Just the way you say that, it’s something that people are extremely important.
Speaker I think it was an enormous breakthrough as far as fashion was concerned. It was all the things that Dick recognizes immediately. Dick didn’t look for.
Speaker The sexy pretty girl posing with her. Wasn’t that kind of thing. Saw that beauty and immediately knew how to use it. It’s you can have raw material, but if you don’t know how to use it, you know, it could have been bottle standing like there was none of that.
Speaker It was just the way they said it was just the way they stood. It was just the way they they moved their heads and they were comfortable in their own setting, in their own land, in their own culture, in their own tradition, you know, in their own blood. I think the blood of these people came through in these pictures. Well, I think that that what happened with Mike Nichols and Susie Parker story.
Speaker It was just after or just the end of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. And we were seeing these pictures on television, you know, people hiding and, you know, these kind of pictures and took that and thought, who could he put? We were going to do the Paris collections. And you do the Paris collections a completely different way. You must understand the Paris glasses is terribly difficult to do because during the day I got to go and see the collections to choose the clothes. And then it’s six o’clock in the evening. We stop the production, trying to time the clothes, having messengers outside of the studio, going to pick up some clothes. It might be at another studio, BOGO Glamour, all the French magazine trying to get that called a take that picture at exactly that time. You can imagine what chaos was going on. Otherwise you’d go to the fashion house and they’re trying to sell that dress and you’re trying to get back to. I mean, just a nightmare. Anyway, Paris was always like that. But at least before you did it in a studio, there was a base and we’d sit down, have coffee, wait. Like you do in any studio. Right. And hairdressers would be waiting and having too many cups of coffee trying to eat in between. Everybody’s on the phone. Everybody’s waiting is a hairdresser rallies and may I mean, all this went on. But this week, besides all that, we had to do it on location.
Speaker Anyway, as you know, Mike is a very good friend of picks and chooses, you know, his favorite model for years and years and years and also an actress.
Speaker So he took those two and sort of made them into Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in places in which those kind of things would happen. Some of them were accidents. I mean, most of them we were laughing so hard we could hardly take the pictures. I mean, Mike was incredibly funny. And even the time of the glass in which Susie throws the wine at him or he throws away, I can’t remember. Anyway, that whole throwing of the boss was just I mean, you know, you had to think of the makeup, the clothes. I mean, this whole thing went on that whole period. And one of the funniest was the car picture. I mean, we’d seen Richard Burton. No. And Elizabeth Taylor in the car and everybody sort of peering at them.
Speaker And we had about four or five people there to sort of come to the car and peer in. But what we hadn’t calculated was people in the street who didn’t even know what was going on came towards the car and started rocking the car while we were doing. It was like Susie in my gut fighting for him. And it was really it was it was really happening. What was supposedly a situation that had some control over, you never know. People as we were photographing it and people would be crowds would be following us, photographing them at that moment. The carpenter was really scary. That’s what happened. You know, just those kind of circumstances, accidents happen. And you know why there are riots and things like that, because people on the street, they don’t even know who’s there. They’re willing to come in and cause, you know, whatever it is.
Speaker And Susie, as I said, when she fell down the stairs, too, it was a complete accident. That picture that he took at that instant, she had just slipped, her heel got caught in the dress and she slipped and he took that picture at that moment. I mean, you know, afterwards we were petrified she might have hurt herself back or something like that.
Speaker It was or that that whole thing became so real from what we had put of the different situations he had put them in. They really happened.
Speaker You know, you didn’t have any control of what happened at that point of her falling or the car scene or, you know, the wine throwing, whether the glass will hit them on the face. I mean, all that just happened because sometimes when you’re taking a picture. Not not even carried away. I mean, they’re all professionals in the whole thing. But it does happen.
Speaker So that’s why it was so real and it was so funny to the Paris collections in that way. It was so different from Dick to do something like that.
Speaker Yes.
Speaker Well, because they’re funny, because you wanted to make it subtle. And how could you take a picture and make that happen?
