Speaking with Jerry Schatzberg

Following our exhibition this spring, Jerry Schatzberg: Portraits, we had the pleasure of speaking with the photographer and filmmaker from his home in New York City. In this conversation, Schatzberg reflects on his extraordinary journey from fashion photography to the forefront of the New Hollywood movement.

Francesca:

You photographed Bob Dylan many times at a pivotal moment in his career, including the cover of his iconic album, ‘Blonde on Blonde’. What was it like to work with him?

Jerry:

Bob Dylan is such a great character. I was lucky to hit it off with him—and also to catch him early on in his career. He was fantastic with me, he did everything I asked for. I don’t know if the same results would happen today because he’s had countless interviews over the years and has been inundated with so many questions. I’ve been in interviews with him before and people ask him such crazy things. Sometimes he’ll answer something clever, but other times he won’t even answer, he just looks at them. I didn’t bother him with nonsense, you know. He was open to what we did, and he liked what we photographed.

Francesca:

How did you meet him?

Jerry:

That’s a good question. That’s probably the thing I don’t know, because I was hanging around with a lot of the people that he was friendly with. I do remember photographing someone else that his management represented and so I asked someone, “Do you think I’d be able to photograph Bob Dylan?” They said, “Sure, sure”. I didn’t believe them. But then I got a call and the guy said, “I talked to Bob, he’s recording an album now. If you can come to this studio address”. So I cleaned up my schedule and I went over there to photograph him. Before I got there, I got another call from a woman called Sarah who I had photographed three or four years earlier. It turns out she was married to Bob—Sarah Lowndes. So maybe she pulled some strings. When I got there he was really friendly. He said, “Hey, come on in. I want to show you what we’ve been working on this morning.” It was just fantastic.

Francesca:

Let’s take it back to the start. How did you get into photography?

Jerry:

Well, I was working in the family business of furriers—they manufactured fur coats. When I got out of the Navy, I asked my father if he had a place for me at the business and they gave me a job. I was an assistant, I did all the odd things that nobody else would do. I realised that I was getting nowhere in the business. So one day I saw an ad in the New York Times for a Photographer’s Assistant. I had no idea what that was. I called up and spoke to a man who told me to come into the office. When I went in, he asked, “What camera do you use?”, I said, “I don’t have a camera”. He said, “You want to be Photographer’s Assistant but you don’t even have a camera?” He recommended a Rolleiflex, so I borrowed money from my mother to buy one for about $300. I learned how to use it, and then I started going out on the street just photographing whatever interested me. Then I started answering ads for people looking for photographic assistance, and that’s how I got started.

Francesca:

Was this when you started working for Bill Hepburn?

Jerry:

Yeah, I really knew nothing when I went to work for Bill. In my third week, he was asking me to do things that I just didn’t know how to do. Fortunately, Bill had a wonderful darkroom assistant who I became great friends with, so he would help me out when I needed it. At one point, we were shooting something and I knew Bill was unhappy with the way I was working the camera. I saw he was getting edgy, then he picked up his exposure meter and threw it against the wall. He said “I can’t do this. I gotta get rid of you”. His stylist said, “Come on, Bill, he’s only been here three weeks. Give him a break. How long did it take you to learn about cameras?” Thankfully he decided to keep me on. But from then on, I swore I was going to become the best assistant he ever had. I don’t know if I was—but I was as good as I could be.

Francesca:

How long did you work for him and how did you find it?

Jerry:

I think four or five years. Oh, it was great. Bill was such a character, he was a very unique person, and I love that. I came to the city from the suburbs and was living such an ordinary life before that. This was a whole different thing for me—somebody that didn’t care what other people thought about them. But the strange thing there was that I started to become successful myself, and every time I saw Bill he would compliment me. He started everything for me and I had worked for him for years, so that took a while to get used to. I tried to stop him from complimenting me!

Francesca:

That was around 1965?

Jerry:

Yeah. So by that time I had some good experience of photographing people. I would make sure that I had an hour or so before a session with my subject, so I could just talk to them. I just wanted to know them. I wanted to see who they were and what they were about. Then I would get ideas about how to photograph them.

Francesca:

Everybody seems so relaxed and natural in your portraits.

Jerry:

I think it’s just from talking to them and joking around. It wouldn’t be serious—we’d have fun. I had a studio where I kept some odd props, so I would offer people things to hold or use, to get them to relax and just lighten the mood.

Francesca:

In an Andy Warhol, studio-session style?

Jerry:

I think Andy had a different situation at the Factory. Everybody used to go to Andy’s place to hang out. I knew him, but I didn’t like hanging out there. Dylan’s manager asked me to photograph Edie Sedgwick once, so I took a few pictures with her. I bumped into Andy a few weeks later and mentioned that I’d just photographed Edie. He looked at me as if I was some sort of strange animal. It was as if Edie was his property. I saw he wasn’t too happy, so I quickly took off. When I got home, I got a call from Andy saying, “Hey, listen, if you photograph Edie again, can I come along to photograph you, photographing Edie?” He was trying to make sure he was involved somehow. Then another photographer friend of his called to ask if she could also come along, to photograph us, photographing Edie. I was a little intimidated by it all. He was becoming pretty big at the time, and I wasn’t gonna refuse him. So we let them know about our next shoot and he ended up bringing loads of friends. Andy had a camera, but it turned out there was no film in it. He said, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter”. He just wanted to be part of it. I played along with it because I also wanted to photograph him in the studio, you know. I didn’t want to hang out with him, but I certainly wanted to photograph him. And I did.

