Melbourne Spurr

[mrcheese]

Los Angeles: Melbourne Spurr

Time Period: 1917-1920s (?)
Location: Los Angeles

"deaf portrait photographer who began working for Hartsook in L.A. before setting up an independent studio encouraged by Mary Pickford, Spurr liked printing in sepia and had a pre-reaphaelite taste for wind-blown long hair in female portraits. Used blindstamps, back stamps, and signed negatives"
© David Shields

“arrived in Hollywood around 1917 and worked for the noted photographer Fred Hartsook taking portraits of the early stars. Spurr photographed Mary Pickford while working at the Hartsook studio and so impressed her that she personally helped launch his career as a Hollywood portrait photographer. By the mid 1920s he was one of the premier celebrity portraitists in the world.
By this time, though, the major movie studios were mandating that their stars could only be photographed by their own photographers. Spurr chose to keep his own studio, and was eventually shut out in favor of men like George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Eugene Robert Richee and others who worked for the big motion picture studios.
Spurr shined in Hollywood for one glorious decade - the "Roaring 20s" - but then moved on to photographing other notables like US presidents, artists, authors and dancers.”
© http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Spurr

“Melbourne Spurr was born December 22, 1888 in Iowa and although Melbourne had hoped for a career in front of the camera. There is a photo in the Spurr collection of Melbourne in a costume for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1920) however, he does not actually appear in the film. According to the 1920 census, Nettie was living with her son, and it indicates that she is divorced from Willard, there is a reference that this may have happen as early 1916, Nettie also tried a turn in the movies.
Melbourne was extremely hard of hearing, which may account for the difficulty that directors had in working with him and his difficulty in finding work.
By 1929, the artistry of Melbourne Spurr was given a lovely tribute in the August ‘Studio Light’ the publication of the Eastman Kodak Company; his photos were used to illustrate the magazine. The 1920’s was his decade.
There was a rather thrilling story told of Lena Malena saving Melbourne after he lost the oar of the boat and was unable to swim so Lena took the rope in hand and towed the boat back to land. She battled rip tides off Catalina Island in the dark for hours. The Coast Guard dragged her from the icy sea. In another report the row boat was a yacht in which they were sailing overturned.
Melbourne lived until he was 76, much honored, he is buried at Hollywood Forever in the Chandler Gardens and still remembered.”
© Marilyn Slater
http://www.freewebs.com/looking-for-mabel/spurr.htm



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