23

THE PERFECT MOMENT

Back in the seventies, Robert Mapplethorpe went to see George Dureau in New Orleans. It was George’s work that inspired Mapplethorpe to make the visit. Robert was particularly keen on seeing George’s photographs of nude black men.

My friendship with Robert started in 1983. One day, I called him and introduced myself, mentioning that I worked at Elektra Records, and I would like to make a studio visit.

“I don’t do studio visits,” he said to me, rather abruptly.

“Really?” I asked. I was a little put off, but it didn’t matter. I never took no for an answer.

“Well,” I continued. “I love your work and I want to purchase something, so can we talk about it at the studio?” He asked for my phone number and said he’d get back to me.

By that time in 1983, Mapplethorpe was very well known—his work had been shown at the Holly Solomon Gallery, the Robert Samuel Gallery, and a collection of his work had been on international tours. At the time I called him, he was showing at the Leo Castelli Gallery. I knew I was pushing it by trying to connect with him—but to me, his photographs were mind-blowing, absolutely stunning.

A couple days later, he called me back—he must’ve checked up on me—and he said, “Okay—when would you like to come over?”

The next day, I headed over to 24 Bond Street and brought with me the biggest bouquet of white Casablanca Lilies I could find because Mapplethorpe was famous for photographing flowers. However, I had to make sure these flowers were absolutely pristine—that they were just opening, or if they had opened, that there was no fading or any grounded tips. As nice as the bouquets were for George when I visited him, I was far more careful about the state of their presentation for Robert.

When I arrived at his building, I pressed the buzzer. After he buzzed me in, I waited for the elevator to come down from the fifth floor. When it arrived, Robert opened the door. I handed him the bouquet of lilies and they actually made him smile. I immediately felt like we were going to get along.

I was wowed at that first meeting. He didn’t know me, and he was a very private guy and, like he mentioned, he didn’t usually do studio visits. It was a special moment.

“So, I’m not going to pull out every single photograph for you,” he announced. “Is there something specific you want?”

“Yes, I like your ‘Tiger Lily’ and ‘Larry (man with tattoo and 3 fingers).’”

“Doable.” he said. “You take the flowers. There are vases in the kitchen.” Then he left, and I put the lilies in water.

When he came back, he was carrying a box filled with 16 × 20 prints. Although the images were 15 × 15, they were printed on 16 × 20 paper. He started taking them out of the box and—lo and behold—there was the tiger lily and the other one was the profile of Larry. I had worshipped both from afar, having seen them in magazines and gallery shows. He leaned them up against his work desk. I lost my breath. I was overwhelmed.

“Yes! Those are the ones!” I said.

He quoted $1,500 for each one. That was a lot, but I had just started at Elektra and had a bit of money saved, so I quickly agreed.

Unfortunately, many years later, I sold both of the pieces. I was a drug addict at that point, and, well, I needed the money. In retrospect, I have total regret for selling them.

Robert and I ended up becoming good friends. We often had lunch together, and sometimes dinner. We usually went to a restaurant in the village called Vanessa’s. We’d get there around eight o’clock and, on a few occasions, after we had cocktails and ordered some dinner, Robert would pull out a vial of cocaine.

I would look at him in disbelief.

“We’re going to snort coke right here?” I’d whisper.

“Yeah!” he said. “Nobody’s looking!”

Then we’d both snort the coke and talk, talk, talk. We never ended up eating anything and at some point, we’d get up and head to one of the usual haunts—the Spike, the Eagle, the Anvil, or, Robert’s favorite, the Mine Shaft.

I had never been to the Mine Shaft before I met Robert. He took me there for the first time and it turns out Robert was not only a regular but eventually became the official photographer for the club.

The Mine Shaft was a BDSM gay sex club and bar. It had been started in the seventies and was in a building at 835 Washington Street, which was a strange coincidence because that was only a block from my apartment at 763 Washington. I never went there because it wasn’t my kind of scene. It was very hardcore.

That night when we arrived, we went upstairs. It was grimy and dark and stunk like used jockstraps in a locker room. It was crowded with hairy daddies and muscled, tattooed biker types. The dress code was strictly enforced: Motorcycle leathers, plaid shirts, black boots, Western gear, and jocks.

I was stunned. Then, after the first five minutes, Robert ditched me and went off with some friends. I just stood there at the bar, by myself, thinking “What the fuck am I going to do?” I didn’t know this place, I wasn’t a regular there by any means, and the situation was a little unnerving.

