My journey ends here...
STERN Bert
Bertram Stern.
Date of birth : October 3, 1929, Brooklyn (New York).
Date of death : June 25, 2013, Manhattan.
Practise : photographer.
Portrait :
,
,
,
,
;
;
,
Place of living : New York.
Story :
His father was photographer (children portraitist)(
).
He had a brother and a sister, Diane (
,
).
During his childhood, his father attempted to kill himself; he survived but lost his mind while the Great Depression began. The family had to rent its apartment and to live in the basement.
Bert didn't like school. He started to do casual jobs since he was 13 (soda waiter).He dropped school during his last year at high school.
At age 17, he wanted to become and artist, a designer (
). It was a picture taken by Irving Penn in a magazine that led him to photography and since, he loved to photograph women.
His first camera was a small Contax 35mm : he took pictures of his mother and sister.
He got a job at Look magazine from 1946 to 1948. He started to classify the mail then worked for Look artistic
director Hershel Bramson (
,
). Bramson advised him to head for design.
That was at that time at Look he became friend with Stanley Kubrick (
,
), who worked himself as a photographer for the same magazine.
Kubrick having to photograph Eleanor Mostel, known as "Teddy Ayer", he brought Bert with him.
In 1950 Bramson was hired as artistic director for the new magazine Flair, launched by Fleur Cowles
(
).Bramson demanded that Stern was hired as his own assistant.
Having cardiac issues, Bramson had a heart attack and Stern replaced him at the last minute.
In 1951, after the closure of Flair, he went to Korea. He served as photographer and cameraman
(
), and was sent to the Army headquarters in Tokyo to shoot movies (
).
At the end of his mission, back to the USA, he called Bramson who worked for the advert agency
Elsie Goodmiller.
One of the agency's clients, Smirnoff, wanted an advert which moved from drawing to photography.
He accepted the mission and his assistant was Teddy
Ayer (Eleanor Mostel)(
,
), who was married at that time.
He was awarded with his picture that launched his career (
,
;
,
).
Teddy left her busband for him and they got married (
,
).
She found him a studio located 40th East Street (
).
In 1954 he opened the first of his 4 New York studios, the last would close in 1971.
He established himself as commercial photographer in the mid-1950'. It was while working for Vogue magazine he could combine his two passions, photogaphy and women. By the way, he had a relationship with many of his models.
His first mission for Vogue : a pic of Deborah Nixon. She appeared on the cover, but his open mouth was
reproached to him (
).
He met Dorothy
Tristan (
) and divorced from Teddy. He worked with Dorothy but their relationship was passionate and complicated.
In 1959 a friend asked to go with him to a musical "Shinbone Alley"; Allegra Kent (Iris Margot Cohen; August 11, 1937, Santa Monica) performed.
First ballerina of the New York City Ballet (
;
,
;
), she was famous because George Balanchine had created roles especially for her.They were married from 1959 to 1975 and had 3 children (
;
) :Trista (December 3,1960, Los Angeles)(
), Susannah (
) and Bret (
,
).His style can be defined in 3 words : glamor, romanticism and sensitivity. His extraordinary talent as a portraitist can be seen for example in "Louis Armstrong", a picture taken in 1959 during a publicity campagn for one of his
first polaroid : 
.
The detail precision and the black and white gradation were so perfect that the silent partner, finding the picture "so good", had hesitated for a long time before printing it.
Eartha Kitt : 
In 1960 he was the photographer during the shooting of Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita"; he took the advert pictures
of the actress Sue Lyons (
);the poster has become cult (
).At the beginning of the 1960', Twentieth Century Fox offered him to be the photographer for "Cleopatra"
(
).At the end of the 1960', he produced so many advert pictures rewarded with awards, magazine covers, reports, movies and portraits. He became a true business, something that any photographer had already done.
Among his clients were IBM, Vogue, Glamour, Life, Revlon, Smirnoff.
The first time he met Marilyn was at a party organized by the Actors Studio in 1955 in New York.
In 1962 he was self-confident enough to photograph her.
In his contract with Vogue magazine, he had, each month, carte blanche with 10 pages. He realized that Vogue had never published pictures of Marilyn. The magazine agreed with his idea.
Marilyn arrived, wearing a scarf, green slacks and a pink sweater. She didn't wear any make-up.
He wanted the session to take place out of his studio, in a more intimate place.
Hairdresser George Masters took care of her hair for the first session (
). For many of the nude pictures, she was alone with Stern.
She wanted to see the pictures before their publication, something Vogue usually refused, but an exception was made for her. That was when she sent back some pictures crossed out with an orange pen and others, scratched with hair pin.
The Last Sitting : here.
Stern most famous pictures are Marilyn's ones.
In 1962 he sent 7 of her pictures to Eros magazine, who kept the originals and sent back some copies.
In 1985 photographers have told having found the originals in a rubbish bin and consequently, the pictures belonged to them.
Finally, they would receive 8 printings of each picture, signed by Bert.
In 1967 he made a documentary during model Twiggy stay in New York. There would be others such as "Twiggy
in LA", "Twiggy Why" and a picture session in Paris (
,
;
,
,
).Stern worked a lot and took noo many pills and drugs to keep going (
).He was so in love with Allegra, even obsessed; amphetamines stimulate this feeling. He heard voices.
But Allegra thinking of him as crazy, didn't get back home. Stern explained that she always wanted more money, that was why he worked so hard.
Little by little things began to get worse; his condition didn't allow him to respect his contracts.
He remained home until the moment he was hospitalized, on Allegra's claim.
In 1971, Allegra left with the children; one day he came back and found an empty home. He thought about suicide but his children prevented him to act.
While he had no chance to recapture Allegra, he stopped working.
His friend Slavomir Vorkapic (
) advised him to leave New York and to settle in Spain.He settled in 1973, in Mijas, Andalusia (
,
,
). There, he got rid of drugs and voices he had heard.He had transfered all his original pictures and films to avoid Allegra to use them.
He remained 8 months in Spain, until he was called in to the family court; he had an appointment to know if he would be allow to see his children again. He came back to the USA without any money. The day of the divorce hearing, he arrived bare foot. Even if he had had lots of money, he lived in poverty. He had sold everything, even his drawings.
Since 1976 he lived and worked in New York.
Having lost everything, he went on a new project to earn money. He realized that the "Physician's Desk Reference" was the most stolen book at the New York Library; people wanted to learn about pills and drugs.
So he photographed the pills close-up and created "The Pill Book" (1979)(
) with journalist Lawrence Chilnick. He would sell 17 millions issues.That allowed him to re-establish, to buy a house in Sag Harbour (Hamptons) and to start photography again.
Simplicity became once again his pictures main quality.
In 1979 he directed the documentary "Jazz on a Summer's Day", which took place during the 1958 Newport Film Festival.
One of his friends, Miroslav, encouraged him to publish Mariyn's pictures in a book : it would be "The Last
Sitting" published in 1982.
In 1982 he met Shannah Laumeister (July 23, 1969, San Francisco), she was 13 (
,
); he met her again in 1986 and photographed her again. She was his last companion (
).
In February 2008, for the New York magazine, he made again the "Last Sitting" with Lindsay Lohan; the issue
was a full susccess (
,
,
,
).
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