Of all the things that are part of the sea change our world is in, I watched something that has been close to my life die.

Nik Hafermaas (Graphic Design Chair at the Art Center College of Design) had invited participants in the creation of the book OVERSPRAY, Riding High with the Kings of California Airbrush Art written by Norman Hathaway and published by Dan Nadel of PictureBox, Inc. (www.pictureboxinc.com), to have a discussion on their work with his students. The speakers included artists Dave Willardson, Charles E. White III, Peter Palombi, Peter Lloyd, and myself as the writer of the opening essay and a contributor of photographic impressions of the era of the “Kings of California Airbrush Art,” as the book is subtitled. (http://www.overspraybook.com/)

During a break amongst samples of art on display from the book one of these Kings, Peter Palombi, like Thor throwing a lightening bolt, said to me, “There is no more illustrative art. There are only files.”

“There isn’t tangible proof of anyone’s talent and workmanship that is real anymore,” he concluded.

Sometime later, Michael Dooley, a principal of Design + Writing and a respected instructor at UCLA, asked if he could bring a class of his on a studio tour to my place for a visit and discussion.

I have tangible art that I’ve had created for every job I have ever done. In these “files” are my thinking by hand, rough concept sketches, tighter pencil drawings refining those concepts; comprehensive art that is a bridge between the idea, the sketch and the finished art based on the original idea.

I had nothing in particular to discuss or show to his design class except, possibly, the Eames era furniture I have around the house, but I did have those physical examples of the many years of work-product I’d created; tangible, physical art that predated the “file era,” otherwise known as “the day that art died.” The students, awed and appreciative, leafed through those pieces as if they were relics pulled from a dig site.

There are still great artists but their work today is a described by quantum mechanics as “wavefunction which is a mathematical function providing information about the probability amplitude of position and momentum of a particle.” You can look that up.

Some of my art from that period is being sold at PictureBox, Inc. (www.pictureboxinc.com), ScreenUsed Production Art (www.screenused.com), and Heritage Art Galleries (www.ha.com; 2010 October Signature Illustration Art Auction #5038 on October 15).  You can easily peruse the whole list (with links) at the Art4Sale page here on this blog or you can go to my website (www.mikesalisbury.net) and go to the “Store” page.

Until then, here is a partial list of some of my personal favorites:

Logo Design Sketch [Jurassic Park]

http://www.screenused.com/?sectionID=items&subsectionID=index.cfm&item_id=8247

Final Poster Art [Enemy Mine]

http://www.screenused.com/?sectionID=items&subsectionID=index.cfm&item_id=8231

Casting Sheet Signed by Francis Coppola [On The Road]

http://www.screenused.com/?sectionID=items&subsectionID=index.cfm&item_id=8217

Guy Fery

http://www.pictureboxinc.com/products/650-dashiell-hammett

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Comments:

Same with the hand-shaped surfboard…days gone by.  Tim B.

Mike, I can’t believe the coincidence of this. But, these things happen to me all the time. Two days ago, I was wondering what happened to Peter.  I had heard he had gotten very ill a decade or more back.  I googled him but didn’t find much.  I may have misspelled his name. Very poignant, your posting. Best, robert c

Thanks, Robert. Peter’s  up in big bear. Kept all his templates so he can repaint any thing he did. He is ok. Doesn’t drive but his daughter does for him I believe. MS

That visit to your studio was incredibly amazing, Mike. Definitely one of the major highlights of my most recent “Exploring L.A. Design” course (which I conduct every spring, through UCLA Extension). And your workspace did, indeed, blow the minds of my students. Each week, I take them to two different design-related studios. Earlier that morning, we had gone to a Santa Monica motion graphics office, where there was hardly a scrap of paper in sight. And then… Salisbury’s Venice digs! With not a computer in sight!!!Even better. Mike had set out tons of historical artifacts from his wide-ranging career, dating back a half-century, and including the many preliminary pencils. And, as usual, he entranced us with many fascinating stories of his adventurous career.

Both class visits usually take a total of three hours, but we all hung around Mike’s long afterwards, as he shared even more of his life experiences with us, and signed the posters he had generously given to everyone. In my design history classes, I always talk at length about Mike. But the images I project off my computer onto a screen don’t come anywhere near the incredible experience of witnessing these “legendary” design artworks in person.  Thank you again, Mike. You’re the real deal!  Michael Dooley, UCLA

Mike—Peter Palombi? He was just ahead of me with Pat Nagle winning National Scholarships in Art out of Savanna High (Anaheim, CA) 3 years out of 5…Peter was one of the greats, like Nagle, Charlie White III, Willardson, Peter Lloyd–your astute eye helped form a whole generation of the ‘West Coast’ Airbrush school…this saddens me; indeed. Life is Precious and should never be taken for granted. Each Breath is a Miracle of Endless Mystery! GOD Bless You, Peter–and Pat Nagle–and George James (our HS teacher)….and thank you, my mentor, Mike Salisbury–top Creative Director of All Time– for having the sense, the eye, and the talent to see everything before it even happened.  Terry L.

Illustration is not art. Davey Miller

Tell that to Norman Rockwell. MS

It is sad. I’m not sure computers or the internet have helped anything. Especially art. Movies, music and photography have all fallen victim to it. It’s almost too accessible. Too many programs available to create anything but nothing of true artistic merit. Too much noise and shit out there that it’s harder to see the standout talents. Nelson Q.

