Gay Life in Early Hollywood.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 10, 1998
Time: 12:00
Tran: 031001NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Wisecracker
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Gay actors are beginning to come out of the closet. It might surprise you to hear that it may have been easier to be openly gay in the Hollywood of the '20s. A new book looks at gay life in early Hollywood by examining the life of silent film star William Haines. My guest is the author William Mann.

He says Haines' story is the story of the institutionalization of the Hollywood closet. It's the story of how an industry changed and how in the '30s a community of artists turned its back on its own in the face of organized traditionalist pressure.

Mann writes: "those who played the game were rewarded with stardom and protection -- Cary Grant, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Rock Hudson. Those who refused -- people like Billy Haines -- were ushered out." Since few people remember William Haines' movie roles, I asked biographer William Mann to place Haines.

WILLIAM MANN, JOURNALIST, AUTHOR, "WISECRACKER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM HAINES, HOLLYWOOD'S FIRST OPENLY GAY STAR": He was actually the number one box office star in 1930. You know, that's what, you know, people tend to -- if -- if they remember Billy Haines at all, they tend to think of him as a second-rate actor or a co-star to some of the bigger stars. But he actually was the number one box office star in 1930. And for a few years before that and after that, he was certainly in the top 10.

GROSS: Now some of his movies have real macho kind of titles like "A Man's Man" and "Tell It To The Marines."

MANN: Right. Right.

GROSS: Did he play real macho roles?

MANN: No. You know, what's interesting is in the 1920s, the leading men in Hollywood were not -- they weren't macho. They really weren't about being masculine and aggressive. They were -- you know, when you think about the 1920s and the images of masculinity in Hollywood, you think of Rudolf Valentino and you think of Wallace Reed (ph), and you know they're slightly -- slightly less macho, slightly more effeminate.

Billy Haines was part of that tradition, and you know, it -- there was no intimation that they might have been gay on screen, but they were -- they were certainly the leading man; they were certainly the matinee idol. But there was the -- the aggressive strident masculinity that came to popularize the movies in the 1930s really wasn't in evidence in the 1920s.

GROSS: Did most people in Hollywood know that Billy Haines was gay?

MANN: Yes, yes.

GROSS: And did he try to cover it up?

MANN: No. You know what's interesting is that in the 1920s, being gay was just part of an actor's resume. There were a number of stars were -- who were in a sense openly gay, you know, using that term is a bit anachronistic because, you know, the construct was very different.

But -- but they lived lives that were -- that were authentic in ways that stars even just a decade later weren't able to live because the 19 -- the 1920s, the early 1930s was a time in Hollywood where there was a greater openness for those people who lived -- lived on the edge.

You know, we had people who were political radicals. We had people who -- heterosexual couples living without marriage. And there were -- and Hollywood was open for that. It was a real haven for that -- that, you know, kind of bohemian lifestyle.

So Billy Haines was certainly openly gay in that sense to the studio chiefs and the studio publicists, but certainly not to the public at large, because there wasn't such an identity yet to be openly gay about.

GROSS: So when he set up house with his lover Jimmy, there weren't studio heads or publicity heads who said: "you can't do that"?

MANN: And that's what makes -- that's what makes him so significant and that's really what makes him a mirror of the times that he lived in, which, you know, his story is interesting in and of itself, but it really takes on relevance when you look at him in context with his times.

Because you know, the same time he and Jimmy moved in together, so did Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. And neither couple was married; neither -- neither raised eyebrows in the front offices at MGM. It was -- it was -- there was an understanding at that time that there was a distinction between a star's private life and his public image.

GROSS: Well, how did MGM's publicity department deal with the fact that Billy Haines was gay, and he was living with his male lover?

MANN: Well, there was -- you know, there's been a -- there've been a number of funny stories where they tried early on to pair him up with movie actresses. And you know, Billy Haines, just -- unlike a lot of them -- you know, he just chose not to play that game. He wasn't -- he wouldn't go out on the photo-op dates. He didn't appear at premiers with some beautiful young starlet on his arm.

He would escort Polly Moran (ph), who was about 30 years older than he was and buck-toothed. She was a -- one of the popular comediennes of the day. And he would -- he would go -- he would turn the studio publicists attempts to link him with -- with female stars by saying: "well, I'm going to marry Polly Moran." And the press loved it. The press ate it up.

The studios, I think, at -- you know, by 1926, 1927 had really kind of thrown up their hands and said: "let this guy be who he is. It seems to be working. Nobody's, you know, questioning him at this point." And they just let him do what he wanted to do.

GROSS: Were the studios encouraging any of the gay actors to embark on cover marriages?