Speaker So the only was reason was to be sure that the the bandages on her wrists would show and that she and the outfit that she had would work with whatever situation we were photographing. And then his face had to show how unhappy or how he was trying to get the press away or whatever. And that in that picture, it was the final picture of every whether it was Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, I mean, all those things that Dick has had in himself came out in those pictures of what could be the most realistic and yet subtle way of doing something without being crass about these pictures. So there’s always a thin line of what is good taste and what is real and what could happen and what you see it and how the timing is, you know, in all those pictures.
Speaker If we haven’t had things in front of us either, just describe briefly the five, four or five of them in the story that’s unfolding. What do we foresee? You see?
Speaker You mean when when Susie and Mike first stop?
Speaker So we’re seeing these pictures unfold. Yeah. Sad story. Sorry.
Speaker Well, I think that it started with. A kind of affair that was secretive. And yet when all these secret trips, vacation love affairs happen, they’re always seen in public.
Speaker Why the hell do they go to a restaurant, you know? I mean, if they hit out in their hotel room, you wouldn’t see them. Or if you didn’t come out of the hotel room together, you wouldn’t be photographed. So no matter who you say that they’re trying to hide it or be discreet, they’re always seen in public.
Speaker They’re always doing something that causes something to happen. You sort of think that they want to be caught.
Speaker You’ll have to show me, because I can’t remember how the story went, but it was a story, the beginning of, you know, maybe they were in a hotel room and they were caught unawares. It did perhaps know that people knew they were together. And then the second thing, maybe they decided to go out for dinner and have a celebration and the celebration turned into a real fight. Maybe he looked at another woman or she flirted with somebody else. That’s another situation. And the third one is maybe they were trying to run out of the nightclub or restaurant or party they were at. And in doing so, she tripped and fell. And the fourth one is like the getaway car in which they’re saying, God, I can’t even get out. And, you know, maybe just from the sidewalk, from the doorway, the sidewalk in the car already, people were waiting for them.
Speaker And it could cause that kind of an eruption.
Speaker And the following one is that she’s just had it, you know, I mean, whether she had a fight with him or whether she thought there was too much.
Speaker This was it. And this is what finally happened.
Speaker But was it you tell us something in your mind.
Speaker You would have thought that they would have covered them up with gloves, right? But it always seems to show when someone is committing suicide, whatever they’re doing, living with.
Speaker Why was it an invasion of the.
Speaker Oh, I think that was talked about. I mean, it was incredibly talked about that series.
Speaker I mean, first of all, to see Suzy in a completely different atmosphere to do the Paris collections, everybody knows how hard it is to do them and to do them on location and have all these things going. I mean, everybody realized it’s not that easy to do.
Speaker So that was enough to have a crew like Mike because he was at the beginning of the peak of his career as as an entertainer. I mean, it was I guess he might have started directing at the time, remember? But certainly he was known as the man. He was directing already. He’d already done The Graduate. I think at that point and Susie, who everybody was world famous as a model.
Speaker And just to see in a totally different atmosphere and to make the clothes work in those specific situations in Paris and everything else. I mean, you know, Dick was always considered a genius. So this was another thing that he did. I mean, he also did Audrey Hepburn, you know, he did Audrey happened to the Paris collections. It’s a beautiful story to. I think so. I only remember of her crying and the raindrops on windowpane.
Speaker But she’s in a train station. We have to go to Gallileo and I mean all we did those areas, but not not in motion as these pictures were. I mean, they had a two day feeling, the Berten story. I mean, it really was Re-created, but almost real. I mean, if you saw them in a news newsmagazine, you wouldn’t believe them if you saw them in Orji, all these paparazzi magazines. I mean, it was a perfect picture using the.
Speaker People say, no, I’m sorry. The Beatles sitting.
Speaker And that the Beatles sitting was. An incredible tour de force for him because he had the responsibility of a whole magazine and a different choice, but it was such an exciting period. It was a complete revolution in fashion at that point. First of all, you had the Beatles, which were world famous.
Speaker I mean, they had come to New York about four months before and been mobbed. We know and they were on The Ed Sullivan Show and everything else.
Speaker And it was the time of the adlib and the short skirts and the Lord Fauntleroy dresses and stuff like that, a lot of places. It was the beginning of unisex in the sense that men suddenly had long hair.
Speaker He photographed all the almost big war children and all that, who was ambassador, U.S. ambassador or whatever it was.