Suddenly, a very tall man with leather pants, cowboy boots, no shirt, and a leather mask with a zipper across the mouth, came up behind me. He spun me around, unzipped the mouthpiece and started making out heavily with me. It was shocking. But that’s how that place was—raunchy and unpredictable.

Mapplethorpe was definitely taken by George Dureau’s work. In many important ways, he was a strong inspiration for Robert. In fact, I believe he borrowed stylistically from George. For instance, an early image of Robert taken by George in 1979 was circular, a design which Robert used not much later in a fashion campaign for the Miquel Cruz Fashion house.

However, Robert was about being famous and making the money. It was a very different vibe than Dureau’s vision, which came from a more folk-art mentality.

Although I only knew Robert from 1983–1989, when he died from AIDS, we had a close connection during those few years. When I worked at the Red Parrot in 1983, Robert often showed up with twenty or so people and I always arranged to comp them all. That did not make my boss happy. But I just looked back at him and said matter-of-factly—“It’s Robert Mapplethorpe!”

Being a young person in the music business as well as a photography collector, I was amazed that I was friends with Robert. I loved everything that he photographed from “Jim in Sausalito” to his flower portraits. I didn’t relate to the S&M and fisting pictures, although I found them intriguing. I discovered there was a subculture in New York, where those men allowed him into their lives on a very intimate level, to photograph them.

Hanging out with Robert was definitely a very different experience than hanging out with George. When I visited George, he would arrange for us to have a huge feast of New Orleans Creole cuisine and we’d sit and talk while we drank bottle after bottle of Chardonnay. I saw Robert a lot as well, but there was a different quality in our get-togethers at lunch or dinner. We had fun, but it wasn’t as much of an intimate friendship as it was with George.

Robert seemed to have rules about a lot of things, especially if you asked to view his book of contact sheets, which he rarely allowed, unless you were the subject of the photo shoot. The reason was because contact sheets reveal errors, mistakes in the lighting, or the developing process. Robert abhorred errors of any kind. He only ever wanted you to see the perfect moment.

In fact, that was a distinct difference between Robert’s photography and George’s. The presentation of Robert’s photographs was always pristine, exquisite, flawless—almost cold. George, however, created photographs that were gritty and human—described as having an “intensely personal gravity that Mapplethorpe’s more objectified models often lack.”¹

There was a bodybuilder Robert photographed of whom I was enamored: his name was Roger Koch, also known as Frank Vickers to his gay film audience. He was a hot, badass model who happened to be a bit arrogant and obnoxious, but he had a body that could stop a truck. Outrageously, Robert photographed him in high heels, fishnet stockings, and a black lace garment, which was totally unexpected. You can see the perfection and purity Robert gives these photos of this rough, driven bodybuilder. It wowed me to see how Robert chose to present him. Photographers like Jack Fritscher and Stanley Stellar photographed him as well. In certain circles he became legendary. I remember seeing postcards that were printed with Roger on them at local gay bookstores. Yet he was later quoted as saying “I have nothing good to say about Robert Mapplethorpe.”²

Around 1987, Robert started to become very ill. For a time, he was at Deaconess Hospital in Boston, recovering. In the middle of 1988, he had a big retrospective at The Whitney Museum. When he arrived on opening night, he was using a cane and looked like a very old man. He was only forty-one years old and very weak, but he showed up at the Whitney anyway.

Once, when he was briefly at St. Vincent’s Hospital in early 1988, I called him to see how he was doing. He wanted to know why I had never asked him to photograph Metallica or any other musician on Elektra. Then, without missing a beat, he insisted, “When I get out of the hospital, I want to shoot somebody for you.”

I took him at his word and sent him five songs from a new young artist named Tracy Chapman, whose first record I was then overseeing at Elektra. He was delighted to be shooting her portrait because she looked like the young black boys he had always liked to photograph.

Robert was then living in a loft on West 23rd Street, and had moved his studio there. Not long after our talk in the hospital, Tracy and I went to see him for the cover shoot of her debut album. When we arrived, I noticed how delicate and fragile Robert looked, so I offered to do the shoot another day.

“Absolutely not,” he insisted.

I remember Robert sitting majestically in a dark wood Mission chair next to the camera. He was in his silk, paisley housecoat and velvet monogrammed slippers, and he had a remote shutter button on his lap. His brother, Edward, lit the photograph. I left Tracy with them for the remainder of the day.

About a week later, I received the images at the office. They were very beautiful, very tomboy-like, but they had nothing to do with the feeling of the album.

Tracy’s album was somber, meditative and graceful. Robert’s pictures had none of that—nowhere near the atmosphere I needed for the front cover image.