I photographed Edie a few times in the end. I asked her once if she wanted to go up to Harlem afterwards to see Otis Redding play at the Apollo, which is a great memory.

Francesca:

You’ve also photographed many famous musicians—can you tell us about your time in the sixties, owning a nightclub in New York?

Jerry:

Yeah, I knew a guy who wanted to start a nightclub, so he started out by renting a photographer’s studio at night and invited all the photographers and models along. We had a great time dancing and playing records—sometimes he’d have a live band. I would go there almost every night. He asked a few of us if we’d be interested in investing and eventually he opened a club that he called Ondine. It became quite successful. Some nights you’d come in and see Diana Ross just dancing by herself, or bands sitting around and hanging out.

Jerry:

I started going to a few of the other clubs nearby and would listen to people like Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, so I asked them if they wanted to play at Ondine. After that, the club just took off. I had spent a lot of time in England, so I was friendly with The Stones from the beginning, as were the other English photographers at Ondine. I really wanted The Stones to hear Jimi, so when I knew they were coming to town, I wanted to show them the bands that we had here in New York. They went bananas over The Doors, but when Jimi came on, they just went crazy. They convinced them all to go over to London, and Jimi actually ended up staying in London for a year. That’s when he found the two other musicians that became The Experience. I became very friendly with Jimi and photographed him and the Experience a few times. I also did a shoot with Jimi and Frank Zappa with the Mothers of Invention.

After a while, we got into a thing with our stockholders and eventually I opened a new club called Salvation. It was successful for a while, but I was getting ready to make a film, so I left that business as I was spending a lot of time on the film. Recently, about a month ago, I was talking with my assistants here about making a new book about this time—running Ondine and Salvation. We haven’t gotten far, but I think the idea is really good.

Francesca:

You made an interesting switch from photography to film, especially getting into the New Hollywood genre. Your films are celebrated for launching the careers of many actors, like Meryl Streep, Morgan, Freeman, Al Pacino. How did you find the switch to film?

Jerry:

It really just came from an idea I had. I photographed Faye Dunaway when she did her first film, and her management liked the photographs. She went on to make two more films and they asked me to take more pictures. We met for lunch once to talk about a shoot, and from that point we became really friendly. At that time, I was working with a model called Anne St Marie and I asked her once if I could interview her, because I really liked her character. I had about two or three tapes full of her interviews that I ended up playing to Faye. She said she would love to play a character like that, so I said, “Well, let’s see what we can do”. From then on, we had a project. We got a deal with Universal who became co-producers on the film and I was introduced to a great writer, Adrian Joyce, who agreed to write our script. We would all sit for hours at dinner just talking, laughing and having a good time with it. I loved talking with Adrian, she’s such a fertile mind. So it all just developed like that.

Francesca:

So this encouraged you to keep making films?

Jerry:

It was a great experience. After the first film with Faye, I was speaking to my manager about a lab that had scratched the last six minutes of my negative. By that time, he was also managing Al Pacino, who I had seen in ‘The Indian Wants the Bronx’. I thought, “What an actor. If I ever make another film, I want to work with him.” My manager, Marty, told me to read a new script by Joan Didion and John Dunn that I had just turned that down. I knew Joan and John, I was friendly with them, but the same lab and film people had just scratched my negative and I didn’t like how lacking in respect they were about the material. Fortunately, we were improving with new techniques and were able to get those six minutes back later on. Anyway, I told Marty that I didn’t want to do it. Just before I was leaving, he said, “Al likes that script, you know, he’s interested.” So I went home that night and read the script again. I called the writers early the next morning and said, “I was so foolish! I read it too fast and made a bad decision. I’d really like to apologise and come to talk to you about it.” They weren’t happy about it, but they agreed to meet me. In that conversation I said, “Al Pacino would be fantastic in this role”. They said they would think about it. Then about a month later, the studio came back saying they didn’t think Al would work—“he’s too old”. I said “He’s 31 but he looks about 12!” I really fought them about it, and it paid off, because Al became the character.

Francesca:

So you continued to work with Al – how did your relationship evolve over time?

Jerry:

We’ve always had a good relationship. We basically started out at the same time. While I was working in another area—photographing Dylan and things like that—he was acting and started getting into films. Although at one point, he did something that I didn’t like and I got angry with him. I think we didn’t talk to each other for about six months. I was at Elaine’s restaurant one night, and Al walked in with a couple of people. I look at him, he looks at me. I got up, and we just hugged each other. From that point on, we’ve always hugged each other. I don’t remember what caused our little problem—I think it was a woman. After that, he started working a lot in California but he would call every time he was in town and we’d have dinner. We still love to see each other.

Francesca:

Do you have a favourite photograph that you took?

Jerry:

It’s always been one I took of Mick Jagger, sitting on a box or something in my studio. He looks so innocent. He’s totally a real person, as if he doesn’t know he’s a big star. I just made a print of it actually, to send to Mick. It’s sitting right here. It’s wrapped up, otherwise I’d show it to you.