Village People: Victor Willis (1951-2026)

On Tuesday 30 June 2026, Victor Willis, lead singer and founding member of the Village People, has died at age 74, one day before his 75th birthday. The American disco group was particularly successful in the late 1970s. The members were well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American masculine cultural stereotypes as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. The original line-up was cop Victor Willis, leatherman Glenn Hughes, 'Native American' Felipe Rose, construction worker David Hodo, cowboy Randy Jones and Alex Briley, who started portraying an athlete but eventually took on the soldier persona. The Village People's biggest hits, 'Y.M.C.A.', 'Macho Man', 'Go West', and 'In the Navy', are still frequently played at parties and on film soundtracks.


West German postcard by Top Schlagerheft. Photo: Metronome Records GmbH. With Victor Willis.


German promotion card by Metronome Music GmbH, Hamburg, 1980. Photo: Can't Stop Productions. With Ray Simpson.

The men from Greenwich Village

Village People was created in 1977 in New York by French record producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, along with a young New York entertainment lawyer, Allen Grubman. Together they formed Can't Stop Productions. They wanted to target disco's gay audience by featuring popular gay fantasy personae. The name Village People refers to Greenwich Village on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, a neighbourhood strongly influenced by gay subculture. It is colloquially known simply as The Village.

According to a widely circulated version of the band’s formation, Jacques Morali spotted Felipe Rose in his Native American costume dancing in a crowd in New York’s Greenwich Village. Rose’s outfit gave him the idea of putting together a group of Village icons from various US social groups. When writing the songs for the first album, the songwriting and producing duo thought of places in the US that were shaped by gay life. This led them to Hollywood, San Francisco, Key West (on the second album) and Fire Island. Fire Island is a small island off Long Island, famous for its ‘tea dance parties’ on Sundays at 5 pm, where the best DJs played. During the recording sessions for the first Village People album at the New York branch of Sigma Sound Studios, only Victor Willis was present as lead singer. Professional backing singers were hired. Felipe Rose was invited to the sessions as a ‘mascot’ and also appeared in the first photos for the cover and a newspaper advert.

The album 'Village People' became an underground hit, and demand for performances grew. Once 100,000 copies had been sold, the producers put together a real group around Victor Willis and Felipe Rose. Following an audition, they recruited Glenn Hughes (biker), Alexander Briley (soldier), David Hodo (construction worker) and Randy Jones (cowboy), and toured the clubs. Their second album, 'Macho Man', only made it into the Top 20, but the title track, 'Macho Man', was played by many radio stations, and the band went from being an underground favourite to a mainstream act.

Whilst the producers were working on the songs for the third album, the two were walking down a street. Henri saw the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) sign and asked what it was. Jacques replied that it was a place where lots of men went when they were in town, where they’d make good friends and then go out together. As it was an association for men, it was quite popular amongst gay men. Henri suggested they could write a song about it. That’s how ‘Y.M.C.A.’ came about for the third album, ‘Cruisin’. The musical arrangement was by Horace Ott. The song marked the band’s breakthrough and became a number-one hit worldwide on the charts and in clubs. ‘Y.M.C.A.’ remains one of the most commercially successful pop songs in music history to this day. The album Cruisin’ went platinum and sold five to six million copies worldwide. Fans devised a dance to the song in which the four letters of the title are represented with arms and legs.

The title track of the fourth album, 'Go West', was actually intended to be the lead single. That assumption wasn’t far off the mark, as the track became a global hit in 1993 thanks to the Pet Shop Boys’ cover version. At the time, however, the single failed to catch on, so they decided to try releasing 'In the Navy' instead. The US Navy wanted the song for a television and radio recruiting campaign and offered to fund a music video. Filming took place at one of the world’s largest naval bases, the San Diego Naval Base in California, where a warship (the Reasoner, a Knox-class frigate), five aircraft (Phantoms) and 200 to 300 soldiers were made available. When a New York newspaper condemned the spending of so much public money on a music video, the Navy abandoned the campaign. This scandal generated so much publicity for the Village People that the song immediately shot to the top of the charts. On a major tour with a big band through 52 cities, Village People played twice at the sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York and once at the sold-out Felt Forum in Los Angeles.


German promotion card by Metronome Music GmbH, Hamburg. Photo: Can't Stop Productions. With Victor Willis.


Belgian collector card by Joepie. With Ray Simpson and The Ritchie Family.

