George Hurrell’s Vintage Glamour Portraits of Hollywood’s Biggest Stars – The Hollywood Reporter
Norma Shearer, 1929
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira One of the most fascinating chapters of Vieira’s book covers Hurrell’s work with actress Norma Shearer. Her husband, MGM’s Irving Thalberg, would not cast her in his upcoming picture The Ex-Wife because he didn’t feel she fit the part of a woman who lashes out against her husband’s infidelity. Determined to remake her image, she enlisted Hurrell to help change her husband’s mind – and it worked. A far cry from the motherly poses she was used to, these images saved Shearer’s career – and possibly her marriage in the process.
Marie Dressler, 1930
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira Hurrell shot Dressler when she first found stardom at age 62 in George W. Hill’s Min and Bill. Earlier portrait shots of the actress portrayed her as a run-of-the-mill society lady, but Hurrell knew how to evoke a memorable sense of character better than anyone.
Joan Crawford, 1931
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira A startling example of the power of retouching (left), this portrait of Crawford was one of many shot by Hurrell over the years. He asked his subjects to arrive on-set with no makeup. Afterward, a retouch artist would spend hours erasing every line and blemish. Crawford remembers showing up for Hurrell with “just a scrubbed face.”
Olivia de Havilland, 1940
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira Although the results came out perfectly fine, Hurrell’s sessions with de Havilland were considered a rare failure. “You can see in a number of Olivia de Havilland’s portraits that she was uncomfortable,” Vieira tells THR, noting that the actress did not appreciate Hurrell’s bawdy sense of humor that put so many other subjects at ease. Here she is posing at the Warner Bros. studio gallery, where Hurrell worked under contract from 1938-1940.
Jane Russell, 1941
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira For his first portrait session with Jane Russell, Hurrell enlisted a writer from U.S. Camera to document the occasion. A transcript from the session is reprinted in Vieira’s book, with great details like Russell telling the room, “I feel like a guinea pig,” to which Hurrell replies, “You won’t when we’ve finished with you.”
Jane Russell’s ‘The Outlaw’ Portrait, 1941
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira To get Russell up on the haystack, Hurrell had to build steps underneath so she wouldn’t fall off. But she was more than game, and aced this session that cemented her as the new American pinup star.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1985
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira Throughout his career, Hurrell often employed mirrors and double-images to evocative effect. Here, a portrait of the future California governor that needs no elaboration.
Sharon Stone, 1992
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mark A. Vieira Hurrell began to work with big stars again in the 1980s and '90s, thanks in large part to the adulation of photography collectors — Sharon Stone among them. In fact, Stone penned the foreword to Vieira’s book, writing, “That was an era, he was a king, and yes, I learned how to be a movie star from the best of the best, Mr. George Hurrell.”
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