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The Date, by George Kaplan
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Rhodes Cardell was in a quandary.
As was Will Makepeace.
Rhodes Cardell was in a panic.
So, too, was Will Makepeace.
This wasn’t too surprising, because Rhodes Cardell *was* Will Makepeace, or, rather, vice versa.
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It was 1983. Rhodes Cardell was a “photographer to the stars” *and* a star photographer; his eye for beauty in both the expected and unexpected had made him a très hot property, though it was his ability to bring beauty out without over-glossing, and to hint at some sense of mystery, of deeper humanity no matter if he was photographing a much ballyhooed model or an “unknown”, that made him an *artist*. Cardell’s work was appreciated by many because he could, somehow, capture the ineffable on film. And also, if need be, contrive to hint at non-existent depths in the shallowest of the shallow (which wasn’t Cardell’s preferred method but he had to eat). Cardell, *himself*, was appreciated because he could do this in an unaffected, nonchalant manner, always putting his subjects at ease with unstressed charm and plentiful humor. But Rhodes Cardell’s name wasn’t really Rhodes Cardell, it was William Vincent Makepeace.
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Will Makepeace had been born in Manchester, England in 1954 and from an early age was enthralled by the worlds of photography and the movies. Despite being the scion of a grimy industrial town Will had never felt part of it, nor had he felt tied to it. He’d felt different, a misfit, but a talent for photography – the art for which he’d found he had a flair as soon as he received his first camera – gave him confidence; in fact photography was to him a superpower like those in the Marvel comic books he’d “borrowed” from his brother as a child (they were brought back by their American uncle, Curtis on his infrequent visits with their Aunt Amanda, their mother’s sister), so even when feeling alienated he had a “secret identity” and hidden power that few others knew about. With the active encouragement of his mother, Joan, and the rather more implied backing of his reticent and shadowy father, Royce, he developed his skills and sought out opportunities. It was as if photographer-Will was a different person from shy, diffident ordinary-Will; it was the talent and drive of photographer-Will that soon took him to art school then to London.
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Once in the capitol, Will had decided that in order to stand out he needed more than just a Northern English accent (still something of a boon in that post-Beatles era), so he reconstructed himself, allowing photographer Will his own name and persona. He decided upon Rhodes Cardell. It may have been borderline ridiculous but it just seemed *right*, it was a comfortable mask to wear, and he found within himself as Rhodes Cardell the conviction that he could do what he wanted to do and *go* where he wanted to go.
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He was right. By 1975 he found himself in Manhattan, and with amazing rapidity Rhodes Cardell became a *name*. Fashion photography; artistic photography; candid photography; commercial photography: he took to them all with an almost sexual greediness, a desire to become expert at them *all*. The camera’s eye was *him*; an extension of the way he saw the world, the sensual pleasure, the sensuous passion he felt but found it hard to express in any other way because beneath the very real mask of the confident, charming artist Rhodes Cardell – favorite of beautiful actresses and stunning models and lively, intelligent women – there still existed the other Rhodes, the Rhodes-who-was-Will. And Will Makepeace still felt like an outsider and couldn’t believe that women might find him attractive.
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That is why Rhodes Cardell and Will Makepeace were in a quandary and a panic, you see they, *he*, had to decide if they were willing to take a chance, to trust in themselves, or, rather, himself. They had to accept that there wasn’t two of them, but *one*. Rhodes Cardell had to let himself be Will Makepeace, and have faith because Rhodes/Will had… A date.