Golden Raspberry Awards

At the end of 1979, Victor Willis left the group at the end of an international tour, including a performance with Bob Hope to entertain US troops. Willis was replaced by Ray Simpson, the brother of Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson. He had sung background vocals with the group on their 1979 tour. According to a British music magazine, Willis had become unreliable and full of himself. However, he was reportedly promised a solo career as ‘compensation’. A solo album by Victor Willis is said to have been recorded but never released.

Simpson also replaced Willis for the group's feature film Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980), starring Steve Guttenberg, Valerie Perrine, and Bruce Jenner, later known as Caitlyn Jenner. The film tells a fictionalised biography of the Village People. Two other protégés of Morali and Belolo also appear in this film: David London and The Ritchie Family. In the US, the film and the album were a flop, but in Australia, they reached number one. Belolo believes the film was released too late, when disco was already losing popularity. Others also criticise it for painting a distinctly heterosexual picture of the band, leaving no room for the usual speculation. At the March 1981 Golden Raspberry Awards, the movie was named Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay, and was nominated in almost all the other categories.

In 1981, with New Wave music becoming more popular than disco, Village People replaced its on-stage costumes with a new look inspired by the New Romantic movement and released the album 'Renaissance'. It only attracted minor – mostly negative – attention and produced no hits, except for the group's first hit single in Italy with '5 O'clock in the Morning'. Their last album containing new material, the 1985 dance/Hi-NRG release 'Sex Over the Phone', was not a huge commercial success, but it fared better in sales and club play than 'Renaissance'. Of the original members, only soldier Alex Briley, leatherman Glenn Hughes and Native American Felipe Rose (who sang the title track) remained. The group once again had a new singer (Ray Stephens) and even a stand-in (Py Douglas).

Village People has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Their songs can be heard on the soundtracks of such blockbusters as The Nutty Professor (Tom Shadyac, 1996), As Good as It Gets (James L. Brooks, 1997), Blast from the Past (Hugh Wilson, 1999) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow, 2003). Examples of film homages and parody include a mention in the Western comedy City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991), a scene in Wayne's World 2 (Stephen Surjik, 1993), and the animated film Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, 2013). The Village People were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording at 6529 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

In 2017, after years of legal battles over royalties and songwriting credits, Victor Willis and Can't Stop Productions settled their differences. Willis acquired the licensing rights to the group name and formed his own Village People. He has been the official owner of the name since 2018. In November 2018, 'A Village People Christmas' was released, their first studio album in 33 years. On New Year's Eve, the group performed a concert in Times Square during Fox's New Year's Eve with Steve Harvey, and the crowd broke the record for the Y.M.C.A. dance. In 2019, Village People co-creator Henri Belolo died aged 82. In 2020, the Village People released a new single, ‘If You Believe’. It became their first top 20 hit in the US in forty years. President Trump used ‘Macho Man’ and ‘Y.M.C.A.’ for his (re-)election campaign. At the end of 2024, Victor Willis alleged to news media that the group's hit song 'Y.M.C.A.' was not a gay anthem and threatened to sue "each and every news organisation" that would refer to the song as such. On 19 January 2025, the day before the inauguration of his second term, President Trump was joined on stage by the Village People to the tune of this very same song.


Vintage photo. Valerie Perrine and Village People in Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980).

Source: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and German) and IMDb.

Vincent Pérez

Soulful, exotic-looking Swiss actor Vincent Pérez (1964) is known for such French films as Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Indochine (1992) and La Reine Margot (1994). His international breakthrough was his role as Ashe Corven in The Crow: City of Angels (1996). He is also known as a director and photographer.


French postcard. Photo: Artificial Eye. Vincent Pérez, Anne Brochet and Gérard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990).


French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 712. Photo: Bad Bird Productions, Inc. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 765 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 4.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 766 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 5.


Spanish collector card by Accion. Photo: Vincent Perez in Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997).

A sexy stare and irresistible charm that has swept Gallic women off their feet

Vincent Pérez was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1964. He is the son of a Spanish father and a German mother. His mother was a homemaker, and his father worked in the import-export business. Vincent wanted to be an actor since he saw a film of Charles Chaplin at the age of seven. He began putting on shows at school, which he would star in and direct. Perez eventually dropped out to enter photography school. In Geneva, he enrolled at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, followed by a training at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSAD) and at the experimental school of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, where he trained under famed theatre and opera director Patrice Chéreau.

