The Diary of Susi Q GEORGE HURRELL

! I was looking at my picture at the photographer. His career spanned head of this column the other day and more than 60 years and carried him realized that I looked as if I was beyond Hollywood and onto the New growing a beard. I mentioned the fact York scene. Paris loved him. I loved to our esteemed publisher, Jerry George. I let him bring his models Ledbetter, and he said he would fix it. down to the beach outside my house But the photo brought back memories, so he could photograph them for "Elle," mainly those of George Hurrell who the French fashion magazine. He took the picture several years ago. wanted to repay me by taking my So let us start at the beginning. In photograph. I told him I had a knack the late-ish '70s I got conned into for breaking cameras. He "took" me doing PR work for the Laguna Art anyhow and what you see at the head Museum's forthcoming retrospective of my column is the result. on George Hurrell's photographs. Who The Diary of Susi Q His remarks about some of the was Hurrell? I asked. Only one of the by Elizabeth Quilter stars he photographed are typical most famous photographers of George, who, in between shots, danced Hollywood stars, was the reply. GEORGE HURRELL and pranced to the latest jazz records I got to work, aided and abetted by trying to get his stars to relax a book by the late Whitney Stine who wrote "The Garbo: "I only managed to get her to smile after I Hurrell Style" and "Mother Goddam," the latter a tripped over some cables. Fortunately, I still had the biography of Bette Davis. The Museum show was a camera in hand and squeezed the bulb as I hit the great success. I had asked the Hurrells if they would floor." like to stay overnight at casa Quilter which they did Joan Crawford: "Her drive, her ambition and her and which gave me a chance to know them better. clothes horse sense of glamor were no doubt built up Lucky me! by a horrendous childhood." According to Stine, Hurrell and his chum, Edgar Clark Gable: "In person he looked much as he did Payne, arrived in Laguna Beach in 1925 by means of on the screen, but his manner was entirely different. an old Hudson touring car driving all the way from He was almost shy." Illinois. Payne was fairly well known as a land and Rosalind Russell: "The first time I saw her, she seacape painter and Hurrell aspired to become one, was getting out of her old Ford convertible on the although he had been trained as a photographer MGM lot. She wore a beret and her wool suit was under the aegis of Eugene Hutchinson back in covered with dog hair." Chicago. Charles Laughton: "He had an obsession about Hurrell was young, brash with a unruly mop of his chin and would always sneak his hand into the black hair. He frequented Victoria Beach, the coffee shot, covering it." shops and the studios of other artists. When he had a Shirley Temple: "She fell asleep while I was painting to sell, he enhanced the sale by offering to shooting her. I begged her mother not to wake her. photograph the buyer for a modest fee. He had no The old tyrant snapped at me, 'Tend to you arc lamps but learned to use the natural light and photography, Mr. Hurrell! I'll tend to my daughter!'" shadows with extraordinary success. Bette Davis: "She had the extraordinary ability to Among his new acquaintances was an equally swtich from a gay, laughing pose to a completely brash person, Pancho Barnes, who lived in a house dramatic attitude in a matter of seconds." on Crown Point next to Smithcliff, and who was an Spencer Tracy: "He felt he was not a glamor avid aviatrix when she wasn't giving lavish parties personality, but he had more inner spark than many for her Hollywood pals. Pancho admired Hurrell's of the 'pretty boys.'" photographic gift. She told him he should be shooting Katherine Hepburn: "She had a peculiar Bryn pix of Hollywood stars and that she would introduce Mawr accent. She could change from slacks to an him to Ramon Navarro who was a chum of hers. evening gown faster than I could adjust the lights. And so it came about that George photographed She was a take-command person too." Navarro at Pancho's San Marino estate. Ramon was The list goes on. Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, dressed in some kind of tunic with seamed Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, Jean pantyhose (or whatever they called that sort of Harlow, the Barrymores, Myrna Loy, William Powell, stocking in those days). George shot him standing etc. etc.. And oh yes, Elsa Maxwell, the famous next to an old white horse under an oak tree. When hostess, hamming it up lying on a bear rug! Pancho saw the proofs, she exclaimed, "Migawd, Dear George! I shall miss him and his gaudy George, even the horse looks glamorous!" Xmas cards. I can only imagine what fun he is having Word got around and, to make a long story short, shooting angels in the celestial lighting of heaven. George Hurrell became the stars' most sought after .

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