Herb Ritts
by Bill Abdul
365Gay.com Entertainment

His images are ingrained in our minds, as vivid as the memory of our first gay love.  And, like memories, the photographs of Herb Ritts are in sharp edged black and white, capturing the sinuous bodies of gorgeous men, the faces of the famous, and the soul of America in the 80s and 90s.

Ritts died of pneumonia December 26 at the UCLA Medical Center.  He was 50 years old. Just ten days earlier he had photographed actor Ben Affleck for a Vanity Fair magazine cover and was in the process of directing several music videos when he became ill.

Ritts leaves behind a partner, Erik Hyman; his mother, Shirley Ritts; a brother, Rory; a sister, Christy and a legacy of work.

Ritts was born in Los Angeles in 1952, and moved to the East Coast to attend New York's Bard College, where he studied economics. He later returned to California and took a job as a sales representative for his family's furniture business.

As a child he picked up a camera, snapping pictures of family events and friends.  But Ritts' hobby soon became a self-taught career. His first success as a photographer came by chance in 1978 when a movie industry friend brought Ritts to the set of The Champ.

During a particularly long break between scenes Ritts happened to meet the film's stars Jon Voigt and Ricky Schroeder.  He quickly convinced them to allow him to take their picture.  He posed the actors, snapped the shot and Newsweek published it on its "Newsmakers" page. 

But it would be the raw sensuality and tender machismo captured in the photograph of a young aspiring actor that would establish his career.

Ritts and the then virtually unknown Richard Gere were introduced by a friend.  A planned photo shoot in the desert turned to disaster when the car developed a flat tire.  But, taking advantage of the situation Ritts grabbed his camera as Gere changed the tire at the side of the road. The result was a photo of a steamy Gere in a white T-shirt, his arms over his head and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

A year later Gere was a star in the 1980 movie American Gigolo and Ritts' photos were being used as publicity shots.

Gere remained one of his closest friends.

"His purpose was always to make you look good," Gere said on hearing of Ritts' death. "He had an extremely elegant aesthetic. Some photographers are working so hard to be elegant that they pummel you with it, but to Herb it came effortlessly.

"Some photographers embalm their subjects, but he enlivened them."

Ritts pictures, with their homoerotic images of male sexuality, helped define the image-conscious 1980s and '90s. Along with photographic essays Ritts shot ads for Calvin Klein, Versace, and Armani.

1996 interview with Charles Isherwood, Ritts told the Advocate that the idea of “coming out” hadn’t occurred to him until Maria Shriver recruited him for her 1993 NBC special, The Gay ’90s, a newsmagazine hour about gay life near the turn of the millennium.

“She said to me, ‘Isn’t it incredible! You’re coming out on national TV!’” he remembered. “I said, ‘I am? I thought I had always been out.’

Ritts celebrity photographs captured the lives of stars often when they displayed little glamour. He photographed Christopher Reeve, wired up and immobile in a high-tech wheelchair. In another photograph, Elizabeth Taylor sported a crew cut and the scar resulting from her brain surgery.

And, he has photographed stars at their most glamorous.  From Madonna to Michelle Pfeiffer to Dizzy Gillespie.  His work has appeared in Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle. He took pictures for album covers and directed music videos.

"He shot exquisite, iconic photographs," said Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, a magazine to which Ritts contributed dozens of cover images.

"He could get people to do things that they were reluctant to do, because in the end it would make a great photograph,'' said David Fahey, Ritts' gallery representative.

"Herb was not only our key photographer, he was incredibly generous," Vogue editor Anna Wintour told the Los Angeles Times. "Unlike others in our field, he was the opposite of a prima donna. He made people feel welcome."

Edward Norton, one of Ritts' subjects, once told The Los Angeles Times: ``I feel like Herb really does see everything as beautiful. . . . It's almost as if he can't help but see it in its idealized form.''

Ritts work was displayed at studios and museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In 1991 two of his videos won MTV Awards: best female video, with Janet Jackson, and best male video, with Chris Isaak.

We are richer for the wonderful photographs he has given us, and poorer because there will be no more.