18 March 2024

Photo by Steve Schapiro

American photographer Steve Schapiro (1934-2022) photographed key moments of the civil rights movement in the US such as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom or the Selma to Montgomery marches. He is also known for his portraits of celebrities and film stills, most importantly from The Godfather (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976). In Hollywood, he worked on more than 200 films.

Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (1968)
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 186/70. Photo: Steve Schapiro / Columbia. Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (William Wyler, 1968).

Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972)
British postcard by Star-Graphics, no. S 91. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).

Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Italian postcard by Edizioni Beatrice D'Este, no. 20 162. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976)
British postcard by Music & Movie Stars Ltd. Publishers, no. MMS 036. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Burt Reynolds
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. Personality #81, SC176971063. Photo: Steve Schapiro / Sygma. Burt Reynolds.

Photojournalist and real activist


Stephen Albert Schapiro was born during the Great Depression, in 1934 in Brooklyn and grew up in the Bronx. His parents were David Schapiro, a stationery store owner in Rockefeller Center and Esther (Sperling) Schapiro who worked at her husband's stationery store.

Steve discovered photography at Summer Camp at the age of nine and continued to take pictures as he grew up. One of his role models was the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. He sought to emulate his style as he roamed the streets of New York. Schapiro attended Stuyvesant High School and Amherst College, from where he later transferred to Bard College. He graduated from there in 1955 with a degree in literature.

In 1960, Schapiro took lessons with W. Eugene Smith, an influential photographer during the Second World War. Smith taught him how to develop his own views of the world and photography. Schapiro even embedded with Smith for a time in his Manhattan loft. He learned how to make prints and picked up some tricks of the trade, like showing two points of interest in a portrait, which Smith told him would make the viewer’s eye go back and forth and thereby hold the viewer’s attention. Schapiro's work reflects the influence of his teacher.

In 1961 Schapiro began working as a freelance photographer. His photos were published in Life, Look, Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time and Paris Match. Schapiro photographed jazz pianist Bill Evans, artist Andy Warhol, writer Samuel Beckett, heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali, actresses Barbra Streisand and Mia Farrow and musician David Bowie, among others.

The political, cultural and social changes of the 1960s in the United States were an inspiration for Schapiro. He accompanied Robert F. Kennedy during his presidential campaign. He captured key moments of the civil rights movement such as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom or the Selma to Montgomery marches. For Life, he documented the scene of the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in 1968. Schapiro not only worked in photojournalism and documentation but also became a real activist. This is, for instance, visible in his way of documenting the hard lives of immigrant workers from Arkansas he dealt with in 1961.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972)
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-183. Photo: Steve Schapiro / The Ludlow Collection. Marlon Brando and Cat in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).

Al Pacino in The Godfather (1972)
British postcard by Star-Graphics, no. S 89. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Al Pacino in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Belgian promotion card Taschenhen Gallery for the exhibition 'Taxi Driver - Unseen Photographs from Scorsese's Masterpiece'. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-5. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Vintage postcard. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Capturing key moments of modern American history


With the sharp decline in circulation figures for magazines such as Life and Look, the demand for high-quality photo essays fell from the end of the 1960s. Steve Schapiro moved to Los Angeles, where he photographed promotional material for film studios, artwork for record sleeves and portraits of well-known Hollywood stars, among other things. Having taken photos of Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969), among them also a famous one of Dustin Hoffman, he was hired as a photographer by Paramount Pictures.

He photographed on the set of the mafia epic The Godfather (1972) by Francis Ford Coppola with a cast including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall. One of his photographs is of "Marlon Brando and the Cat". Rob Sharp in The Independent: "A man in his early fifties is dressed in black tie. He is lit from above, which throws his features into an intimidating scowl. The picture is completed – rather incongruously – by a young cat in his arms."

Schapiro was also present at the film set of Chinatown (1974) by Roman Polanski. His role involved being as unobtrusive as possible while the actors worked. As such, very little of what he produced was posed for. In 1974, he also shot the cover for the debut issue of People magazine: a portrait of Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (Jack Clayton, 1974).

Two years later, Schapiro was – by request of Robert De Niro – hired as a photographer on the set of Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver (1976). The chilling film situated in New York in the angry climate of the post-Vietnam era, became a milestone and DeNiro’s portrait of a trigger-happy psychopath with a mohawk is one of the greatest performances of the 1970s. As the special photographer on the set, Schapiro captured the film’s most intense and violent moments from behind the scenes.

