Steve McQueen couldn’t bear having me around on the Le Mans set, especially when I outpaced him in a Porsche and hung out with the lead actress.
Elizabeth and Richard were getting ready to go back to work. Their movies were clearly still my number one priority, so I had to find some way of cutting back on my other commitments while still giving myself a certain flexibility in case a Coco Chanel or Brigitte Bardot should call wanting a shoot. The first step was to break with Pierluigi, once and for all. I no longer benefited in any way from our association. So I opened my own agency in Rome, Forum Press Services, and hired twenty-four correspondents worldwide, just as Pierluigi had done. A lot of his employees came to work with my new company.
When Johnny Moncada heard about it, he called and offered to rent me his studio in Via Margutta, the same place where I’d once worked fixing his lights and retouching his negatives. I recalled all those hours spent with Moncada, and now I’d become as big as he was. I looked out of the amazing windows of that studio—now my own—and at the courtyard, where artists like Picasso had walked and which now thronged with my own assistants, doing the same work that I’d once done myself. Success on Moncada’s level no longer seemed so impossible.
But first I had a job of my own still pending: to repair the damage that Galella’s picture had done—not only to Elizabeth’s image but in no small measure to her ego as well. Her next movie was X, Y & Zee, costarring Michael Caine and Susannah York and directed by Brian Hutton. It was being shot at the Shepperton Studios in England. Everyone on set could tell that Elizabeth had become very self-conscious about her appearance. Approaching middle age is a hard enough issue to handle for any Hollywood actress. Now Elizabeth had to deal with the whole world gossiping that she’d become fat and ugly. She desperately needed to feel beautiful again. And the world needed to see that the liar was not my camera, but Galella’s.
Of all the photos I’d taken, how many revealed the artist in me? I was always photographing for reasons dictated to me by others. The artist always came last, if he even came into the picture at all. Above all, you had to satisfy the objectives of the photo shoot—whether it was publicity, a poster, or a piece of clothing that needed selling. Generally, the subject was a star or someone important. Then there was the context. Was it for a magazine? Or a poster? In which case, the subject had to be to one side of the image, because there’d be words on the other. As the photographer, you came last. If you did manage to infuse a little artistry into the photo, great. But my experience had taught me that nourishing such hopes was invariably in conflict with the aim of the image.
A true artist is free to express him- or herself completely, with no conflicts or compromises. Many of my photos were not like that. I enjoyed more freedom than a set photographer, but I had limits all the same. On set, for example, I couldn’t control the lights because that was up to the director of photography. My only choice was what angle I chose to shoot from. The clothes were chosen by the director in collaboration with the costume designer. The makeup artist decided the hairstyle and makeup of whatever star I was photographing. Sure, there were a few occasions when I was able to make my own decisions and express myself. But most of the time, I had to repress myself.
But there was one shot that really did express the artist in me. I was still burned up by the fact that someone had destroyed Elizabeth’s image. As her personal photographer, it was up to me to fix the damage. The idea that Elizabeth had suddenly become fat and ugly was absurd. Just look at that photo of her running out of her dressing room. It told everyone loud and clear, “Go to hell!” No one could say I’d touched anything up. That photo was as true as it gets. And technically, it was almost impossible. Just before taking it, I’d seen Elizabeth go from the set to her dressing room. Once the set floodlights had been switched off, the light was very different, very soft, beautiful. I liked the way it bathed Elizabeth’s figure and wanted to be able to photograph her in that light before they put the floods back on. Using a flash was out of the question because it can destroy any atmosphere. I measured the relative aperture. The stop was on 2, so the focus would be very tight. The speed was one-fifteenth of a second, which, technically, means it should be impossible to freeze a subject in motion. But I was convinced I could pull it off.
Elizabeth came out of the dressing room running, which made everything even harder. With no time to plan, I shot without thinking. As she ran toward me, I dropped to my knees and leaned backward at the same speed that she was advancing, snapping off three shots. My movement compensated hers, creating a sense of immobility, even though Elizabeth was actually still running. There was no pose, no tricks, and the way her top wrapped around her body highlighted how well proportioned she was. And how beautiful.
