On the far side of the lens - Victor Kraft photographed by Beaton (and others)

By Cecil Beaton, circa 1935.

A "ballet film improvisation" with Princess Natalie Paley, directed by Pavel Tchelitchew and photographed by Beaton, 1935.

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By Carl Van Vechten, 1935.

Victor Kraft (né Victor Hugo Etler Kraftsov; 8 August 1915, Oneonta, New York – 2 July 1976, Maine), professional photographer and life-long friend/lover of composer Aaron Copland. A violin prodigy, he gave concerts as a child. He later attended Juilliard and studied composition with Roger Sessions. When he was sixteen, he met Copeland who encouraged him to give up music and focus on photography. The two would maintain a close relationship until Kraft's death; Copeland called Kraft his, "pupil, companion, secretary and friend." He went on to contribute photographs to many of the most prominent publications of the day, he worked as a photojournalist during the Spanish Civil War, and became known for his portraits of leading figures in the world of music. All this time, though, he was also paid by Copland as his secretary and chauffeur, and the two lived together and traveled extensively. All through their relationship Copeland had a series of affairs or brief relationships with other handsome young men, much to Kraft's distress. And after a retaliatory affair with Leonard Bernstein, he married writer Pearl Kazin in 1951; only a few months later he returned to Copeland. Nine years after that, though, he married again and settled in Croton-on-Hudson, nearby to Copeland. The couple had a son - Copeland was the godfather - but the child was mentally handicapped. In 1968 Kraft, long upset about his son's condition and the state of his relationship with Copeland, kidnapped the then seven-year-old Jeremy and left the country for several months. Copeland remained in contact though, even meeting with Kraft in England and Israel. And only a few years later when Kraft died of a heart attack in Maine at the age of sixty, Copeland looked out for Jeremy, paid his tuition at a private school, and later helped him get training to become an auto mechanic.

By George Platt Lynes, 1936.

Beauty is as beauty makes - two portraits of Oliver Messel

Photographed by Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, 1929.

In costume for the role of Paris, photographed by Cecil Beaton, 1932.

Just in case you don't know... Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel (13 January 1904, London – 13 July 1978, Barbados) was an English artist and one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century. Besides his celebrated work in the theater - both sets and costumes - he also designed for film and ballet, retail settings, hotels, and completed private architectural and interior design commissions.

Becoming Tarzan - youthful images of Johnny Weissmuller

I've never been particularly interested in Johnny Weissmuller or his career as Tarzan. Nor was I ever impressed, as others have been, by his physique; I thought he looked somehow a bit slack. But he was certainly considered an Adonis in his day, the very model of male perfection. So I was surprised, when I recently came across very early pictures of him, taken a decade before the Tarzan train started, and saw how scrawny he looked, how un-Olympian. His career as one of the most important swimmers of the twentieth century had already quite successfully begun, and he was already breaking records; he broke the world record in the 100-meter freestyle when he was only eighteen. So I found it very interesting to see how much he changed physically during the decade from eighteen to twenty-eight, when he was cast as Tarzan.

Wearing the Illinois Athletic Club insignia, 1922. (Three images.)

Johnny Weissmuller (2 June 1904, Szabadfalva/Freidorf, Austria-Hungary, now Timișoara, Romania – 20 January 1984, Acapulco, Mexico), Austro-Hungarian-born American competitive swimmer and actor. Born Johann Weißmüller, he was seven months old when his parents arrived at Ellis Island; the family settled first in Pennsylvania and then Chicago. At the age of nine, he contracted polio and, at the suggestion of his doctor, he took up swimming to help battle the disease. He continued swimming and eventually earned a spot on the YMCA swim team. He dropped out of high school to work various jobs including a stint as a lifeguard at a Lake Michigan beach. While working as an elevator operator and bellboy at the Illinois Athletic Club, he caught the eye of famous swim coach William Bachrach; in August 1921, Weissmuller won the national championships in the 50-yard and 220-yard distances, and the following year he broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record in the 100-meter freestyle.