During his career of six decades, Schapiro captured key moments of modern American history with his photos that also reflect his own social and human awareness. In 2022, he died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Chicago, at the age of 87. Schapiro was married three times. His first two marriages ended in divorce. He was survived by his wife Maura Smith, two sons, Theophilus Donoghue and Adam Schapiro; two daughters, Elle Harvey and Taylor Schapiro; and four grandchildren. Another son, Teddy Schapiro, died in 2014.

Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
French postcard in the Collection Cinema Couleur by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 33, 1990. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Jodie Foster and Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 530. Jodie Foster and Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 531. Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
British postcard by Memory Card, no. 532. Harvey Keitel and Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (1977)
British postcard by Palm Pictures, no. C 20. Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Sources: Katharine Q. Seelye (New York Times), Rob Sharp (The Independent), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

17 March 2024

Patricia Ellis

Patricia Ellis (1915-1970) was an American film actress of the 1930s. Barely a teenager, she came to films in 1932, playing a variety of ingenues opposite such Warner Bros. contractees as James Cagney, Dick Powell, George Arliss, Paul Muni and Joe E. Brown. Most of her post-Warners roles were unremarkable, though she demonstrated that she could carry a picture when she starred in the innocuous Republic musical Rhythm in the Clouds (1937), and proved a worthy foil to Laurel and Hardy in Block-Heads (1938). Patricia Ellis retired from films in 1941 to marry a Kansas City business executive.

Patricia Ellis
British postcard by Art Photo. Photo: Warner Bros / Vitaphone Pictures.

Patricia Ellis
British Real Photograph postcard, no. 79. Photo: Warner Bros / Vitaphone Pictures.

The Queen of B pictures at Warner Brothers


Patricia Ellis was born Patricia Gene O'Brien in 1915 (sources differ about her age) in Birmingham, Michigan. Ellis was the oldest of four children born to Eugene Gladstone O'Brien, a Detroit insurance salesman, and Florence Calkins. Her parents divorced in 1929. She was later known as Patricia Leftwich after her step-father, Alexander Leftwich, an actor and New York producer of musical shows.

Her childhood activities included singing and dancing, and she learned French and German. A 1932 newspaper article said, "Since she was able to walk, Patricia has been familiar with the world of the theatre, accompanying her father constantly to rehearsals and performances."

Also in 1932, another newspaper reported, "She understudied all her father's leading women in the last few years, assisted him with lighting and costuming and knows stage production, too." Ellis attended Brantwood Hall School and Gardner School for Girls and began her stage career after leaving school. She took classes in studio facilities while pursuing her acting career.

Ellis appeared with Chamberlain Browns stock company. Given a film test, while appearing on stage in New York City, Ellis was put under contract by Warner Bros. In 1932, she had two small parts, both uncredited, in the crime dramas Three on a Match (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932) with Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak and Bette Davis, and Central Park (John G. Adolfi, 1932), also starring Blondell. That same year, she was chosen as WAMPAS Baby Star, alongside 13 other girls considered to have potential such as Ginger Rogers and Mary Carlisle. Ellis was the youngest.

Her first credited role was in The King's Vacation (John G. Adolfi, 1933), starring George Arliss. After that film, her career took off, with her starring mostly in lower-budget B-movies but still working steadily. Ellis called herself "the Queen of B pictures at Warner Brothers".

Joe E. Brown and Patricia Ellis in Elmer, the Great (1933)
British postcard by Film Weekly, London. Photo: First national. Joe E. Brown and Patricia Ellis in Elmer, the Great (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933).

Jack Hulbert and Patricia Ellis in Paradise for Two
British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 241. Photo: London Films. Jack Hulbert and Patricia Ellis in Paradise for Two/Gaiety Girls (Thornton Freeland, 1937).

Starring alongside some of Hollywood's biggest names


Patricia Ellis had roles in eight films in 1933, co-starring that year with James Cagney in Picture Snatcher (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), and in another seven in 1934. Within a few years, she had worked her way up from juvenile supporting roles to second leads.

