TRIBUTE : Legendary photojournalist captured the 1960s

Montecito filmmaker recalls her interview with civil-rights era photographer Steve Schapiro

Editor’s note: Alicia St. John is an award-winning Montecito author and filmmaker who interviewed acclaimed civil rights-era photojournalist Steve Schapiro in 2019. She submitted this story to the News-Press about her conversation with the photographer, who died Jan. 15 in Chicago after battling pancreatic cancer.

By ALICIA ST. JOHN

SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-PRESS 

Photojournalist Steve Schapiro has passed away. He was 87.

Beginning as a freelance photojournalist in 1961, Steve captured some of the defining moments of the 1960s during a critical turning point of American history.

He photographed the civil rights march on Washington, as well as the march from Selma to Montgomery. 

At the time, the authorities tried to prevent him from taking photos of the marches. At one point, they even took away his undeveloped film. But he gave the man his unexposed rolls and hid the exposed films, tucked away in his shirt. Those images became some of the most revered photos, chronicling the civil rights movement. 

I convinced Steve to allow me to interview him, but only because I had just finished filming a biopic on Bobby Kennedy’s legacy, “This Ain’t Harvard,” which was told from the perspective of the last man surviving of Sen. Kennedy’s inner circle of five, on the 1968 campaign trail. Steve told me that he was Sen. Kennedy’s official photographer on the South American tour, and he would agree to the interview, if we could talk about his memories of Bobby.  

Our interview was on Oct, 22, 2019, two months before the COVID-19 pandemic would hit the U.S. and close down the world as we knew it.

I was on my last day of the three-day film project, which included a candid interview of the legendary Steve Schapiro at locations all around Chicago: from the Museum of Modern Art, rising amid the downtown skyscrapers, to a brownstone artist’s studio, on the industrial side of town.

But on that last day, I directed my film crew at the Drumbar, a speakeasy designed with all the cool elegance of that era, belonging to the man I was to capture for all posterity, Steve Schapiro.

There he sat, alone at the bar, blending into the Art Deco scene, as the bartender slid a martini into place before him, and Steve turned to the camera to begin his thoughts on Bobby Kennedy: “So, what makes a man an icon?”

I was enthralled, elated and grateful to hear this iconic man’s stories of the people, places and events that shaped the 20th century.  

In the decades after the civil rights movement, Steve had worked as the on-set photographer for motion pictures, producing images for “The Godfather,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “First Blood,” “Risky Business” and “The Way We Were.” 

He also photographed legendary musicians such as Barbra Streisand and David Bowie, the latter immortalized in published tomes.

He was a personal friend to Andy Warhol and had unrestricted access to chronicle the Velvet Underground.

Monographs of Steve’s work include “American Edge,” which recounts the political turbulence of the 1960s, and “Schapiro’s Heroes,” profiling 10 figures that the photographer collaborated with, including Muhammad Ali; Andy Warhol; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Sen. Robert Kennedy; Ray Charles; Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; James Baldwin; Samuel Beckett; Barbra Streisand and Truman Capote.

Steve’s work is part of private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Museum, the High Museum of Art, the New York Metropolitan Museum and the Getty Museum.

Longtime friend David Fahey, owner of Fahey/Klein Gallery explains, “There are six skills required to create unique, indelible pictures, those being instinct; intuition; curiosity; experience; trust and talent. Steve Schapiro had them all. He made the kind of images that reminded you to contemplate. Either historical moments or influential people. He just knew how to reach into their soul and make that photo, which projected their personality.”

But Steve was humble about his life’s work. He once said, “I try to be a fly on the wall as much as possible. For me, emotion is the strongest quality in a picture.” 

David Fahey sums up the life of the legendary talent, “Steve’s work is hard-hitting, message-driven photographs. They have their own innate beauty, but it’s not typical beauty.  To the end, Steve transcribed the world around him through his camera.”

Steve Schapiro is survived by Maura Smith, his wife of 39 years; sons Theophilus Donoghue and Adam Shapiro; and daughters Elle Harvey and Taylor Schapiro.

Alicia St. John is an award-winning Montecito author, publisher and film-maker, known for the screen adaptation and directing “This Ain’t Harvard,” an inspirational biopic of the life of Robert F. Kennedy, as told from the perspective of the last of his inner circle of five.

Her film, “Icons, Creators of 20th Century Arts & Culture,” includes candid interviews of the legendary photojournalist, Steve Schapiro, and was filmed at key locations in Chicago, each an exact reflection of the varied genres of his work and the stories behind the photos.

Subsequent interviews for “Icons” include Yann Wenner and Ian Schrager.  Ms. St. John’s live-action children’s film, “Piglet Willy,” is yet in pre-production, is filmed at historical locations in California and includes one of six of Charles Lindbergh’s bi-planes, as integral to the story of the hero, William Quest. The original children’s book was endorsed by Ray Bradbury, Stan Lee and Thomas Steinbeck.

Ms. St. John is a lover of classic cars and owner of a 1958 British race car. Her next book launch is “Passion, Classic Cars & Collectors,” portraits of the mystique of men and their cars, as an imprint on history. 

FYI

To see Steve Schapiro’s photos, go to steveschapiro.com.