Getting Ready for the Close Up

In a small uptown studio once owned by Richard Avedon a sprightly young man in a button-down, a dress vest, jeans, and white tennis shoes is addressing a small crowd of New Yorkers in his endearing British accent.

This is Suite A, Avedon's renovated studio at 75th and 1st, on Wednesday night, and  the man is the well-known and loved portrait photographer Platon. Having recently released a retrospective book, Platon's Republic, he has come as the first photographer to lead what will hopefully be a regular slide show at the studio.

Projected behind him on the wall now is a photo of President Bush (the first one) holding up two fingers in a "v." He tells how nervous he was about this photo and how afterward he received an email about it, congratulating him on taking a "cross-generational photo" that would be understood by an older crowd as a victory sign and by a younger one as a peace sign. "My three-year-old had a different take," the email went on. When she saw the photo on the cover of a Texas Monthly in the grocery store she said, "Look Dad, that man sings Little Bunny Fufu."

Platon has photographed the famous-est of the famous—presidents, CEOs, musicians, and actors. And for each one he has a little story like this one about Bush. Because, it is quickly obvious, the way he gets such piercing portraits is by talking in his easily star-struck, energetic, entirely lovable way to every famous person he comes in contact with. He's deeply interested in knowing the why and how of life, and so has no qualms with asking for a bit of advice or a motto from his captive subjects.

Following are highlights from their irresistible answers.

Platon was brought to the U.S. from London by John F. Kennedy Jr. to shoot for George magazine. At the time he had been doing grittier work for London pubs like Arena, which John John saw as a welcome antidote to the glossy, clean look American photographers favored then. "Pictures should be for everybody," he told Platon. "And you should feel like you met the person through your photos." Platon obviously took the advice to heart.

Larry King: "You don't have to make it pretty, but you've got two minutes, so you do have to make it fast."

Platon on Marilyn Manson: "He was a real gentleman," and worried about his stomach looking fat.

On Rupert Murdoch's tendency to leave his mouth hanging slightly open, which makes for bad photos: "I'm the first person to tell Rupert Murdoch to shut his mouth."

On likely his most famous photo of Pamela Anderson, naked, with an American flag stretched across her back like a Zest towel, which was voted the sexiest picture of the year and became the USO photo distributed to all enlisted men, and in which, "Pammy" is actually 5 months pregnant and doesn't want it to show: "I know it as a sweet secret that Pammy and I were keeping...oh, it's not my baby."

When Platon's exuberance got the better of him and he asked if Al Pacino could recreate the late scene from The Godfather II where he's in the garden...Pacino leaned forward, touched him on the knee, and went, shhhhhh. Then he took on Michael Corleone for about 30 seconds. "I'm the only person to photograph Pacino as Michael Corleone," Platon says proudly.

On his photo, shot up from the floor, of Michael Moore, surrounded by microphones, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where Platon was "just another man with a camera": "Because I'm little and not a professional photojournalist, I'm always late...the only way I can get in is to crawl on my hands and knees—and I always get the best shot." Albeit, usually up somebody's nose.

On James Gandolfini: "This guy is really like his character." He came to the shoot with his cut-up hand bandaged with gaffers tape.

On The Donald (Trump, that is), shot from his right side, his "best side": "His hair is real." And, despite Platon's pleas to shoot him straight-on and centered, the way he prefers, "no one shoots him that way."

About the final arrival of Prince, after eight hours of his handlers saying he would be there "any minute": "By the time he arrived it was like a religious experience." Truer words were never spoken. When Platon asked The Artist if he knew "the answer," he responded that he did, handed Platon a piece of paper, and left the studio for good. Platon found in his hand a small Jehovah's Witness pamphlet.

On Samuel L. Jackson, shot coyly peeking over the collar of his jacket: "This guy is a very shy guy...he's not like the character you see in the Tarantino movies."

On Keanu Reeves: "I'm not sure if this guy's really shy or really dim." He incessantly asked Platon, "What's my motivation?"

"No sex please, we're British," is apparently a well-known bit of Brit self-deprecation that Platon felt related to the following story about shooting Monica Bellucci, who he describes as one of the three sexiest women alive. He was in the dressing room talking with her before the shoot and mid-conversation she drops her towel and asks her gorgeous Italian assistants to rub baby oil "all over her curves" so she could slide into the skin-tight dress she'd chosen. "She knew exactly what she was doing," Platon insists. At the end of the shoot he asked to have a photo shot with her for his scrapbook, and, getting a little cheeky and no doubt intoxicated by her closeness he warned her, "I'm a married man." She whispered in his ear ("I can still feel her warm breath on my neck"), "Don't worry darling, I'm married too."

A close up of a post-stroke Kirk Douglas staring down the camera is obviously one of Platon's favorites. "I can't believe I get to meet the man who played Spartacus," he told the aging legend. Douglas, with characteristic vim, said, "I didn't play Spartacus, I am Spartacus." Meanwhile, his wife, Anne, was flitting around the studio, and Platon asked her to come into the picture. When she demured, saying she didn't know what to do, he asked her to show him how she felt about her husband. She stood behind Kirk, put her arms on his shoulders, and leaned her head on top of his. "This look of calmness came over him," Platon remembers. "And I realized, he's not Spartacus, he's a man who loves his wife."