While still a student, he made his screen debut in Gardien de la nuit / Night Guardian (Jean-Pierre Limosin, 1986). A part followed by in the Anton Chekhov adaptation Hôtel de France (Patrice Chéreau, 1987), which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. His breakthrough role was the tongue-tied lover Christian de Neuvillette opposite Gérard Depardieu in the comedy-drama Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990). Critics considered it the definitive film version of the Edmond Rostand play from 1897. For his standout performance, Perez was nominated for a César Award as Most Promising Actor (Meilleur espoir masculin). According to Gary Brumburgh at IMDb, Perez exudes ‘a sexy stare and irresistible charm that has swept Gallic women off their feet‘.

In Italy, he appeared in the title role of the comedy Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa / Captain Fracassa's Journey (Ettore Scola, 1990) with Emmanuelle Béart. Perez was awarded the prestigious Prix Jean Gabin for his work in the World War II drama La Neige et le Feu / Snow and Fire (Claude Pinoteau, 1991). He landed the romantic lead opposite Catherine Deneuve in Indochine / Indochina (Rëgis Wargnier, 1992), set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. That year, he directed and wrote himself the short film L'échange / The Change (1992). At the Cannes Film Festival, L'échange was nominated for the Golden Palm Award for Best Short Film.

He then co-starred with Sophie Marceau in the romantic comedy Fanfan / Fanfan & Alexandre (1993), written and directed by Alexandre Jardin and based on the director's best-selling 1990 novel. James Travers at Films de France: “Compelling performances from Vincent Perez and Sophie Marceau transform what looks at first like a routine romantic comedy into something far richer, far more compassionate. The second part of the film also contains some moments of artistic brilliance, notably the Cocteau-esque sequence in which the two lovers attempt to make contact through a mirrored partition. Although there are a few unexplained gaps in the narrative — some more backstory about Alexandre might have helped — writer-director Alexandre Jardin succeeds in weaving a tender love story that is both original and hauntingly poetic.“

One of his best films is the French period film La Reine Margot / Queen Margot (Patrice Chéreau, 1994), starring Isabelle Adjani. The film won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and was an international success. It paved the way for Perez to have an international career.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 759 (Series 2 set of 12). Collage 1. Photo: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 760. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 761 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 2.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 762. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 763 (Series 2 set of 12). Vincent Pérez, Thuy Trang and Iggy Pop in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 3.

American supernatural Horror action film

Vincent Pérez was cast next to John Malkovich in the Italian-French-German romance Al di là delle nuvole / Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders, 1995). Director Antonioni, who was 83 at the time of the film's production, had a stroke that left him severely incapacitated. The film was completed with help from Wim Wenders, who wrote its prologue and epilogue and worked on the screenplay. Perez then played the lead in the American supernatural Horror action film The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996), a sequel to the cult film The Crow (Alex Proyas, 1994) with Brandon Lee, who was accidentally killed on the set during filming by a defective blank, only 8 days before the film would have completed production. The Crow: City of Angels was a minor success.

Pérez then starred in the American drama Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997), based on a story by Joseph Conrad about a doomed love affair between a simple country girl (Rachel Weisz) and a Ukrainian peasant (Pérez) who is swept onto the Cornish shore in 1888 after his emigrant ship sinks on its way to America. Back in France, he co-starred with Daniel Auteuil in the Swashbuckler Le Bossu / On Guard (Philippe de Broca, 1997). For his part as a transsexual in Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train / Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Patrice Chéreau, 1998), he was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor (Meilleur second rôle masculin).

His American films were less successful. Talk Of Angels was directed in 1996 by Nick Hamm, but not released by its production company, Miramax, until 1998. The drama I Dreamed of Africa (Hugh Hudson, 2000), starring Kim Basinger, was also not received well and was a huge financial flop. Better received was the French comedy Le Libertin / The Libertine (Gabriel Aghion, 2000), in which Pérez played the philosopher Denis Diderot, one of the modernists of the French 18th-century Age of Enlightenment movement. His next American projects, the period drama Bride of the Wind (Bruce Beresford, 2001), and the vampire Horror film Queen of the Damned (Michael Rymer, 2002) were again critical and box office disappointments. Pérez then directed himself the drama Peau d'Ange / Once Upon an Angel (Vincent Perez, 2002). Derek Elley in Variety: “Vincent Perez makes an interesting behind-the-camera debut with Once Upon an Angel, a smartly put together, well-cast romantic drama that just needed a little more work on the script. Tale of a simple farm girl who loses her virginity to – but not her love for – a more emotionally complex, ambitious young man doesn't add up to a great deal, but features good perfs by leads Morgane More and Guillaume Depardieu.”

