The celebrity photographer you’ve never heard of
Jack Pashkovsky, who captured hundreds of stars through the lens, finally gets the spotlight at TIFF
Jack Pashkovsky had never heard of the word “paparazzi.”
He photographed hundreds of movie stars during Hollywood’s golden age, but only after asking and being granted permission.
You probably have not heard of him, because he never became a celebrity like some photographers who became famous for shooting stars.
But the compelling story of Pashkovsky and his stunning images is told in a 12-minute film called The Man Who Shot Hollywood, which will have its world premiere on Sept. 15 as part of the TIFF Short Cuts program.
And you can see 136 of those images at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Instead of selling the photos, Pashkovsky kept them under his bed at the Motion Picture Country House in California, where he spent his final years.
That’s where Toronto documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich met him by accident and discovered what he calls “the greatest collection of Hollywood photos never seen.”
Upshot: Pashkovsky turned the whole collection of negatives and prints over to Avrich, who has made it his mission to ensure movie lovers everywhere get a chance to enjoy these images.
Pashkovsky, born into a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg, moved to New York as a child in 1917 to escape persecution around the time of the Russian Revolution.
As a kid, he used to skip Hebrew school to go to the movies.
At the age of 22, he bought a camera and took a train to Los Angeles, aspiring to become a Hollywood cameraman. When he discovered that union rules made it a closed shop, Pashkovsky got a job doing less-glorious work at 20th Century Fox.
So when he went to premieres, a lot of the stars recognized him and were happy to pose.
Among the stars he shot: Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant, Ray Milland, Henry Fonda, Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, George Burns and Jimmy Durante.
Walking past Pashkovsky’s room, Avrich noticed an amazing picture of Gloria Swanson.
“I stuck my head into his room and asked, ‘Who shot that?’ He said, ‘I did.’ ”
“Do you have any more?” Avrich asked.
The answer: “They are under my bed.”
Crawling under the bed, Avrich found 400 pristine negatives.
“His photos haunted me,” Avrich recalls. “They were so fresh and relaxed, and they had a startling intimacy.”
Pashkovsky was pleased when Ernst Lubitsch hired him as his personal assistant for the movie That Lady in Ermine (1948).
But Lubitsch died during production. That meant he was no longer getting generous tips for bringing lunch to the legendary director.
It never occurred to Pashkovsky that he could earn a lot more than tips by selling his celebrity photos. But now they can be seen. The images at the Lightbox are part of an exhibit called In Love With the Stars, on view until April.
And this fall, Air Canada will show large-scale versions of 20 images from the collection at Maple Leaf lounges in cities including Toronto, New York and Los Angeles. mknelman@thestar.ca