I agree. Everyone is an expert in their own minds, too.  MS.

Tagged: · Saturday, August 28, 2010 · 4 Comments »

Colonel Tom Parker had signed the invitation. You are personally invited. Elvis Live at the Las Vegas International.

The moon was full. The highway empty. I was in my 356 with the sunroof open on the way to Vegas to see The King.

The last Elvis song I even cared about at that time was recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis. This show in Vegas was the new Elvis in the white jumpsuit and sash under the bare navel.

The flared pants a bit short over the white patent boots.

This was four  years after I participated in Monterey Pop, even more time had passed since I photographed Jim Morrison in the gym of Long Beach State waiting to go onstage with the Doors.

Leaving the new music world of working with Ry Cooder and Sly Stone, I was on another planet. There was nothing in the desert to pass the time into the different zone of “Viva Las Vegas” except for trying to imagine the meaning of the word on the sign for the turn-off to the mystery town of Zyzyx.

You can see time in the desert. You can look down Highway 15 where it gets straight and Vegas is a couple of hours away right there in front of you. The Haole Don Ho was waiting.

The curtain opened. The King made his entrance and blew me away. He had as much energy as an NBA player running up and down the court at a playoff game while singing every song he ever recorded.  He did not take a break; he was never off-key. He threw out the scarves on his neck to standing, screaming, thousands of fans and should have just passed out from exhaustion. Then the lights went down. There was no sound.  In almost a whisper, Elvis began the lyrics to Dixie.  Moments in, the band came up from behind, sliding seamlessly into the Battle Hymn of The Republic, building emphatically  along with Elvis  as he brought his audience to tears and silence.

The curtains closed. I started to go but turned and snatched up my souvenir menu before the hordes of crying, bouffant-headed fans cleaned the tables of anything that couldn’t run away.

Somehow I hooked up with a young lady and since her parents were out, went to their apartment in one of those buildings straight out of “The Hangover” — a stucco cellblock sitting on plantless asphalt next to the freeway.

I was home in Laurel Canyon before dawn in the same night I saw The King.

There was no traffic, no CHP; the Porsche an invisible stealthy grey color. I had not a drink. No drugs were involved, not even coffee.

Next stop for the King and I would be Graceland six years after to visit his grave.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Comments:

Great story, Mike…thanks!  Katie S.

Great piece, Mike! Really dig it!  Well told. I’m a big Elvis fan and actually just finished cutting a doc on him a couple of weeks ago.  Darren M.

That was hot, Mike. Love the b/w of Andy Warhol in the hotel room. You took the best shot of him by far. You should make a book of these blogs.  It’s very interesting.  Annie F.

Cool blog about the King. Pete B.

He died on my birthday. I was asked to be in his band for this show and turned it down. Great picture. Russ T.

To Deux Magots List. Wander thru Brand Man’s blog…pretty interesting. Would you believe Brand Man was born in Eureka, UT? I also know a talented LA interior designer who was born in Meeteetse, WY. The Bishop…P.S. I’ve been trying to get Brand Man (Venice) and Hotel Man (Marina del Rey) to have coffee at Hotel Man’s LA coffee joint. We must continue to strengthen the bonds of LSDM list members (no need, however, to strengthen LSMD intellectual capacity, already at a level of original Deux Magots denizens, Sartre, Camus, DeBouvoir and Hemingway).  To Brand Man and Hotel Man, be careful of tripping on broken LA sidewalks, not to mention….

Have you seen the new Cirque du Soleil Elvis show in Vegas? The best part of the show (besides the music) is all the film footage of Elvis at various stages of his career. He looked great in the footage of his Vegas shows.  Michael P.

MS: Speaking of Cirque…I was just in Macau working on a Franco Dragone show.

He was the man…John R.

MS: in person–a phenom.

Love your blog on Elvis!!! I also went to one of the 1971 concerts in Las Vegas and remember Dixie and Battle Hymn of the Republic. I was probably one of those crying, bouffant headed babes grabbing menus. I kept my menu for a long time. Just think, we could have met for the first time then.

I just made an interesting discovery. If  you go to Amazon.com, on the search line put books, then your name, your book comes up. A new copy is now selling for $92.99. Then click on “more about author” then “visit Mike Salisbury’s page” and it brings up books you are referenced in. Then you can click on the actual pages and read what it says about you. I don’t know if you were aware of this or not, but I thought I would pass it on. There are 21 books that reference you. It’s interesting to look at some of the pages. You are a genius!! Really hope you write another book!! Jeanie S.

MS: Wow. Thanks, Jeanie. I have the menu but somehow the invite “walked.” (another book would have the racier bits missing in the blogs…).

Felt like I was in Vegas. Thanks for sharing this. Seeing kings is like seeing shooting stars, make sure you don’t miss it. Richard L.

Great as usual! J. Tabler

Sweet, brother. b oom! Tim G.

I love that shot of Elvis. That shot of you is awesome too. You look like the lead singer of a rock band. And you had way too many cool cars. Cheers. Nelson Q.

Another enjoyable read, as always. You’re quite prolific this year.  Judy L.

Tagged: · Thursday, August 5, 2010 · 5 Comments »

I can’t take credit for inventing denim blue jeans, although I did make one brand a household name – or rather, a household number. Five.  Oh.  One.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s begin with a few of the fun facts I had to learn before I jumped in the denim game.