MANN: Oh, sure. But you have to understand that that really began to happen later on. What -- when we saw the coming of the production code in 1930, there was a greater sense that the excesses of the Roaring '20s was really over, and that the public mood was starting to change. We also saw the Depression hit at the same time.

By 1934, when the production code was given its teeth and was -- began to be enforced by the studios, in a way of avoiding government regulation, there was a real strict adherence to a certain image and a certain ideal. Stars had to change their images. Even directors had to change their images.

The on-screen content was cleaned up and so was the off-screen lives. People like Clara Bow weren't able to survive. You know, this wasn't just a -- this didn't just affect gay stars. It affected anyone who lived outside of a strictly defined set of rules.

And by that point, I think, we began to see some stars come in who felt they had to toe the line at the studio and the studio's attitude towards the stars changed.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is William Mann, author of the new book "Wisecracker," a biography of William Haines, who Mann describes as Hollywood's first openly gay star.

One of the biggest threats to Billy Haines' image while he was a film star was when Eleanor Glynn (ph), who I guess was a Hollywood columnist...

MANN: Right.

GROSS: ... wrote that he didn't have "it." You know, there were actors who had...

MANN: Right, right.

GROSS: ... "it" and actors who didn't have "it." And she said that Billy Haines didn't, and neither did Ronald Colman and neither did...

MANN: Right.

GROSS: ... Ramon Novarro. What did the studio interpret that as meaning and how did they try to counteract that?

MANN: Well, that -- that tapped into all of the studio's fears because here, after all, was their -- was their top box office star who was gay, who was not being linked with actresses in print, who was not being seen around town with the starlet on his arm.

And while they, you know, walked along with him for a while because it worked -- it seemed to work -- when Glynn did this, they said: OK, everything's going to fall apart now. We have got Eleanor Glynn who had written the novel "It" and "Three Weeks" and a number of other bestsellers of the time and really was considered an arbiter of social taste and sexuality in Hollywood.

And when she said that Billy Haines didn't have "it," as well as Ramon Novarro, who was also gay, as well as Ronald Colman, who was slightly more effeminate than she liked -- they reacted with the sense that, you know, OK, everybody's going to discover him now. It's all going to come tumbling down.

Of course, Billy then went into Louie B. Mayer and said: "well, you know, don't worry about it," he said. "Of course I have 'it.' I have appeal to both sexes" -- which Mayer, of course, just wasn't able to tolerate.

GROSS: You say that things started changing for him and for gay actors in Hollywood in the early '30s. One of the reasons why was the production code. What was it about the code that affected the private lives of gay actors?

MANN: Well, the code was a, you know, a list of dos and don'ts that the studios adopted voluntarily to avoid government regulation and government censorship. And ostensibly, the code only affected on-screen content. It was only supposed to be for the regulation of what the movies could show on the screen.

However, the code was part of a greater cultural and political shift in Hollywood in the 1930s, indeed in the country in the early 1930s with the coming of the Depression; with a greater movement of immigrants who were at the base of the -- the Catholic Church, which was the base of the reform movement in Hollywood.

And so, what we began to see was that the off-screen lives of the stars were also coming under scrutiny. We see that a number of stars were -- were forced to change their images; were forced to fit into a specific rule, a specific set of definitions.

For the gay stars, this -- this meant that a number of them got married and a number of them ended relationships that they were having because suddenly the whole dynamic shifted. We had -- the press changed their relationship with the studios. We had the stars change their relationship with the studios. And the public began to recognize this change as well.

GROSS: Well, how did Billy Haines react to this new set of guidelines you were expected to follow in your private life?

MANN: He -- alone among his contemporaries, he refused to play the game. He was -- he may have considered it. You know, what's interesting is Anita Page (ph), who I had the great privilege of meeting in Hollywood. She's one of the few silent stars still living. She's a lovely lady. And she told me that in 1932, Billy asked her to marry him.

Well, at first I was -- I tended to brush it off as some kind of Hollywood myth. But then I began to think about -- the timing was absolutely right that Billy would have at that point perhaps considered playing the game. Because all around him, his contemporaries were. They were fitting into the new images that the code was demanding.

Cary Grant was getting married. Randolph Scott got married. Ramon Novarro allowed himself to be linked in the press with Myrna Loy. The game was suddenly up for grabs, and Billy Haines may indeed have considered playing it.

Anita Page turned him down, which I think was lucky for both of them. And it allowed Billy to continue to live a life that was more authentic and more honest than -- than any of his contemporaries. And for many, many, many years after him, he lived the most open and most honest life that I could find in -- in the stories of Hollywood movie stars.

He went on to live with his partner for 50 years. He did not play the game that the studio was -- that the post-code studios were trying to put upon him.

GROSS: Do you think he was punished for not playing the game? He was released from the MGM studio in 1934. How much do you think that had to do with his refusal to play the game?