Speaker So he photographed everything that was exactly at the height, the peak of it when we went to London. So it was obviously a very difficult how he got the Beatles was incredible because he had written to them and ask them. And John was not in town. And Ringo’s only thing was that he was into amateur photography.
Speaker So if he would do it, if he was allowed lot of photographic. So the night of the setting that we we had taken the Times studio of Lord Snowdon.
Speaker And we had to go in through the back. It was at night so that none of the paparazzi would know we were going there or Dick or the Beatles. So we came in from the back and had got a freight elevator. I don’t know what it got to the studio and started sitting.
Speaker And Ringo comes in with his girlfriend Maureen at that time. His wife afterwards, I think.
Speaker But it was just too many names. I mean, there was Lord Snowdon Abdul. I mean, it was just, you know, incredible trying to get in and out of that building without anybody knowing. That was part of this. Even all of London, we had to go sort of in hiding because they never they were always looking for the Beatles and he was trying to photograph them. So no matter where we went, you know, it was a talk around London that he was in town for the Beatles.
Speaker So there was a party. He made a party in the studio. And I don’t think he ever uses pictures, but I have it in the movie. That’s all right. And I haven’t in the movie, there’s Donovan who sang Sunshine, that’s famous song anyway. There were a lot of people who became famous afterwards. I think the Stones with it, we didn’t even bother to photograph them.
Speaker But so we sort of sitting and it started with both each having a drink.
Speaker So the first picture was number one and it was the first drink. And by the time they came to the 16th, they were just like it both on the floor.
Speaker They both collapsed. So the picture went on. And he has everybody, Ringo as the Greek with the Laurel Mount his head, you know that Retha as a champion. And then he had Paul as an astronaut. And it was a perfume ad, which was very unusual at that time for a man to pose for a perfume ad.
Speaker And he photographed Hassin. And I’m trying to think of whatever happened to that picture because I think he used Ringo and Paul in that series.
Speaker He said when he was doing it that it would be a collector’s item. And it is. I mean, it’s like it’s impossible to find that issue. And I don’t know whether you know that. But the cover he had one eye in which Jean Shrimpton winked. It had one of those optical illusion eyes. And that is the issue that it is impossible to find to do that head. I had to go to Canal Street and have this plastic thing made so she could even breathe and photograph her with this on all the Luna sitting it.
Speaker We did them in. In this valley in Utah, I think. And we also went to Miami, to the salt mines to photograph those scenes on the moon that were taken. And then we, as I said, photographed a lot of people, personalities in London. And anybody was interesting in power in New York. And Daniele Luna was the black girl that I found who was a schoolgirl who came in. And I couldn’t believe what she looked like. And I had she had pigtails and I’d come put makeup on and stuff like that.
Speaker Andre Gregory and Dick, close friends, close friends, um, for me, Andre is playful. Tremendous people and an enormous cheese. And I was very friendly with both his wife, Chiquito and Andre. Love them. Just crazy about them. Interesting couple.
Speaker But I was first more friendly with Andre because Andre can be the charmer of all times Andre charm you, I mean, this is no way you can resist him. And he loves to sort of whisper. And when he when Andre talks, it’s like all the men who are known for their charm. He talks only to you. He never he appears to not listen to anybody else in the room that exists. Nobody else. If you’ve ever seen Andre in public, he will choose one person and then talk to that person. I could go on for hours. I mean, he doesn’t care about the racist party. He will sit and talk to which to undo. And he’s an incredible raconteur and he can change his voice and accents. Used to call me on the phone and leave messages. This is on.
Speaker I mean, I or otherwise just do a Russian accent or a Chinese accent on the phone and leave all these weird messages on my telephone.
Speaker But I think that the picture that Dick took of him shows what a devilish little character it is. I mean, it’s all those crinkly eyes and almost.
Speaker Merlin kind of character to Andre. Andre was a man who for many years was looking for himself. During the period when I knew him. It was always going on some kind of trip. He went to the Sahara. A Japanese priest for about six weeks. For 40 days and 40 nights, he lived in the forest with a group of people in Poland, something.