She started 1935 off with A Night at the Ritz (William C. McGann, 1935), in which she had the lead female role, opposite William Gargan. She starred in seven films that year and another seven in 1936. Most of her roles were in comedy films, along with some mysteries and crime dramas, and by 1936 she was playing the female lead in almost all her films.

Starring alongside some of Hollywood's biggest names, including James Cagney, Ricardo Cortez, and Bela Lugosi, Ellis's career was at its peak by 1937. That year, she demonstrated that she could carry a picture when she starred in the innocuous Republic musical Rhythm in the Clouds (John H. Auer, 1937). In Great Britain, Patricia appeared in the comedy The Gaiety Girls/Paradise for two (Thornton Freeland, 1937) with Jack Hulbert and a young Googie Withers. She proved a worthy foil to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Block-Heads (John G. Blystone, 1938), and, against type, played a femme fatale in Fugitive at Large (Lewis D. Collins, 1939).

She starred in five films in 1937, then only three in 1938, and finally just two in 1939. After her work in film ended, Ellis ventured into music saying, "I was just getting into a rut in Hollywood. ... I want to start a new career -- singing." She made a soundie in 1941. A review in the trade publication Billboard commented: "Miss Ellis isn't bad on voice and excels (sic) on appearance. Men will pay attention to her." In 1941, she and Blue Barron and his Orchestra were headliners, along with Henny Youngman, at Hamid's Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey and appeared on Broadway in 'Louisiana Purchase', a musical comedy.

Patricia Ellis retired in 1939 leaving Hollywood behind and in 1941, she married George Thomas O'Malley, future president of Protection Securities Systems in Kansas City, Missouri. She settled into private life, raising her family in Kansas City. The O'Malleys had one daughter. Ellis remained married to O'Malley for the remainder of her life, dying of cancer in 1970, in Kansas City. George O'Malley died thirty years later, in 2000.

Patricia Ellis
Italian postcard, series no. 24. Photo: Warner Bros., Italy. Patricia Ellis in The Picture Snatcher (Lloyd Bacon, 1933). The Italian release title was Dinamita doppia.

Patricia Ellis in Paradise for Two (1937)
British postcard in the Colorgraph Series, London, no. C 294. Photo: London Films. Patricia Ellis in Paradise for Two/Gaiety Girls (Thornton Freeland, 1937). Caption: A Hand-coloured Real Photograph.

Sources: I.S.Mowis (IMDb), AllMovieWikipedia and IMDb.

16 March 2024

Jack Oakie

American actor Jack Oakie (1903-1978) was one of the best wisecracking comedians during the golden age of Hollywood. The beefy, plump-faced comedian could steal a scene simply by looking at a girl’s legs.

Jack Oakie
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5145/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Jack Oakie
Spanish collector card by I.G. Viladot, Barcelona. Image: Cifesa.

From Broadway to Vaudeville to Hollywood


Jack Oakie was born Lewis Delaney Offield in 1903, in Sedalia, Missouri. His father was a grain dealer, and his mother was a psychology teacher. When he was 5, the Offield family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, the source of his "Oakie" nickname.

Oakie spent part of his boyhood in Kansas City with his grandmother and attended Woodland School. He sold papers for the Kansas City Star: He later recalled that he made good money selling “extras” on the night Woodrow Wilson was reelected as president in 1916. Oakie worked as a runner on Wall Street and narrowly escaped being killed in the Wall Street bombing of 16 September 1920.

While in New York, he also started appearing in amateur theatre as a mimic and a comedian. In 1923 Oakie landed a job as a chorus boy in George M. Cohan’s 'Little Nelly Kelly' on Broadway.

He went from Broadway to vaudeville, with Lulu McConnell as his partner. From there he found employment in several comedies, as well as musicals throughout the mid to late 1920s These included 'Sharlee' (1923), the revues 'Innocent Eyes' (1924) and 'Artists and Models' (1925), and the musical 'Peggy-Ann' (1926).

In 1927 Oakie went to Hollywood, and he was cast as a comedian in his first silent film, Finders Keepers (Wesley Ruggles, 1927) starring Laura La Plante. He also appeared in the silent films The Fleet's In (Malcolm St. Clair, 1928) starring Clara Bow and the Western Sin Town (J. Gordon Cooper, William K. Howard, 1929).