His later films include the French-Swiss comedy Bienvenue en Suisse / Welcome to Switzerland (Léa Fazer, 2004), the Russian action film Kod apokalipsisa / The Apocalypse Code (Vadim Shmelyov, 2007), the Franco-Portuguese epic war film Linhas de Wellington / Lines of Wellington (Raúl Ruiz, 2012) and the romantic drama Ce que le jour doit à la nuit / What the Day Owes the Night (Alexandre Arcady, 2012). On television, he starred in Paris enquêtes criminelles / Paris Criminal Investigations (2007-2008), the French remake of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Pérez starred as Lieutenant Vincent Revel. He has exhibited his photographic work during festivals and in art galleries. His exhibition 'Face to Face', which included photographs of Carla Bruni, Johnny Hallyday and Gérard Depardieu, was unveiled at Rencontres d'Arles, an annual photography festival in Arles, France.

Pérez appeared in Claude Lelouch’s ensemble film Chacun sa vie / Everyone's Life (2017) and the biopic Dalida (Lisa Azuelos, 2016), in which he played French record producer Eddie Barclay. He also played in the Australian romantic dramedy Ladies in Black (Bruce Beresford, 2018) with Julia Ormond and the American action adventure The Aeronauts (Tom Harper, 2019) starring Eddie Redmayne. He also had a supporting part in Roman Polanski's legal drama about the notorious Dreyfuss Affair, J'accuse / An Officer and a Spy (Roman Polanski, 2019), starring Jean Dujardin and Louis Garrel. Recently, he acted in La venue de l'avenir (Cédric Klapisch, 2025). Since 1998, Vincent Pérez has been married to Senegalese model/actress/writer Karine Silla. They have three children together: Iman (1999) and the twins Pablo and Tess (2003). 


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 764. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 768. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 767 (Series 2 set of 12). Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Caption: Collage 6.


Vintage poster postcard, no. 6244. Vincent Pérez and Rachel Weisz in Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), James Travers (Films de France - Now defunct), Derek Elley (Variety), Anne D'Arminio (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Vincent Perez.com, Wikipedia and IMDb.

La Collectionneuse: Vera Reynolds

Vera Reynolds was one of the Wampas Baby Stars of 1926. At the time, she was professionally linked to famous director Cecil B. De Mille. At the beginning of the 1930s, she could only find work at Poverty Row studios and retired in 1932. Later, she made headlines for her complicated marital history.


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 53. Photo: Film Erka Prodisco.


British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 250.


Mexican postcard by CIF, no. 1584. Vera Reynolds and Ricardo Cortez in Feet of Clay (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924).

Comedy shorts

Vera Reynolds was born on the 25th of November 1899 in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.

She made her film debut in 1917 and appeared in comedy shorts, working, for example, for Mack Sennett or Al Christie.

In 1921 and 1922, she was Eddie Barry’s leading lady in a series of comedies distributed by Arrow Pictures.

She also played opposite Stan Laurel in The Pest (1922).

Her first feature film was Prodigal Daughters (1923), as Gloria Swanson’s sister.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci-Editore, Milano. Vera Reynolds and Ricardo Cortez in Feet of Clay (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924).


British embossed postcard, no. 94.

Cecil B. DeMille

Vera Reynolds was then professionally linked to Cecil B. DeMille for several years.

Under his direction, she played in Feet of Clay (1924), which had her making a round trip to the afterworld, and The Golden Bed (1925), as vamp Lillian Rich’s gentle and decent sister. She was also featured in The Night Club (1925), adapted from a 1913 play by Cecil B. DeMille and his brother, William C. de Mille.

In 1925, the famous director left Paramount and founded his own production unit, the DeMille Pictures Corporation, whose films would be distributed by P.D.C. His first personally directed release through this new partnership was The Road to Yesterday (1925), in which Vera co-starred with Jetta Goudal, Joseph Schildkraut and William Boyd.