Speaker Constantly when I was going to school, someone was living there. It was a Japanese priest who was supposed to come for two weeks and stayed six months. Someone else came and stayed three years. And it was just sort of incorporated. No one really mentioned that. You didn’t know whether this person you didn’t know who you were going to meet. When you went to dinner at Andre’s and it would be the children and whoever was living there, you know, why they were living. They didn’t know what the situation was just above it. You just accepted it. And it was Andre sort of seeking himself. For many years, that’s what he told us. And that’s when he went to Tibet and he went to listen to the bells chime in all this. So incorporated in that picture of Andre, it’s half of oppos because Andre can switch like that chameleon. And he caught him just in his most devilish, charming picture that you could get him on. It’s a very intense, concentrated picture of Andre, I think, in that picture. Just call him just when he’s about laughing and about to tell a story.
Speaker What do you think the root cause they were puzzling over as well, the similarities and differences that brought those two men together.
Speaker I think what they have in common. Is enthusiasm one second thing they have is, uh, a curiosity, um.
Speaker They are both actors.
Speaker And they know how to turn people on. In each of their own ways, they know how to turn each other on. So that is part of it. You know, Dick, whenever he falls in love with people, there’s something about someone suddenly make give him more enthusiasm, something that he wants more input from. And he’d make me do it again and suddenly you’ll get telephone calls from him every day. And then six months later. So whatever you saw on you at that moment when he is interested, there’s not enough that he can give or take from you.
Speaker You see. But don’t worry. And they kept kept this up for many, many years.
Speaker I mean, sometimes I think they don’t see each other for. Then it comes back again. And that same closeness and that same understanding.
Speaker Happens again. You know, um.
Speaker Andre is not quite as much as Dick in that intensity of when Dick is interested in someone with. Interested in your mind. Interested in the personality you have interested in. Maybe he’s doing a project and he knows there’s something of you that could help him or that he wants you to help him or that you will. He wants you to work with him, or whether it’s just a friendship, whether it’s intellectual friendship, whether it’s whether he’s interested in dance at that point or music or. Mostly it’s visual. I mean. Dick is someone who really sees is not just looking. I mean, he really sees when he wants to, it’s a certain thing that he sees as he doesn’t see everything. But whatever he’s looking for when he sees that, he recognizes it. And this is so extraordinary, whether it’s in a person, whether it’s in an object, whether it’s a situation, you know. And also his continual renewal of himself and what is happening. He’s always aware of what’s happening. You know, he reads a lot. Talks to people. He listens to things. I mean. But it is in a certain area. And that’s why he can keep it up.
Speaker Falling in love with you. What you offer here?
Speaker Of course. Because you can’t you. Well. You know, I mean, a case of. Dick dropping you. I mean, you don’t even think I mean, I don’t think about it is dropping somebody. I mean, you could only be interested in the same degree. If you find is a 10 suppression stick with this kind of intellect, it’s normal. I think it’s perfectly normal. I mean, I know a number of people who are, you know, that both of of which are not greatness. Why do you think Dick is great? But I mean, they have that intense curiosity and they want to know everything about whatever they’re doing with its work or an object or a book or whatever is. And they want to know anything about it. So if you can give it, you can give an important that he wants it and then maybe he’s no longer interested in that. And of course, that’s where the line was. That was why he was interested in that. You got to understand that I’m sure people get through somebody, people, when you find them the charm and the giving that he does at that point when he quotes you, you go and it’s like a lover, you know. I mean, the supposing he’s had you you’ve done everything.
Speaker He’s no longer in love with you. Or maybe he’s still he’s still in love with you.
Speaker Maybe, but he can’t give you and he doesn’t want to take away that special image that he created of you for himself.
Speaker I think about it that way, you know, I mean, it’s like a fantastic lover who sees a woman maybe doesn’t even want to know her name. He just wants to maybe you follow her, find your address. No. Wants to know what she eats, what she drinks, what she how she sleeps, what she wears when she sees. And then maybe hasher. And also after he’s had her, all that mystery is gone. He moves on, but he still has that image that he created or whatever he thought he had of her. And so why not keep that instead of finding that she has big feet?
Speaker You know, I mean, it’s. I didn’t think about it, really. I mean, it never occurred to me to be otherwise.
Speaker Well.
Speaker This was territory for someone who wasn’t a husband, a lover.
