Born On This Day- January 16th... Francesco Scavullo

A copy of the Scavullo portrait of Sting was on my fridge for most of the 1980s, until it turned yellow & brittle, rather like me.

His father, who owned a Manhattan supper club, wanted his son to go into the family business, but when 19 year old Francesco Scavullo landed his 1st magazine cover for Seventeen, he bought his son a carriage house that would remain his home & studio until the end of his life.

Scavullo was best known for his covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine & his celebrity portraits, His big break was working at Vogue magazine under well-known fashion photographers Cecil Beaton & Horst P. Horst. The major turning point in his career came in 1965 when Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown hired him to help develop a new, sexier image for the magazine. He was given complete freedom to select the models, wardrobe, make-up, & hair styling, Scavullo successfully created the image of the modern day Cosmo girl. Scavullo was also responsible for the famous Cosmopolitan centerfold of a nude Burt Reynolds.

Scavullo would go on to shoot every Cosmopolitan cover over the next 3 decades. Scavullo also created memorable shots for various, album covers, movie & Broadway show posters, including one for A Star is Born (the really crummy one featuring Barbra Streisand & Kris Kristofferson, not one of the 2 classic versions with Janet Gaynor or Judy Garland), & of Julie Andrews for Blake Edwards' Victor Victoria.

He was also popular throughout his career for his celebrity portraits with many becoming iconic symbols of pop culture. Scavullo lived for 32 years with Sean Byrnes, who not only managed & styled his shoots, but helped in his ongoing manic depressive cycles, a disease that Scavullo spoke openly about. In 2004, Scavullo died of heart failure while on his way to a photo shoot of Anderson Cooper. I can only imagine, Cooper gives me irregular heartbeats also.

I always wanted to engage Scavullo to do the cover for my album- Jockstraps & Vicodin*.

*Footnote: Scavullo went to the big photo studio in the sky before the recording of Jockstraps & Vicodin was finished. This is the cover art that I am now considering.