Circa 1924. (Three images.)

At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris he went on to win gold medals in the 100- and 400-meter freestyle, and was a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4×200-meter relay. As a member of the U.S. water polo team, he also won a bronze medal. In 1928, at the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, he won two more gold medals, for the 100-meter freestyle, and as a member of the team in the 4×200-meter relay. In the summer of 1929, because of his now international celebrity, he was chosen to officially open the Piscine Molitor in Paris. That same year, he signed a contract with BVD to be the face - and figure - of the company, touring the country as their representative. He made cameo appearances in a few movie shorts, and in 1932 signed a seven year contract with MGM.

Shipboard, circa 1928.

At the Piscine Molitor, Paris, circa 1929.

Two portraits by George Hoyningen-Huene, taken at the Piscine Molitor, Paris, circa 1929-30.

"Tarzan the Ape Man" was a huge success, and Weissmuller made a total of six Tarzan films for the studio, before moving to RKO where he made another six, though with markedly reduced production values. After that, he moved to Columbia, where he made thirteen Jungle Jim features between 1948 and 1954. He then took Jungle Jim to television for twenty-seven episodes beginning in 1956. He was involved in numerous business ventures, but spent a lot of time golfing and at his home in Mexico. He only had small roles in three more films, and after several years of ill health, including a series of strokes, he died at his adopted home of Acapulco at the age of seventy-nine. At his request, a recording of his famous Tarzan yell was played as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

In connection with his work for BVD, Weissmuller poses for artist John Hubbard Rich (?), circa 1929.

Two photographs by George Hurrell, taken in connection with the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, 1932 - games in which Weissmuller did not compete.

And to prove myself quite foolish in questioning his physical charms, here are portraits of Weissmuller from 1932 and 1933, newly Tarzan.

Photographs to publicize Tarzan the Ape Man by George Hurrell, 1932. (Seven images.)

Photographs by Harvey White, 1933. (Five images.)

Two portraits by Cecil Beaton, 1932.

An excluded light - Anna May Wong in Hollywood

Anna May Wong (3 January 1905, Los Angeles – 3 February 1961, Santa Monica), American actress. Considered to be the first Chinese American movie star, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Known for her beauty and personal style, she had a career that included silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio. But her film career was severely handicapped because of her race - the parts that were offered to her were usually little more than crudely stated Asian stereotypes - and by the miscegenation laws of the time that effectively kept her from taking leading roles.

Born Wong Liu Tsong one block north of Los Angeles' Chinatown, in an integrated community of Chinese, Irish, German, and Japanese residents, she was the second of seven children of a laundry owner and his second wife; both her parents were second-generation Chinese Americans. In the years before WWI, the burgeoning U. S. film industry had begun its relocation from the East Coast to the Los Angeles area, and she decided early on a career in film; at eleven she'd already chosen her stage name.

Photograph by Cecil Beaton.

Her first film work - as an extra in a Nazimova picture - came at the age of fourteen. She spent the next two years working as an extra - along the way dropping out of school - with her first screen credit coming in 1921. The following year, when she was only seventeen, she played her first leading role, in the early Metro two-color Technicolor movie The Toll of the Sea, the plot being a Chinese variation on Madame Butterfly. Her performance was universally praised by the likes of Variety and the New York Times, and she seemed set for film stardom.

Photograph by Paul Tanqueray.

Although she had a few more high-profile roles during the Silent era, was much publicized and admired for her beauty and fashion sense, it became more and more obvious that her career would be hampered by her race. In an effort to remind the public that she was in fact American born and raised, she affected a "flapper" style.

