The Picture Down The Hall Part Seven

I have shown this photo so many times and told the story fo often that I feel like a broken record... Straight shot: Linda was a Monroe impersonator and spent an afternoon with me, recreating her on film. I have been a Monroe devotee since I was eleven, so it was a big job and a big thrill. She brought a film crew to shoot the session and at one point someone asked her to say something into the camera like Marilyn. She said she needed a moment to get the character and voice. She put her head in her hands and I took this photo. Years later, Eli Wallach was looking at my portfolio and thought this was really Marilyn Monroe.

Yay, me.
While in London, we were given the great honour, the immense pleasure and the outright thrill of going backstage to do a portrait of the great Maggie Smith after a performance of TALKING HEADS. She could not have been more gracious, more friendly or more funny. She sat and talked to Pat while I took her photos in her rose coloured dressing room and, when we left, she hugged me. Twice.

Twice.

One of my greatest collaborators, artistically, is this man, who is so dear to me that I view him as an adoptive son. He even callse me Pa, affectionately. Together, we created great art (including a photo I show, often, of him in a bubblebath with a black eye and boxing wraps).

On this day, my birthday, I came out of the gym at seven am and it was raining. I had an idea, rushed home and grabbed him and said "how fast can you make yourself pretty?" He got ready very fast and I ran to the store and bought a cake and asked for a container of extra icing.... green.

All that sweet green icing flowing down...

In Los Angeles is a wonderful theater called The Blank Theatre Company. They do plays - they make art. For many years I made art with them as their photographer. During those years I got to do this poster shot for the play LOOT. It has remained a special fav of mine.


I got to meet and shoot pics of the one and only Lily Tomlin, one summer day around three in the afternoon. She had been working all day and began our shoot with an apology for being so tired and a wish that she might be able to give me what I need.

She is so magical, so wonderful, so inimitable that the shoot took a matter of minutes and, as you can see, she got her wish.