Ted Allan started his career very young as an actor and worked on a number of Cecil B De Mille movies in the early 1930s. When De Mille called on someone to take some portraits, Allan stepped forward and, on seeing the results, De Mille encouraged him to follow a photography career.
While still in his teens Allan opened a photographic concession in a dime store on Hollywood Boulevard, where he photographed many actors and aspiring movie stars. These pictures led to employment as a photographer for several large film studios including MGM. Allan took over Hurrell’s gallery at MGM, where his nickname was ‘Rembrandt’ – and stayed for four years until 1937. During those years he was Harlow’s primary portrait photographer. Allan also had a particularly good rapport with male stars. Unlike Hurrell and Bull, whose reputations rest with women, Allan brought an appealing masculinity to subjects as diverse as Robert Taylor, James Stewart and The Marx Brothers.
The above image with Allan and Eleanor Powell brings to mind the concept of photographer-as-Svengali or Wizard, note how Ms P seems mesmerized, totally enchanted by the photog’s benign power, see how the equipment is directed down upon her, observe how… I’ll shut up now!
via The Los Angeles Times:
“Carole Lombard was a favorite of mine,” Allan told The Times in 1987. “She was real down to earth. She was the first movie star I ever heard use a four-letter word.”
Another favorite was Eleanor Powell.
“She liked my pictures so much that she proposed marriage,” he told The Times. “I said, ‘That’s all well and good, but I don’t think my wife would understand.’ “
Love Carole! What a Woman!
The Eleanor anecdote is hilarious. Anything to keep a wonderful photographer. 🙂 Thanks, Victoria!
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