From: Richard Knoppow (dickburk@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 12/27/02-01:29:23 AM Z
Dec 27, 1:26 AM EST
Celebrity Photographer Herb Ritts Dies
By ERICA WERNER
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Photographer Herb Ritts,
whose access to celebrities, even at their most fragile
moments, gave him an edge in a competitive field, died
Thursday of complications of pneumonia, his publicist said.
He was 50.
Ritts - whose stylish, mostly black-and-white
portraits helped define the image-conscious 1980s and '90s -
died at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical
Center, publicist Stephen Huvane said.
Ritts gained entree to celebrities' lives even
at unglamorous moments. He photographed Christopher Reeve,
wired up and immobile in a high-tech wheelchair. In another
photograph, Elizabeth Taylor sported a crew cut and the scar
resulting from her brain surgery.
"He could get people to do things that they were
reluctant to do, because in the end it would make a great
photograph," said David Fahey, Ritts' gallery
representative.
Edward Norton, one of Ritts' subjects, once told
the Los Angeles Times: "I feel like Herb really does see
everything as beautiful. ... It's almost as if he can't help
but see it in its idealized form."
Ritts was born in Los Angeles in 1952, and the
family furniture business provided a comfortable life for
him and three siblings. He moved to the East Coast to attend
New York's Bard College, studying economics and art history.
After graduation he returned to California and
took a job as a salesman in the family business.
Taking pictures started as a hobby for Ritts,
and chance and connections propelled him into the world of
celebrity photography in the '70s. He got to know Richard
Gere through someone who was dating the actor at the time.
A drive in the desert led to a flat tire and an
impromptu photo session in a service station. The result was
a photo of a steamy Gere in a white vest, his arms over his
head and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"I can't remember whether I told Richard to put
his arms over his head or whether I just clicked when he
stretched. And he really smoked a lot. He was like that, a
handsome kid and very sexy," Ritts said in an interview for
a catalog that accompanied a show at Paris' Fondation
Cartier in 2000.
At the time, Gere was an unknown. A year later
he was a star, and Ritts' photos were being used as
publicity shots.
Ritts shot celebrities from Madonna to Michelle
Pfeiffer to Dizzy Gillespie for top fashion and culture
magazines - Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle. When
Taylor married construction worker Larry Fortensky in 1991,
Ritts had exclusive rights to photograph her eighth trip
down the aisle.
He showed Madonna grabbing her crotch, Cindy
Crawford dressed as a man, Annette Bening pregnant and
lounging on a couch.
Ritts believed his pictures would endure, even
as his subjects faded from public awareness.
"Fifty or 60 years from now, if someone sees a
portrait of Madonna, they really won't care that it was
Madonna or they won't know" who she was, he told the Los
Angeles Times. "But it'll hold up as a portrait of an
interesting woman you want to know. You feel her. There's
something coming from it."
His subjects ranged far beyond pop culture -
Ronald Reagan, Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama all went
before his lens.
Ritts published at least eight books of
photographs and did work for top fashion designers including
Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Revlon and Giorgio
Armani. He took pictures for album covers and directed music
videos.
In 1991 two of his videos won MTV Awards: best
female video, with Janet Jackson, and best male video, with
Chris Isaak.
His work was displayed at studios and museums,
including a major retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, in 1996-97. The show attracted more than 253,000
people, including some critics who dismissed Ritts' work as
pop art.
Ritts also helped raise charity funds, often for
AIDS groups.
He is survived by his mother, Shirley Ritts; a
brother, Rory; a sister, Christy; and his partner, Erik
Hyman.
>From the AP web site.
--- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles, CA, USA dickburk@ix.netcom.com
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