Because he made a career of pushing glamor toward tacky, with his models sporting his signature huge windblown hair and Way Bandy's way too much makeup, it's easy to overlook the admirable aspects of Francesco Scavullo's sixty-three years as a fashion photographer. After learning the craft from Horst P. Horst, he published his first cover shot when he was still in his teens and he died of a heart attack when he was eighty-two on his way to photograph Anderson Cooper in 2004. The man was a workhorse. Born on Staten Island, his family moved to Manhattan when he was six, and his father bought him a carriage house when he was nineteen, which he used as his studio for the rest of his life. Some of his most memorable images are Diana Ross's b&w cover and full-color foldout for Diana, the Kristofferson - Streisand poster for A Star Is Born, the Julie Andrews poster for Victor/Victoria, Brooke Shields everywhere, the Bee Gees on the cover of Rolling Stone, Madonna on the cover of Time, and Sting in a loincloth. He shot Beverly Johnson for Vogue's first cover of a black woman, and, garnering far more publicity, he shot Burt Reynolds nude for Cosmopolitan's first centerfold. Hired by Helen Gurley Brown, he defined the Cosmo girl and created her covers for more than thirty years, and while you would never mistake them for art, they reinvented the magazine and made it a low-brow powerhouse. Scavullo lived for thirty-two years with Sean Byrnes, who not only managed and styled his shoots but nursed him through four nervous breakdowns in his ongoing manic depressive cycles. Among his many books are Scavullo: Photographs 1948-1984
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