Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A photographer who took the fashion world by storm in the 1960s with his pictures of Jean Shrimpton.
On the island
Eight records
The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Caduggan Hotel
Sir John Betjeman with Jim Parker
John Betjeman seemed to be one of the most charming Englishmen. And Oscar Wilde is certainly the most wittiest. So I could have good memories of two very good Englishmen.
reminds me of my childhood 'cause I used to go to the cinema eight times a week. And Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were two of my favourites.
I was gonna choose Heartbreak Hotel because it song that was playing all the time when I was doing my basic training in the National Service. That is everybody chooses. Heartbreaker too I thought. Steamroller blues.
Orchestra and Chorus of the National Opera Theatre of Sophia
I like Borodin's Prince Igor 'cause I'm mad about Russian movies and Russian music and this sums both up really because it's so visual.
Billie Holiday (credited as writer)
simply because she's the best. And she wrote this one.
He does the similar things with sound where you find a speech by a politician or a sermon. by a preacher and put it into a piece of music. And it's almost existential because it's not something you can create, you have to find it, and he does that and puts it into his music, which I find very interesting.
Dance of the Earth from The Rite of SpringFavourite
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
I think he's right of spring I take along with me.
Willard White with the Glyndebourne Chorus and the London Philharmonic
I just love this musical, especially this particular recording of it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:04So what is this new old, David? I mean, how would you define yourself?
There's never been what I call the new old before. There's a whole new generation, or an old, very old generation, like me or Jack Nicholson. That are still doing things that at our age we should think about digging the garden. And there's a kind of new spirit. There's still a spirit that didn't seem to exist before with older people. Old people used to get old. Once they were twenty five they started to get old.
Presenter asks
4:09So, David Bailey, you had a contract with Vogue when you were twenty years old, back in nineteen fifty eight. How come, I mean, what had you done to deserve it?
But no, I guess I was lucky. I worked for a very nice man called John French … And then uh Vogue sent for me and they said, Would you like to join would you like to be a staff photographer? And I said, well, what does that mean? And it meant a weekly wage. I said, well, that doesn't sound very good. And I said, no. So I wasn't really that interested in uh Fashion photography particularly. And I think through ignorance and saying no, it made them like life always is. made them want me even more. And then John Parsons … said we'll give you a a contract … I couldn't believe my he said, Well, you got a photograph of women mostly And it seemed to be a Too good to be true that that one was gonna pay me for to photograph women all day.
The keepsakes
The book
André Malraux
Because it says something about civilization. and that we nearly made it.
The luxury
Well actually I'd take Nelson's column because I think it would look such a surrealistic object sitting on a beach. in on a desert island in the middle of the ocean. No, I just wanted to look at it. It's just a it would just be a a statement, a ridiculous statement about of what life's about.
Presenter asks
18:54But what about that moment? What about that moment in in in the 1960, wasn't it, when that wafelite model, Gene Shrimpton, walked through the door?
Oh, well I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. In fact, I'd been up at Vogue for about eighteen months, I guess. Um plodding along. And one day a a colleague of mine, a friend of mine, another Photography that appeared Duffy. He was doing a Kellogg's ad. of this girl. And I opened the studio door and there was Jean Shrimpton, as it turned out, but I didn't know who she was then. and he had her against the blue sky background, and she had these blue eyes. And it looked it looked like she was transparent. And I remember that moan, it took my breath away. And I said to Duff, Who's that? and he said, Oh, it's Keep keep away from her. She's much too posh for you. She's something called G Shrinton. And that's that was the Moment I fell in love with Jean, I guess.
Presenter asks
20:20Were you very hurt?
Yeah, I guess I was in a way because it wasn't just the emotional or or love thing. It was uh we were a team. And in a way it was like losing an arm or a extension of what I did because I worked so much with her. that suddenly I had to start all over again with other girls.
Presenter asks
30:20So what's your order of priorities these days, David? And you're not allowed to say money,'cause you must have enough of that to last you a lifetime.
Power it is uh still adulation. Sakes. And first I guess is my wife and kids. 'Cause I never really understood what a family meant before,'cause I didn't have much of a I didn't have much of that when I was a kid. So it's funny now at this age to find I've got a family and it's a strange feeling.
Presenter asks
31:14And sitting on your desert island, if you could turn the clock back to the good times, where would you turn it back to?
What to go back? Hmm. No, because it's no adventure in going back. The adventure is in going forward. I mean, that's why all those fashion people love nostalgia, because it's safe. And that's why television makes all those boring films about the thirties and the forties and the fifties. It's all that nostalgia because people feel safe in the past. It's the future that's exciting. It's the unknown that's exciting. I mean We all know about the past, that it's too cosy and I hate it. I don't want a cosy life like that.
“I'm an ambitious fifty-three year old that's more dangerous than they are because imagine my backlog of knowledge.”
“I never really liked working with models. I always used the girls as if they were people. So my photographs were more portraits of women rather than fashion pictures of women.”
“I've never s gone a day without thinking about Death. That sounds morbid, but it's not so morbid. So you start to get used to the idea. So it probably helps you out in the long run.”
“I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.”
“It's the future that's exciting. It's the unknown that's exciting.”