First, blue jeans aren’t naturally blue.  Denim is manufactured in vast mills by the tens of millions of square yards.  The original cotton yarn is a dun-colored shade of pale until indigo-blue dye is added.  Or black dye, if black jeans happen to be in fashion.  Or any other color – remember those lavender numbers they sold in the ‘80s?

Second, these days, real cowboys do not wear Levi’s and they certainly do not wear lavender.  They wear Wranglers, pre-shrunk, with a high waist so you don’t sit on your wallet, as well as make a wide space between the front belt loops to make way for that manhole cover sized belt buckle.  Wranglers are woven of a soft-type denim so they fit tight, and have a hidden inseam stitch that won’t chafe the inside of a buckaroos legs straddling a saddle all day.

Third, the first pair of jeans ever to appear on the market, Levi’s patented XX model, were invented in 1873 and retailed for less than a dollar.  Today you can easily pay $500 for a pair of vintage reproduction Levi’s with simulated grime and wrinkles already baked in at the factory.

It’s probably a safe bet that if you were pulling on a pair of XXs in the 1800s you were a working stiff and, back then, you distressed your own denim.  Laborers went for the tough material that would last while workin’ on the railroad all the livelong day.  And it was certain you’d never live long enough to imagine the word “designer” associated with the word “jeans.”

Ironically, it was not until the movies came along that denim became an accepted emblem of rugged individualism, mainly in the Old West.  The first jeans to appear on film were worm by silent movie cowboys, who were often real-life rancheros wearing their own work pants.  By 1939, Hollywood had invaded Monument Valley and Levi’s could be seen on Jon Wayne in John Ford’s Stagecoach. Burt Lancaster wore jeans in Vengeance Valley, as did Kirk Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave.  Paul Newman wore a pair in Hud.  So did Ronald Reagan on his 1960s hit TV show, Death Valley Days.  Eventually jeans showed up in Hollywood urban dramas like On the Waterfront and in high-school teen rebel films such as Rebel Without a Cause.

There was one actor and one movie, however, that always stood out in my mind as exemplifying cowboy cool:  James Dean in director George Steven’s classic, Giant.  For me, the most indelible image of great-fitting jeans is Dean slouching under his cowboy hat in the backseat of that old black car with his legs stretched, boot heels wandering on the back of the car’s front seat.  Between Jimmy Dean and his boots sits a Victorian house in the background upon a treeless horizon.  He is Jett Rink.  Freedom.  Jeans.  And the American Way.

That’s the image I’d been carrying around when, in 1981 – 108 years after the XX hit the stores – Levi Strauss & Co. pointed a finger at the precocious but obedient creative director at Foote Cone & Belding advertising agency (me) and told him to market its new, traditional, shrink-to-fit button-fly blue jeans.  One 30-second commercial.  And oh, they added, we want to market these jeans to women, not men.

The campaign made sense.  Men had long held the advantage when it came to jeans.  All you had to do was look around.  Jackson Pollock and classic-era Brando never wore anything but Levi’s button-fly jeans.  Neal Cassady wore Levi’s in Kerouac’s On the Road.  Andy Warhol was the first person I ever saw wearing a sport coat with jeans.  Decades after Death Valley Days, Ronald Reagan was now president and still in Levi’s.  Bing Crosby had a Levi’s tuxedo made for him.  Have you ever seen a Hells Angel in anything else?

On the other hand, women mainly didn’t wear Levi’s button-fly jeans.  For years the only choice a woman had was to buy a pair in the approximate men’s size, wash them three times (according to legend), then sit for hours in a hot tub hoping to shape the fit.  Even then the results didn’t look altogether natural.  Check out Marilyn Monroe in, approximately enough, The Misfits.

Now, at last, Levi’s had come up with sizes especially cut for women.  But how were we going to get the message across?   Answer:  Make Jett Rink a babe.  A visual metaphor.

Scene:  A female with long hair and chilling confidence sits in the backseat of this old car.  Her long, thin legs are stretched out past a Victorian house that stands in the background on a treeless horizon.  Blue-denim-covered legs stretched to the front seat, emphasizing the fit of her jeans.

“But wait!” says the account supervisor – the guy looking out for the client’s interests.  “We’ve got to show how the jeans fit.  How do we know this on a…girl?”

“Ohhh.  K.  I can fix that,” I say.  “She simply pulls her legs back, see?  Kicks open the back door of the car, puts her feet on the ground, stands up with her backside to the camera.  We see the trademark Levi’s back-pocket stitching, the Two-Horse Brand leather patch on the waistband and the famous red tab label that spells LEVI’S.  She takes her cowboy hat off and shakes out her long hair.”

“Travis” Levi’s 501, TV commercial (click here to watch video)

“So that’s it?” the Suit says.  “She just stands there with her back toward the camera?”

“No, there’s more.” And like Max Bialystock explaining a phony musical’s story line, I continue:  “A rusty screen door squeaks open.  A cowboy comes out of the house toward her.  The dusty wind blows a tumbleweed between her and the cowboy.”

And?  And?

“And putting a defiant hand on her hip and leaning forward, she shouts, ‘Travis, you’re a year too late.’”  A line created by the late Mike Koelber.

Beat.  “A dog barks in the distance.”  Fade to black.

The Suit asks, “Then a voice-over says ‘Levi’s Shrink-to-Fit Button-Fly Jeans now cut for women,’ right?”