Elizabeth runs out of her dressing room during a break shooting Brian Hutton’s X, Y & Zee. The photo sold around the world and demolished rumors that Elizabeth was losing her looks. It was used on the film’s publicity posters.
Many great photographers have photographed Elizabeth during her career. Why, then, does talk always turn back to me? Why not Richard Avedon or Lord Snowdon? Maybe because I never photographed only the woman, the wife, the actress or star—I also managed to photograph her as a fully authentic individual. I brought her to life. I never immortalized an immobile and inexpressive star. And I never lurked in the bushes with a zoom lens like Galella. A photographer has to be in touch with his feelings, which I believe is what made the difference between that photo and all the others. Richard liked it so much that he wrote a prose poem to go with it:
She is like the tide, she comes and she goes, she runs to me as in this stupendous photographic image. In my poor and tormented youth, I had always dreamed of this woman. And now, when this dream occasionally returns, I extend my arm, and she is here . . . by my side. If you have not met or known her, you have lost much in life.
Everyone everywhere wanted that photo. Thousands of publications took it in a single week. No one thought Elizabeth had turned ugly anymore. And they stopped accusing me of lying with my photos. But I didn’t stop there. Once and for all, I wanted to disprove all those damned articles that had made Elizabeth so unhappy. So I let a week go by, then circulated images of Elizabeth in hot pants.
I established a good relationship with Michael Caine, Elizabeth’s costar in X, Y & Zee. He was a really nice guy, with great class. He was very enthusiastic about working with Elizabeth. The two of them got on well and understood one another perfectly. I was very struck by his kindness and the respect with which he treated the whole crew. He was in no way egocentric. He didn’t demand special treatment, was always very professional, never late, always ready for the director’s “Action!” call. A class act all around. One day I overheard him chatting with a number of crew members and didn’t understand a word. It sounded like English, but I couldn’t make out a thing he was saying. His words stayed in his mouth, his lips didn’t seem to move. “Michael,” I asked, “what language are you talking?” He burst out laughing and replied, “It’s Cockney.”
X, Y & Zee received the same poor response as The Only Game in Town. The plot included allusions to a lesbian relationship between Elizabeth’s and Susannah York’s characters, and Columbia Pictures insisted on cutting a number of the more explicit scenes. The whole movie suffered as a result.
Hot pants were all the rage, and became even more so when these photos went global. Notice what happens when you move your lens: the first photo makes Elizabeth (pictured with Susanna York) look almost short; the second does wonders for her legs (and would do the same for any woman). The mirror is a liar, but my mechanical eye correctly captures my vision.
Michael Caine and Elizabeth shooting X, Y & Zee. Michael was a perfect gentleman to work with, unassuming and friendly with even the lowliest crew member.
While Elizabeth was still busy with X, Y & Zee, Richard had begun work on Anne of the Thousand Days, a Universal Pictures movie telling the story of Anne Boleyn (played by Genevieve
Bujold) and King Henry VIII (Richard). That was another movie that had to battle for ages before satisfying the US motion picture production code, on account of its themes—however historically true—of adultery, illegitimacy, and incest. I never got a chance to photograph Richard on set because I was there only for the one day that Elizabeth was included in a scene, making a brief uncredited appearance in full period costume. During a break in shooting that day, she noticed someone had left golf balls and clubs lying around, so she took a club and swung. The ball whizzed off, hit a tree, and bounced back across two cars—bang, bang, bang! She was terrifically embarrassed, but I managed to snap two great shots, one before and one after.
Elizabeth and Michael play ping-pong in the opening credits of X, Y, & Zee.
Next door to Elizabeth and Richard’s set, Roman Polanski was filming Macbeth. Polanski asked for an interview with Elizabeth, but she refused because she knew the movie had been commissioned by Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Productions, and she didn’t want anything to do with it. He snuck into her dressing room anyway and hid a tape recorder under a chair. Elizabeth rarely gave interviews, which made any scrap of conversation with her valuable. When Elizabeth returned, they started talking. But I’d seen what Roman had done, and, not wanting to make a scene, I told Elizabeth’s secretary, Dick Hanley, that Polanski was secretly taping their conversation. Dick knocked on the door, asked Elizabeth to step outside, and told her about the tape recorder. She left without saying another word to Polanski. Richard then went into the dressing room, grabbed the tape recorder, and ripped out the tape. Polanski scampered away as quickly as he could.
