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      With Cameras on Every Phone, Will Broadway’s Nude Scenes Survive?

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      Audiences are increasingly asked to lock their phones in pouches at comedy shows, concerts and some plays. But what happens onstage doesn’t always stay onstage.Jesse Williams was nominated for a Tony Award last month for his work in “Take Me Out,” an acclaimed play about baseball and homophobia. But when his name trended on Twitter the next day, it was not because of the accolade: it was because someone had surreptitiously taken a video of his nude scene and posted it online.In a recent interview Mr. Williams, who became a star through his appearances on “Grey’s Anatomy,” said he was undeterred by the incident. “I come here to do work — I’m going to tell the truth onstage, I’m going to be vulnerable,” he said. But he also made it clear that he was not all right with what had happened to him, saying that “putting nonconsensual naked photos of somebody on the internet is really foul.”Mobile phones have long disrupted live performances by ringing at inopportune moments, and have irked artists when people use them to illicitly film their work. Now the ubiquity of smartphones with ever-better cameras is leading some actors, particularly celebrities, to reconsider whether to appear nude onstage, given the risk that what is intended as an ephemeral moment can live online forever, out of context.“Ten years ago, I don’t think the first thing out of my mouth would have been: ‘Are you OK knowing that there is a decent chance that this will be filmed or photographed and be out there on social media?’” Lisa Goldberg, a publicist who represents actors in Broadway, television and film, said of the discussions she has when a performer is asked to appear nude. “That would be one of the first things I would bring up to a client today.”Jesse Williams, right, said “putting nonconsensual naked photos of somebody on the internet is really foul.” He appeared in “Take Me Out” with Carl Lundstedt.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNudity has grown common onstage over the past 50 years, and major stars including Nicole Kidman and Daniel Radcliffe have performed scenes without clothes on Broadway when their scripts have called for it. But the chances of being photographed au naturel have grown considerably. Being Broadway royalty offers no protection: Audra McDonald, who has won six Tonys, noticed in 2019 that someone had snapped a photo of her during a nude scene from “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” “Not cool at all,” she wrote in a tweet.The recent videos of Mr. Williams surfaced despite the extraordinary steps that Second Stage Theater, the producer of “Take Me Out,” has taken to protect the privacy of the actors who appear nude. Audience members are required to switch off their phones and place them in pouches that are kept locked until the end of the show. The pouches, made by a company called Yondr, have grown increasingly common in recent years, especially at stand-up shows, since comedians are both fiercely protective of their jokes and concerned that some, taken out of context, could cause blowback.Roughly a million Yondr pouches were used at live events in April, nearly five times as many as were used the same month in 2019, the company said. Other shows with nude scenes are now trying them: At the end of May, Penguin Rep Theatre announced that it would deploy Yondr pouches at its upcoming Off Broadway production of “Mr. Parker” because the show contains a brief moment of nudity.Graham Dugoni, who founded Yondr in 2014, lamented that many people still have difficulty figuring out how to “be a human in the world with a computer in your pocket.”“A nude photograph is obviously one very far extreme,” Mr. Dugoni said. “But a comedian’s bit being taken out of context and repackaged on social media and reinterpreted — all of these things don’t enhance the art form. They kind of nibble away at it in a way that makes people go into hedgehog mode.”But the precautions are not foolproof. A night of comedy at the Hollywood Bowl last month was supposed to have been cellphone free, but when its headliner, Dave Chappelle, was tackled onstage, video emerged from a few people who had managed to skirt the rules. And earlier this spring, when Chris Rock had his first public stand-up set after Will Smith slapped him onstage at the Academy Awards, attendees at the Wilbur Theater in Boston were required to put their phones in Yondr pouches, too. They were only allowed to use them in a designated space near the lobby, where one ticketholder sheepishly asked for his phone back because he had forgotten to text the babysitter. Video of that show emerged, too.The ease of recording and uploading video has given pause to people thinking of disrobing in other situations, including some college students who have reassessed the wisdom of traditional naked campus runs and habitués of nude beaches, who are increasingly on the lookout for cameras. But it is becoming a particular issue in the theater, where actors who are asked to appear nude must consent to it when they sign their contracts.Many major stars have appeared nude on Broadway over the years, including Daniel Radcliffe, center, in “Equus” in 2008.