|
Jerome Zerbe (July 24, 1904, Euclid, Ohio – August 19, 1988) was an American photographer. He was one of the originators of a genre of photography that is now utterly common: celebrity paparazzi. Zerbe was a pioneer in the 1930s of shooting photographs of the famous at play and on-the-town. According to the 1951 cocktail recipe book ''Bottoms Up'', he is also credited with inventing the vodka martini. Zerbe differed from the common paparazzo in a major way: he never hid in bushes or jumped out and surprised the rich and famous that he was photographing. Zerbe often traveled and vacationed with the film stars themselves. As one biographer stated, he never rode in a rented limousine and his coat pocket always had an engraved invitation to the high-society events. “Once I asked Katharine Hepburn to come up from her place at Fenwick, a few miles away, and pose for some fashion photos for me,” Zerbe recalled in his book ''Happy Times''. “She arrived with a picnic hamper full of food and wine for the two of us. I snapped her just as she came to the door.” In a career that spanned more than fifty years, Zerbe’s library held well over 50,000 photos. Some of his well-known images were of Greta Garbo at lunch, Cary Grant helping columnist Hedda Hopper move into her new home, Steve Reeves shaving, Moss Hart climbing a tree, Howard Hughes having lunch at “21” with Janet Gaynor, Ginger Rogers flying first-class, plus legendary stars Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Salvador Dalí, Jean Harlow, Dorothy Parker, Gene Tunney, Thomas Wolfe and the Vanderbilts. Zerbe claimed to be the first – and only – society photographer. He was for years the official photographer of Manhattan’s famed nightspot El Morocco, the place to be and be seen, whether you were Humphrey Bogart, Ed Sullivan or John O'Hara. Zerbe pioneered the business arrangement of getting paid by the nightclub to photograph its visitors, then turn around and give the photos away to the gossip pages. Today the practice is a common public relations stunt. ==Midwest native== The photographer was born in Euclid, Ohio, on July 24, 1904. His father, Jerome B. Zerbe, was the president of a coal company and a prominent citizen in nearby Cleveland, where the family later resided. Young Jerry Zerbe was driven to public school in the family limousine, which got him beaten up by bullies. He managed to survive well enough to be sent East, to the prestigious Salisbury School in Salisbury, Connecticut. It was there that he took an interest in drawing, art and photography. Zerbe graduated from Yale in 1928, where he was an editor of campus humor magazine ''The Yale Record'' with writer Geoffrey T. Hellman, writer and film critic Dwight MacDonald and Hollywood art director Jack Otterson.〔''Yale Banner and Pot Pourri''. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1927. p. 229.〕 While an undergrad, Zerbe had a knack for getting around the Prohibition laws, and always being the guy who knew where the booze and parties were (it helped that there was a speakeasy in the basement of ''The Yale Record'' building). This paid off and he became a supreme social networker. He gained important social prominence in New Haven, which would serve him well in New York, Paris and London. After graduation he went out to Hollywood to try his hand at drawing portraits of the famous residents. He was befriended by a young Gary Cooper. This led to quickly becoming friends with Hedda Hopper, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Marion Davies and Paulette Goddard. It did not take long for him to put down his paintbrush and pick up a camera. He photographed numerous stars in Hollywood’s Golden Age and some of the hopefuls, before they became known posed for him with few if any clothes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jerome Zerbe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|