Mayor Giuliani just wouldn't stop smiling. He came in with a huge grin plastered on his face, and even the charismatic Platon couldn't get him to soften it. "This is my media smile," Rudolph insisted.

Al Hirschfeld, the legendary cartoonist, had his picture taken by Platon a few weeks before he died, at the age of 99. "If you had one wish?" Platon asked. "Ah, to be 90 again," he replied.

Angelica Huston, after Platon admitted how nervous he was to be photographing Richard Avedon's muse: "Don't worry...boys, turn the music up, climb aboard sonny, it's going to be a bumpy ride." She then proceeded to give him a bunch of Avedon-esque poses, "which I usually don't allow," Platon said. "But for her, it worked."

Bono told Platon that "a friend" had made the rosary he wears. Which friend? Oh, the Pope, of course. And obviously he was old pals with Frank Sinatra, who Platon adores. According to the U2 front man, Frankie considered his greatest achievement to be the playing of his "Fly Me to the Moon" when 
Buzz Aldridge landed on the moon. So how does Bono say you should cope with criticism? "In life, you have to stick your head above the parapet and wait for the custard pies to be thrown. Sometimes they taste very sweet."

Benicio Del Toro: "No one touches the hair."

Kevin Bacon on having kids: "Start with a plant, get a dog, and then you're ready for kids."

Platon on Matt Damon, who is "really nice, but a little square": "I had to help him look cooler than he really was."

On Christopher Walken, in the understatement of the night: "Now this guy is weird." Walken showed up for a shoot at Platon's house an hour early (unprecedented), alone (un-heard-of), and wearing black elastic pants pulled up to his armpits (what do you expect). He walked through the studio, straight into Platon's kitchen and started going through the cabinets. Platon, a little confused, asked him if he was hungry, and could he get him something to eat? "No," Walken replied, and kept opening cabinet doors. His advice on life? "It helps if you drink." The only way he would let Platon shoot his portrait? "You're going to say 'Chris' and I'm going to look at you and then I'm going to look away." "We did that for two hours," Platon says.

On Jude Law, who, although he's a straight, married man, Platon has to admit he "fancies": "I had trouble taking his picture because we were just talking and talking."

Mos Def's motto: "Love all, trust few, fear none."

Platon as Sylvester Stallone, on the phone, after seeing the photos Platon took of him, in a hilarious Sly-parody voice: "Eh, Platon, you truly have the eye of the tiger."

Spike Lee: No motto, no advice. "I'm not Oprah and I'm not Dr. Phil."

Karl Rove: "If you're photographing me, you've made it and you don't need any advice."

Neil Young, on taking criticism for your artistic endeavors: "As an artists, I am never wrong, because an artist's job is to express your feelings."

Platon happened to be in the car with John McCain when he abruptly announced that he was running for president. McCain promptly put a CD in and he and Platon were soon seat-dancing to Abba's "Dancing Queen." The Spice Girls are apparently McCain's favorite band.

Feeling it would be dishonest to photograph Cindy Sheehan looking happy and pretty, Platon asked her for permission to "open the floodgates" and have her think about her son who was killed in Iraq. She cried, Platon took his picture, then put down his camera, gave her a hug, and told her he was sorry. "A mother should never bury her son," she whispered.

For Platon's "Mona Lisa," a portrait of Bill Clinton for Esquire (the last of his presidency), they closed down a 200-room hotel for the shoot. There were snipers on the roof and secret service counting down the president's arrival into their sleeves. Platon and his crew had to arrive eight hours early—and would only get eight minutes to shoot. "It's like religious, if you've ever shaken his hand, you just melt," he says of Clinton, before rolling out a dead-on impression of his souther drawl. The shot, now famous, became the subject of a Larry King segment in which he led with the photo and called it an "outrage." "I thought,  oh shit, I'm going to be deported," Platon remembers. Really, Bob Woodward just came on and explained how the photo was a big f-off to all of Clinton's detractors.

But the best story of the night starred Dustin Hoffman, who Platon loves, but who his mother adores. He told Hoffman about his mom to warm him up before the shoot, and Hoffman immediately asked if they could get Platon's mother on the phone. They did, and he said, "I want you to know you have a secret American admirer." She thanked him, then asked who he was. "This is Dustin Hoffman," he said, and then Platon does a great impression of his mother hyperventilating. Platon told Hoffman later that the call had meant more than he realized because his father had recently died and the next day would be the first birthday his mother had celebrated without him. In the morning she found a huge bouquet of flowers outside her door with a note that read, "From your secret American admirer."

--Miki Johnson

(Please note that the address and name of Suite A were incorrect in the original version of this story.)

(Photos: © Platon Photo)

Comments

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Brilliant.

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Excellent.

[Eric Bostrom]

That's a great little string of anecdotes.

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Wow inspiring interview. Gorgeous picture.

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