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesKate Shindle, the president of Actors’ Equity Association, said in an interview that many actors believe that live theater is “meant to be participated in within four walls” and that “if that sanctity is compromised, the work suffers.” Recording from the audience, she said, can feel “like a violation — even if you have all your clothes on.”Advanced written consent is required for any filming or photography that involves nudity, union officials said. That includes any video that will appear in Theater on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, said Patrick Hoffman, the director and curator of the archive, which holds more than 4,400 video recordings of live theater productions. Most agree. But over the years, some actors have declined to have their nude scenes recorded for the archive. In some cases understudies have gone on in their places, and in others, their productions have simply not been recorded. Some videos of shows featuring nudity in the archive are specially formatted so researchers can watch them, but cannot pause, rewind, or fast forward.Surreptitious photography posed a challenge to actors appearing nude onstage long before the iPhone debuted in 2007.The theater environment today, where nudity is a regular feature on Broadway and even in some productions at the Metropolitan Opera, is a far cry from what it was like in 1969, when Margo Sappington, the choreographer and a cast member of the original production of “Oh! Calcutta!,” which featured extensive nudity, was among those arrested on charges of indecent exposure after a performance in Los Angeles.Even in that pre-smartphone era, cameras were a nuisance, Ms. Sappington said. So the company decided on a low-tech mitigation measure: If someone spotted a camera from the stage, they would stop the show, break the fourth wall, and call for the ushers.“Now it’s impossible in a Broadway theater in the dark to see cellphones,” she said. “People are so disrespectful. It amazes me.”And the leak of the video featuring Mr. Williams had an all-too-familiar feeling for Daniel Sunjata, who played the same character, Darren Lemming, when “Take Me Out” first ran on Broadway in 2003. Photos of his nude scenes leaked too, but were somewhat more contained in the era before Facebook and Twitter made social media so pervasive.“The main difference between now and then is amplitude,” Mr. Sunjata said, “the speed, the rapidity with which things like this can be spread.”But the leaks troubled Mr. Sunjata, who had found the nude scenes a challenge to begin with. He said he consulted his lawyers and had “wanted heads to roll.”Tatianna Casas, who works for Yondr, helped people seal their phones before a recent comedy show.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFor Mr. Sunjata, the main difference between performing naked onstage eight times a week before a live audience, and having a photo taken of the nudity, is less about the photo’s permanence then about the lack of context surrounding it. “Someone who hasn’t seen the play just sees naked guys onstage,” he said.The current revival of “Take Me Out” has taken further steps to keep people from filming its actors. As a backup to the Yondr pouches, Second Stage Theater has installed an infrared camera with the ability to pan, tilt and zoom so that security officials can see if any members of the audience are trying to film the nude scenes.At a performance of the play last month, two theater staff members were stationed at the front of the theater at either end of the stage. They stood up during scenes that included nudity. For all the precautions, a phone rang five minutes into the first act. The crowd audibly groaned.When Mr. Williams was asked whether he would sign up again for a show in which he must appear nude, he demurred. “I don’t know,” he said. “My reaction is never as hot, or loud or miserable as everybody expects it to be.”Michael Paulson and Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. Sheelagh McNeill and Alain Delaquérière contributed research. More

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      Joel Grey, on Making a Space for Art and Dreams

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      The prolific actor, writer and photographer just turned 90, in a 1970s-style West Village loft that speaks to his many passions.Rain threatened on a recent Tuesday morning, and there was a chill in the air. But inside Joel Grey’s loft in Manhattan’s West Village, it was spring.Yellow roses — some doing a solo act, some in a clump — pink and yellow tulips, and pink and purple hyacinths sat in various containers on the round table in the open kitchen, on the glass coffee table, on a side table and on the skinny, rectangular dining table. Yet more multicolored roses, splayed atop a cabinet, were — how to put this nicely? — pushing up daisies.Mr. Grey, who won a Tony in 1967 and an Oscar in 1973 for his ineradicable portrayal of the feverishly rouged M.C. in the musical “Cabaret,” stood at the kitchen counter trying to arrange a new grouping of tulips. (He spends $50 a week on flowers at the local Whole Foods.) But these seemed to be an uncooperative bunch. “You kids are being difficult,” he told them, turning away for a minute to say hello to a visitor.Based on the evidence of an admittedly small sample — a reporter, a photographer, a publicist — the eternally pixieish Mr. Grey greets guests as though they were the winning lottery tickets that he thought he’d lost.But perhaps some of this ebullience was situational. “You know, it’s almost my 90th birthday,” he announced, clapping his hands like a delighted child, and leading the way to his office. There, on a hanger, was an orange sweatshirt with “1932” emblazoned in large black numbers on the front. (For the record, April 11 was the day.)