Speaker But a wonderful friend. And if he was a man with the most influence in my life.
Speaker I came to New York in fifth grade not because of him, because I had not met him until the day I arrived. It was he was one of the ones one of the decisions of why I came to America, not because I wanted to be with him, but because he had opened a certain life to me coming here. And I saw the possibilities.
Speaker I mean, I was working in Paris and I was the highest paid model in Europe for shows that I had never been photographed. You had to go back three times to get paid. I mean, there was no union. There was no.
Speaker Agent for yourself. So supposing somebody photographed you got there, you did all the weaponry, you wouldn’t get paid. You’d have to go back three or four times to get paid from anybody, you know? Stuff like that. So I’ve obviously I came to America and instead of being paid sixty dollars an hour, I was paid four hundred dollars an hour. I mean, it seemed quit and then I didn’t even have to worry about it. I had an agent who worried about me, protected me, got my money I could borrow money from, I mean was a whole different life.
Speaker And besides, I was crazy in love with New York. You know, I was like on a high that you wouldn’t believe.
Speaker Well, for one thing is. Dick was so important because obviously, I mean, he was the most famous man I had ever met, practically not quite, but almost I’d ever met, and that he was interested me and I knew that he would launch my career. To be photographed by Dick Abbadon is like the most incredible thing in the world. No matter even if I wasn’t terribly interested in fashion, I think like that it was the most incredible thing in the world to be photographed by even once. I mean, millions of women want to be photographed. They’re willing to pay anything just to get a photograph. Dick can imagine how you know. And it instantly made me famous, famous in an area, you know, limited area fashion in Paris as well as here. Secondly, I was madly in love with New York. So it was terrific. And then, as I said, I was being photographed by him when suddenly I got this telephone call. I was in Montreal doing the first pictures that nobody ever saw, the pictures that he did sitting on ice. And, you know, all this fur blowing. I look as if I’m a cat or something. And it was the picture. I got a telephone call and it’s Nancy one on the phone.
Speaker And she says to me, Would you like to become senior editor at Harper’s, which talked to I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea that he had been sort of arranging it with Nancy. He and Nancy had conferred on this. They I think they wanted an up. Offbeat character into bizarre because Vreeland left, you know, and they knew that I knew a lot about fashion, fast clothes was concerned and all that and that I had for, you know, whatever. So obviously, it was terribly important for me. I had no idea.
Speaker I didn’t even know how long I was going to model. I really wasn’t that interested, you know. So this was another career step in something that I never, never planned and hadn’t even studied or worked. I’ve never worked as an assistant or anything to get up there.
Speaker Suddenly I was up there, you know, and and of course, it had to do with him. OK. And then I worked in Bazaar with him so much. I mean, I did all the sittings while he was in Bazaar. I mean, I was the only editor, you know. And then I did all the Paris collections, but even mostly with him. He went to the beach once a year, but with other photographers, too. So, of course, he will still be in this picture I’m looking at.
Speaker This is so typical because he’s just come out from taking somebody’s picture. So he leans across and gives them a hand and then he lifts up his glasses, you see, to look at them. And it’s such a you know, the charm of him comes out so wonderful. That’s what he usually says. And that’s exactly that exact instant that he takes that picture. And the other point, I think, is this. He always says this at this, you know, he uses his hair, his hair a lot. It’s, you know, this. But the final one, I don’t know whether it’s a gesture of impatience or frustration, always pulls him, puts his head like this on his head, and you have him right there in that picture. But that’s so typical of the. And the third one that he’s always doing, he always has his two hands in his pockets and sort of his feet planted sort of potential stands there when he’s ready to sort of argue with you or do some give an opinion on something he usually does that says. But, Dick. This picture of Irving Penn, I don’t like it. I don’t know why it’s. He looks haggard and the shape of his face. I mean, what you remember about Dick is the intensity of his eyes and his energy. And that picture does not have it. So if I look at it, I don’t think about it. The stick. It’s not the dick that I know for all these years. There’s a it’s almost as if he let himself down at that moment. That picture and that has nothing to do with his personality was. And we always hated to be photographed. You really didn’t like himself to be photographed, so it’s funny that most of the pictures that he has of himself. I, I like the one in which he has his hands thrown up. I don’t know. It’s it’s not a gesture that he does usually. And it’s sort of a very I dislike that picture of him, of himself that he took that he hides behind his glasses. He’s always pulling it up and down and stuff like that. But I mean, Dick is a terribly attractive man, and I think he’s grown more attractive as he’s older because he had this boyishness, part of Dick’s awareness. In other words, Dick compartmented himself in many ways. I guess it was his way of protecting himself.
