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VOLUME 2, ISSUE 5 | March 2008
Editta Sherman
Still snapping at 95...
By Rachel Bonham Carter
My grandmother would have turned 95 this year. I have a photograph taken nine years ago of the moment she held her first great-grandchild, my first nephew: the two softest faces I knew, cheek-to-cheek, paper-thin skin against brand new plumpness. That picture was very much in my mind when, soon after having my own baby last summer, I was asked to interview celebrity portrait photographer Editta Sherman, aged – you’ve guessed it - 95. However, my thoughts of a gently sentimental reentry to the working world were somewhat wide of the mark.
The first surprise came as I waited outside Editta’s impressive studio above the Carnegie Hall and came to the realization that she had stood me up. Or rather her agent had. “Double-booked,” he apologized over the phone. “Sorry, but she’s at the opening of the new geriatrics outpatient clinic at Mt. Sinai on the Upper East Side.” So I hauled my baby into a cab and off we went for my second surprise.
Editta was not at the opening ceremony being praised as a beacon of longevity; no, she was there to hustle and pitch her ideas to the day’s chief ribbon cutter, Martha Stewart.
I recognized my subject the moment I saw her: a trim, black dress from the 1920s complete with matching, vintage hat. Petite, her features strong, and eyes twinkling brightly, this is a lady who knows what she wants (a book of her life’s work) and how to get it (TV interviews). It was unclear whether Martha was going to take her up on this but Editta connected with the Stewart publicist and pitched. As a shy freelancer I admire and envy this skill whenever I see it in action – particularly when as in Editta’s case that person is modest and gentle while oozing talent from every pore.
As I introduced myself to Editta, she took one look at the baby strapped to my chest, said she had five of her own, 18 grandchildren, and was expecting her seventh great-grandchild imminently. I swallowed back my caring-for-a-newborn exhaustion and arranged a date to return to her studio for an interview. “You’ll bring the baby of course,” she offered before sharing a cab ride with me back downtown.
The ride towards the Carnegie Hall was a journey through Editta’s memories of New York past. Every corner sparking reminiscence and conjuring up a city I’d only seen in the movies. I will forever kick myself for leaving my tape recorder in the trunk because the torrent of words and images which came tumbling out of her mouth was mesmerizing.
“The snow was falling outside the Plaza Hotel when I left a ball to get back to my children at the studio,” is one description I remember, from the turn along Central Park South. “I pulled on my muff and wrapped the fur around me. Looking back, I saw Tyrone Power there on those steps, hat in hand, gazing after me, hoping I’d change my mind and allow him to escort me”.
The studio she walked back to alone that night is the same one she has lived and worked in since 1949 and the same one from which she is threatened with eviction come March 31st this year.
Andrew Carnegie built two studio towers for artists behind his eponymous Hall in the late 19th century as a rental-income money-spinner. From Marlon Brando to Leonard Bernstein, the roster of famous names who have passed through as residents or students of residents is impressive.
Now, the Carnegie Hall Corporation plans to redevelop the studios as part of its expanding education program. Much to the tenants’ horror, a Supreme Court judge has ruled it is perfectly within its rights to do so.
As the longest serving tenant, Editta — or ‘The Duchess of Carnegie Hall’ as she is affectionately known — has become something of a poster girl for the movement to save the artists’ studios. In January, dressed in her trademark vintage style, Editta headed downtown to lobby the Bloomberg administration outside City Hall. So far, all petitions to save their studios have failed; The mayor’s office is reserving comment and the CHC says it will work to relocate the seven rent-controlled tenants like Editta “to equivalent or superior apartments in the neighborhood, paying any differential in their rent for the remainder of their lives.” With a chuckle, Editta declared: “They will never find anywhere equivalent to this studio but I hear there are apartments going at The Plaza.”
A bright, northern light from the skies above Central Park filled Editta’s double-height studio when I arrived for my second stab at this interview. Almost 60 years of living and working there has turned it into a treasure trove of memories and antiques. From the 100-year-old 8-by-10 Eastman camera which holds court at one end of the long, black and white check-tiled floor to the balcony stuffed with photographic props, the wardrobe of vintage dresses and pile of hats sitting resplendent like a flock of rare birds, the room screams of colorful, backstage, semi-ordered chaos. Needless to say, my baby had never seen the like; she sat agog and cooing in amazement for the greater part of our visit.