“A darling friend gave a sweatshirt to Duane Michals for his 90th birthday, in February,” Mr. Grey said, referring to the photographer. “And I told her, ‘I want one too!’”The Tony- and Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey lives in a loft in the West Village, where he is surrounded by art and the souvenirs of his travels.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesJoel Grey, 90Occupation: Actor, writer, photographerNot by design: “My style is not eclectic, but rather serendipity. I’m truly Mr. Serendipity. Nothing I’ve bought was planned. Everything in here is about the moment.”He bought the apartment in the late 1990s, based on a floor plan.“I wanted to be in the Village. It was a whole new world to me,” said Mr. Grey, who had been living on the top floor of the Hotel Des Artistes on West 67th Street in an apartment that was put together, room by room, from former maids’ quarters, and had a skylight and a terrace. “But my brother told me, ‘You can’t live down there.’ At the time, it was very scrubby and scruffy on the streets near the West Side Highway. The place where the boats came in — the piers — it was all very undone.”But what was scrubby and scruffy when measured against proximity to the Hudson River? Mr. Grey watches it roll by from the built-in daybed where he drinks his morning coffee and reads his morning paper: “It’s my friend and my partner and my serenity.”He was further captivated by the “wet-clay” possibilities of a new-construction building. “It was about open space,” he said, “which I found so alluring, and about the mystery of how to make it a home. It was an adventure.”Mr. Grey’s well-traveled Vuitton trunks have been repurposed as side tables.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesA very personal adventure. There’s no interest here in showing off designers or making vignettes. Minimalist and neutral, with clean lines, columns and concrete floors, the apartment is part 1970s SoHo loft, part midcentury-modern design, with a cowhide rug on the floor of the bedroom, a cowhide-covered butterfly chair and a Jens Risom woven chair.“But I don’t think about periods,” Mr. Grey said. “I think about exclamation points.”Perhaps the exclamation points are the works of art: by, among others, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Joan Miró, Sally Gall and Mr. Michals. Woodcarvings of antelope heads stand in a row on a windowsill. African sculptures dot the piano. There’s a galley wall in the primary bathroom.Mr. Grey is, of course, best known as an actor and director (of the acclaimed 2018 Yiddish version of “Fiddler on the Roof”), and he continues to perform. He is part of the cast of “The Old Man,” a series scheduled to premiere on FX in mid-June. “I am not the old man,” he said, before anyone has a chance to ask.When Mr. Grey directed a Yiddish version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” his assistant gave him an appropriately themed pincushion. Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesBut over the past dozen and a half years, Mr. Grey has also made a name for himself as a photographer. His work has been the focus of gallery shows and of several monographs. His most recent book of photographs, “The Flower Whisperer,” published in 2019, paid tribute to the nether regions of daisies, sunflowers, lilies, daffodils et al.Stuck inside during the pandemic, Mr. Grey began looking for — and photographing — the faces he saw in dried petals. They will be the subject of his next book. “Look up there. It’s a whole new world,” he said, pointing to a detail in the image of a dead blossom hanging on a partition in his office. “I see a bow tie.”Art and design have long been a part of his life. Growing up in Cleveland, the 8-year-old Joel fantasized about getting lost at the local museum and shut in overnight. Later, as work began taking him out of town, he invariably returned to New York with crafts. When, at the age of 19, he went to London to play the Palladium, he visited Positano, Italy, “and now I am looking at these monkey candlesticks I brought home,” he said, nodding toward the coffee table.A friend gave Mr. Grey a sweatshirt as a 90th-birthday present.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesShelves in Mr. Grey’s closet/dressing room display marionettes from Mexico; figures, bowls, vases and baskets from European ports; and, a little closer to home, collages made by his mother, Grace.The mother-son relationship, as chronicled in Mr. Grey’s 2016 memoir, “Master of Ceremonies,” was complicated. But it was because of Grace, he said, that even as a struggling actor, he cared deeply about his surroundings.“I always did up my apartments, even if I only spent a dollar and a quarter,” he said. “My mother and father taught me the importance of being professional and of making a place for myself. And my mother was all about making a space for art.”He has made the place and made the space. “It was all about, ‘Let’s figure this out,’” Mr. Grey said. “‘Let’s dream a little here.’ I’m a big believer in dreams.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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      Cole Sprouse on Finding a Healthy Balance in Hollywood

