Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Ex-RJ photographer who captured nuclear tests dies at 82
Former Review-Journal photographer and longtime Las Vegas photojournalist Herbert “Herb” Herpolsheimer died May 27 at the age of 82.
Herbert’s son David Herpolsheimer said his father captured many of the Las Vegas Valley’s defining moments during a 40-plusyear photography career, including the last above-ground nuclear tests at Yucca Flat, mobster Lefty Rosenthal’s car bombing and images on the Strip during the Rat Pack era.
The son added that photography was always his father’s passion.
“He picked up a camera at age 8 and never put one down for the next 75 years,” David Herpolsheimer said.
Born in St. Louis in 1937, Herbert Herpolsheimer grew up reading science-fiction novels and had an affinity for building radio kits and other technology — a skill that helped him later build his family’s first color TV in the 1970s.
Shortly after he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Air Force, which David Herpolsheimer said was rooted in his father’s patriotism — but also because “he said they had the coolest hats.” Herbert Herpolsheimer served in Korea, Okinawa and Vietnam for 14 years before ending his military career at Nellis Air Force Base.
He was a photographer for Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper, during his service, and the son said his father preferred being a photojournalist to other duties in the Air Force because he “didn’t have to jump out of planes and be shot at.”
Herpolsheimer became a photographer for the Review-Journal in the early 1960s before moving on to shoot photos for the Las Vegas News Bureau, KORK-TV, Channel 3, and The Valley Times, then turning to freelance work in the late 1970s.
“That was where he was most comfortable: behind the camera, hidden in plain sight,” daughter Dita Virtuoso said.
David Herpolsheimer, the youngest of five children, said he accompanied his father frequently on his photography assignments. The son recalled one morning waiting for the bus to take him to school, when he noticed wisps of smoke over the Strip.
He ran home to tell his father, who was already packing his camera bags to head to the scene of the 1980 MGM Grand — now Bally’s Las Vegas — fire, which killed 87 and injured hundreds more. The son said his father was one of the first people on the scene.
Herbert Herpolsheimer photographed major fights in the latter half of the 20th century involving boxers such as Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield and Sugar Ray Leonard. The son would often sit ringside with his father, loading and reloading canisters of film.
“I was just watching my dad and doing my job,” David Herpolsheimer said. “It was cool to do it with him.”
After about eight years as a freelance photographer, Herbert Herpolsheimer worked at UNLV Telemedia Services in long-distance education for 15 years, then retired in 2002.
The son said of his father that “there wasn’t something he couldn’t do himself if he put his mind to it.”
In retirement, he spent much of his time woodworking in his home-based shop “Herpolsheimer
Sawdust Factory” making furniture he sold on eBay and Etsy. He also enjoyed boating and fishing on Lake Mead, where he served on the Coast Guard Auxiliary and Power Squadron.
David Herpolsheimer, Virtuoso and Herbert Herpolsheimer’s wife of nearly 46 years, Lisa, all said his sense of humor sticks out most in their memories.
“I didn’t get it — 46 years and I still didn’t get it,” Lisa Herpolsheimer said of her husband’s dry humor. “I knew him for 46 years and I was adored. He loved me more than anything.”
The son added that his father was a doting husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, remembering that he would just sit and watch his kids at home “because he loved his children.”
“Dad was just always kind,” he said. “He was silly and kind and a good dad.”