Wallace Seawell, 90, Hollywood celebrity photographer died
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Wallace Seawell, a celebrity photographer whose West Hollywood home
was for decades one of the country's most productive glamour
factories, turning out thousands of portraits of movie stars, singers,
presidents, kings and Gabor sisters (all three), died on Tuesday in
Los Angeles. He was 90.
His death was announced by his publicity manager, Alan Eichler.
Mr. Seawell's subjects, who sat for him in the pre-paparazzi days,
when photographers tried to make stars look their best, included
almost everyone who was someone in movies and music from the 1940s
through the 1980s: Elizabeth Taylor, Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Nat
King Cole, Janet Leigh, Jayne Mansfield, Audrey Hepburn, Tony Curtis,
Paul Newman, Eva Gardner, Joan Collins and Diana Ross.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, while in the White House, came to Mr.
Seawell's house to be photographed, as did the Shah of Iran, the Duke
and Duchess of Windsor, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Earlier in his
career he was under a personal contract to Howard Hughes at RKO
Pictures where he had an office adjoining Hughes's.
Mr. Seawell, who liked to be called just Seawell, made highly stylized
portraits for many of the Hollywood celebrity magazines, like
Photoplay and Screen Gems. He also took photographs for several
studios and celebrity agencies.
In interviews, he often sounded as star-struck as the fans for whom
his photographs were intended. "It was the greatest time to be in
Hollywood," he said of his career, in an interview in 2000. "You could
really get to know the stars then. They threw big parties in their
homes, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to most of them."
Wallace Lacy Seawell was born Sept. 16, 1916, in Atlanta. When he was
7 his family moved to Sarasota, Fla., where teachers noticed his
artistic talent. His early ambition was to be a painter, but he soon
took up a camera and was accepted into a highly competitive
photography program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He later
was a set designer and fashion photographer in New York.
After serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, he moved
to Los Angeles and took a job - one that would last 20 years - with
Paul A. Hesse, then a leading commercial photographer on the West
Coast. When Mr. Hesse retired, Mr. Seawell started his own business in
his antique-filled home. He is survived by several nieces and nephews.
Besides studio work, Mr. Seawell also took his camera on the road,
accompanying the Harlem Globetrotters on three around-the-world tours
and taking promotional photographs at far-flung tourist spots for
Braniff, Pan Am and Scandinavian Airlines. He once served as the
official photographer for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
Circus.
For many years, Mr. Seawell shared his home with the actress Carol
Channing and her husband and manager, Charles Lowe. In the late 1990s,
he became enmeshed in their highly public divorce battle when Ms.
Channing accused her husband of spending all his money on Mr. Seawell.
Both men denied that this was the case. Mr. Seawell noted that he
already had plenty of money.
He described his success as a result of enthusiasm, something not
especially hard to come by when taking pictures of Sophia Loren. "She
was divine to work with," he said in an interview. "The aura of the
person excites you, and you've got to be excited or you won't do a
good job."
By RANDY KENNEDY