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      The former child actor wanted to leave showbiz. Now, the “Moonshot” and “Riverdale” star is finding he can act and tend his photography career as well.“I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to be scarfing down this chicken wrap at the same time we talk,” Cole Sprouse politely informs me as he sits in the kitchen wearing a fuzzy, baby blue sweater. The wrap in question is already halfway to his mouth.Sprouse is used to multitasking.He and his twin brother, Dylan, began their professional acting careers when they were infants and worked steadily throughout their childhoods, sharing prominent roles on “Grace Under Fire” and in the Adam Sandler film “Big Daddy.” Cole went on to play Ross’s son on “Friends” before reteaming with Dylan in the Disney Channel sitcom “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” (Cole played the brainy Cody). The tween hit led to a spinoff series, TV movie — and mega kid stardom for the twins. By age 18, they’d effectively burned out.But after graduating from New York University with a degree in archaeology, Cole Sprouse fulfilled a promise he’d made to his manager to give one more round of TV auditions a go before quitting the industry for good. He booked the role of the brooding outcast Jughead Jones on the CW drama “Riverdale” and was sucked in again.“I started acting when I was so young that I hadn’t actually attempted, as an adult, to think about if I really enjoyed performance,” Sprouse said in a recent video call from Vancouver, British Columbia, where he’s currently filming the seventh season of “Riverdale.” He continued, “When I returned, I reminded myself that I do very much love the art of acting. But I still have a very complicated relationship to celebrity culture.”He’s learned to guard his private life. Rare public comments about his relationships past (namely, with his “Riverdale” co-star Lili Reinhart) and present (the model Ari Fournier) are scrutinized by fans and widely recounted by entertainment outlets. He started a secondary Instagram account devoted solely to sharing the photos he takes of strangers while they’re trying to sneakily snap photos of him. “It was an attempt to go, ‘Hey, I actually have agency in the situation, too,’” he explained. “It helped me a lot.”Sprouse with Lili Reinhart and KJ Apa in “Riverdale.”Michael Courtney/The CWHis latest role is the lead in the HBO Max rom-com “Moonshot” — not to be confused with the unrelated 2022 releases “Moon Knight” and “Moonfall.” In the near future, where robots run coffee shops and Mars is being colonized, Sprouse plays Walt, a hapless college student who hitches a ride on a Mars-bound rocket alongside Sophie (Lana Condor) in an attempt to reach another girl on Mars he thinks could be the One.Intermittently puffing on a vape pen after finishing the chicken wrap, Sprouse spoke about billionaires, the effects of childhood fame and turning 30.These are edited excerpts from our conversation.“Moonshot” is a futuristic take on a conventional romantic comedy. Are you a rom–com fan?I have my favorites, and they’re all over the map. I’m a huge “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” fan, for example. And though there’s a heavy romantic element throughout it, most people would just call that a comedy — and yet, by all genre boundaries, it is a rom-com.I think for so long romantic comedies were put down as “chick flicks,” something lowbrow that only a female audience would care about. Male-centric entries like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” made some people rethink that notion.The general trend with the arts always starts with a large female fan base really falling in love with something. In a lot of cases, we see the female audience braving the territory first, and then everyone follows. Ultimately, with “Moonshot,” we set out to make a movie that didn’t really take itself super seriously, that we had a lot of lighthearted fun on, and we were able to weave an old married couple dynamic into Lana and I’s relationship.Opposite Lana Condor in “Moonshot.”Warner Bros.The film also throws some solid punches at the billionaire space race: Zach Braff’s Elon Musk-esque character admits he could have used his fortune to solve world hunger dozens of times over, but went to Mars instead. How do you feel about the current space cowboy endeavors of people like Musk and Jeff Bezos?Oh, I think it’s tremendously masturbatory. It’s a ridiculous thing. When I was studying archaeology, we used to have this conversation about the resurrection of the mammoth. The conversation would always devolve into two camps: the camp that really wanted to see the mammoth walk the earth again. And the camp that was going, “Hey, we have active species that are currently going extinct. If we put the resources you are talking about putting into the already extinct mammoth and shift that focus to the present, we could do way more good.” I feel like this conversation about space cowboys is very similar. I’m in the camp where I go, let’s focus on the present. We have an active space that we are living in that is currently decaying. We need to shift focus and resources to here.So, no chance you’re booking a commercial ticket on a rocket any time soon.No, I’m already such a paranoid freak when it comes to flying. I couldn’t imagine what my control-freak nature would do when we started taking off. I would be a nervous wreck.People like to talk about former child stars in this dichotomy of either they spiral out of control or, somehow, “come out OK.” Do you think it’s possible for anyone to actually come through that experience unscathed?My brother and I used to get quite a bit of, “Oh, you made it out! Oh, you’re unscathed!” No. The young women on the channel we were on [Disney Channel] were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences. And every single person going through that trauma has a unique experience. When we talk about child stars going nuts, what we’re not actually talking about is how fame is a trauma. So I’m violently defensive against people who mock some of the young women who were on the channel when I was younger because I don’t feel like it adequately comprehends the humanity of that experience and what it takes to recover. And, to be quite honest, as I have now gone through a second big round of this fame game as an adult, I’ve noticed the same psychological effects that fame yields upon a group of young adults as I did when I was a child. I just think people have an easier time hiding it when they’re older.The Sprouse twins on “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.”Joel Warren/Disney ChannelAfter it was announced that “Riverdale” had been renewed for a seventh season, a lot of memes popped up imagining your reaction when you heard the news. The general internet consensus seemed to be that you were completely distraught to have to do another season. Is that accurate?