SCAVULLO, Francesco 1921-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born January 16, 1921, in Staten Island, NY; died January 6, 2004, in Manhattan, NY. Photographer and author. Scavullo was a famous fashion photographer best known for his decades of work for Cosmopolitan and other style magazines. Fascinated by both glamorous stars and photography from an early age, Scavullo was a teenager when he first was apprenticed to a photographer. This led to a job taking photos for advertising catalogs, where he made a connection with an editor from Vogue. Made an assistant to Horst P. Horst at Vogue, Scavullo also had the chance to work with well-known photographers John Rawlings and Cecil Beaton; he quickly proved his talent and was receiving credit lines by the age of nineteen. Pleased with his son's success, Scavullo's father bought him a studio on Manhattan's East Side, where the photographer would live and work for the next five decades, producing glamour shots for Vogue and other magazines, such as Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan. His innovative lighting techniques and ability to get just the right pose helped make some models into supermodels and others into actresses and superstars. Among those he portrayed on film were Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Brooke Shields, Farrah Fawcett, Kim Bassinger, Cindy Crawford, and Madonna. Famous for making all his subjects more beautiful, Scavullo also worked his magic on famous people who were not models, such as Barbara Walters and Ella Fitzgerald. His work not only graced magazine covers, but was also seen on record album covers, television advertisements, and ads for clothing designers. Many of his best photos are available in book collections, including Scavullo on Beauty (1976), Scavullo: Photographs, 50 Years (1997), and Scavullo Nudes (2000); in addition, his work has been shown in galleries and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, January 7, 2004, section 1, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2004, p. B12.

New York Times, January 7, 2004, p. C12.

Times (London, England), February 18, 2004.

Washington Post, January 8, 2004, p. B5.