Backstage Hollywood: The Photographs of Bob Willoughby

The magazine Popular Photography has called Willoughby “. . . the man who virtually invented the photojournalistic motion picture still.” Responding to the many logistical challenges of working on film sets, he was a technological innovator, creating the silent blimp for 35mm still cameras so that he could photograph silently on set, capturing intimate moments of the stars. The exhibition features photographs from the sets of seventeen iconic Hollywood films, including Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Marnie, Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, and Marilyn Monroe in Let’s Make Love. Willoughby developed friendships with some of his subjects, including Audrey Hepburn. When speaking of meeting Hepburn, he recalls “She took my hand like… well a princess, and dazzled me with that smile that God designed to melt mortal men’s hearts.”

“Sometimes a filmmaker gets a look at a single photograph taken on his own set and sees the ‘soul’ of his film right there. It’s rare, but it happens, and did so to me in 1969…” – Director, Sydney Pollack

In many ways, Willoughby’s spontaneous approach set the standard of celebrity portraits as we think of them today, casting the candid eye of his camera across the most famous faces to fill them with renewed vitality. Backstage Hollywood will captivate audiences as they learn about the impact this photographer had in developing the genre of celebrity portraiture. This exhibition offers several programming opportunities to engage your local community from film series to photography workshops, allowing for all ages to find a way to connect to these dynamic images.

“I was there to make the women look as beautiful, the men as handsome and the movies as interesting as possible,”  ­– Bob Willoughby

Bob Willoughby was awarded the Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Still Photography in New York in 2004. His photographs are in the permanent collections of The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; The National Portrait Gallery, London; The National Museum of Photography, Bradford, UK; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, Film Department, New York; The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Tate Gallery Collection, London; Théâtre de la Photographie et de l’Image, Nice; and Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium.

While Willoughby is most famous as the great chronicler of Hollywood, before he began covering film production he had already made an astonishing series of photographs of Jazz musicians, this work is featured in our companion exhibition, Shutter and Sound. Additional printable didactics are available to venues who plan to book and present both exhibits in tandem for a larger Bob Willoughby exhibit.