[Laughs] It’s not completely accurate. One, because I’ve just assumed we’re going to see the finality of our [seven-season] contracts. Two, I think the internet assumes — because of how insane our show is — that we’re probably doing a bit worse than we actually are. It’s easy to forget that people love the show. And I do think it’s going to be much more appreciated in 10 years than it is right now. It would be pretty pompous of me to say that another season of financial stability is not something that would be appealing. Though I’m not going to lie. The memes do make me laugh.You’ve built a side career as a professional photographer, mainly in fashion. What is it about that medium that made you want to pursue it?When I was in school, I was traveling a lot for archaeology, so I always had my camera and I was taking almost anthropological-type photos of the people I was meeting, the culture I was surrounded by. And then, just by being in New York City, I got wrapped up in fashion work and built a portfolio. That was my main source of revenue until “Riverdale” Season 2.You’re turning 30 in August. Does this decade feel like the start of a new chapter?Definitely. ​​I feel like my ducks are in a row better than they’ve ever been. We’re also seeing the conclusion of a program I’ve spent the majority of my 20s on, so there is this world of possibilities that lies before me at the end of this production that I find incredibly appealing and intoxicating. And, I hate to break it to everybody, but I’m not the only 30 year old playing a teen on television.You made it to college in “Moonshot.” You’re starting to age up.Just stringing them along, slowly but surely. In an ideal world, when “Riverdale” finishes, I would love to be doing one to two movies a year and photography the rest of the time. And the logical intersection of those two worlds will eventually be directing.We’re living in a time of extreme nostalgia for the ’90s and 2000s. Is there any chance you’d go full circle and do a “Suite Life” reboot?I don’t think I’ll ever return to that. Not that I have a problem with other people doing the reboots thing. I’m just a big believer that if something is beautiful in the past, you should let it stay beautiful. To bring it into the future feels a bit like reheating a really good, fresh meal in the microwave. It would be hard to be in my 30s and go [in a deep growl], “Zack and Cody are back, man!” More

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      Lawsuit Accusing Nirvana of Sexually Exploitive Imagery Is Dismissed

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      Spencer Elden, who was pictured naked as a baby on the cover of “Nevermind,” said Nirvana had engaged in “child pornography.”A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who said he had been sexually exploited by the grunge rock group Nirvana when the band used a photo of him as a baby, naked and drifting in a pool, for the cover of its seminal album “Nevermind.”In his complaint, the man, Spencer Elden, 30, accused Nirvana of engaging in child pornography when it used a photo of him as the cover art of “Nevermind,” the Seattle band’s breakthrough 1991 album that helped define Generation X and rocketed the group to international fame.The lawsuit was dismissed after a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said that Mr. Elden’s lawyers missed a deadline to respond to a motion for dismissal by the lawyers for Nirvana.Judge Fernando M. Olguin said that Mr. Elden’s lawyers had until Jan. 13 to file a second amended complaint to address “the alleged defects” in the defendants’ motion to dismiss.Robert Y. Lewis, one of Mr. Elden’s lawyers, said they would file the complaint well before the deadline. He said the missed deadline was a result of “confusion” over how much time they had to respond to the motion for dismissal.“We feel confident that our amended complaint will survive an expected motion to dismiss,” Mr. Lewis said.The lawsuit was filed in August against the estate of Kurt Cobain; the musician’s former bandmates, David Grohl and Krist Novoselic; and Mr. Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, among other parties. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Tuesday.In their motion to dismiss, the lawyers for Nirvana said that Mr. Elden’s lawsuit failed to meet the statute of limitations to file a complaint citing a violation of federal criminal child pornography statutes. But they also denied that the picture, “one of the most famous photographs of all time,” was an example of child pornography.