HIS FACES LAUNCHED A MILLION FANTASIES; EXHIBIT SPOTLIGHTS WORK OF PHOTOGRAPHER TO THE STARS.Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer She came to George Hurrell's photo studio a mere mortal, her face pocked pock n. 1. A pustule caused by smallpox or a similar eruptive disease. 2. A mark or scar left in the skin by such a pustule; a pockmark. tr.v. with sun spots, her chin unattractively square and jutting jut v. jut·ted, jut·ting, juts v.intr. To extend outward or upward beyond the limits of the main body; project: , her bejeweled be·jew·eled or be·jew·elled adj. Decorated with or as if with jewels. throat creased with harsh age lines. Frozen in black and white, the original photo negative forgave nothing in her appearance. Six hours later, the same expertly retouched image revealed not a voracious young Hollywood actress of flawed beauty, but a freshly minted icon named Joan Crawford. Her features were smooth as terrazzo terrazzo Type of flooring consisting of marble chips set in cement or epoxy resin that is poured and ground smooth when dry. Terrazzo was ubiquitous in the 20th century in commercial and institutional buildings. marble. Her skin had a creamy, translucent glow. Her eyes turned up in predatory seductiveness, like those of a wily Roman goddess. George Hurrell had banished every imperfection im·per·fec·tion n. 1. The quality or condition of being imperfect. 2. Something imperfect; a defect or flaw. See Synonyms at blemish. imperfection Noun 1. . Soon, multiple copies of this myth-making masterpiece would be shipped free to obliging newspapers and compliant fanzines across the country. The images then would be cannibalized by an American public that hungered for glamour, even while many of its citizens were starving in the streets. The wizard who wrought this miraculous artifice claimed he didn't ``give a damn'' about Hollywood actors, or the star-making machinery by which he earned his bread. ``Hell, this is only temporary,'' Hurrell would assure visitors to his studios on Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard. ``I'm just doing this to make a couple of bucks, (then) I'm going back to my easel and paint.'' Fat chance. During the dozen years he spent in Hollywood (1930-1943), the stocky, mercurial art-school dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human was considered nearly as valuable a commodity as the enticing ``oomph girls'' and devilishly dapper leading men he photographed for the moguls. Along with Clarence Bull, Laszlo Willinger and one or two others, Hurrell invented the ``glamour portrait.'' Working successively for MGM MGM in full Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. U.S. corporation and film studio. It was formed when the film distributor Marcus Loew, who bought Metro Pictures in 1920, merged it with the Goldwyn production company in 1924 and with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1925. , Warner Bros. and Columbia, he used heavy equipment and delicate shading to suffuse suf·fuse tr.v. suf·fused, suf·fus·ing, suf·fus·es To spread through or over, as with liquid, color, or light: "The sky above the roof is suffused with deep colors" his subjects with unattainable allure and concocted mystery. In a Hurrell portrait, every pore is perfect, every hair sharp. Was he a gifted technician, a genius or simply a publicist's best friend? The exhibition ``Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits,'' just opened at the University of Southern California's Doheny Memorial Library, quietly makes the case that Hurrell's dreamy, emblematic portraits qualify not as high kitsch but as art. So does a new book of the same name by Hurrell protege Mark Vieira, who met the photographer in 1975 as a USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. film student. The book relies heavily on the Chapman Collection, amassed by a single avid Los Angles collector, Bill Chapman. It includes the famous Crawford before-and-after shots. Born near Cincinnati in 1904, Hurrell was a complex, outspoken man who once walked out of MGM, telling L.B. Mayer to go to hell. Loyal and discreet, he had a genius for coaxing hidden feelings from his famously elusive subjects. To create the right mood for staging his mini psychodramas, he would play jazz records on a hand-cranked Victrola. He'd make small talk, sing, dance, deliberately knock over equipment - anything to get his subjects to relax. ``He was a superb psychologist,'' says Vieira. ``He was able to see what was there and to work with them to bring it out. When you're sitting in pools of warm yellow light, listening to music, there's something different that comes out of you than when someone's shooting you saying `Oh, baby, oh baby, flash, flash!' It's a serene quality or a meditative quality.'' On 8-by-10-inch sheet film, Hurrell sculpted sculpt v. sculpt·ed, sculpt·ing, sculpts v.tr. 1. To sculpture (an object). 2. To shape, mold, or fashion especially with artistry or precision: faces that launched a million fantasies. No Beverly Hills plastic surgeon could have done more to revive a sagging career or create a new one. Crawford called on Hurrell to help reinvent herself time and again. Norma Shearer credited him with contriving the vampy persona that allowed her to win a star-making role in ``The Divorcee di·vor·cée n. A divorced woman. [French, feminine past participle of divorcer, to divorce, from Old French, from divorce, divorce; see divorce. .'' Bette Davis was warier, announcing she wouldn't sit for Hurrell because she didn't want to come out looking like ``a piece of shiny wax fruit.'' Yet she, too, succumbed to his Pygmalion persuasions. It would take a world war and years of growing disillusionment Disillusionment Adams, Nick loses innocence through WWI experience. [Am. Lit.: “The Killers”] Angry Young Men disillusioned postwar writers of Britain, such as Osborne and Amis. [Br. Lit. with studio paternalism before Hurrell finally fled Los Angeles. With bombers strafing strafe tr.v. strafed, straf·ing, strafes To attack (ground troops, for example) with a machine gun or cannon from a low-flying aircraft. n. An attack of machine-gun or cannon fire from a low-flying aircraft. Europe, soft-focus glamour was giving way to candid, hard-edged naturalism. For the next 30 years, Hurrell would be out of fashion. Yet he ultimately returned to L.A., where he found plenty of work shooting movie-set stills, supporting a family while living in Van Nuys and North Hollywood. When he died in 1992, he left behind not only a valuable record of an era, but the ever-enticing illusion of human perfectibility. ``This is the way you'd want to look going to your senior prom,'' Vieira summarizes. ``No wrinkles, no bumps, no nothings.'' THE FACTS What: ``Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits.'' Where: Through Sept. 10 in the Treasure Room, Doheny Memorial Library of the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission ; enter through Gate 2 off Figueroa Street. When: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; through July 1. From July 2 through Sept. 10, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission: No charge. For information, call (213) 740-2543. CAPTION(S): 7 Photos Photo: (1--Cover) SHOOTING STARS George Hurrell's Hollywood studio photos were magic. Now they're art (2) Norma Shearer, 1929 (3) Greta Garbo, 1930 (4) Mae West, 1933 (5) Carole Lombard, 1936 (6) Marlene Dietrich, 1937 (7) Photographer George Hurrell, left, with protege Mark Vieira, who penned the book ``Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits.'' |
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