Elizabeth and Richard’s next movie, Hammersmith Is Out, was set to shoot in Mexico, so, shortly before leaving, I went home for a long conversation with my father. I could sense that something was wrong, and I asked him a hundred times if he was all right, if the family was okay. He assured me that everything was just fine, but I didn’t believe him. Under no circumstances would my father ever ask for my help. And he never accepted a penny from me (though I’d often slip my mother some money). I remember once when he needed to go to the dentist he went to the cheapest one he could find. A disaster. I got him an appointment with the best in town, paid 90 percent of the bill up front and asked the man to simply bill my father the remaining 10 percent. He would never have allowed me to pick up his tab, and he would never have gone if he’d known what it really cost. Nevertheless, he complained anyway, saying the dentist had overcharged him.
Dressed for a cameo part in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Elizabeth tries her hand at golf during a break and—much to her embarrassment—drives the ball smack into a row of parked cars.
My father counted every penny not because he was tight but because he earmarked every penny he earned for his family. He spent everything on us, never bought a thing for himself. Our needs always came first, his later—or never. Now that I had become so successful, I tried to repay him. But he wouldn’t let me. I offered to buy him a car. He said he didn’t want one. I offered to get him new clothes, but he didn’t want them either. Once I went home in a brand-new Ferrari and took him for a ride. We hadn’t gone far before he told me to pull over, got out, and said, “Fuck this, I’m getting the bus. This isn’t a car, it’s a missile! It’s turned my stomach upside down!” And home he went by bus. That was my father for you.
Anyway, I knew he’d never tell me the truth if he ever got ill, so I talked to my mother about it. She confirmed that he wasn’t well but said there was nothing to worry about. I had no choice but to believe her. We said goodbye and I packed my bags.
On the way to Mexico, we stopped off in California to meet with the production staff, including the movie’s publicist, Jerry Pam. I knew he was one of the best in his field. When I went to meet him in his offices in the Samuel Goldwyn Studios he barely gave me time to get through the door before exclaiming, “Listen. I know you’ve been hired for this movie, but I don’t want you. I want the photographer who took these.” The wall behind him was lined with photos of Elizabeth, all taken by me. But I’d signed almost none of them, to avoid paying tax twice, a common practice at the time among photographers published around the world. So Jerry had no idea that I was the author. He was desperately looking for a nonexistent photographer. He wanted that guy and no one else. I couldn’t explain why I hadn’t signed those photos. It was my business. So I simply said I was sorry, but I already had a contract with Elizabeth. This only spurred him on: “No, no, no! I’ll talk with Elizabeth, tell her I want this photographer. It’s nothing personal, you understand.”
Back at the Beverly Hills Hotel I told Elizabeth the whole story. She was outraged. “Fire the man! How dare he doubt you!”
I explained the reason for all the confusion, and she gave me carte blanche to fix the situation. When I went back to Jerry’s, he made me wait forty-five minutes. I then invited him for a coffee. “I’ll accept the coffee,” he said, “but I’m not going to change my mind.” I couldn’t help but admire the guy for sticking to his guns. When I finally explained the whole thing, he looked perplexed but didn’t hesitate to compliment me. We became great friends.
In California I got really sick. I couldn’t digest a thing; it all came back up. I don’t know if it was a physical illness or all the stress that had built up around my work and my concern for my father. I asked Elizabeth if she knew a doctor, and her secretary got me an appointment with a certain Dr. Coleman. Everyone in Los Angeles knew him. He said I had an ulcer, and prescribed a particular diet and a string of pills. Back at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I started wondering how that doctor knew I had an ulcer when he hadn’t even seen an X-ray. I talked to Elizabeth about it, telling her that I didn’t believe the diagnosis. She started yelling: “What do you mean, you don’t believe it?! He’s a luminary! Gary Cooper! Marilyn Monroe!”
