Beauty and the Punk
Beauty and the Punk
Brooke Shields and Legs McNeil gave good face.
In professional wrestling performances, there are “faces” and “heels.” Faces are the winners, the handsome star types that audiences and fans adore. Hulk Hogan and The Rock were faces. But it was the bad boy heels that drove the drama: people like the Iron Sheik, or Stone Cold Steve Austin. Punk Magazine was founded in 1976, to chronicle the nascent DIY musical scene with a ratty, almost xeroxed magazine that was described as the Ramones of print. “Resident punk” and editor Legs McNeil epitomized the title, and his work looked to me like that of a classic heel. Punk detailed the music scene exploding from downtown NY to the rest of the country in the late seventies. Jester, heel, punk, any of those names applies as well. Legs was the very epitome of punk and any encounters I had with him were bound to leave me agog with wonder.
I missed all that as a high schooler in suburban Maryland. When I arrived at SPIN in 1985 punk, and Punk, was all over. Still, Legs McNeil brought an undeniable frisson of energy and excitement to the SPIN office. I fondly remember a particular drunken limo ride to a SPIN party with the back of an enormous stretch limo filled by me, Legs, and comedians Bobcat Goldthwaite and Emo Phillips. I don’t remember much about the actual party but the ride there was epic.
Right as I left SPIN, Legs and I worked together on a number of projects. I think I’d already gotten to photograph Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart (of Grateful Dead fame) when Legs called to ask if I’d be interested in photographing Brooke Shields. Catch was I’d photograph the two of them, with Legs playing some sort of dirtbag Beast to her Beauty. I think it ran in High Times, but I don’t have the tearsheet so I’m not sure about that.
In the event, Brooke was delightful: professional and easygoing. We shot several setups, with Legs in various states of dishevelment to Brooke’s beauty. She gamely participated in looking disgusted or amused or whatever reaction Legs’ hilarious presence brought to mind. I had learned to shoot fast when dealing with busy celebrities, and brought those skills to bear here. We managed to get several different setups, color and black and white.
I used my Mamiya 6x7 which produced ten shots on each roll. When developed, each roll was 2 ¼ inches wide and about eighteen inches long. Black and white yielded negatives, generally for magazines we shot positive “chrome” film. To edit, one employed a china marker (grease pencil) and went down the roll marking the selects while viewing the roll on a glowing light table. Then you’d cut up the film, sleeving it in additionally protective plastic sleeves, to pack up and send to the client Those ten shots would usually contain a few “keepers,” often in clusters as my subject and I clicked or explored a particularly fetching idea.
A few rolls in, I noticed I was x-ing a lot more shots than usual. In fact, every shot of Brooke was perfect, any bad frames were caused by Legs looking funny or me missing focus or something. I would go down the roll and X every single shot. Same thing on the next roll. And the next. Brooke Shields apparently never blinked, “knew her angles” and literally could not produce a bad shot. Downright eerie, and one of those things I’d never believe if I hadn’t experienced it. Admittedly, if anyone was ever born a model, it was Brooke: she of the Ivory Soap box as an infant all the way through Pretty Baby, Blue Lagoon, culminating in a Chris Carroll photo shoot. And boy was she sweet! Totally game to let Legs hang his grody self all over her, playing annoyed or entranced as and when directed.
I never had game. Kim Cattrall laughed in my face when I asked for her number. I was so afraid of Daisy Fuentes and her overweaning hotness I stuttered when talking to her. But Brooke, in addition to being the most photogenic woman I’d ever worked with, was also sweet as pie. Sweet enough to give me her number and take me up on my offer to show her the shoot and then let me treat her to one of the thirty one days of molé and margaritas at El Teddy’s afterward. My roommate Tony came home from work at the law firm to find Brooke Shields leaning over our light table in the kitchen. He had seen a lot, including insanity during a shoot of De La Soul, but admitted later the Brooke thing was the most shocking.
And I guess she had a good enough time that we went out again, this time me riding my messenger bike up to pick her up at her brownstone just off the park on the Upper East Side. I suspect the reasons why the be-dreaded dirt bag riding his bike for the date with the movie star in her brownstone mansion didn’t connect forever are contained right here in this paragraph, sentence even. Even then I knew, and felt lucky to have connected ever so briefly, yet realistically she was so far out of my league that it was like a different sport entirely.
But I don’t care. In the ensuing years I have watched Brooke from afar, with the rest of youse. Brooke Shields is a mensch. I am of course a fan of anyone who would go on a date with me, but Brooke has weathered so many tough situations with such indomitable grace that I feel compelled to laud. From going public with her struggles with postpartum depression to helping her mother through dementia she has maintained a dignity and strength that hold me in awe. Most recently she published a biography about how miserable and exploitive much of her (mostly early) career was. Seeing so many child stars utterly crash and burn, it is pretty great to have such a strong counter-example. And nice to realize that what you see is what you get: the nicest girl in front of the camera is pretty terrific the rest of the time too. Go, girl.