Clarence Sinclair Bull, Master Portrait Photographer

During Hollywood's Golden Age stars were created by the film studios, with portrait photography playing an essential part in the starmaking process. The portraits taken of the stars were used to promote them and advertise their upcoming films in newspapers and fan magazines. The man who is probably most associated with the Hollywood portrait photography —along with the renowned George Hurrell — is Clarence Sinclair Bull, best known as the man who shot Greta Garbo.

In 1918, 22-year-old Bull arrived in Hollywood and worked for several film studios as assistant cameraman and part-time stills photographer. He was hired in 1920 by Samuel Goldwyn to take publicity stills of Metro stars. After Metro Pictures became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924, Bull was appointed chief of MGM’s stills department and held that position until his retirement in 1961.

Besides his management tasks, Bull continued to take portraits of the MGM stars. Of all the stars he had photographed — Bull had estimated the number to be at least 10,000 throughout his career— Greta Garbo was his most photographed subject. Bull had taken over 4,000 individual studies of her during the time they worked together, often using innovative lighting techniques (e.g. some of his dramatic close-ups of Garbo were shot by illuminating her face through the glow of a kerosene lamp). Bull became Garbo's personal photographer as she didn't want to be photographed by anyone else. (In 1930, a then unknown photographer by the name of George Hurrell was hired to shoot Garbo's portraits for the film Romance. He drove her crazy and after two shots she fled the room, later saying of Hurrell: "He was a twittery artistic type. He started hopping around and crawling on the studio floor looking for 'angles'.")

Not only Garbo but also many other stars loved working with Bull. He had a quiet professional manner and quickly succeeded in making his subjects feel at ease. As Bull had worked for MGM his entire career, he became familiar with the studio's stars and maintained both a personal and professional relationship with several of them, including Clark Gable and Johnny Weissmuller. 

While the 1930s were Bull's most productive years, the 1940s and 1950s saw him photograph a whole new generation of stars, including Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly. From the late 1940s Bull started to work extensively in colour, after having first experimented with colour photography in the 1930s (his first colour portrait of Garbo dating back to 1936). Bull eventually retired from MGM in 1961. In the late 1970s, he started to work on a limited edition portfolio of his Garbo prints, in collaboration with film historian and collector John Kobal. Before the project was completed, however, Bull died of a heart attack on 8 June 1979, 83 years old.

Just three of the numerous iconic photos taken of Greta Garbo by the great Clarence Sinclair Bull.

Top row, from left to right: Loretta Young, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford; middle row: Clark Gable, Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor; bottom row: Hedy Lamarr, Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn.

Ava Gardner and C.S. Bull in 1945 on the set of The Killers.

One of the many MGM stars who had been photographed by Bull was Gene Kelly. In a letter to a Fred Schmidt dated 8 May 1979, Kelly remembers Bull, describing him as a "real artist" and a "fine gentleman". 

 

Transcript:

May 8, 1979

Fred Schmidt
138 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn Heights, N.Y. 11201

Dear Mr. Schmidt:

I remember Clarence Bull with great fondness, and although I only saw him while doing portraits at the end of each film I completed at M.G.M., I recall vividly his great patience with all of us spoiled actors who had been photographed so many times candidly on the set and tried every trick to get Mr. Bull to hurry through his sittings. They were generally done on our free days. His calmness and almost paternal-like treatment of us would invariably get cooperation and he would always end up making the ones who needed it look better than they were. Clarence Bull was a real artist and very importantly, a fine gentleman.

And needless to say, an important factor in the success of presenting Metro films.

Sincerely yours,

('signed Gene Kelly')

Gene Kelly  

Source: liveauctioneers

Gene Kelly photographed by C.S. Bull