Under the De Mille Pictures Corporation banner, she also starred, under various directors’ helm, in Silence (1926), Sunny Side Up (1926), Risky Business (1926), Corporal Kate (1926), The Little Adventuress (1927), Almost Human (1927) and The Main Event (1927).

In August 1927, it was reported that she had attempted suicide by taking poison. She denied it, claiming that it was accidental and that she simply had suffered from food poisoning.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5130. Photo: P.D.C. / Sascha Verleih.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5130. Photo: P.D.C. / Sascha Verleih. Vera Reynolds in Sunny Side Up (Donald Crisp, 1926).

Decline

From 1928 on, Vera Reynolds' career began to decline.

Her last silents were Golf Widows (1928) for Columbia, The Divine Sinner (1928) for Trem Carr Pictures and Jazzland (1928) for Carlos Productions.

She made her talkie debut in a Madge Bellamy vehicle, Tonight at Twelve (1929), and was then Buck Jones’ leading lady in the western The Lone Rider (1930).

Afterwards, she got leading roles in films distributed by Poverty Row studios such as Tiffany, Chesterfield, Sono Art-World Pictures, Action Pictures or Mayfair, where her name could still have some marquee value. She was featured in, for example, Borrowed Wives (1930), The Lawless Woman (1931), Neck and Neck (1931), Dragnet Patrol (1931) and Gorilla Ship (1932).

Her filmography ended with Tangled Destinies (1932).


Romanian postcard. Photo: Kawa-Film. Vera Reynolds in Sunny Side Up (Donald Crisp, 1926).


Romanian postcard. Photo: Kawa-Film. Vera Reynolds and Kenneth Thompson in Risky Business (Alan Hale, 1926).

A complicated private life

Vera Reynolds had a rather complicated private life. In 1919, she married comedian Earl Montgomery. After their divorce, she married actor, director and future screenwriter Robert Ellis in 1926.

In September 1937, it was reported that she had filed a breach of promise suit against Ellis. In March 1938, the suit was called off after a month’s hearing. Vera claimed that she had married Ellis in Greenwich Village in 1926 and that, after the ceremony was found to be invalid, he had promised to remarry her. Both testified that they had lived together as man and wife ever since, but Ellis contended they never were married. A settlement was found when the couple agreed to a legal marriage ceremony. An attorney quite prophetically pointed out that this agreement didn’t necessarily mean an immediate reconciliation.

Time Magazine announced their (re)marriage in April 1938. In December, Vera filed for divorce but very quickly dismissed the action. In late 1941, she was back in the news when she contested the terms of a separation agreement allowing her to receive monthly payments from Ellis. He maintained she had full knowledge of the deal when signing it and that, therefore, she was not in a position to litigate. Vera Reynolds and Robert Ellis finally divorced for good.

In 1943, Ellis married Helen Logan. On the marriage certificate, he listed himself as 'divorced' and mentioned three previous marriages. His former wives were all actresses: Irene Fenwick, May Allison and Vera Reynolds. Helen Logan had been Ellis’ collaborator since 1935. Together, they had penned numerous screenplays for 20th Century Fox.

Vera Reynolds passed away on the 22nd of April 1962 in Los Angeles.


Mexican postcard, no. 64.


British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 250a.


Fan photo.

Text and postcards: Marlene Pilaete.

Photo by Philippe Halsman

Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was an outstanding American portrait and fashion photographer. He worked for Life magazine for 20 years and his work appeared on the cover of the magazine over a hundred times. His ‘Jump Pictures’ of politicians and celebrities, which he produced in 1959, are considered his speciality.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. 2214. Photo: Philippe Halsman, 1959. Marilyn Monroe.


French postcard. Photo: Philippe Halsman / Magnum. Caption: The American jazzman Louis Armstrong, photographed in 1966.


American postcard by Fotofolio, New York, N.Y. Photo: Philippe Halsman, 1969. Woody Allen.


American postcard by Fotofolio, New York, no. PH50. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Eartha Kitt, 1954.


Australian freecard by AvantCard postcard, no. 16219. Photo: Philippe Halsman. This card promoted the exhibition 'Grace Kelly - Style Icon' in the Bendigo Art Gallery in 2012.