“No.  That’s too long,” I say.  “They’ll remember Travis.”

Still, we needed to plant one more hook in the buyer’s psyche, something simple she could ask for when she went in the store.  Until now, all Levi’s of any type were called just…Levi’s. We needed to separate this five-pocket architecture from the pack.  Then I thought about those original XX jeans.  Eventually Levi Strauss gave them the stock number 501.  That was it – 501s.

“Let’s call them 501s,” I said.

It turned out to be the biggest number in the jeans business; women’s, men’s, kids.  Yves St. Laurent once said, “I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant.  They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes.”

Which reminds me. That line about Travis.  People ask me all the time what deep significance it held.  Even The Wall Street Journal ran a story speculating on its hidden meaning.  I will now, however, reveal the answer:  It didn’t mean a thing.  Nothing at all.  It just sounded cool.

There’s one more fact I learned before I started hawking 501s.  Those weren’t Levi’s James Dean was wearing in that famous shot from Giant.  They were Lee Riders.

Originally published in Forbes FYI, March 2005.  Thanks to Patrick Cooke.

Comments:

Terrific! Bob G.

You’re a God!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fqonbike

Cool story – enjoyed it!  Franz W.

Yup, you’re a genius! Barb W.B.

Soooo….. miners wore Levi’s? Farmers wore…. ? Cowboys wore Wranglers….. hmm……I always wondered why I got chafed a bit riding my motorcycle…… not really. The Wrangler history looks like the later cowboys wore Wranglers……http://www.wrangler.com/wps/wcm/connect/wrangler-en_us/about_us/history/ What did cowboys of the 19th century wear? I did write a poem once:

Blue Heap of Woven Sheep

Blue heap of woven sheep.

Stitched and riveted.

Lined, looped, and pocketed.

Two asses couldn’t pull you apart.

And there you sit,

Blue heap of woven sheep.

After writing it, I realized that the pants/jeans were, of course, made of cotton, not sheep. They were Levi’s…. and when we were kids, the pant legs were rolled….. that had become cool at that time. I remember getting some 1949-52 high school yearbooks and all (many of) the boys had flight jackets and jeans with rolled pant legs.  J. Tabler

Cowboys couldn’t wear levis because of the big inseam. That’s what chafed you. They did go to wranglers. MS.

Just bought 3 new pair of black myself…Sue M.

Good for you. In Macau. Not a lot of horses or motorcycles.  MS.

Cowboys wore jeans. Custer wore Arrow shirts.  D & S Steiner

Tagged: · Thursday, July 22, 2010 · 10 Comments »

I looked down the narrow eerily blue-lit hallway and saw a warm glow coming from the end office lighting up the faces of the people staring back into the office.

Pressed for time, I had hustled my way from the parking lot behind the sound stages through the New York streets to a must come now power meeting at Fox marketing and either a UFO had landed or the Virgin was in that room.

My office had been blessed to be chosen to create a marketing campaign for the movie Aliens, the James Cameron sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien.  It was an important release.  The key art image had to be as good as the Steve Frankfort image for Alien.

But, our directive was that the Aliens icon had to be less minimally symbolic than Frankfort’s egg hatching who-knew-what.

Burning hours looking over acres of unit photo shoot contact sheets of the production, I found the image of Sigourney Weaver holding the child.

Classic Joan d’ Arc protecting child from danger.  Potemkin.

What is the danger?  The most indelible danger image for Alien — and the icon for Alien — is the egg.  I looked through even more stills for eggs.

Taking a print of Sigourney and the child, we modified the vaguely distracting background of the still and built a field of not yet hatching eggs, placing the two of them as intruders in the territory of an unseen terror.

This was all combined by cut and paste.  The background assembled as a unit and photographed with the figures then placed on top; then after that, carefully defining them, and the gun, and adding the glow to the eggs with retouching.

The entire composition was still not in a finished state when the call came to get something to Fox immediately.

Since the art was not exactly finished, I didn’t have anything splashy enough for a presentation worthy of this movie.  Or my bills.

So knowing bigger is better, we built bigger.  With the figures pasted over the background we added the title, the copy line and the credits at the bottom of our art and blew it up to head height.  When we got the enlargement we cut it out around the figures with the eggs at the bottom as a base.

We rigged it with lights behind the cut out and built an easel back stand to hold it up.

That statue of liberty was delivered to Fox before the deadline of my do or die meeting.

Gently pushing my way through the small crowd seemingly mesmerized by that light emanating from the marketing chief’s outer office, I saw the light and it was beaming from our Sigourney and Child religiously iconic faux statue made of foam core.

The concept was bought, the posters printed and put up on theatres the country over.  Rejoicing in victory, I taped one to our Sub Zero.

I may have the only poster.  Immediately upon the posting, James Cameron called for all of the posters to be taken down.  We replaced the design with one of the new logo alone on a black background.

I was bummed.  Yet our art concept was used in buses, on benches, on billboards, for VHS and DVD packaging, in Europe and recently on the front page of the L.A. Times Calendar section.

It is not the almost-Catholic image of the messianic egg in the sky of Alien, but ours is in the tradition of the indelible image of the Madonna protecting the child.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Comments:

Tagged: · Thursday, July 8, 2010 · 4 Comments »

“It doesn’t make sense. I mean what happened. It had nothing to do with the Clutters. They never hurt me. They just happened to be there. I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman…I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat.”

