Get into the booth! - Willy Michel and his Photomaton, circa 1932-53

 

Erroll Flynn.

In the summer of 1928, Willy Michel (20 August 1905 - 1 March 1976) began his co-starring role in a series of photo booth portraits that would continue though hundreds of sessions and some twenty years. Michel, a protégé of Henri Martinie’s portrait studio, had the idea to ask of-the-moment French celebrities and visiting artists to join him inside the Photomaton booth he had installed at his photography studio at No. 26 Boulevard des Italiens in Paris. His booth-mates were mostly French music, film, and theater types, nearly all of them completely unknown to a contemporary or modern American audience. I listen to a lot of French recordings from the Twenties to the Forties, so while many of those obscure names are somewhat familiar to me, I thought I'd share some of the images where the names and faces are just a bit more widely known.

Maurice Chevalier.

Lili Damita. (The current Mrs. Erroll Flynn when the photographs were taken.)

Bing Crosby.

Charles Boyer.

Maria Casarès.

The great couturier Paul Poiret.

Arthur Rubenstein.

Jean-Louis Barrault.

Jean Marais.

Cécile Sorel.

Sessue Hayakawa.

Edwige Feuillère.

Erich von Stroheim.