MANN: I think it had a lot to do with that. You know, I think what's important is -- is that Billy Haines wanted to stay with the studio at all costs. And he knew at this point that his screen image was in need of revamping. They were in the midst of trying that with some success. He would have gone into supporting roles. He would have taken character roles.

It's far too easy to say that his screen image just simply didn't live up to the times and he didn't change with the times. He would have moved into character parts as some of his -- his contemporaries like Edmund Lowe (ph), who did get married and play the game. He -- Billy Haines felt that by 1934 he wasn't going to change his life and, you know, kick his lover out after living with him for six years. He loved this man very much.

And so because of that, there was -- there was no room for him left. Hollywood had changed so dramatically, there was no place for the kind of lifestyle he lived, because the fan magazines at this point were going to -- were going to start asking questions that they wouldn't have done even five years before.

GROSS: Do you know what the official reason was for getting rid of him at MGM?

MANN: The official reason was simply that his contract had run out and wasn't renewed. And then he was listed as being at-large. Of course, no one's contract was not renewed for just simply letting it lapse. There was always a reason to renew or not to renew a contract.

And you know, I think what's -- what's also indicative is that his agent attempted to get him parts at other studios. And Billy assumed that even if it was a character part, that he would have gotten a part at perhaps Paramount or Columbia or Universal. None of these major studios picked up his option.

He ended up at Mascot, which is -- was one of the lowest of the poverty-row studios. They were the only ones who were able to -- who would be willing to take him on. That says something right there -- that the studios had changed enough that -- that they weren't interested in picking up this guy who just a few years before had been the top box office star in America.

GROSS: My guest is William Mann, the author of a new biography of William Haines, who was an early gay film star. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is William Mann, the author of Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star.

After Billy Haines was let go by MGM, he started a new career. And you say he actually really found his calling...

MANN: Right, right.

GROSS: Being an interior design for -- for the stars. He -- he did Carole Lombard's home and Joan Crawford's home and the homes of other Hollywood stars. It's funny. It almost sounds like a joke. You know, what did the gay actor do when he was kicked out by the studios?

MANN: Right, right. Exactly.

GROSS: He went into interior decoration.

MANN: Right, right.

GROSS: But...

MANN: It may have been the source of that -- that stereotype.

GROSS: That's right.

MANN: Right?

GROSS: That's right. But what impact did he have on Hollywood style as an interior decorator?

MANN: Well, it was an enormous impact. He -- he really changed the very look of Hollywood. You know, Hollywood in the early days was, you know, excessive and gaudy. And you have to remember, these people were nouveau riche. These were people who came in and bought every trend that came along. You know, Joan Crawford had black velvet dancing girls and, you know, dolls with chickens that laid eggs, actually, on the table.

You know, it was -- it was terribly tacky, terribly gaudy. And it was Billy Haines who brought a sense of sophistication. By the end of the '30s, almost every major Hollywood star and director had had their house done by Billy Haines. And that -- and he moved into Los Angeles society through the '40s and the '50s.

The very look of Hollywood itself, he changed how -- how the film colony thought of itself. I think he gave them a sense of style and class that had been missing before that.

GROSS: It sounds like later on in his life, he was on the outs of gay society in Hollywood; that he -- you say he became a sloppy drunk. He was implicated in a scandal. It was said that his -- his lover had brought a 6-year-old boy into the house and there were accusations about what had gone on there.

And that -- that kind of moved him out -- moved Haines out into the margins of Hollywood gay society.

MANN: Yes. In fact, he -- he had started out as being an integral part of the Hollywood gay subculture in the 1930s. He was best friends with George Cukor. He was close with Cole Porter. And there was a real sense of -- of, you know, a very vibrant night life in the 1930s and 1940s, also again contrary to public opinion.

By the -- by the middle part of the decade of the 1940s -- actually, after the war, there was a number of falling outs that he had with some of these key figures in the gay subculture. And I think part of it was that, you know, at this point the -- the idea of being gay in Hollywood had changed radically from it had, you know, just 20 years before in the 1920s.

There was a much greater reluctance to act out. There was -- there was this new decorum of -- of, you know, we have to prove that we are as -- as gentle-mannered as -- as the rest of them. And so Cukor, Porter -- these were people who set a great stand on being proper.

Billy Haines never did. And I think by, you know, the interesting thing is is that by 1940 -- 1945, he had pushed himself away from that crowd as much as they had pushed themselves away from him. That, you know, he just represented a part of their lives. They felt -- they were a little too flamboyant. He could get drunk. He could get outrageously campy. And that unnerved some of these social arbiters in the gay subculture.

