Photo by Larry Shaw

Last week, EFSP did a post on famed photographer Sam Shaw. His son, Larry Shaw (1937-2007), followed in his father's footsteps as a special photographer for the cinema. One of his first assignments was the film Paris Blues (1960) and later, he would often work in France but also covered the films of John Cassavetes.


Swiss-German-British postcard by New Productions, Baulmes and Stroud, and Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede, no. 56576, 1994. Photo: Larry Shaw. Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll in Paris Blues (Martin Ritt, 1961). Caprion: Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 1961.


Swiss-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Stroud, no. 56737, 1996. Photo: Larry Shaw. Caption: Carroll Baker, New York City, 1960.


Swiss-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes and Stroud, no. 56760, 1996. Photo: Larry Shaw. Director Elia Kazan on the set of Splendor in the Grass (1960) in NYC, 1960.

Paris Blues

Larry Shaw was born in 1937 in New York City. As a teenager, Larry was an assistant to his father, Sam Shaw, and was an apprentice to several of Sam’s photographer colleagues. Larry worked as an assistant to Martin Muncasci, Louis Fauer and Bert Stern. Larry learned the elements of formal studio photography and classical lighting from these masters and the elements of photo reportage and special cinema coverage from his father.

His first independent assignment was a reportage on Strip Tease and Burlesque in New Orleans, 1958 for the premiere issue of Huntington Hartford’s Show Magazine. This was followed by a second story in Show Magazine on the Irish playwright Brendon Behan. In 1960, Larry was assigned the job of special photographer for advertising and publicity for the film Paris Blues (Martin Ritt, 1961) with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Sidney Poitier. His Paris Blues photographs were published in such magazines as Life, Ebony, Paris Match and other journals throughout Europe.

With the success of his first cinema reportage coverage, Larry followed in the footsteps of his father as a special photographer for motion pictures and had publications and photo essays for films such as Phaedra (Jules Dassin, 1962), The Comancheros (Michael Curtiz, 1961) starring John Wayne, Walk on the Wild Side (Edward Dmytryk, 1962) and Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor. In France he covered Le Caporal épinglé/The Elusive Corporal (Jean Renoir, 1962) and Les parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Démy, 1964).

Larry obtained special coverage for the films of John Cassavetes, including Shadows (1958), Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), Gloria (1980) and Love Streams (1984). His other film assignments include The Visit (Bernhard Wicki, 1964) with Ingrid Bergman, Candy (Christian Marquand, 1968), Harlow (Gordon Douglas, 1964)), What's New Pussycat (Cliove Donner, 1965), The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967) and Casino Royale (Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, 1967). His photo essays have appeared in Life, Look, Cosmopolitan, Stern, Bunte, Marie Claire, Vogue, Tempo, Cahier du Cinema, The New York Times, London Sunday Times, Playboy and many other magazines.

Larry Shaw did special coverage on the sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorléac, on the first English supermodel Twiggy, and on Geraldine Chaplin, Mohammad Ali, Woody Allen, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Marcello Mastroianni, Carol Baker, Marianne Faithfull, Horst Buchholz, Cher, Juliette Gréco, Romy Schneider, Ursula Andress and Claudia Cardinale for publications in magazines and books.

Before Sam Shaw died, he filed a lawsuit against his son claiming that Larry stole thousands of photographs, including the most famous and lucrative, the Marilyn Monroe photos. Sam Shaw died before the lawsuit could be concluded; but it was settled posthumously by his daughters, Meta Shaw Stevens and Edith Shaw Marcus. The family struck a settlement in 2002 under which Shaw Family Archives was created to take ownership of the 500,000 photos in Sam Shaw’s possession as well as 20,000 photos Larry Shaw had. Larry Shaw died in 2007 at the age of 70. He was the father of Jakob Shaw.


Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56570 Photo: Larry Shaw. Caption: Woody Allen at the Crazy Horse, Paris, 1965.


Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers / News Productions, no. 56961. Photo: Larry Shaw. Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress at the set of What's New Pussycat (Clive Donner, 1965).


Swiss-British-German postcard by News Productions, Baulmes and Stroud / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede, no. 56569, 1994. Photo: Larry Shaw. Caption: John Cassavetes and John Huston, Pinewood Studios, England, 1967.

Sources: Art-Loft, Allmand Law and IMDb.