W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #crisalexander, #littleme, #bellepoitrine, #favoritephotobooks, #firstlady

Widely circulated “Top Ten" lists of great photo-books never include one of my favorites, “Little Me” (E.P. Dutton 1961), a novel by Patrick Dennis with photographs by Cris Alexander (American, 1920–2012).  It is a richly illustrated fictionalized roman à clef subtitled “The Intimate Memoirs of Belle Poitrine as told to Patrick Dennis”, a tell all rags to riches tale of a young woman who basically screwed her way to stardom.  There are over one hundred and fifty photos that are a combination of original staged images and stock photos that have been imaginatively doctored by hand, all pre-PhotoShop.  It is a pastiche of fan biographies, and Mr. Alexander knew his popular and photo history.   

The cover is a wonderful send up of Hollywood excess: the décolletage, the come hither eyes and lips, the eyelashes and, the ropes of jewelry, the cocktail askew.  It is the ultimate salute and critique.  Years later, Madonna would style her Material Girl on Belle Poitrine. 

Some of the larger images are sly if unwitting references to the 19th century staged works —  tableaux vivant — of Henry Peach Robinson or of Oscar Gustave Rejlander and very knowing allusions to the 1920s glamour shots by Hurrell of Hollywood or Alfred Cheney Johnston glamour shots of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls.  The smaller ones  look like press prints from Confidential or similar scandal sheets or like period pornographic stills from 8 millimeter stag film loops with men in black socks.  Imagine Hedy Lamar running in the woods in “Ecstasy”, 1933. 

Cris Alexander also had a very noteworthy career as a Broadway and film actor, but for me, these photographs are his legacy.  

He had a perfect muse in the actress Jeri Archer as Belle who seems to have had no trouble taking at least her top off.  "Kurt" Bieber as “Letch Feeley” as Adam had no trouble with this pants, finding coverage in a fig leaf.

For myself as an adolescent in the mid-West, this was the ultimate in the forbidden and unimaginable.  The book lived in a part of my father’s library that held any number of books with racy passages.  I looked at these so many times the books literally fell open to the well thumbed portions.  The Alexander photographs are right on target.  

I believe that collectors collect to create safe places for themselves, constructs that offer order and sanctuary, insulated from whatever cruelties need escaping.  I’m struck with the notion that Mr. Alexander’s unique version of nostalgia and sex is a trigger for me to actually connect me with my very conflicted feelings about my father.  Sex is always so dense and impactful.  Hmm.

It may be pastiche, but it strikes deep..  

Mr. Alexander was the official photographer for New York City Ballet during this period and used his long term partner (and husband), NYCB star, Shaun O’Brien, as a model.   Alexander was chief photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine.  Patrick Dennis and Cris Alexander followed up “Little Me” with another collaboration, “First Lady: My Thirty Days at the White House” , the story of Martha Dinwiddie Butterfield, wife of a fictional robber baron president.  It was sharply satirical and filled with bogus reportage; there was no sex however.

It’s all worth a look.  The portrait on the cover is queer and gorgeous, introducing this horny ever curious young man to photography and the possibility of adulthood.   

Patrick Dennis, “Little Me” (E.P Dutton 1961)

©2021

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufart- lightning, #photographychangeditlifeitgavemeone, #crisalexander, #littleme, #bellepoitrine, #favoritephotobooks, #firstlady