GROSS: One of the things that surprised you about Billy Haines was that although he lived what was a pretty openly gay life for his time, some of his best friends were supporters -- were later supporters of McCarthyism. They were anti-gay. And you include on that list Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

MANN: That's right.

GROSS: Now, I know you got an interview with Nancy Reagan for your book.

MANN: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Was she able to address that?

MANN: Mrs. Reagan was -- was very clear when I asked her if that was ever a problem for some of her husband's supporters. It was obvious that there might have been a conflict in that at the same time that then-Governor Reagan was firing his gay staffers because of a potential scandal in 1967 -- that at the very same time, she and the governor were having regular dinners at Billy and Jimmy's house.

I asked her if there was ever a conflict there; if there was ever any pressure from her husband's supporters. And she said emphatically "no." There was never a problem. When I tried to push and find out more about this, she just insisted that there was just never a problem.

My sense is is that, you know, there probably wasn't a problem. There was a -- again, the -- the social constructs of homosexuality were very different even in the 1960s. This is pre-Stonewall. Billy Haines had little to identify with these gay liberation supporters. He -- he identified more with the Los Angeles upper crust.

And so, there was really no sense that he was part of that underworld. Of course, I imagine there must have been some conflicts for him; that he must have had to reconcile this in some ways. And I do talk a little bit about that. Some of his friends have talked to me about the struggles that they went through at that time.

But there was -- people treated each other in Billy's world as individuals. And I think, you know, he felt that Nancy and Ronald Reagan treated them with -- with respect and he returned that respect.

GROSS: We're starting to see some actors in film and on TV who are gay come out. What do you think the climate is like now for people who are out in Hollywood?

MANN: I think it's gotten an awful lot better, even in the last five years. You know, I think what's so interesting and so ironic about Billy Haines' story is that actors and directors didn't come -- become progressively more open as being gay since his time. But they became progressively more closeted until very, very recently.

I think within the last few years when we've seen Ellen DeGeneres and, you know, kd lang, and Dan Butler -- a number of stars who have come out and shown that they continue to have successful careers. I think that's -- that's the real legacy of Billy Haines' story; that we are getting back into a time when perhaps that will just become part, again, of what constitutes an actor's life and that it won't be seen as something so important that that's going to color how we treat them and -- for the rest of their career.

GROSS: I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

MANN: Thank you.

GROSS: William Mann is the author of Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: William Mann
High: Journalist William Mann has written a new biography of actor William Haines, "Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star." In 1930, Haines was a big box-office draw. He was also openly gay to reporters, studio chiefs, and fellow actors. Eventually Haines was booted out of Hollywood, because he refused to give in to studio pressure to conform. He began a highly successful career as an interior designer.
Spec: Homosexuality; Culture; Movie Industry; History; William Haines; Books; Authors; Wiscracker
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1998 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1998 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Wisecracker
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 10, 1998
Time: 12:00
Tran: 031002NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Weegee's World
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:30

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The photographer known as Weegee was often the first photographer at the scene of New York fires, murders, and mayhem. But he was also on the beach and at the opera, capturing the diversity of daily life in New York.

His pictures of New York in the '30s and '40s were published in tabloids and magazines. Now, he ranks as one of the most eccentric and celebrated news photographers of his time. You can see Weegee's photos and read about his life in the book "Weegee's World" by my guest Miles Barth. It just won the Best Photographic History Book Award from the American Photographic Society.

Barth also curated the recent exhibit of Weegee's work at the International Center of Photography in New York. The show will tour Europe next fall and America in the year 2000.

Weegee died in 1968 at the age of 69. In a few minutes, we'll hear a recording of him discussing his work. I asked Miles Barth to describe one of Weegee's most famous photos.

MILES BARTH, CURATOR, ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS, INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY, AUTHOR, "WEEGEE'S WORLD": Well, I think his most famous photograph, although it is not necessarily my favorite, it's certainly his most reproduced photograph, and it's an image of two elderly opera patrons entering the Metropolitan Opera on the evening of November 22, 1943 for the 50th anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera here in New York.

And on the extreme right of the photograph is what we I guess would call now a bag woman that Weegee had strategically placed on the edge of the photograph. And the image depicts the two women dressed in furs and jewels coming into the opera with this bag woman looking on from the right. And it was really Weegee's kind of take on the differences and the class struggle that was existing in New York; the difference between the rich and the poor and the well-dressed and the haves and the have nots.

That photograph, Weegee had staged. He had planned the photograph not necessarily with the two women who were the opera patrons, but he had brought the woman from the Bowery at about 4:00 in the afternoon and placed her in the backseat of his car and got her completely drunk. And asked his assistant, who relayed the story to me, to stand at the curb and hold the woman up as best as possible.

And when the first limousine was to pull up with the first patrons arriving that evening, he was to let go of the woman, and Weegee was to make his famous photograph.

