Back on 8/23, Benjamin Dreyer (long-time copy chief at Random House, now retired to the life of a pointedly opinionated public intellectual, and connecting with me on Facebook) celebrated the birthday of Gene Kelly, posting this portrait photo of the man:
(#1) AZ > BD: An especially fine photo. Do you know who the photographer was?
And came the answer:
— BD > AZ: Alfred Eisenstaedt, I find. And your having asked has led me to a few others from the series [which were too low-quality to be postable]
— AZ > BD: Wonderful — superb character studies of a extraordinary performer with a stunning physical presence who was also an admirable person, a genuine mensch (but also a perfectionist). Known for his personal friendship with, and professional support of, Fred Astaire. And for the delight of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. Especially memorable for me because he once, deliciously, dismissed THE SOUND OF MUSIC as “a piece of shit” (a minority opinion, I know, but it is my own).
— BD > AZ: Well, he wasn’t wrong about that last-mentioned film.
Meanwhile, on Facebook, both men and women swooned over his sexiness.
And now we have a trio of men who shaped popular sensibilities in the 20th century and did their work with a sense of style: Astaire and Kelly as creators of immensely skilled (and immensely successful) forms of popular dance, largely in films — a more elegant and sophisticated style in Astaire, a more earthy and athletic style in Kelly, but both serving as attractive models of masculinity — while photographer and photojournalist Eisenstaedt brought the world (and his eye for human interest) to America, most notably in the pages of Life magazine.
Gene Kelly. From Wikipedia:
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessible to the general public, which he called “dance for the common man”. He starred in, choreographed, and, with Stanley Donen, co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s.
Meanwhile, as an actor, his characters were full of charm as well as energy, and he paired well with a wide range of female partners, including some who were powerfully sexy.
Fred Astaire. From Wikipedia:
Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz, May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, actor, singer, musician, choreographer, and presenter, whose career in stage, film, and television spanned 76 years. Widely regarded as the “greatest popular-music dancer of all time,”
… As a dancer, he was known for his uncanny sense of rhythm, creativity, effortless presentation, and tireless perfectionism, which was sometimes a burden to co-workers. His dancing showed elegance, grace, originality, and precision. He drew influences from many sources, including tap, classical dance, and the elevated style of Vernon and Irene Castle
… Astaire’s most memorable dancing partnership was with Ginger Rogers, with whom he co-starred in 10 Hollywood musicals during the classic age of Hollywood cinema, including [Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934),] Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937).
I’m a great fan of The Gay Divorcee, for many reasons, but its dance centerpiece is a huge production number introducing The Continental as a new dance craze. A great pleasure to watch, as the pair seem to be dancing effortlessly, sometimes apparently in the air — an effect that owes as much to Rogers as to Astaire (though he was of course the choreographer). A screen capture:
(#2) Rogers (and her amazing dress), Astaire, and The Continental
Alfred Eistenstaedt. From Wikipedia:
Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898 – August 23, 1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in Germany prior to World War II but achieved prominence as a staff photographer for Life magazine after moving to the U.S. Life featured more than 90 of his pictures on its covers, and [published] more than 2,500 of his photo stories
… Among his most famous cover photographs was V-J Day in Times Square, … showing an American sailor kissing a nurse in a “dancelike dip” which “summed up the euphoria many Americans felt as the war came to a close”, in the words of his obituary. He was “renowned for his ability to capture memorable images of important people in the news” and for his candid photographs taken with a small 35mm Leica camera, typically with natural lighting.
… this style of photojournalism … helped Eisenstaedt create a more relaxed atmosphere when photographing famous people, where he was able to capture more natural poses and expressions: “They don’t take me too seriously with my little camera,” he stated. “I don’t come as a photographer. I come as a friend.” It was a style he learned from his 35 years in Europe, where he preferred making informal, unposed portraits, along with extended picture stories. As a result, Life began using more such photo stories, with the magazine becoming a recognized source of such photojournalism of the world’s luminaries. [AZ: His spread on Sophia Loren is especially fine.] Of Life‘s photographers, Eisenstaedt was most noted for his “human interest” photos and less the hard news images used by most news publications.
What Eistenstaedt managed to do in his unposed photo portraits was to reproduce the evocation of character and personality that graphic artists had long achieved in portraiture, where the details are under their control.