Accused of murdering his father

Philippe Halsman was born Filips Halsmans in Riga, in the part of the Russian Empire which later became Latvia, in 1906 to Jewish parents. His father, Morduch (Maks) Halsman, was a dentist, and his mother, Ita Grintuch, was a secondary school headmistress. Halsmans became familiar with art during visits to major European museums in his youth. He was already particularly interested in portraits. At the age of fifteen, his passion for photography began thanks to a family camera. From 1924, he studied electrical engineering in Dresden, Germany and worked part-time as a freelance photographer for Ullstein Verlag.

On 10 September 1928, whilst staying in Tyrol, the 22-year-old Halsmans went on a mountain hike with his father to the Schwarzenstein in the Zillertal Alps. During this hike, his father lost his life under circumstances that remain unclear to this day. There were no witnesses, and the evidence pointed to a violent death. Philippe was arrested immediately, although there were no apparent motives on his part. The murder trial in Innsbruck caused a sensation throughout Europe. Various anti-Semitic remarks were made in the context of the trial. Despite his protests of innocence, Halsmans was sentenced by a jury court in Innsbruck to ten years’ imprisonment, despite a complete lack of evidence. In an appeal, he was eventually sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The trial reflected the prevailing anti-Semitism in rural Austria between the two world wars

His sister Liouba, friends and lawyers campaigned for his release, receiving support from Thomas Mann and various European Jewish intellectuals, including Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, and Jakob Wassermann, who confirmed his innocence. Reporters Heinrich Eduard Jacob (Berliner Tageblatt, Vienna), Emil Kläger (Neue Freie Presse, Vienna) and Rudolf Olden championed Halsman’s cause by publishing several brilliantly researched articles critical of the judiciary. At that time, a fierce battle raged between psychiatry and the relatively young discipline of psychology. Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex was debated and expressly ruled out by Freud in newspaper articles, specifically in relation to this case.

Halsmans spent two years in prison, where he contracted tuberculosis. His letters from prison were published as a book in 1930: 'Briefe aus der Haft an eine Freundin'. He was pardoned by the President of Austria, Wilhelm Miklas, and released in October 1930, on the condition that he would leave Austria for good. He moved to France. In 1931, Halsmans left Austria and moved to France to live with his sister. In Paris, he finally turned his childhood hobby, photography, into his profession and opened a photography studio in 1931. He started to call himself Philippe Halsman. Alongside this, he studied at the Sorbonne. He began taking photographs for fashion magazines such as Vogue and quickly gained a reputation as one of France’s finest portrait photographers.

In 1934, the photographer took his first celebrity portrait of André Gide and went on to specialise in this field, photographing Paul Valéry, Jean Giraudoux, Jean Cocteau, André Malraux, Marc Chagall and Le Corbusier. Philippe Halsman became known for his sharp images, in contrast to the soft-focus style often used at the time, and for his close-cropped shots. In 1936, after two years of working together, he married the photographer Yvonne Moser. He commented on the marriage: “I often advise young photographers to marry their rivals. It’s the best way to neutralise them." They would collaborate throughout their lives. They had two children: Irene (born in 1939 in Paris) and Jane (born in 1941 in New York). When Nazi Germany invaded France, Halsman's family fled to Marseille. Eventually, they managed to obtain American visas, with the help of family friend Albert Einstein, whom Halsman famously photographed later in 1947, and the Emergency Rescue Committee.


French postcard. Photo montage: Philippe Halsman / Magnum Photos. Caption: The French writer Jean Cocteau in a photographic montage by Philippe Halsman.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH6. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Salvador Dali, In Voluptate Mors, 1944.


French postcard by Fotofolio, N.Y., N.Y, no. PH8. Photo: Philippe Halsman, 1949. Caption: The Act of Creation. Jean Cocteau, actress Ricki Soma (wife of John Huston and mother of Anjelica) and dancer Leo Coleman.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH2. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Choreographers George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Ruthanna Boris, Anthony Tudor and Todd Bolender, 1951.


American postcard by Fotofolio, New York, N.Y., no. PH 18, 1981. Photo: Philippe Halsman, 1962 / Hastings Galleries Collection. Alfred Hitchcock on the set of The Birds (1963).

Dali's moustache

Philippe Halsman achieved his first success in America when the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden used his image of model Constance Ford against the American flag in an advertising campaign for the ‘Victory Red’ lipstick. Just one year later, he secured a permanent position at Life magazine, the pinnacle of photojournalism at the time. He first photographed hat designs. A portrait of a model wearing a Lilly Daché hat was the first of his 103 covers for Life, more than by any other photographer. In 1945, Halsman was appointed president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.