Unfortunately, none of the daily newspapers published the photograph. He could not find a buyer until Life magazine published it about two weeks later. And it was published very small, in the lower left-hand corner of a larger article about the 50th anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera.

LAUGHTER

The reason, it turns out, that it was not published by any of the daily newspapers -- there were two important reasons: one, it was wartime and the newspapers were very afraid to show women dressed in jewels and furs while American servicemen were overseas fighting -- you know, protecting our country's honor.

And the other reason was, it turns out by chance that one of the two women in the photograph, who walked out of the limousine, was a Mrs. George Washington Cavanaugh (ph), who was the major patron of the opera for their 50th anniversary. She was known to everyone in New York at the time, and the newspapers were so frightened that if they were to run this photograph of her, there would be a major reaction from both the opera and from, you know, New York society.

So it never really ran in a New York newspaper, but it turns out it's probably Weegee's most famous photograph.

GROSS: It's a great story. One of Weegee's subjects was dead bodies. I mean, Weegee took photos of corpses with bloodied faces and pools of blood around the body. Here's a 1941 picture of a guy in a pool of blood with a "dead on arrival" ticket on his arm.

BARTH: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: There's a picture called "Murder on the Roof" in which the cops are going through the corpse's pockets; a 1942 photo called "Gunman Killed by Off-duty Cop at Broom (ph) Street," and the gunman is lying on his stomach; his face covered with blood; his gun by his side.

Now, you know, in relation to these photos, you said the New York Times hardly printed any of his stuff. Weegee wrote he disagreed "with the New York Times editorial policy of not running pictures of local dead gangsters no matter how prominent." I love that "no matter how prominent."

LAUGHTER

BARTH: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Even the famous dead people, they wouldn't print. What were the standards of newspapers at that time in terms of printing blood or printing corpses?

BARTH: Well, I think it depended on the newspaper. But certainly, the New York Daily News and the Post, the Journal-American, the Herald-Tribune -- they weren't afraid of it. It sold newspapers.

And Weegee had a very interesting relationship with one newspaper in particular called "PM." He was not on staff and he was never on staff of any newspaper, but PM gave him a $100 a week stipend, and in return for that, they were offered the first photos of Weegee's nightly catch or early morning catch. And whatever they didn't use or whatever they refused, Weegee had the right to go on and sell to other newspapers.

And PM was relatively gentle when it came to the crime photos, so Weegee found a much better market at the Daily News and at the New York Post. And the photographs or the style of the newspapers of that time, I believe it was that, you know, it was wartime for the most part, and certainly between 1936 and 1945, Weegee's hey-day, the newspapers were not afraid to run that kind of photograph. It really -- it sold newspapers.

I think by comparison, today's newspapers are really quite bland. You rarely see dead bodies in the newspapers. And I think the television has really taken over a lot of that kind of more sensational, visual news.

But Weegee, besides the photographs of dead bodies, which he did become famous for, he prided himself also on the human interest stories -- the people who were watching the crimes; the people who were affected by the crimes and the fires and the tragedies; the auto accidents -- whatever it might be. He was always turning around to the crowd. He was not just focused on the event.

And what you'll see repeatedly in his photographs, even of the dead corpses on the ground, many times he's just as interested in the crowd that's gathered around. The photo you mentioned of the people on the rooftop -- it certainly, I think the way Weegee's positioned the angle of the photo -- the camera -- to make that image, he's as concerned with the viewers as he is with the dead body and the police gathered around the body taking fingerprints and doing various police tasks.

It -- it's a repeated theme in his work, that he was extremely concerned with documenting human emotion.

GROSS: Weegee prided himself on getting to the scene of the crime and often getting there first. What are -- what were his techniques for knowing where the scene of the crime was?

BARTH: Well, it wasn't a technique. It was a very specific kind of event that took place. In 1938, he was the first photographer ever to be granted a permit from the New York City Police Department to install a radio receiving unit in his car, which was capable of capturing the short-wave broadcasts of the police and fire departments.

And it was really for about two or three years, he had this edge on the competition. I think Walter Winchell was the first person in New York -- first civilian ever to receive that same honor. But Weegee was certainly the first photographer.

And as a freelance photographer -- and in and of itself, that was quite rare at the time because most of the other newspaper -- and most of the other photographers, were attached to newspapers or publications or the syndication services.

Weegee was completely alone. And he depended on, you know, making the photograph at night that he could sell to a newspaper the next morning. And he did live from night to morning and morning to night. So, the ability to be able to arrive at the scene of a crime or an auto accident or a fire or any kind of disaster where one of the city agencies was involved was really to his advantage.

GROSS: Were there a lot of photographers before him who specialized in being at the crime scene? You know, who...