Speaker You see, my opinion of Dick has always been that he was so cute.
Speaker I mean, he was this little boy ish guy, and yet he was so incredibly successful that I think because of his boyishness and his niceness, I think he had to defend himself. I think people took advantage of it. I think it took too much of him. He had to give away too much because so he learned how to compartment himself. And if he took a picture, it was wonderful. But with you, I mean, when you say cut off, I think he does that. Every time he does a sitting, he puts himself on to take the picture and give you everything of himself while he’s taking the picture and then once the pictures. Thanks. And then he immediately goes he leaves the room. And some people sort of it’s not going to work. Why should he have taken the picture? And he’s given you that at that moment. And that’s the most important thing for both of you. You know, I mean, I think people wanted to continue.
Speaker They hope he’s going to invite them for dinner, but they don’t want to let him go. And I think his only defense was that way of being able to save some time for himself, for his family, because he gave so much to his work, you know.
Speaker Anyway, that’s my opinion.
Speaker Well, we’re going to make suggesting that there was in fact, you know what? Complex thoughts. There might be a story going on in their head. It was worth PacifiCare. So even if that’s not what I’m interested in.
Speaker Of course. That’s right. They’re objects. Yes.
Speaker You could talk about that specifically in your own city. Go back to that question. It is possible specifically how he would rule things out. How do you get that line that was suggested? People responded to your own city.
Speaker And while he did that, yes, he did it. I think when he photographed in the 50s and all that, you realize that all the girls were not that young.
Speaker I mean, what is Sydney selling her net and VEMA and Susie? Not so much because Susie started younger, but I can. Mary Ellen, was it I mean, a number of those models, they had been working. You had a longer lifespan before you started photography. I mean, now you photographed fifteen year old girls. I mean, what life did they have before? These women already knew something and it showed there was like a savvy about them. They had a certain style. They knew what they had. Well, Betsy Pickering, Susie know, we did shows as well as photography. So we knew what supposing the collar was very important. We do something to show you the collar with the back. I mean, they were poses because we already knew what the clothes, what you had to show. We understood what the clothes were. Clothes were more important. All right. In the 50s and so.
Speaker Well, it should it should be still today because when you think of the price of them and who’s buying them, you can’t even see them half the time. The girls naked and the dresses that are flying in the wind behind. You know what she’s got on right at that time, you had to show everything you practically had, show every scene and everything else because a lot of women bought the magazine to have it copied so they’d give it to the dressmaker to have it copied, especially in France and Europe.
Speaker So those pictures were terribly important to see exactly what was in it, you know, so that they could copy it.
Speaker That changed with the ready to wear. You were talking about at the time when Dick started his photography, it was fashion I got. It was high fashion and clothes. It cost a lot of money and we’re intricately cut. And and the model was fitted into that thing. I mean, that dress was made for her. So you knew all about it when you went to be photographed? I mean, it would seem disrespectful of me to do something wrong with the clothes. I mean, God forbid I should take off this jacket that I had on, you know, and sling it across my shoulder like you do now. I was a sleeve. Was a pocket. I mean, did it fit you in the waist? So all of us at that period, I mean, I didn’t come in until the late 50s. Fifty eight was the first time in 58. But all of those women had an innate sense of fashion and clothes, more importantly. And they were women. And even if you were like they were, I guess, around the age of 24, 25, 26, 27, you know, and they looked about 40 by the time you got through with them. But that was the woman who’s buying the clothes. So you had a market.
Speaker One of those emotions, well, he knew you.
Speaker It wasn’t like you talk about an inner life of a model.
Speaker Most of us were women. We weren’t. Fifteen.