–Actor Robert Blake as Perry Smith, In Cold Blood

Was murderer Perry Smith really a sensitive soul haunted by memories of a broken childhood?  Perry came from a violent childhood. His mother drank, his father flew into explosive rages; Perry was beaten in orphanages.

In 1967, the year Robert Blake appeared in the movie from the book by Truman Capote, his press said he was born Michael Gubitosi in Nutley, New Jersey, to an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who showed him little affection.

Sexual and physical abuse, not to mention the psychological abuse that went along with that, was regularly inflicted on his young, impressionable mind and body by his parents.  Like Perry Smith, beatings were a regular occurrence, the report said.

In the 1975 pilot episode of Baretta, Blake’s character must cope with the killing of his new wife outside an Italian restaurant.

In 2005, Robert Blake was tried and acquitted for the 2001 murder of his new wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, murdered outside an Italian restaurant, Vitello’s in Studio City.

Ten years after the release of In Cold Blood, 24 years before Bonnie Lee Bakley was murdered, surrounded by borrowed props that were a boy’s wishes for toys to find under the tree — a Jeep Honcho, a motorcycle with a Jose Eber cowboy hat on the handlebars and a saddled horse nearby, none with license plates — Robert Blake, wearing a t-shirt, jeans and Frye boots, jumped up on the roof of the truck, folded his hands together and crossed his legs, looking out over a ranch he implied was his also.

With no expression on his face, he told me as I took his picture that day that he was originally from Venice Beach, California, where as a cute and happy child living in a warm and family beach cottage, he danced on street corners for change.  According to IMDB, at the time of his life Blake was referring to in this comment, he was actually a movie star playing the role of the happy, dancing boy.  His acting career began when he was five years old, in MGM’s Our Gang, playing in 40 of the episodes between 1939 and 1944, ”…becoming the series’ final lead character with his “cute good looks and his lovable personality” – IMDB

* * * * * * * * * *

Comments:

This is great! Airrion C

Very spooky dude even before all that…child star syndrome.  Chris N.

Always interesting. J. Tabler

Should the eyes ever fail…you’ll still have one hell of a pen! Sean A.

Great, but you might want to include a line about his Little Rascals career.  Bob G.

Thanks…I thought of that. But it sort of falls into the supposed “group tragedy” of that group  I wanted to isolate two events for which he invented a individual “selves” for each event.  And grim events.  MS.

You could easily do a book of these.  Jules S.

Thanks.  Actually a doc is being “developed” as we say in Hollywood!  MS

This is cool. I loved Baretta as a kid.  Thought the parrot was a nice touch. Nelson Q.

I think he ate the parrot. MS

Hope that was a joke. But I wouldn’t be surprised.  Nelson Q.

Whoever said this (opening quote) should run a studio.  Alan M.

Tagged: · Wednesday, June 23, 2010 · 6 Comments »

And under his orange knit cap, in his pink v-neck cashmere sweater over turquoise slacks, taking off gold-rimmed shades, I could see that he certainly was.

He invited me into the rented pastel stucco house in Palm Springs, saying he had to put the English bulldog under his arm into the dog’s own temperature-controlled room. “Bulldogs have sinus problems,” Truman said.  “The air conditioning in here is not good for him.”  “Bulldog Truman…” he said. “I was given the nickname Bulldog at about age seven.”

Then we spent half the day arranging the patio furniture and flower pots because he wanted me to take his picture like the photograph of him for his first book which made the The New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for nine weeks.

“The famous photograph: Harold Halma’s picture on the dust jacket of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) caused as much comment and controversy as the prose inside. “

–Gerald Clarke, Capote: A Biography

Truman said he had directed the Harold Halma photograph — which showed a reclining, big-eyed Capote gazing fiercely into the camera — and he wanted to recreate that pose.

In 1952, Henri Cartier-Bresson published his book Images à la Sauvette (The Decisive Moment). In the preface, Cartier-Bresson wrote:  “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment,” adding:  ”Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact.”

Cartier-Bresson had also taken a famous photograph of Truman, which, to me, captured the fact of Capote much more so than the Harold Halma photograph Truman staged.

That is the decisive moment I wanted to record.  This is that picture:

* * * * * * * * * * *

Comments:

Bresson said that the essence of his art was “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as the precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”  Too often, the “significance” feels platitudinous, even as its expression dazzles.  Robert Frank, whose book “The Americans” (1958) treated subjects akin to many in the older photographer’s work, put it harshly but justly: “He traveled all over the goddamned world, and you never felt that he was moved by something that was happening other than the beauty of it, or just the composition.”      –from Kenneth R. Anderson

You are still my hero, M - and one of the best designers and creative people in the world – keep up the great work – your site is very rich and very cool. dc

That’s a great shot. He seems vulnerable, sad and almost having a religious moment to me.  Maybe the hand on his chest.  He looks to be coming to terms with his immortality.  I get all that in an instant.  Nelson Q.

Tagged: · Thursday, June 10, 2010 · 7 Comments »

“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.“ –Andy Warhol

That was almost the extent of conversation I had with Andy Warhol when I took his picture for three days. One-way conversation if any.  But he wanted proof that he had been in that plastic world.

Andy never spoke directly.  Who did speak for him?  I can’t recall.  But he was always silent; surrounded by his lieutenants, all of them moving around him like a scene from Fantasia during the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Today we are surprisingly alone in his hotel room.  I ask, “Any ideas for shots I should take of you in L.A.?”

