W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #marlonbrando, #reflectionsinagoldeneye, #napoleonsarony, #eugenesandow

This part is about Marlon Brando.

People of my generation cut their teeth stylistically on David Hemming’s photographer character in “Blow Up” (1966). I wanted that cool studio for myself, I wanted Vanessa Redgrave to have conversations with me with her shirt off, I wanted some flair. Photographers are the central character in lots of movies: “Rear Window” (1954), “Funny Face” (1978), “The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982), “Salvador” (1986), “Public Eye” (1992), “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), “Pecker” (1998), “Closer” (2004), and “Fur” (2006) to name some. 

But they don’t seem to make movies about photography collectors, with one colossal exception: “Reflections in a Golden Eye” 1967, directed by John Huston and based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Carson McCullers. It is about you know what. There is a sequence with Marlon Brando mesmerized by the sight of a naked soldier riding by on a horse. While this happens he takes from his desk an oversized nineteenth century albumen Cabinet card, possibly “The Apollo of Belvedere” by James Anderson (1813-1877) . The Brando character is … er … sexually repressed. Brando treats the photograph like some fetish object, wiping his lips while studying the image intently.  

Like any other collector.

I do believe that real collectors collect to satisfy some basic need for nurturing or order. That discussion can wait, but I do think that collecting can be a healthy neurosis.  

I don’t like having my picture made or looking at pictures of myself. Not only is your face fatter and more misshapen than imagined, but also it is backwards and older than the portrait you have been carrying around in your mind’s eye, the good one of you from many years before.

I digress. Back to Marlon Brando.

This is for Mary Presley Adams Chin, my former gallery director. It was her favorite story. 

I was approached by a fellow at an art fair, who introduced himself and said that he had dropped off a package for me at the gallery. “Did I get it?’

Hmm. It didn’t ring a bell so much as an alarm.

Me: “Was it shot on a wintry day, in an allée of trees in front of the Metropolitan Museum?” 

Them: “Yes, that’s right”.

Me: “Was I walking with a pretty woman and was I wearing a red sweater?”

Them: “Yes.”

Me: “OK. Let me explain something to you. Most people in the arts, the men, in particular, are intensely narcissistic. We want to look good. My staff saw that photograph, and they hid it. Because they knew it would upset me. I found it one day accidentally, and they were right. It did upset me. I am enormous in that picture. Fat. I look like a robin who is more than set for winter, hoping it won’t snow so he can eat even more.”  

“Oh,” says my personal paparazzi. “Then you probably haven’t seen this," he says handing me one of those supermarket giveaway magazines, “Over 50” or the like, with my image on the cover.  

I became even more apoplectic seeing it also on the table of contents page.  

By then a small crowd had gathered, carrying on and laughing at my vanity. The very well-mannered and lovely dealer Janet Russek, came into the stand asking what all the commotion was about. I handed her the photo. She looked at and exclaimed “whoever took this is the worst photographer ever!”

“Oh, then you two haven’t met," I said introducing her to the photographer who didn’t seem to understand what was swirling around him. She was mortified, and she hates my telling this story.

But I don’t.  

The collector-writer-dealer, Peter Hay Halpert, observed of me that I have no personal narcissism when it came to a good story.

That picture is not included here.

And that was the day I ate Marlon Brando.

©2021

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