Speaker And as Suzy was a great friend of his. So for me, it photographed a lot of times. So we knew, too, which button to press, you know, to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you work and say, listen. All right. Don’t forget the back. You know, show me off is not. Look at me. Look at me. I lift your eyebrow. OK, what about that smile a little bit bigger. Higher lifted up. All this came about. Don’t move that. You’re OK. All right. Yeah. No, no. No idea. You know, and you get it. And you were still trying to think that you look beautiful, right? You know, I mean, he has a picture of me. He wants the back of the wrist. But he wanted my face. I mean, I don’t even I would wouldn’t be impossible for me to do it again or anybody else. He kept saying, turn your neck to turn your turn your neck. I mean, my face here and the back of the dress. I don’t know how it was ever taken, but.
Speaker No, no, no, don’t don’t move that muscle. The other one, the left one, the left turn around, you know, and he would get you.
Speaker And then. Then when he got you into that position. All right. Now you’re beautiful. Can you give me that smile? Remember that look.
Speaker You remember a bit more life, a smile a little bit with the eye. No, no, no, no. That that that that mother loosened the bottom, loving you.
Speaker And so that was part of it. But he knew what to say to you.
Speaker You knew what to say. If he wanted, like, an intimate picture of you. And that was what he did. It wasn’t only the fashion. He got life out of you. He made you laugh, you know. At that time, he tried to be serious. I’m taking you. Would you. You know, I think I feel this way. You know, but he broke that down because he made you laugh at that. Well, be talking about food. Some guys, before I forget what you do for you. We’re going to go to this restaurant, maybe go to unpeel Celeste. Right. And there is much of them. You ask me about my husband, Martino, and all this kind of thing. At that time.
Speaker But also, you know, I was crazy, but I was mad for him. And, you know, you couldn’t help me mad about him. I mean, you know, if he wanted you to fall in love with him, you’d fall in love with him. And it was you had no choice.
Speaker I think most models felt that way. I mean, it’s it was the most fun to be for 15 years.
Speaker I mean, there’s no music. You go in. It’s like the man suddenly appears out of nowhere and you’re just sitting there, you your absolute pet, you know, and he just wants you to stand up straight.
Speaker And he’s got his lighting there. And sometimes you’re only to see the face. I mean, you know, it’s it was a totally different thing. But if he knew you, he I mean, I think he knew the girls that he really liked to work with you to agree that after the first sitting, he knew what buttons to press the next time you.
Speaker How true or not true it was. There you are. The president describes not liking very much in the halls of Paris. He was at your feet. No one. Back to talk about that. What are you trying to say? Story.
Speaker It was Mark McKinnon myself and, um. We’re doing purse collections, and he always thought I mean, we always talked about this. I mean, the women of the press at that time, I mean, they’re different now. They’re much younger. They’re better looking. They look like a bunch toads.
Speaker There was one woman who used to sit there with a lot her legs spread apart. I mean, it was just a nightmare. I mean, they were elderly ladies. They were two ladies of the parish press. They were from Madame magazine. And I think they were twins. I mean, they looked like twins, I guess had been working together for so many years and started looking alike. I mean, they had no necks, just, you know. And so all this press and here you were thinking about beautiful clothes and beautiful girls. And who were these women because they could never buy those was they would never wear those. What did they know about this place? I mean, why would these women. And also, they were men, you know, who were in the press that was so influential. And so he decided to take them all into this picture and that’s what he got. And it was terribly funny because they were amused by it. Obviously, they were dying to meet Dick and they were all just as curious to know what he did in the studio. And it became a cocktail party.
Speaker He gave them a little cocktail party and then had us come in to be photographed with them, you know, and he told me, listen, do your number like he would do enjoyable. She like you were above it all, you know, who the hell are these people? So that’s the expression that I have in that picture. And I hated that dress. It was like a window. I mean, no curtains. It was like Scarlett O’Hara pulling down the curtains and putting it on top of her. I mean, it was DMX Reschke with fringes on edge. Anyway, so I didn’t choose it. It wasn’t my choice. I wasn’t that at it, though. I’m not involved in the choice of that. But anyway, as I said, that’s a very incredibly popular picture. You know, he has all those postcards of his pictures all over the world, and that’s one of the best symbols. I mean, I received it from India, from Hong Kong, from powers, from Germany. I mean, people who have been friends of mine, but then found it in bookstores and sent it to me.
