Cartoonist Curtis Tucker with an early romantic interest, some time in the '70s
Photographer Bruce McBroom tells Alex Altman the story of shooting the last of the great pinup girls...
"...It was just Farrah and myself. It was before the days where you had to have stylists and hair and makeup and background art directors and assistants. It was just me and Farrah and my Nikon, at the home she shared with Lee Majors, a house on Mulholland Drive overlooking Hollywood, with a beautiful view...."
(Thanks to Ken Tanaka and Curtis D. Tucker)
ADDENDUM: Another example of one of the fundamental mysteries of still photography...how one shot can work so well and another, similiar shot doesn't. Although obviously an homage to the Farrah poster, this promo picture of another '70s pinup girl, Loni Anderson of "WKRP in Cincinnati," falls flat. (Although perhaps that isn't quite the right phrase....) —Mike
I remember that poster - well, that image rather (I never had the poster itself.)
Thanks for a link to a very interesting story.
Posted by: Ludovic | Friday, 26 June 2009 at 06:26 AM
Dear Mike,
I think I've been spending too much time on the book manuscript. The first thing that came into my head when I looked at the illo here was, "That photo needs restoring. Shouldn't be too hard with a rectangular mask and..."
I kid you not.
pax / overly-focused Ctein
Posted by: ctein | Friday, 26 June 2009 at 12:32 PM
"I kid you not."
Brother, you don't have to convince me. When I was a custom printer I could almost not LOOK at a black-and-white picture without instantly thinking of what it needed to make it a better print.
I was laughing at myself just yesterday about this very thing. When I first saw Mike Dougan's "Tambay" picture, my eye went right to the tonal merger between the hair of the little girl on the left and the tree trunk in back of her, and I was immediately evaluating in my mind what film/developer it is and how much detail in the negative I'd have and how I'd go about getting just enough of that edge back....
All this despite the fact that a) it's not my picture, b) I don't have to print it, and c) I haven't even seen a real print and don't even really know what it actually needs.
You know what they say: oh well.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Friday, 26 June 2009 at 01:26 PM
Dear Mike,
Well, now that you point it out, I'm not so much bothered by the girl's hair as the glaring white sky in the upper left. I'd take that whole area and either lightly fog it or burn it in. Not much, just enough so that it wasn't the brightest part of the photo. It drags the eye out of the picture as it is, and the composition would be a lot stronger if it didn't.
Truth is I almost never see a photo that isn't improved by a judicious bit of dodging or burning in.
pax / Ctein
Posted by: ctein | Friday, 26 June 2009 at 04:51 PM
An iconic picture with an influence on all heterosexual men of a certain age...! Nice to read how it came about.
Shame her death has been somewhat overshadowed.
Posted by: Antony Shepherd | Friday, 26 June 2009 at 08:24 PM
While I can see the appeal of the picture, and it is a good one, I guess she's just not my type. From the same era, I'd go more for more noir-ish allure of someone like Nastassja Kinski.
Still, I think what's interesting here is that you can make people -- women especially -- "look" a lot of different ways in photos. This photographer was able to make this woman look appealing, in a way lots of folks resonated with. That's the art of photography, or part of it, at least. And in this case, a lot of it, was no doubt rapport with the subject, and having the eye to "see" her beauty.
Posted by: R. Chomko | Saturday, 27 June 2009 at 06:54 AM
One of my grad school professors was her classmate at the University of Texas in Austin, and said that she was a pretty serious sculptor and theoretician who just sort of fell into the acting thing.
It's funny how people can switch from a career as an artist to something else, but once you are famous for something else, it's hard to get people to take you seriously as an artist. She tried later in life:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/10/arts/0111-EDMI_10.html
http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2008/01/keith-edmier-fly-farrah-now-exhibit-at.html
Posted by: hugh crawford | Saturday, 27 June 2009 at 12:26 PM
Yeah, I remember holding that poster up like that, too.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, 28 June 2009 at 02:31 PM
Curtis' photo is now accompanying a CNN news story that start with "The picture says it all"
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/06/30/farrah.fawcett.poster/index.html
Posted by: Anil | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 07:12 PM
http://www.newsnet5.com/video/19867970/index.html
(Five second ad before the video starts.)
From WEWS-TV Cleveland, Ohio. Pro Arts of Medina, Ohio was the company that printed that iconic poster. Funny how times have changed. (The broomstick as poster-rolling machine!)
Posted by: Dave I. (somewhere east of Medina) | Wednesday, 01 July 2009 at 04:12 PM