In 1941, Philippe Halsman met the Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, where the painter was exhibiting. In the late 1940s, they began working together. In his 1948 work 'Dalí Atomicus', he explored the idea of suspension. It depicts three flying cats, a bucket of water and Dalí in mid-air. Halsman and Dalí eventually published an overview of their collaboration in 1954 in the book 'Dali’s Moustache', which contains 36 different depictions of the artist’s characteristic moustache.

Another well-known collaboration between the two was the work 'In Voluptas Mors', a surrealist portrait of Dalí alongside a tableau vivant of seven naked women posing in the shape of a large skull. It took Halsman three hours to arrange the models according to a sketch by Dalí. Over the years, various reinterpretations of and allusions to 'In Voluptas Mors' have appeared; the best known is the version subtly used on the poster for the film The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), whilst an overt reinterpretation appeared on a promotional poster for the British Horror film The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005).

The photographer remained friends with Salvador Dalí throughout his life and worked with the artist for over 30 years, with the surrealist influence in Philippe Halsman’s photographs being unmistakable.

In 1947, Halsman photographed a grief-stricken Albert Einstein, who, during the session, expressed regret over his role in the American race for nuclear weapons. This became one of Halsman’s most famous photographs. The photograph was used on a US postage stamp in 1966 and on the cover of Time Magazine in 1999, in which Einstein was named ‘Person of the Century’.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH17. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Humphrey Bogart, 1944.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH38. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Marlon Brando, 1950.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH7. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Marilyn Monroe, 1952.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH29. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: William Holden, 1954.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH26, 1983. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Anthony Perkins, 1956.

Jumpology

In 1951, the founders of Magnum Photos invited Philippe Halsman to join the agency as a ‘contributing member’. That year, NBC commissioned him to photograph several popular comedians of the time, including Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx and Bob Hope. He photographed the comedians whilst they were performing their acts, and many were photographed whilst jumping into the air. This later inspired many jump shots of celebrities, including the Ford family, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Marilyn Monroe, María Félix and Richard Nixon.

Philippe Halsman asked his subjects to jump off the ground for the portrait, and captured them at the moment of the jump. In the pictures, they appear to be floating. Halsman: “When you ask someone to jump, their attention focuses primarily on the act of jumping and the masks fall away, so that the real person appears.” The photographer developed a philosophy around jump photography, which he called 'jumpology'. In 1959, he published 'Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book', which contained a humorous discussion of jumpology and 178 photographs of famous jumpers.

In his 1961 book 'Halsman on the Creation of Photographic Ideas', he discussed ways in which photographers could produce unusual works by following six rules:
1. The rule of the direct approach: you get a strong photograph if you are straightforward and simple.
2. The rule of the unusual technique: to make an everyday and uninteresting subject interesting and unusual, there are several photographic techniques, including unusual lighting, unusual angles, and unusual compositions.
3. The rule of the added unusual feature: capture the audience’s attention through something unexpected. This can be achieved by introducing an unusual feature or prop into the photograph. For instance, Diane Arbus’s photograph of a young boy holding a hand grenade.
4. The rule of the missing function: stimulate the viewer by defying their expectations.
5. The rule of composite characteristics: combine the other rules to add originality to your photograph.
6. The rule of the literal or ideographic method: convey a message through a photograph by depicting the subject as clearly as possible.

In 1960, during the Cold War, he photographed portraits of the Soviet elite for Life magazine during an extended stay in Russia. Celebrities photographed by Halsman include Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut during their 1962 interview, Judy Garland, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Dorothy Dandridge, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Many of these photographs appeared on the cover of Life.

In 1963, Halsman was appointed a member of the Famous Photographers School. His works were exhibited at documenta 6 in Kassel. In 1967, Halsman received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement. In 1975, he received the Life Achievement in Photography Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In 1945, he was elected the first president of this organisation. He also organised many major exhibitions around the world. Philippe Halsman died in 1979 in New York at the age of 73.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH24. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Mary Martin, 1950.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH22. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Jimmy Durante, 1951.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH5. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Richard Nixon jumping, 1956.


American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. PH56. Photo: Philippe Halsman. Caption: Maurice Chevalier, 1958.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 2270. Photo: Halsman / Imperial-Translux / Herzog-Film. Dawn Addams.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and German).