Well, he couldn’t be such a great doctor then, could he? Those people were dead! I went back, got an X-ray, and then a sentence: “Unfortunately, it’s worse than I first diagnosed. You’ve got a tumor.”
“Fuck!” I said. I thought I should sell everything and go have fun! I can’t say I was totally convinced I was dying, because I was still suspicious of this Hollywood doctor. But I was definitely scared, and the possibility that I might be really sick hung over me for the rest of the trip.
We flew to Mexico City on Frank Sinatra’s Lear jet. The landing felt really weird because, due to the city’s altitude, instead of descending to land, we climbed up to the runway. My stomach was still upside down. From Mexico City, we got to Puerto Vallarta, where Dr. Coleman came to visit me on various occasions, flying down from Los Angeles in a private jet. He put me on a strange diet, prescribed strange pills, and told me to drink a lot of milk and orange juice. I didn’t care what Elizabeth said. I didn’t trust the guy. Secretly I slipped off to the market and bought jars of homogenized baby food, living off that throughout my stay in Mexico. I hid them in my suitcase. When everyone else went out for lunch or dinner, I invented some excuse and went back to my room to dine on baby food. I lost a bit of weight, but I felt better. I quit taking the pills.
A few weeks later we were filming outside Cuernavaca when someone spotted Ron Galella hiding up a tree. He was presumably hoping to shoot a sequel to his “fat Elizabeth” photo. Some of the crew raced over, pulled him down from his hideout, and started to beat him up. If I hadn’t intervened to defend him, they’d have massacred the guy. He was a paparazzo and I didn’t like him. But he was only doing his job. We were outside in a public place, and he had every right to photograph us, whether we liked it or not. I told him to get out quick, and he didn’t bother us again. Over the years, I’ve met Ron on a number of occasions, and he’s always repeated his gratitude for my gesture that day.
Michael Wilding, Elizabeth, and Claudye enjoying the sun and idyllic isolation of Mexico. To tell the truth, I would have preferred the sun and sundry pleasures of a crowded Saint-Tropez.
Shooting Hammersmith Is Out was an enjoyab
le experience. I was delighted to work with Peter Ustinov again—he both costarred and directed—as well as meet Beau Bridges. He was about my age, newly married like me. We talked a lot about marriage and children. Work moved ahead pleasurably. We all got along and were lucky to be in startlingly lovely locations. For the final shots, production moved to Acapulco. We lodged in a beautiful hotel complex on the coast called Las Brisas. Every villa came complete with a pink rental jeep, so we all went for jeep rides down the beach. My pool was fantastic. It continued under the walls of the building, extending halfway across the living room. I used it a lot. I relaxed, and slowly beginning to feel better, to enjoy life, and even to wonder whether I wasn’t letting myself get too stressed over my photography. I was in Mexico with my beautiful wife and my best friends. I was being paid to do what I liked doing. And I had a swimming pool in my living room! Life wasn’t really that bad, when you got down to it.
Cleaning my equipment in Puerto Vallarta one day, I noticed Elizabeth absorbed in a book and snapped this photo. Later neither of us could explain the mysterious figure you see in the background—we were both certain that nothing was there at the time.
Me in Cuernavaca, Mexico. (Photo taken by Michael Wilding.)
I was in that pool when Elizabeth came to get me on May 25, 1971. She was as white as a sheet. “Gianni,” she said, “come and answer. You’ve got a phone call from Rome.” It was Ottavia, my brother Giampiero’s wife. My father was seriously ill. Elizabeth organized my flight through Los Angeles and New York, where Richard’s secretary Valerie Douglas got a TWA flight to Rome to wait two hours for me. People were often amazed by these things, by the power that Elizabeth and Richard had—to stop planes, to go anywhere they wanted whenever they wanted, to see whomever they pleased, to work when they wished and not work when they didn’t so choose. It was truly impressive, though over the last few years I’d become accustomed to that kind of clout, to their way of life, which had become mine too. But it was a way of life that had taken me to the other side of the world, far from the most important man in my life, who right then needed me.
My Life in Focus Page 17