BARTH: Well, there were -- there were other photographers certainly who did crime photographs. I think what made Weegee interesting was his mobility. The fact that he was using a large-format, but relatively portable camera -- something that had a synchronized flash. He had a 1938 Chevy that was equipped. Its trunk was really a portable office. He would type his own captions. He always had about 100 cigars and 100 flashbulbs ready at any one time.

LAUGHTER

He was -- he was out there. He was a one-man kind of photo agency; photo-syndication service. And he knew all the photo editors of all the New York City daily newspapers and was able to sell photographs to a lot of them. It's been said that in a single week, he could make up to $150 to $200, you know, in terms of salary, which was an enormous amount of money at that time.

AUDIO GAP, WILL SEND TRANS

GROSS: ... National Center of Photography in New York, and the author of the book Weegee's World. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is Miles Barth, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, and the author of a book of -- about the photographer known as Weegee.

Miles, you've brought something special with you for us to hear, and that is a tape of Weegee talking about his work and how he does it. This is very interesting to listen to. Tell us about where the tape is from and how you managed to get it.

BARTH: A number of years ago, in one of the collections we have, I discovered this 33 1/3 long-playing record album called "Famous Photographers Tell How." And it was a recording of nine different photographers from almost nine different disciplines of photography, talking about what made them successful or how you, too, could be a famous photographer.

And Weegee at the time, 1958, was quite well known in the field of photojournalism and documentary photography, and I think the producers of this record just felt that he was such a character he would lend an enormous amount of taste and color to the recording. So that's -- that's what you're going to be listening to.

GROSS: Well, let's hear Weegee talking about his work.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, PHOTOGRAPHER WEEGEE)

ARTHUR FELLIG/WEEGEE, PHOTOGRAPHER: I have walked many times with friends down the street and they'll say "hey, Weegee, here's a drunk or two drunks laying on the gutter." I take one quick look at them, and say: "they lack character." So even a drunk must be a masterpiece. I will ride around all night or all year looking for a good drunk picture. One of the most beautiful ones I got, after riding around two years, then I made my drunk picture -- was a guy in Amsterdam.

One Sunday morning about five o'clock he was sleeping underneath a canopy of a funeral undertaking parlor. Now, that to me was a picture. Of course the obvious cypher would be "Dead Drunk." So in other words, I am a perfectionist. When I take a picture, if it's a murder or if it's drunk, it's gotta be good.

When a person gets in trouble and they get arrested, the first thing they do, they cover up their faces. And editors don't like it. They say: "don't give me any excuses. Give me a picture so my -- our readers can see what the person looks like."

For example, a woman -- the New York cops arrested a woman who was wanted for a $25,000 jewel robbery in Washington, DC. The woman, being a dope, was naturally captured. She was in a cell downstairs in the basement of the the Manhattan police headquarters. I went down. She started to cover up. I says: "look lady, save your energy. I'm not going to take the picture. All I want to do is talk with you."

She says: "no, I know what you want. You want to take my picture. Why should I let you? So my friends, relatives and mother can see it on the front pages of the newspapers?" I said: "now wait a minute, lady, don't be so hasty. You have your choice. Do you want your picture to appear in the papers -- a rose-colored picture with your number underneath it? Or would you let me make a nice home portrait study of you using nice soft lighting like (unintelligible) would have done?"

Talking and arguing with her, I convinced her that was the only logical thing for her to do -- to pose for a picture. Now, that was a good catch, you might say, for me, besides the New York cops.

Anyway, this showed that by arguing with people, you can get them to uncover. People are reasonable, even jewel thieves.

GROSS: That's Weegee, recorded in 1958. My guest Miles Barth is the author of the book Weegee's World.

You can tell from that tape that, you know, Weegee really thought of himself as having a mission.

BARTH: He was possessed. He was possessed at a certain period of his life. I think, you know, what's interesting for most people to find out about Weegee is that his -- his working career was actually quite short, basically from 1936 to the publication of his book "Naked City" in 1945.

And I think when he's compared to some of his contemporaries, whether it be Robert Capa, who had a almost 35-year career; or Henri Cartier Bersonne (ph) or a number of photographers who would have been his contemporaries, not necessarily people he knew of, but his contemporaries -- it's a very, very short period of time that he had a working career.

And I think for those nine or 10 years, he was on the streets almost seven days a week, from 10:00 at night until 5:00 in the morning.

GROSS: Do you think it's fair to say that he had an impact on tabloid photography that came after him?

BARTH: I think he did. I think he had an impact on it, but it's -- it's interesting how technology changed so much during the 1950s that a lot of his photographs and a lot of his technique was really forgotten about, when photography switched to the larger format, four by five cameras, to the more portable two and a quarter and then 35 millimeter cameras.