“Elden’s claim that the photograph on the ‘Nevermind’ album cover is ‘child pornography’ is, on its face, not serious,” they wrote. “A brief examination of the photograph, or Elden’s own conduct (not to mention the photograph’s presence in the homes of millions of Americans who, on Elden’s theory, are guilty of felony possession of child pornography), makes that clear.”Instead, they said, “the photograph evokes themes of greed, innocence and the motif of the cherub in Western art.”Mr. Elden was 4 months old when he was photographed in 1991 by a family friend, Kirk Weddle, at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, Calif.The photo of Mr. Elden was picked from among dozens of pictures of babies Mr. Weddle photographed for the album cover, which Mr. Cobain, the band’s frontman, envisioned showing a baby underwater.Mr. Weddle paid Mr. Elden’s parents $200 for the picture, which was later altered to show the baby chasing a dollar, dangling from a fishhook.In the decades that followed, Mr. Elden appeared to celebrate his part in the classic cover, recreating the moment for the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries, though not naked.But in the lawsuit, Mr. Elden said he had suffered “permanent harm” because of his association with the album, including emotional distress and a “lifelong loss of income-earning capacity.”The lawsuit did not provide details about the losses but said that Nirvana, the producers of the album and others had all profited from the album’s sales at the expense of Mr. Elden’s privacy.The lawyers for Nirvana said that Mr. Elden used his fame from the photo to pick up women and benefited financially from the album cover. They described the various times he re-enacted the photograph for a fee, his public appearances parodying the cover, and the copies of the album that he autographed, which were then sold on eBay.They wrote: “Elden has spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed ‘Nirvana Baby.’” More

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      Our Favorite Arts Photos of 2021

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      After 15 months of darkness, live music returned. In New York, Foo Fighters reopened Madison Square Garden.Photograph by Tim Barber for The New York TimesOur Favorite Arts Photos of 2021These are the pictures that defined an unpredictable year across the worlds of art, music, dance and performance.Laura O’Neill More

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      Mick Rock, Sought-After Rock Photographer, Dies at 72

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      His images of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen and others helped define the 1970s. He was still shooting the stars decades later.Mick Rock, whose striking images of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Debbie Harry, as well as more recent stars like Theophilus London and Snoop Dogg, made him one of rock and pop’s most acclaimed photographers, died on Thursday at a hospital in Staten Island. He was 72.His family posted news of his death on his website. No cause was given.Mr. Rock was often called “the man who shot the ’70s” because of his photographs that captured the rock stars of that flamboyant decade, both in his native England and in New York. He lived the rock lifestyle as he was photographing it, becoming part of the scene inhabited by Mr. Bowie, Mr. Reed and the rest.“I was drawn to the good, the bad and the wicked,” he said in “Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock,” a 2016 documentary about him directed by Barney Clay.“I’ve lived a very wild life because I’ve been hanging out with a lot of very wild people,” he added. “And the camera just kind of led me by the nose.”Mr. Rock in 2016 at an exhibition of his photographs in Toulouse, France.Remy Gabalda/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSome of his photographs adorned memorable album covers: the bleached-out shot of Mr. Reed on “Transformer” (1972); the eerily dark image of the members of Queen on “Queen II” (1974), later recreated in the much-viewed music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Others captured stars in poses — Mr. Bowie looking androgynously enigmatic; Ms. Harry, of the group Blondie, looking like Marilyn Monroe. And still others caught performances or unguarded moments.“I am not in the business of documenting or revealing personalities,” Mr. Rock wrote in a diary early in his career. “I am in the business of freezing shadows and bottling auras.”Befriending the stars of the day, which included taking the same drugs they were often taking, gave him the sort of access that most photographers can only dream of. As Mr. Reed put it in the introduction to one of Mr. Rock’s books, “Mick Rock was so much a part of things that it was quite natural to have him snapping away and think of him as invisible.”But Mr. Rock wasn’t limited to one era. He continued photographing rockers, rappers and other music personalities for the next 40 years, even after a heart attack in 1996 led him to embrace a quieter lifestyle. (“All I am is a retired degenerate,” he joked in a 2011 interview with The New York Times.) In recent decades he had photographed Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Rufus Wainwright and many others.Bob Marley, photographed in 1975.Mick Rock“It was barely over a year ago I sat with you by the window listening to Bowie stories,” Miley Cyrus wrote on Twitter after learning of his death. “It was my honor.”Mr. Rock often said he was fated to have the career he had because of his name: He was born Michael David Rock on Nov. 21, 1948, in London to David and Joan (Gibbs) Rock.He graduated from Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied modern languages. While a student there, as he put it in the documentary, “photography wandered idly into my life.” He was hanging out in a friend’s room with a companion, and the friend had left a 35-milimeter camera lying about (which turned out to have no film in it, though Mr. Rock didn’t realize that).