Suddenly Andy’s deep, seeming indifference is interrupted as if by Zeus  – who decides to have a little fun by throwing lightning bolts into Fantasia.  Andy turns to me and says, “I want to be photographed making a Hollywood entrance through the Paramount Gate…like Norma Desmond’s entrance back into Hollywood in Sunset Boulevard.”

Today the official address for the “gates” is 5555 Melrose Avenue.  The new double-arch Paramount Gates on Melrose.  These are not that gates that the blasé Gloria Swanson was driven through, vamping in the back seat of her relic, open limousine by Erich von Stronheim to meet with Cecil B. DeMille in his jodhpurs and riding boots, tweed coat on top.

The new Melrose gates are a plastic Hollywood replica of Hollywood plastic.

Built in 1926, the actual arched plaster gateway is located at the north end of Bronson Avenue and is The Bronson Gate.  Charles Bronson, whose name was originally Charles Buchinski, took his new name from this gate.  Would Mister Death Wish choose Charles Melrose?

The iconic iron filigree on top of the gate was allegedly added after crazed female fans of Rudolph Valentino overwhelmed security and climbed over the original unfortified gate.  Filigree or not, even the reigning wizard of modern art, Andy Warhol, could not get through the original Paramount Gate.

On the big day of Andy’s grand entrance into Hollywood with all of The Factory crew in the rented Cad limo (which was much more Hollywood than a governmental-looking Lincoln Town Car), they were stopped on the asphalt jungle in front of The Bronson Gate, with no next act in their “Hollywood is Plastic” script.

Now I am thinking, everyone is looking to me to be The Sorcerer’s Apprentice of Fantasia because the Wizard Warhol has abandoned his Wizard’s hat.  “We are not getting through the Paramount gate for our grand entrance into Hollywood,” was the silent but politely deadly message I was getting.

Like Mickey Mouse in that Fantasia episode, I imagined myself taking the Wizard’s hat and then magically causing a gate of faux classical columns with a wrought iron crown to come to life.  I shot all of the Wizard and his Barbarians embraced by the gate they couldn’t get through. Framed by their beloved pastiche that is the gate to the real Hollywood.

When we finished, Andy graciously gave me Polaroids he took of Shelly Winters, Leslie Caron and his crew on that trip to Hollywood.

“So am I famous now for 15 minutes?” I asked Andy.

“I’m bored with that line.  I never use it anymore. My new line is ‘In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.’”

Start counting.

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Comments:

Great story; even greater pictures here.  Thanks.  Jeff G.

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God, I love these! Lee L.

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That’s cool! Joe M.

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Nice… Charlie M.

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This is great! Gunner W.

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He died when I was living in the city and I was dating one of his assistants who was helping in trying to put his estate in order.  I was in lust with her and she was gorgeous and exotic looking…damn if I can remember her name now and this was when I was sober!  Chris N.

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Awesome. I love that he couldn’t get through the gates!  Nelson Q.

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“Behind the tinsel and glitter of Hollywood, there’s more tinsel and glitter.” …Johnny Carson.  Kenneth A.

Love it! Mike

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Hey, Brother.  This is another great passage and exposé into the life and times of Mike Salisbury and the moving images of pop culture.  Liked the reference to Charles Bronson.  Knew him, worked on Death Wish while at Dino de Laurentiis…and, of course, the visits to the fabled studio.  Hallowed Hollywood ground…ah, Valentino.  Attached, from the Academy Collection.  Who doesn’t love Sunset Boulevard?  ”You used to be big,” screenwriter Joe Gillis says to a reclusive silent film star named Norma Desmond in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. “I am big,” Desmond declares.  ”It’s the pictures that got small.”  Cheers, Ken M.

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Mike, you’re the best! Skip

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Tagged: · Friday, May 14, 2010 · 20 Comments »

The middle of the ‘70s. The oil crisis was on full.  Car and Driver magazine called me.  The editor said, “The Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation is an automobile company started by entrepreneur, Jerry Dean Michael.   The Company’s flagship vehicle is the Dale, a prototype two-seater sports car designed by a Dale Clift,” he said.

Michael had told Car and Driver   “It is powered by an 850 cc air-cooled BMW engine which turns out 40 horsepower and would hit 85 miles per hour and get 70 mpg fuel economy.’”

The editor said Michael had millions of dollars in backing from private parties and a 150,000 square foot assembly plant in Encino with over 100 employees.  Michael told him he expected sales of 88,000 cars in the first year and 250,000 in the second year with only a $2,000 price tag per car.  “Hot,” said I.

“Mike, get us pictures of the car and Michael,” said the editor.

I went out to the plant location….driving forever to nowhere.  Finding a crystal meth factory would have been easier — it felt like I was ultimately that close to Apache Junction.  Finally found the alleged factory somewhere east of Encino in the land of Nod.

Driving in a small alleyway between a bunch of rotting wooden chicken sheds I found a dirty yellow building that could be the plant. Not quite 150,000 square feet but it had walls, sad walls, and no chickens.

It also had no door and dirt floors.  Not exactly a ratty chicken shed, it was a filthy empty cattle barn that smelled of scam.

I wandered into emptiness.  In a far corner was something yellow, looking like a broken-off plastic airplane cockpit from a scary amusement park ride operated with a big long stick turning the circling mini-winged cockpits on and off by some three-time losing perv offender.