But due to the miscegenation laws that prevented her from performing love scenes with non-Asian actors, she was effectively also kept from taking lead roles; Hollywood didn't know what to do with her. She was relegated to supporting roles, locked into the alternating stereotypes of the naïve and self-sacrificing "Butterfly" type and the sly and deceitful "Dragon Lady"; she would fight this severely limiting and demeaning casting for the rest of her Hollywood career, but with little success.

In 1928, at the age of twenty-three, already worn down by the racist typecasting, she left the United States for Europe. She became a sensation, lauded for her beauty and talent, with leading roles in film and on stage, her talents as a linguist opening up many opportunities. She was a social success as well; no doubt much of her celebrity was due to her "exoticism", similar in some way to that which had propelled her fellow American Joséphine Baker to stardom in Europe.

In 1930 she was offered a contract with Paramount Studios in 1930 and, enticed by the promise of lead roles and top billing, she returned to the United States. The prestige and training she had gained during her years in Europe led - on her way back to Hollywood - to a starring role on Broadway in On the Spot, a drama that ran for 167 performances. In the years following her return to Hollywood, and once again faced with the racist stereotyping that hobbled her film career, Wong repeatedly turned to the stage and cabaret for a creative outlet.

Photograph by George Hurrell.

In 1932 Wong appeared alongside Marlene Dietrich - they had become friends while Wong was in Germany - as the self-sacrificing courtesan Hui Fei in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, the film and role for which she is - by far - best known today. After this high point, her Hollywood career resumed its old pattern, and she returned to Britain, where she remained for nearly three years. The greatest disappointment of her career was still ahead of her, though.

In 1935 she returned to the States hoping to secure the role of the Chinese character O-Lan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck's wildly popular novel The Good Earth, a role that for some time many assumed would naturally be hers. But MGM apparently never seriously considered Wong for the role because Paul Muni, an actor of European descent, was to play O-lan's husband. The studio chose instead the white actress Luise Rainer to play the leading role; Rainer went on to win an Oscar for her performance.

In January of the following year, she left on a year long trip to China, during which time she wrote articles for American newspapers chronicling her tour. Her reception in the country was very mixed, and the government and the Chinese film industry were often very critical of her, particularly for the way in which the roles she had had to take in Hollywood portrayed Chinese women. Just as in America she was seen as unacceptably Chinese, in China many regarded her as too American. The trip's stresses no doubt exacerbated her emotional and health issues; she suffered increasing bouts of depression and had problems with anger management. Also, by this point in her life she'd become a very heavy smoker and drinker.

Two photographs by Carl Van Vechten.

Photograph by Man Ray.

To complete her Paramount contract, she made a string of B movies in the late 1930s, their saving grace being that she was given less stereotypical roles. In addition to her waning film career, she performed on radio and formed a cabaret act, an act which included songs in Cantonese, French, English, German, Danish, Swedish, and other languages, and which she took from the States to Europe and Australia through the late 1930s and 1940s. During this same time - the period of Japanese aggression in East Asia that would eventually lead to world war in the Pacific - she donated and raised money in support of Chinese refugees.

She had invested in real estate and owned a number of properties in Hollywood, and after the war she converted her home in Santa Monica into four apartments which she called the "Moongate Apartments". In the fall of 1951, she starred in a detective series that had been written specifically for her, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong. (The title character's name was Wong's birth name.) Plans had been made for a second season, but the television network cancelled the series. Then, in late 1953, she suffered an internal hemorrhage, thought to be caused by the onset of menopause, her continued heavy drinking, and the stress of financial worries.

During the remainder of the decade she appeared as a guest star in a handful of television series. In 1960 she finally returned to the big screen in a supporting role in a Lana Turner film, Portrait in Black. Wong was reportedly scheduled to play the role of Madame Liang in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, but had to give up the role due to failing health. She died in her sleep a few months later of a heart attack - some sources say as a result of cirrhosis - at the age of fifty-six. Her cremated remains, along with those of her sister Mary, are interred in their mother's grave at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Two photographs by Edward Steichen for Vanity Fair.