In 1988 I took this photograph of Jackie Mason for Andy Warhol's "Interview." He arrived at my studio with at least one other person followed shortly by the assigned writer accompanied by a friend. I was not told about these people coming to the shoot. Even after I asked if they would very kindly not talk and move away from the area of the studio where I was working they continued to chatter.
I needed to be alone with my subject so I asked the spectators to go downstairs please and wait in the very nice coffee shop below. They agreed but my request was reported to the editors who took a dim view of my actions and I was struck from the list of photographers the magazine used. "Just try and write an article with three or four people nattering at your side clanking cups and saucers of coffee," I told the art editor.
I am telling this tale because I did not hear from "Interview" again until last week when they e-mailed me to ask if they could publish two of my pictures of Stanley Kubrick. The enraged editors, writers and their friends had, of course, long since departed from the magazine. Fabien Baron is now the editorial director. We agreed a price, I wrote some captions and the whole thing was done with much courtesy and ease.
Rain continues, which is probably O.K. for the mermaids at the Coney Island Parade, but we're giving Brooklyn a miss this weekend.Roy, a friend of Caroline's from her Cooper Union days, studied film at New York University and got in touch recently. Stanley Kubrick is one of his favorite directors and said he was interested in this photograph. It is, as many of you will know, from "A Clockwork Orange". The picture came about because I was standing near Stanley when he leaned against the table and dropped into what appeared to be deep thought. I lifted my camera and took the shot.
It was earlier in that day, when Stanley was filming the action where Alex kills the Cat Lady, that the owner of the house complained about the noise of stamping feet and yelling. (Not knowing film companies she had foolishly continued to live on the second floor of the house.) Having seen the giant penis sculpture and the erotic paintings of nude women on the set that Stanley had created on her ground floor, she confronted him with the question, “What is this film about anyway?". Stanley scratched his beard for a second and replied, “Beethoven.”