Meanwhile, I had to bring these photographs into the marketing meeting at Elektra, and let the executives know that they weren’t the images I expected. Robert was world renowned at that point. But he missed the mark with these photos. I had been working on Tracy’s album for the last year and I knew what the cover should express, and Robert hadn’t given us what we needed.

When I showed the photos at the meeting, I expressed my concern. Elektra’s president, Hale Milgrim, and Robin Sloane, vice-president of video, wanted me taken off the project. This was a major screw up.

They wanted to give Robert a “kill” fee, which is a smaller percentage of what the photographer’s payment would have been. I went into a rage. I couldn’t imagine giving Robert Mapplethorpe a kill fee of any kind. I marched right into Krasnow’s office.

“We absolutely cannot give Robert Mapplethorpe a kill fee!” I stated emphatically. “If you have to take it out of my Metallica royalties, then do it! We have to give him his full five figures or this will turn into a major story!”

I knew Bob didn’t want that kind of press.

We ended up giving Robert the full fee even though we didn’t use the photographs. I didn’t get fired from the project either and then, in my own charming way, I said, “Well, I have another idea.”

I had seen an illustration in Time magazine; it was of an angry little boy in Ireland and it was photographed by Matt Mahurin. I called Matt about doing some work for us, then sent him the songs. A few weeks later he got back to me with the idea for that now-classic image of Tracy for the album cover.

Tracy’s album came out in April of 1988. A year later, on March 9, 1989, Robert Mapplethorpe died.

Twenty years later, in 2009, on the anniversary of his death, I decided to visit Robert’s grave. I had never visited it before and I felt it was time. That morning I called his brother, Edward.

“Hey Edward, it’s Michael, you do realize it’s the twentieth anniversary of your brother’s death?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, I’m going to the cemetery. I’m feeling like I have to go.”

There was a brief silence before he said, “Well, hold that thought for a minute, because I think Patti was talking about going.”

When I heard “Patti,” my heart fluttered.

I kept myself composed and said, “Well, I am gonna go whether you guys come or not, so please let me know.”

Not much later, he called me back.

“I just got off the phone with Patti,” he said. “She’s calling Lenny and he’s going to pick us all up at Patti’s house.”

I took a deep breath. The day was beginning to feel very spiritual to me. Although I had been periodically in touch with Patti over the years—I hadn’t seen her since I was ill with AIDS in the early nineties.

“So, where do you want to meet . . . ?” I asked.

“Patti said to come to her house,” Edward replied.

I thought—perfect!

A little while later, I got to Patti’s. I had brought purple tulips for her and for Robert’s grave. I rang the doorbell, and her assistant, Andi Ostrowe, answered. Andi had been with Patti for many years, and I felt like she never took me seriously.

When she opened the door, she eyed me up and down.

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, I’m going to the cemetery with Patti and Lenny.”

“Does Patti know?” she asked.

“Yes, of course, Andi,” I said to her. “I don’t go anywhere where I’m not expected.”

“Well, okay then, wait here.”

When Patti found out I was at the door, Andi invited me in and Patti screamed down from upstairs, “Michael, go up to the second floor to my studio!” As I walked up there, I felt like I was in heaven.

“I would invite you up to the third floor! But it’s such a mess! Be assured though, your Maria Callas box set is next to my bed!”

“Fabulous!” I shouted back. “I’m thrilled that I’m near your bed!”

Andi left me alone on the second-floor studio and I looked around in a slow, moving, dream state. On the walls were Patti’s images that she had taken with her Land 250 Polaroid camera. It looked like the beginning of a future exhibition. There were also drawings on the wall. I was in awe seeing all this work that had yet to been seen by anyone else.

After a few minutes, she came down and we hugged. At that very moment, Edward and Lenny showed up. We climbed into Lenny’s car and headed out to St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. It’s was a dreary Monday. I think we were all feeling kind of awkward and somber. I don’t remember there being a lot of talk in the car.

When we arrived, we checked around the cemetery, and finally found the headstone. It actually read “Maxey” which was Robert’s mother’s maiden name, and underneath, it read “Mapplethorpe.” Both his parents were buried there with him.

We looked around for a few minutes, then we started talking about Robert, and everyone took out their cameras. We all started taking photographs, then suddenly, Patti said, “What are we, the fucking paparazzi here?”

That broke the tension and we all laughed.

When we knew it was time to leave, we left Patti at the graveside, by herself. Prior to that day, I don’t know if she had ever visited the grave alone.

After we left, we decided, in Robert’s memory, to go to a local diner and have chicken soup and grilled cheese, because those were his favorites.