I also think, you know, by the late '50s -- certainly by the early '60s -- that television had replaced so much of the outlet for where photographers could market their photographs that unless they were attached to a syndication or to a magazine or newspaper, there were very few freelance photographers who could make a go of it.

I think his influence was -- was really quite extraordinary, but how much that carried over into the sort of next two generations, it's really hard to know.

GROSS: The most famous tabloid photographers today are the papparazzi, who are often freelancers and often camping out in the bushes, waiting for the celebrity to walk out the door; or you know, hiding behind a building waiting for an embarrassing celebrity moment; or you know if they're really lucky, some kind of devastating tragedy that they'll be on the spot to cover.

Do you think that Weegee has any connection to that? And was he thought in that -- was he thought of as a parasite in his time, in the way that a lot of papparazzi are thought of as parasites today?

BARTH: I -- you know, I'm asked that question a lot because of -- obviously of recent events where papparazzi have been called into the light of the press and, you know, and just criticism in general. But you know, Weegee was really making a living doing photographs, not necessarily of celebrities.

The work he did of celebrities takes place much later in his life. And I think the work we associate with his important period was not so much about chasing a particular celebrity or a particular event where celebrities might have shown up.

If you look in the book and in the exhibition, really a very, very, very small part of it is about people we know of. They were famous at the day, for the crimes they might have committed; or they might have been famous for the rescues that they performed. But they certainly were not personalities in the same way we would define, you know, radio and show biz personalities today, or even movie personalities who are being chased constantly.

And I'm not sure that Weegee's, you know, relationship to contemporary day papparazzi is really a true one. I'm a bit, in fact, disturbed by -- when people say that he was the father of papparazzi because the term "papparazzi" really comes out of Italy in the 1950s, and long after Weegee was finished doing any kind of chasing around after photographs.

And the personality photographs that appear in the book and exhibition were really done knowingly by the people who are in the photographs. They were there as photo opportunities, and Weegee was one of many photographers who made those photographs.

So I -- I don't like to consider him in the same light as contemporary day papparazzi or, you know, stalkers.

GROSS: After 1945, he basically left the newspaper world; went out to Los Angeles hoping to make it in movies. Did he have any luck?

BARTH: He did. He had a little luck. He was in small bit parts in six different films.

GROSS: So he wanted to act, not be a cinematographer.

BARTH: Well, I think he wanted to do both. I think he wanted to do anything where he could get inside the kind of Hollywood scene, whether it meant being an actor or being a technical consultant. He did both -- not with a lot of regularity, and I think there were very lean periods in between, you know, when he was working.

And it was at that time and during those lean times and idle hours that he started to develop the work that we call "distortions" -- the work he did almost for the last 20 years of his life, where he manipulated images using cameras and lenses and kaleidoscopes and various pieces of glass and plastic, to distort straight images. And this is really what grew out of his Hollywood period.

In 1952, Weegee came back to New York from Hollywood. He was not really accepted in Hollywood society and I think he found both the people in Hollywood, as he described them, "zombies." And really missed New York -- I think he missed the action of just being in the city and came back. But he did not pick up his large-format camera ever again. He, in fact, hocked it before he came back to New York.

And he started working with small-format cameras and medium-format cameras, creating and continuing his series of distortions, which he made by either placing plastic or glass in front of the lens of the camera or the lens of an enlarger. He would also attach a kaleidoscope to a camera instead of a lens and photograph right through the kaleidoscope to create very distorted kaleidoscope-looking images.

And as he tried to peddle these things to the magazines, they were constantly asking him: "well, why not just go back on the streets and do your photojournalism and be the Weegee of old?" And he said: "well, there is no Weegee of old. This is Weegee the artist speaking and this is my calling and this is what I plan to do for the rest of my life" -- which in fact is what he did for the rest of his life. And when he...

GROSS: For -- for my money, I found Weegee the tabloid photographer more of the artist than Weegee the artist.

BARTH: Well, I think a lot of people do. And I think what happened was in 1945, '46, Weegee just got completely overwhelmed -- super-saturated to just human misery, basically. He could -- he was an extremely sensitive person. Arthur Fellig was sensitive, not Weegee -- but Arthur Fellig, I think, had absorbed as many murders and as many kind of victims of fire and crime as he could possibly absorb and record.

GROSS: Arthur Fellig was the real name of Weegee.

BARTH: Correct. And I think he just decided when he was in Hollywood and when he came back from Hollywood -- back to New York -- that he was not going to pick up a camera and document any kind of misery any more; and that he was going to create this new form of art photography, which I think I was saying, the photo editors rarely picked up on.

He had much more success with that work in Europe than he did in this country.