Under one bare light bulb, about three guys — not 100 — in lab coats wearing Clark Kent glasses and scribbling on clipboards were studiously circling this thing.  There was one rear wheel missing.

“By eliminating a wheel in the rear, we saved 300 pounds and knocked more than $300 from the car’s price. The Dale is 190 inches long, 51 inches high, and weighs less than 1,000 pounds,” had said Michael.

Apparently he had eliminated anything else that made this alien’s egg a car.  There was no steering wheel, no gas pedal.  No glass windows.

The clipboard guys left after their opening number performed for my benefit and I was left alone with the Geigermobile.  Knowing I shouldn’t, I opened the engine compartment hatch.  Well, hello.  The motor’s branding did start with B but didn’t follow with M and W.  It was Briggs followed by Stratton.  Like in your granddad’s power mower.

Then a roar of a real car motor came in from outside, justly enhanced by toots of truck air horns signaling the arrival of our host in a replica of the “Elvis the King’s” Lincoln, complete with gold monogram on the door.  It hit the stoppers.  Motor off.  I was on the passenger’s side.  But I saw the high-heeled, opened-toe pump hit the ground below the door edge and the top of the teased bouffant hair just over the door.

From around the front of the Lincoln, cigarette in hand, offering a shake with the other, all dressed in a pale yellow pants suit with the heels, came Jerry Dean, who, with a voice like Broderick Crawford, introduced himself:  “Hello, I’m Elizabeth.”

Yes, I thought, and I’m ‘enery the Eighth I am I am.

Miz Carmichael claimed to be the widow of a NASA structural engineer and a mother of five.  ”She” was 6-foot tall, over 200 lb in weight, and also claimed to be a farm girl from Indiana.  In reality, Jerry Dean Michael was a transvestite, the father of those five kids, and had been wanted by the police since 1961.  It seems the Carmichael get-up was a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone disguise.

The next part I feel sort of guilty about: manipulating a subject to caricature them.  But I could not resist directing “Elizabeth” to stand in front of the Dale thing.  Legs apart, viewing the tire between his legs, hands on ample hips with that cigarette (see photo above!).

The company would ultimately prove to be a sham when Michael went into hiding with investors’ money.

He was eventually found working under an alias in a flower shop and was arrested.

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Comments:

Ha!  Great story on the Dale, Mike!  Darren M.

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I love your blog – thanks for sending to me.  You should take all of these stories and publish another book – I love this last one about the Dale car.  Hope all is well with you!  Jeanie S.

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Good! Thanks.  Bob G.

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You must write another book. Your life is too interesting to just leave on a blog….Rudi Lee

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Great balls on fire. Good story, Mike.  Robert P.

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This is absolutely hilarious and (wonderfully) creepy at the same time. That might be the most absurd car this side of the Fiat X1/9th.  It must be in a barn somewhere, or maybe the same barn where you photographed it.  I love your site.  Patrick C.

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God, Mike! You just jogged the mothballs in my head!  I guess my age is showing )  Lee L.

Remember her/him? Mike

Absolutely. And the picture.  Certain things leave vivid impressions.  Lee L.

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I’m a really busy guy with too much reading to do, but I can’t stop myself from burning some time reading these posts. Fantastic work, Mike!  Kevin D.

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“Yes, Bob, we’re really rolling here...”  Paul T.

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Tagged: · Monday, April 26, 2010 · 44 Comments »

He said: “When you see one of my photos, I want you to think: ‘What a great shot of Janis Joplin,’ not ‘What a great Jim Marshall photograph’.”

(March 24, 2010) Jim Marshall, the photographer who captured some of rock & roll’s most unforgettable images including photos of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at Monterey Pop and Johnny Cash flipping the bird at San Quentin, died in his sleep last night in New York. He was 74.

–Rolling Stone

Jim took great photographs. I knew Jim forever. I was there when he shot Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at Monterey. Worked with him at Rolling Stone and West magazines. Respected him. This is probably the best known thing we ever did together: the marketing of “Janis. A Film.” A copy of this poster just sold at the biggest auction of classic movie posters. I didn’t get to tell Jim.

I was at Tony Seiniger’s motion picture marketing agency when asked to create this. The movie was all Janis Joplin. All her and her performing. I needed an image of her performing.  And I needed an image that was not a documentary picture but a portrait.  An image that said Janis Joplin. Not an event.

“…many of the pictures are offhand, documentary, off-hours, backstage shots with a very casual, grab-shot feel to them. JM says several times that his subjects ‘were just kids having fun,’ and in some cases you get the feeling that he was too.”

I knew Jim had taken the most pictures of her. I called him. He had the shot I needed. It was Janis. It was her firepower at work but it wasn’t yet that sculpture I needed to make this film present itself as a movie. It needed some work.

Knowing Jim felt he was not a portrait photographer—he was a photojournalist—I didn’t know how he would respond.

He captured time and times. And he captured our stars. I wanted a picture of Janis the star. Looking for hours at all of his documentation of Janis, I selected the shot on the poster. I picked the one that had her face not blocked by her hand or the microphone, just her face. But it needed work to be the single focus image I needed. If you look at another image from that set used later as the cover on Jim’s book Trust, you can see the difference. The shot on the book cover is a Jim Marshal photograph. The poster is a star image.

