These are dark days for Hollywood – the world of film having recently lost two greats in Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall – so this exhibition of the work of photographer Bob Willoughby is a timely look back to the 1950s and ’60s when the truly immortal stars of the silver screen were still in their dazzling prime.
Willoughby was remarkable in that he was the first freelance “outsider” (outside the rigid Hollywood studio system) employed by a studio to capture documentary photographs of film productions. In 1954 he was given an assignment by Warner Bros to shoot one of the biggest stars ever, Judy Garland, on the set of A Star is Born for Life Magazine. That job precipitated a career spanning 20 years which granted Willoughby exclusive access to the closed film sets, and also to the recording studios where major stars would work on the movie soundtracks. Willoughby is celebrated as the pioneer of a style mixing staged portraiture with authentic documentary, and this selection from his archive on display at Beetles+Huxley, London, shows the master at work; Hepburn snapped leaving the My Fair Lady set in 1964 is a classic example. As the stars wandered off set, so Willoughby followed, and his candid pictures of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra blowing off steam in Las Vegas speak to the level of trust and respect Willoughby garnered during his career. The exhibition begins on 16 September and wraps on 4 October.
James Dean, 1955
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin
on set of the Judy Garland show, 1962
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Blake Edwards, 1964
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Elvis Presley and Sophie Loren
at Paramount Studios, 1958
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Miles Davies, 1950
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly, 1954
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Audrey Hepburn, 1953
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Big Jay McNeely in Concert, 1951
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
Dean Martin playing blackjack with Frank Sinatra,
Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, 1960
© Bob Willoughby/Beetles+Huxley