Jack Oakie and Polly Walker in Hit the Deck (1929)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5161/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Radio. Jack Oakie and Polly Walker in Hit the Deck (Luther Reed, 1929).

Jack Oakie, Clara Bow and Maurice Chevalier in Paramount on Parade (1930)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5749/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount. Jack Oakie, Clara Bow and Maurice Chevalier in Paramount on Parade (Dorothy Arzner a.o., 1930).

The World's Oldest Freshman


With the advent of sound, Jack Oakie signed a contract with Paramount. His first talkie was The Dummy (Robert Milton, Louis J. Gasnier, 1929) starring Ruth Chatterton and Fredric March.

Jack went on to support Wallace Beery in Chinatown Nights (William A. Wellman, 1929), Dorothy Mackaill in Hard to Get (William Beaudine, 1929) and Betty Compson in Street Girl (Wesley Ruggles, 1929).

Settling in, he never returned to the Broadway stage. With Nancy Carroll, he played in the musical Sweetie (Frank Tuttle, 1929). He appeared in many of the big musicals of the day with Bing Crosby, Maurice Chevalier and Alice Faye. He was a brush salesman turned Olympic scout in the hilarious screwball farce Million Dollar Legs (Edward F. Cline, 1932) and an unwilling gangster in Dancers in the Dark (David Burton, 1932) opposite Miriam Hopkins.

He played Tweedledum to Roscoe Karns' Tweedledee in the all-star version of Alice in Wonderland (Norman Z. McLeod, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, 1933). In Too Much Harmony (A. Edward Sutherland, 1933), the part of Oakie's on-screen mother was played by his real mother, Mary Evelyn Offield.

During the 1930s, he was known as "The World's Oldest Freshman", as a result of appearing in such collegiate films as The Wild Party (Dorothy Arzner, 1929), Sweetie (Frank Tuttle, 1929), Touchdown! (Norman Z. McLeod, 1931), College Humor (Wesley Ruggles, 1933), College Rhythm (Norman Taurog, 1934) and Collegiate (Ralph Murphy, 1935). Oakie's contract with Paramount ended in 1934 and he continued as a freelancing agent. Not being limited by a film studio contract, Oakie branched into radio and had his radio show between 1936 and 1938.

Jack Oakie
Spanish postcard in the Series Estrellas del Cine, no. 135. Photo: Paramount Film.

Wynne Gibson, Jack Oakie and Chimpanzee
Belgian postcard by Nels for Chocolat Martougin. Photo: Photo Actualit, Brux. Caption: Wynne Gibson and Jack Oakie visit the Paramount Zoo.

Napolini, Il Duce of Bacteria


Jack Oakie's role as Napolini, Il Duce of Bacteria in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940), was a brilliant and very thinly disguised slam at Mussolini. It earned Oakie his only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. It was the highlight of his career.

He followed it with supporting parts in bright, silly and feather-light films such as Tin Pan Alley (Walter Lang, 1940), Hello, Frisco, Hello (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1943), and Sweet and Low-Down (Archie Mayo, 1944), with Linda Darnell and Benny Goodman.

Jack's last high-profile films were the Betty Grable musical When My Baby Smiles at Me (Walter Lang, 1948) and the fast-moving gangster film Thieves Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949). In his later years, Oakie made some television appearances in episodes of such television shows as The Real McCoys (1963), Daniel Boone (1966), and Bonanza (1966).

He also turned up in films from time to time, including a cameo in Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson, John Farrow, 1956) and roles in The Wonderful Country (Robert Parrish, 1958), Debbie Reynolds' The Rat Race (Robert Mulligan, 1960) and the comedy Lover Come Back (Delbert Mann, 1961) with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. It was his final film.

Jack Oakie lived in baronial style on a ten-acre estate in Northridge, at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. His first marriage (1936-1945) was to Venita Varden, who perished in the 1948 air crash of United Airlines Flight 624 at Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Oakie's second marriage was to actress Victoria Horne in 1950. They moved to an estate in Northridge and lived there until his death. He died in 1978, at the age of seventy-four. Jack Oakie was married twice. His remains were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in the Los Angeles area.

Jack Oakie
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no, 463.

Jack Oakie
British Real Photograph postcard, no. 143. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Sources: Eve Golden (Classic Images), Arthur F. McClure (Missouri Encyclopedia), Wikipedia and IMDb.