“He has said that his photographs are his children, and I believe that to be true…”–Michelle Dunn Marsh,
Senior Editor, Chronicle Books:

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/blog/?p=4656

Now how do I tell the photojournalist Jim Marshall I am going to bring out the best in one of his children as a portrait?  “We will buy out all the rights and I will give you a first – a photo credit on a motion picture poster.” I said.  I don’t think either made any difference.

“Despite a demeanor meant to scare people, those of us lucky enough to count Jim as a friend knew that he was a generous softie who probably gave away as many prints as he sold, and that was a lot…”  Jon Sievert

If you compare the photographs here, I have marked, in messy red, the changes.  I took the hair off her face, I untangled it from behind her, created more hair and a waist that was cropped out in the original; took out the mike stand, the trees, the cymbals and got the guiro out of her hand. I also flopped the image so I could have us looking into her, as well as to create room for a title to work typographically as a logo for Janis and her times.  And this was back in the day before Photoshop…just paint and a good eye!

Take a look at the finished product again:

In one of his last interviews, a chat with Rolling Stone last October, Marshall summed up his rapport with rock stars best when talking about Joplin: “You could just call her at home and be like, ‘We have to take some pictures,’ and she’d say, ‘OK! Come over!’ She trusted me and knew I had her best interests at heart. I only wanted to make her look good.”

Me too.

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Comments:

Mike: Thanks to writer/director, Alan Metter, for this blog concept.

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Everyone had cocaine. A lot of people had fast cars.  But Jim Marshall was the only person I knew who answered the doorbell with a gun.  x Lloyd Z.

Mike: And a knife.

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Thanks very much! Great stuff you have been sending out.  I checked NetFlix to see if they were distributing “Janis, a Film” and they were not.  Is there any way that you can get them to carry it?  Frederick D.

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BTW, thanks for puttin’ out a blog worth checkin’ out!  Overton L.

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Tagged: · Friday, April 9, 2010 · 5 Comments »

“The first thing you have to do,” he said, “is rein in photographer Annie Leibovitz’ spending.”

After a long romance to convince me, I took the job to art direct and reformat Rolling Stone.  The first day in the office, sitting at a big round Haight Ashbury-era oak table across from Editor/Publisher Jann Wenner, he gave me the big surprise. The real job.

It could have been easier to rein in M.C. Hammer’s spending.

But I hired my cousin, who had been a producer for me, to be Rolling Stone’s first photo editor.  He got Annie on budget for each feature and cover shoot, he gave her more time for those by arranging to buy photos for the news and lesser articles from other photographers, and he arranged the resale of her Rolling Stone photos.

A few years later, Annie and I were working on the marketing of the movie “Memories of Me” with the cast in the photo here—Alan King, Billy Crystal and JoBeth Williams.

Marketing movies takes a lot of work and a lot of time in the developmental stages because each film is like an individual corporation, one that makes a very costly product to produce with the possible shelf life of just one day if it doesn’t sell tickets.

So there is a very real concern that the marketing creative works.

A lot of people get involved in the decision as to what creative to use.  The studio had bought a lot of the almost-eight-gazillion concepts my office created for the key art image—which would basically be the poster and advertising art.  One image was Alan King in a lobster suit.

The studio picked Annie to shoot that shot and the others.  Not really the best choice, as we already had the concept approved and we only needed to execute it.  Take the picture.

Not the best choice because Annie is an artist and a conceptual artist.  Not really just the utility player.

She came to me with her own idea, which is where we should have started if the studio wanted Annie.  She said to me, “I want to put the cast in a convertible, the JFK Continental kind, top down on a trailer, towing them along Ocean Avenue, shooting from the tow vehicle.”

As my chin fell slowly to my chest, bounced a few times and with a final thump, my eyes rolled back in my head and from my grouper-like opened and drooling mouth I asked, “How much will it cost to just rent that beachfront view from the city of Santa Monica?  How much to hire the crew for the towing?  The trailer? The car? The insurance?  The police to escort us?  How much time and money must I ask studio management for to mock up the new concept, in how many versions to re-convince all the motion picture company’s commanders-in-chief and their soldiers that we all were wrong and that there is a better way?”

Reins please.

We rented a photo studio.  And, after a lot of phone calling and being hung up on with plenty of (expletives deleted), I had been granted another round of meetings and approval, with a budget to do the car shot in addition to the other approved concepts.  In one day.

But shooting Alan, Billy Crystal and Jo Beth in a studio was fun.  Come on.  Alan King?  In the lobster suit, closing his eyes and shrugging his shoulders with cigar in hand delivering pants-wetting monologues?  Billy Crystal?  Like Hamlet talking to that skull, Billy was looking at any object he picked up as he worked the empty space and just free form improvising, the two of them giving none of us any time to breathe.  A good time was had by all.

But we had too much fun in the studio, lost the light and the car shot just didn’t get done.

And Annie?  Annie’s photography, at the time we were all at Rolling Stone, was like the writing in that magazine:  it all packaged what was outlaw music and lifestyle and made it legit.  I wanted her signature pictures bigger so I dropped the traditional Rolling Stone look of bordered single pages and made her big shots even bigger at two pages wide.  And Jann enlarged the size of the magazine pages and we took it into magazine land with a reformatting of its giveaway newspaper look.

Talent prevails.

Usually.

The studio picked the most mundane of all our concepts to produce for the marketing.

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Comments:

Tagged: · Friday, March 26, 2010 · 8 Comments »