Movie Stars & Famous People

After film school, I created a series called Movie Stars & Famous People Picture Books. The idea came when I met Jack Larson and Noel Neill, the original Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane from the 1950s Superman TV Show—my first Hollywood "celebrities." We posed for pictures, and Jack signed his Polaroid. That was the moment I started my picture books of those I deemed to be culturally important people.

Lunch with Andy Warhol in 1980 at the famous Warhol Factory solidified this idea of everyone having fifteen minutes of fame. My then-boyfriend, Owen Baylis, worked at Interview Magazine. He invited me to their weekly luncheon. Artist Ronnie Cutrone posed each guest in front of the fireplace mantle for a 3D photograph documenting their attendance. Andy seated me next to actor and drag queen, Divine (he came as Glenn Milstead), star of Pink Flamingos and Hairspray. I was a big fan! Andy Warhol shook my hand like a wet noodle. He turned on his mini tape recorder, placed it on his plate, and left the room. Conversations were lively, and everyone was fascinating. After lunch, Andy returned to retrieve his recording. It was over too quickly! This luncheon at The Factory and Andy's Polaroid collection inspired me to continue to snap famous people photographs. I am currently on Book #6 in the series.

Unbeknownst to me, my great-uncle Manuel Rosenberg, had amassed an extensive collection of 20,000 autographed celebrity drawings during his career as an illustrator and art director of the Cincinnati Post newspaper in the 1920s. Photography was not yet popular for newspapers and sketch artists were the paparazzi of the day. Uncle Manuel's job was to interview and sketch almost every famous personality of his time. He had audiences with kings, generals, popes, scientists, actors, and presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Dwight D. Eisenhower. In an LA Herald article dated August 23, 1917, while visiting Universal Studios sketching silent movie stars, he announced that he was writing a book, People I Have Met in the Movies. Although Uncle Manuel never wrote that book, he did publish four other important books on newspaper art, cartooning, and drawing. Famous people like Gloria Swanson, Groucho Marx, and Liberace signed his drawings to show he had done them live. Their autographs also made the work more valuable. Three hundred of his original autographed drawings are in the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Welcome to our collection of Movie Stars and Famous People!