GROSS: My guest is Miles Barth, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, and author of the book Weegee's World. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is Miles Barth, a curator at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan and author of a book about the photographer known as Weegee.

You know, when Weegee was doing his tabloid photos, it's not like, well, he was photographing the Bowery and then he'd go home to his palace and unwind. He lived in this one-room apartment across the street from police headquarters, and there's actually a photo of it in your show. And you know, it's -- there's like a bed, a desk, a floor, a ceiling, a light-bulb. You know, it's really -- it's not much of a home.

BARTH: And you'll notice he's sleeping in his clothes.

GROSS: Yes, that's right.

BARTH: This was his...

GROSS: That's right.

BARTH: ... this was a trademark of his. He felt that -- I don't know if you're looking at the same photo that I'm thinking of, but in that room towards the top of the ceiling, he had actually strung wire across from the police station and hooked it up to a speaker, so that when the alarms went off, it was actually going off in his room if he wasn't in his car.

So he could literally hop out of bed, just throw his shoes on, and be out the door within a few seconds. So he really resented, you know, sleeping in pajamas. He liked to sleep in his clothes.

GROSS: Which is probably one of the reasons why some of his colleagues complained about his personal hygiene.

BARTH: Often and loudly they complained.

LAUGHTER

And some of the remaining colleagues that can remember how -- how disgusting of a person he was were free to tell me this at their earliest convenience when I was doing the early research on the book and exhibition.

GROSS: "Weegee" was a nickname, spelled W-E-E-G-E-E, which is different from the way the ouji (ph) board is spelled -- "ouji" was a kind of fortune-telling game, spelled differently. Did people assume that Weegee's nickname came from the ouji board? Is there any connection? Or is there a different source for the nickname?

BARTH: Well, the source of the nickname is more from the "squeegee" that he used in the darkrooms at the New York Times when he was drying prints for the printers. It's just coincidence, maybe, that you know, when Weegee started to go off on his own and make photographs at night, and would bring them back and people would marvel at these, you know, wondrous images and "how did you find them" and "how could you have possibly gotten there before the police or before the fire department" -- he would say that he was -- you know, his powers of fortune telling were very similar to those of the ouji board.

And I think those are -- there's a combination of reasons how he got that name, but it -- it sort of stuck. And as he says in his autobiography, "the spelling was purely my own."

GROSS: How has your impressions of Weegee changed from the time before you started the exhibit to now?

BARTH: Well, I -- I think it maybe -- they changed by sensing that underneath the crust, this hard-core, cigar-smoking, brash, filthy, rough, crude, chauvinist pig -- that...

GROSS: Yes.

LAUGHTER

BARTH: ... Weegee was, there was an Arthur Fellig who was an extremely sensitive, very emotional -- someone who was very much shunned by women who, I think, for most of his life felt very sad about. I think he always wanted to have a relationship and some kind of normal life, which he never did.

And I think there were these two people and I guess I've discovered this sensitivity of Arthur Fellig, and how someone who was so sensitive and shy and almost introverted in some ways could create such an enormous alter-ego Weegee that lived out the fantasies of what he really wanted to be, but probably couldn't do it without that -- that disguise.

GROSS: So, you think of Weegee as being a disguise for Arthur Fellig.

BARTH: Absolutely, absolutely. I think it was a very ingenious, clever plot to advance himself in a career which he became extremely well known in. He is in almost every history of photography book that has anything to do with photojournalism or documentary photography.

And I don't believe that mine is the last generation that will be able to discover him. I think he's going to be continuously re-discovered in the future. And I think other people will come along and do new books of his work because it -- it really almost stands alone in the period.

There are few photographers that really did as much as he did in such a short period of time, in such a, you know, an incredible city, you know, that existed in New York, you know, between the 19 -- mid-1930s and 1940s.

GROSS: Miles Barth, thanks so much for talking with us about the photographs of Weegee.

BARTH: Thank you.

GROSS: Miles Barth is the author of the book Weegee's World, which collects Weegee's photos. Barth also curated the exhibit Weegee's World, which originated at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan. It will tour Europe in the fall and America in the year 2000.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Miles Barth
High: Curator of the Archives and Collections at the International Center of Photography in New York, Miles Barth. He curated an exhibit of the work of tabloid photographer, Weegee, whose real name was Arthur Fellig. Weegee eventually became one of the most celebrated news photographers of the century. His photographs, taken with an on-camera flash, were of New York's seamy side from 1930s to the 1960s, of murders, suicides, and accidents. The exhibit is now touring the U.S. There's also a companion book, "Weegee's World." The book just won the 1997 Best Photographic history Book Award from the American Photographic Historical Society.
Spec: Media; Photography; Tabloids; Culture; Books; Weegee's World
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1998 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1998 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Weegee's World
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.