A Conversation with Legendary Hollywood Photographer Michael Childers
The stories behind his iconic photos.
For 47 years, photographer Michael Childers has captured the essence of Hollywood’s most famous faces.
The roster of artists featured in his iconic portraits is staggering: Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve, Clint Eastwood, Richard Gere, Dennis Hopper, Rock Hudson, Grace Jones, Shirley MacLaine, Groucho Marx, Demi Moore, Paul Newman, Laurence Olivier, Michelle Pfeiffer, Isabella Rosellini, John Travolta, Andy Warhol, Mae West, and Natalie Wood among them.
Inspired by another great Hollywood photographer — George Hurrell, who he became friends with — Childers’ work echoes the glamorous images Hurrell created in the 1930s and ’40s of icons such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford.
But with a modern twist.
Ann-Margret on a pink motorcycle. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Venice Beach children’s playground. Groucho Marx in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt.
Childers also shot on-set still photography during the production of countless films over the years. He captured the making of such films as Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), The Terminator (1984) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988) among others.
His remarkable body of work forms a visual history of Hollywood that has found a new home as Childers recently donated his collection to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, where it will be preserved and made available to the public.
In celebration of this donation, we sat down with him to discuss the stories behind his iconic images and what he’s learned over the course of his career.
Here’s what he had to say…
When did you start understanding the technical elements of photography?
In the ’60s, I went to UCLA film school and we had some great cinematographers and directors working with us.
I saw the importance of makeup and great lighting — especially on women — and tried to emulate them.
Later, George Hurrell used to rent my studio on Melrose Avenue because it was the only all black studio in LA at that time.
He said, “I love your studio. There’s no bounce light. It’s like MGM in 1934.”
I got to see the lighting of Hurrell and work with him. That’s pretty impressive. He was one of my heroes.
I saw how he used background music and he was charming. He was very funny. He knew how to light these people.
George was a painter. He was an artist who lived in Laguna Beach in the 1920s. Then he gave up painting and started doing photography.
He was a painter so he knew about highlights, and low lights, and shadows, and creating depths. This is all quite evident in his prints, which are beautiful.
The retouching…they don’t have retouching like that anymore.
Groucho Marx in a Mickey Mouse shirt — how did that happen?
His girlfriend Erin Fleming arranged it. I’d met Groucho before. One of the great wits of the century.
I went up to his house. It was the day of his 85th birthday. He was all dressed up in his Mickey Mouse t-shirt and his Mickey Mouse hat. It was extraordinary.
He was feeling good that day, so his memory and the jokes just kept coming one after another. It was quite something.
He was in a good mood. Erin was a friend of mine. That cut a lot of ice. I broke through the ice and he gave me some wonderful things.
What was it like to shoot Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became a huge star?
I have some great stuff of him at the Cannes film festival with him laughing and goofing around when he did Stay Hungry and Pumping Iron.
The classic one is the one of him on Venice Beach under the bleachers there with nobody on the beach. That’s very famous.
It was luck. It was early in the morning during the winter. It was great.
He said, “You know Michael, some day my dream, I’m going to become the biggest action star in the world.”
This was very early in the ’70s and a lot of people would laugh at that. I didn’t because he had the discipline, and the smarts, and the drive that I knew he would become the biggest action star in the world.
I loved Arnold. I did three or four pictures with him — Conan, Terminator, I was there early on in the Stay Hungry period. He was fun, charming.
Was Laurence Olivier as pleased as he seems to be in your photo of he and Dustin Hoffman?
They were working together. They’re totally different types of actors, but…Dustin was a clown, always setting Sir Laurence up. They had a good rapport on the film.
I’m so lucky to have gotten that shot.
There’s another one where you have a big, huge closeup of Olivier which he said, “I never allow any photographer to get up this close, but because you worked at the National Theater with me, I’ll let you.”
He turned to me and said, “I assume you’re just going in for my mean upper lip.”
Which was true. I was so close with this wide angle lens and the same with Tennessee Williams.
He started to get a little freaky when I got in too close with the lens.
How did your relationship with Natalie Wood develop?
My partner John Schlesinger was great friends with Natalie, and her husband was John’s agent, so I got to meet her directly when we came to Hollywood in 1967.
She was my first movie star.
I asked her when she’d had her first child, Natasha, if I could do some pictures. She said, “Sure.”
It was one Sunday afternoon in the backyard. I wanted to do something really romantic with a pixilated Monet type of look.
They were beautiful pictures and she trusted me. She started asking me to do pictures of her on certain films and television shows. I worked with her until her death.
She was so great, just put people at ease. If she trusted you, she went all the way. She didn’t let everyone into her life, but I’ve been so fortunate. Oh my god, I worked with her on so many movies in Europe and America.
I even went on her honeymoon.
Paris Match called me up and said, “Would you like to go to Venice and photograph Natalie’s honeymoon?”
I said, “Oh god, I’ve never been on a honeymoon.”
I spent a week in Venice staying at the Cipriani Hotel and photographing all over for a week.
You really get to know some people very well. Robert Wagner is one of the greatest guys I’ve ever met, so charming and sweet and so in love with her.
We shared a unique week.
Do the people you shoot try to be editors?
A few. That’s what I hate about modern cameras because you can do instant playback. I just hate that.
I don’t believe in showing them the work until it’s all done and you can edit the bad ones out and choose the best.
Then you show them the work.
Who do you wish you had shot?
There’s lots I didn’t get to do, but you know who I miss? I had dinner with her once, and I was just so in love with Audrey Hepburn.
I was so mad that I didn’t get pushier and then ask to photograph her.
She’s the one that got away. She’s number one. There’s lots of ones I’d have loved to have worked with, but you can’t do everybody.
What advice do you have for photographers who want to follow in your footsteps?
Take a lot of Psychology classes.
I lecture about photography and I tell young photographers, “Photography is 20% technique and 80% being a psychologist to figure how to break the ice, how to break through.”
Do your research before you photograph them. Have great ideas. Discuss the ideas with the celebrity before you start something. Have it all prepped.
Usually, four out of five times they’ll say, “Gosh, those are great ideas. He’s done his research.” And they’ll do things.
Have the wardrobe planned. Have the lighting layout worked out. Do a notebook for each person. Every session is different.
Some of them have just had a bad week on a film, or a bad night with their wife or husband.
They come in and they’re carrying their baggage. You have to break through.
Why did you donate your collection to the Academy?
Because I used to do research at the Margaret Herrick Library. It’s a wonderful place. Everything from Orson Welles to Gregg Toland.
I worked with George Cukor for a year when we were trying to do a book on him. It’s a great place.
The people there were so helpful. I wanted my work to be preserved in the best possible place. With the expansion of the library, with the Academy Museum coming up — it’s fantastic the new energy that’s happening around there.
Childers was a founding photographer of both Andy Warhol’s Interview and After Dark, and his portraits have graced the covers of over 200 magazines, including Elle, Esquire, GQ, Los Angeles Magazine, New York, Paris Match, TV Guide, Dance Magazine, and Vogue. His work has been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Film Institute Reuben Library, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Palm Springs Art Museum, the UCR/California Museum of Photography, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Carmel Art Association, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, the Fullerton College Art Gallery, the Scripps –Clark Humanities Museum, Harvard University’s Monroe C. Gutman Library and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
His “AUTHOR AUTHOR” collection of portraits of great authors, playwrights, screenwriters, and poets has just been acquired by the Yale University Beinecke Library.
The Michael Childers collection is preserved at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library and is available to researchers and scholars from around the world. For more information contact the Margaret Herrick Library Photograph Archive at photographs@oscars.org