There is so much upon which to feast the eyes (even an exercise bike which Editta continues to ride for half an hour each day) that it took a few moments before I noticed the star-studded portrait gallery around the walls. Smoldering, wistful, romantic, and beautiful, Editta appears to have snapped them all. Gazing down from amongst her glamorous black & white 8-by-10’s were Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Henry Fonda, and of course Tyrone Power. A recently-autographed Angela Lansbury sat perched upon an easel, while copies of Marilyn and Elvis lay scattered across a counter top.
“As you see, I have a lot of different stars,” Editta declared, laughing. “I got used to it, they were just normal people who were often ill at ease sitting for a portrait. I would have to perk them up by talking about different things … they all liked me.”
It is easy to imagine this bubbly, buxom photographer, who greeted me in full make-up from under a thick head of coiffed, black hair and a leopard print blouse, wowing her sitters. At 95 she dazzles; I can only imagine she has always done so. In fact, a glimpse through Facades, a collection of photographs of Editta by her friend and one-time neighbor at the Carnegie Hall studios, fashion writer Bill Cunningham, shows her as playful and sparkling the other side of the lens also. She generously gave me a copy of the book in which she strikes poses around New York to show off architecture and fashion spanning a 200-year period. Inside the front cover she has written: “This book was published in 1977 – The author Bill Cunningham works for the New York Times – I, Editta, am the model.” And on the next page: “To Larry King. Enjoy New York.
Editta Sherman”. Something tells me Martha Stewart is not the first TV celebrity to have been pitched by Editta.
Photography has been a passion for as long as Editta can remember. Born in 1912 to Italian parents, she grew up in her father’s darkroom in Jersey City, captivated, she says. by the magic of watching a photo come to life. He too specialized in portraits, with weddings and baby pictures keeping him in business. Soon his daughter was not just accompanying him on shoots but taking the photographs herself.
At 22 Editta met and fell in love with Harold Sherman. He was a sound engineer working for Dictaphone when they married and began raising a family which quickly grew to five children. The early years of their marriage were spent on a farm in Maryland where they raised a “Victory Garden” during the Second World War, Editta recalls with pride. It wasn’t until her 40s that her career took off when a move to Manhattan pushed them to pursue her photography seriously.
Harold had been forced to retire from work early owing to diabetes-related health complications so, always an admirer of his wife’s talents, he started looking around for clients. The break into celebrity portraiture came after Harold approached the American Theatre Wing with an offer to help with publicity for shows aimed at soldiers returning from post-war Europe. Once the stars began to hang Editta’s publicity shots in their dressing rooms and refer friends, her stream of clients grew regular and fast.
Sadly, Harold died young, leaving Editta to bring in the clients and to raise those five children on her own. She hardly blinked when I asked what challenges or pressures that may have posed. “Oh, you know, the older ones helped look after the younger ones while I worked.” I felt rather foolish for thinking I was brave taking my placid baby along to an interview.
My shamefully People magazine-esque thirst for gossip had hoped this interview might turn out some hidden gems from Editta’s close encounters with celebrities from that Golden Age. The closest she came was another remark about Tyrone Power, her clear favorite, arriving suspiciously early one morning with a disgruntled Zsa Zsa Gabor at his side.
Rather than spill the beans on relationships past, Editta seemed far more interested in how I could help her forge some new relationships going forward. “Who do you know to help me get on television?” First Martha, then Larry, and now… me. “Maybe someone will read this article,” I offered somewhat lamely. Of course since then, with her deadline at the Carnegie Hall coming ever closer, The Duchess has appeared on the local news defending her right to hold on to her home. Not quite what she had in mind I expect but a position for which she has been prepared, because this is not the first time Editta has faced eviction.
In the early 1940s the Shermans were evicted from their studio on the Upper East Side, thanks to “a misunderstanding over the lease and a bank bond,” explained Editta.
“One morning we were thrown out in the street with the five children. We didn’t know where we were going. It wasn’t winter yet, thank God, but imagine … the mattresses, my negatives and pictures off the wall, into a barrel and out on the street, just sitting there half a block from Park Avenue!”
That eviction sparked the chain of events that led the family to move into the Carnegie Hall studios where Editta is determined to stay. Come the end of the month, the CHC will have a battle on its hands. Between her daily workouts on the exercise bike and Editta’s sheer zest for life, moving on this 95-year-old dynamo is not going to be easy. Unless… I wonder if they’ve thought of offering her a slot on Oprah?
Rachel Bonham Carter is a freelance journalist who works for the BBC and the UN, among others. |