“I was with a young lady in a state of — I think chemical inebriation is probably the best way of putting it,” he told The Daily Telegraph of Britain in 2010, “when I started snapping away. I was just playing, but there was something about it that I really liked.”So he got himself his own camera, with film, and began taking pictures of friends and friends’ friends. One friend, whom he had met early in his time at Cambridge, was Syd Barrett of the band Pink Floyd. Through Mr. Barrett he came to know other musicians, and a few not only asked him to photograph them but also paid him.“I suddenly realized you could make money from this,” Mr. Rock wrote in “Classic Queen,” his 2007 book about his work with that band. “That was terrific: much better than getting a ‘real’ job.”Snoop Dogg in 2009. Mr. Rock continued photographing rockers, rappers and other music personalities well into the 21st century. Mick RockHe started writing for various publications and illustrating his articles with his own photographs. One musician he came to know was Mr. Bowie, and one particular picture he took, in 1972, was career-making. Onstage at the Oxford Town Hall, Mr. Bowie pantomimed performing fellatio on the guitar of one of his musicians, Mick Ronson, as he played. Mr. Rock’s photograph of the moment turned up in Melody Maker magazine.“This was that shot that put my name on the map,” Mr. Rock wrote in the Queen book. “Suddenly I was in demand, and my camera was clearly speaking louder than my words.”Famed shots of Mr. Reed and Iggy Pop came along about the same time.“I took those when Lou and Iggy were relatively unknown, unless you were really, really hip,” he told The Telegraph, “but somehow those shots seemed to have defined them forever.”Madonna in 1980.Mick RockSoon his reputation was such that Queen came calling.“I didn’t really know their music, but, when they played me their album, I said, ‘Wow! Ziggy Stardust meets Led Zeppelin!’ and that seemed to seal the deal,” he said.Mr. Rock moved to New York in 1977 and became immersed in the turbulent scene there that included Blondie, the Ramones and other performers.“I needed a new edge, and I found it in New York in spades,” he told The Sunday Herald of Scotland in 1995.“Over the years Mick Rock has made history with all the musicians and rock stars that he has immortalized,” Ms. Harry wrote in the introduction to Mr. Rock’s book “Debbie Harry and Blondie: Picture This” (2019). “A good photo session is sometimes as good as sex. You leave feeling well massaged, satisfied and a little bit outside yourself.”Debbie Harry in 1978. “Mick Rock,” she wrote, “has made history with all the musicians and rock stars that he has immortalized.”Mick RockMr. Rock’s marriage to the photographer Sheila Rock ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Pati Rock, whom he married in 1997; a daughter, Nathalie Rock; and five siblings, Carol, Jacqueline, Don, Angela and Laura.Mr. Rock’s work was featured in various exhibitions. In the Blondie book, he lamented that he’d made such an impact as a rock photographer that it restricted him in some ways.“Like a hit record to a rock ’n’ roller, the downside is that a great image, besides defining the subject, can limit what others call on the photographer to do,” he wrote. “I wouldn’t mind shooting the occasional politician or actor (or even a gangster or two), but that’s not how art directors or magazines view me.” More

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      ‘A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks’ Review: Defining Portraits

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      This documentary celebrates how the work of the great photographer Gordon Parks brought a nuanced fidelity to Black experience.John Maggio’s “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks” shares a title with the great photographer’s 1966 autobiography, which voiced his need for a camera that was mightier than the sword. Parks was born in 1912 as the last of 15 children on the family farm in Kansas. He went on to tell defining chapters in America’s story through the establishment pages of Life magazine, with a nuanced fidelity to Black experience.Maggio’s documentary moves through Parks’s rich photo essays on a Harlem gang leader, the segregated South, Muhammad Ali and a boy in a Rio de Janeiro favela, as well as bold early work on Ella Watson, a janitor at the Farm Security Administration. A line is drawn from Parks’s legacy to the cultural narratives being charted by the current photographers Devin Allen and LaToya Ruby Frazier.This helps avoid a portrayal of Park — an avuncular sage in sweater and pipe — as a stand-alone figure. He also made history as the first Black artist to produce and direct a major Hollywood film (“The Learning Tree,” from his own book), directed a pop-culture monument in “Shaft,” composed music and wrote several books. Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay and curatorial critics sound valuable but similar points about his empathy and point of view.Perhaps no one documentary can do justice to Parks. But “Choice of Weapons” ends up streamlining his complexity, and its wind-down looks past his other audiovisual output (screening soon in a retrospective at Anthology Film Archives). Still, as Parks once said, “I consider this my world,” and we’re all still living in it.A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon ParksNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      Rick Laird, Bassist at the Forefront of Fusion, Dies at 80

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      He played with jazz greats and helped make music history with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But he gave it up in his 40s to become a photographer.Rick Laird, a bassist who played a central role in the jazz-rock fusion boom as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, then retired from music to pursue a career in photography, died on July 4 in New City, N.Y. He was 80.His daughter, Sophie Rose Laird, said the cause was lung cancer.The guitarist John McLaughlin called Mr. Laird in 1971 with an invitation to join a group he was forming with the goal of uniting the jazz-rock aesthetic — which Mr. McLaughlin had helped establish as a member of Miles Davis and Tony Williams’s earliest electric bands — with Indian classical music and European experimentalism.The new ensemble, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which also featured the drummer Billy Cobham, the keyboardist Jan Hammer and the violinist Jerry Goodman, became one of the most popular instrumental bands of its time. It released a pair of studio albums now regarded as classics for Columbia Records, “The Inner Mounting Flame” (1971) and “Birds of Fire” (1973), and one live album, “Between Nothingness & Eternity” (1973).Mr. Laird had already begun to prove himself in the jazz world as a promising upright bassist, but with Mahavishnu he switched to playing electric exclusively. The group ranged from simmering interplay over odd time signatures to thrashing, high-altitude improvisation. It was all dependent on Mr. Laird’s steady hand, and on his knack for balancing power with restraint.“Someone had to say one” — that is, make clear where each measure began — “and that was me,” Mr. Laird said in a 1999 interview with Bass Player magazine.On the day of Mr. Laird’s death, Mr. Cobham posted a tribute on Facebook calling him “the most dependable person in that band.” Mr. Laird, he said, “played what was necessary to keep the rest of us from going off our musical rails.”“He was my rock,” Mr. Cobham added, “and allowed me to play and explore musical regions that I would not have been able to navigate without him having my back!”All of Mr. McLaughlin’s bandmates left Mahavishnu in the mid-1970s amid disagreements over money, creative control and the role of religion in the group. (Mr. McLaughlin was a devoted follower of the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy and wanted the band to express his teachings directly.) He would continue the band for years, using different lineups.Mr. Laird spent the rest of the decade as a bassist-for-hire with some of the most esteemed names in jazz, touring the United States and the world with the saxophonists Joe Henderson and Stan Getz, among others. In the late 1970s he spent a brief stint in a band led by the keyboardist Chick Corea.Mr. Laird released one album of his own, “Soft Focus,” recorded in 1976, which featured Mr. Henderson.But in 1982, fearing that a musician’s lifestyle would prove unstable as he grew older, Mr. Laird embraced his other passion: photography. He had bought cameras and equipment on a tour of Japan and started doing photo shoots for fellow musicians. He soon made taking pictures his full-time job, shooting portraits for law firms and doing stock photography for agencies.But he also composed and recorded frequently throughout his retirement, although these projects have not been officially released.In addition to his daughter, Mr. Laird is survived by his sister, Tanya Laird; his brother, David; and his partner, Jane Meryll. His two marriages ended in divorce.Mr. Laird in 1967. He had begun to prove himself in the jazz world as a promising upright bassist before joining Mahavishnu and switching to electric.via Sophie LairdRichard Quentin Laird was born in Dublin on Feb. 5, 1941. His father, William Desmond Laird, a building contractor, was Protestant, and his mother, Margaret Muriel (Le Gear) Laird, a homemaker, was Roman Catholic; although neither parent was particularly religious, their families weren’t on speaking terms. Eventually, the couple split up.At 16, Rick was sent to live on a sheep farm in New Zealand. Hoping to pursue a career in music, he eventually moved to Sydney, Australia, where he gained a reputation on the jazz scene before moving to London.There he became the house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s, a top jazz club that often hosted musicians on international tours, and met some of the world’s most famous jazz talent. He played with the likes of the guitarist Wes Montgomery and the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and engagements with the saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Ben Webster led to albums with them.It was a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston that first took Mr. Laird to the United States, in 1966. He moved to Los Angeles without graduating and joined the drummer Buddy Rich’s band for a year before relocating to New York. In the early 2000s, he moved to New City, just north of New York City, where he lived until his death. He died in a hospice facility.In an interview for Guitar Player magazine in 1980, Mr. Laird reflected on a career as a side musician.“If you play a supportive role, instead of soloing constantly, the chances of becoming well known by the average audience are very slim,” he said. “The more I’ve refined my skills, the less I get noticed.“It’s a paradox, but I don’t mind. I don’t think I need my ego stroked like that.” More