Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston [Hardcover]

Robert Hudovernik (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 17, 2006

Despite Prohibition, the '20s was the decade of jazz, flappers and hip flasks. While some took their vote and joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement, others, well, took liberties. Compiled here for the first time are more than 200 publicity stills and photos of some of America's first "It" girls—the silent film-era starlets who paved the way for the cacophony of Monroes and Madonnas to follow. Accompanying these iconic images are the stories behind them, including accounts from surviving Ziegfeld Girls, as well as ads featuring them that helped perpetuate the allure of It girl glamour. When rare and striking portraits of these women surfaced on the internet in 1995, author Robert Hudovernik began researching their source. What he discovered was the work of one of the first "star makers" identified most with the Ziegfeld Follies, Alfred Cheney Johnston. Johnston, a member of New York's famous Algonquin Round Table who photographed such celebrities as Mary Pickford, Fanny Brice, the Gish Sisters, and Louise Brooks, fell out of the spotlight with the demise of the revue. A sumptuous snapshot of an era, this book is also a look at the work of this "lost" photographer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This sumptuous book features more than 200 publicity stills and photos of America’s original “It” girls, as well as the “secret’ nudes discovered on photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston’s estate after his death.” ~The Globe and Mail

About the Author

Robert Hudovernik is a freelance writer, photographer and scriptwriter. He wrote and produced a documentary funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities entitled Circus Echoes on the golden age of circus entertainment during the Art Deco era.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Universe (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789313812
• ISBN-13: 978-0789313812
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #399,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating Vintage Beauties November 26, 2006

By Arturo G. Zaldivar

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a longtime admirer of early celebrity portraiture, this book brings to light the works of a nearly forgotten master. Although I own over 40 books and numerous original images covering photography of 1890s-1930s, I have seen very few of the images in this book reproduced elsewhere. The text is accurate enough to give one a sense of the historical background in which Johnson worked, with one very minor error regarding Theda Bara and Bill Tilden. However, the text is brief and the book is just loaded with wonderfully reproduced images of stunningly beautiful women. Many are clothed as Ziegfeld Showgirls, the predecessors to today's Vegas Showgirls. Some images are of early film actresses. All are captured in Johnson's signature style which certainly influenced Clarence Sinclair Bull, George Hurrell, Harriet Ruth Louise, and other great movie studio photographers. If you appreciate early 20th Century photography, early film and American Theater of the period, you will love this book. And if you just like to admire beautiful natural beauty (not surgically enhanced), this is the book for you.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One for your collection January 15, 2007

By Terry Norman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As one who enjoys movies from the 30's, this book helped me to enter the world of early Ziegfeld and movie beauties and their way of life. Of the photographic books I have, this one has to rank at the top. The first 62 pages (and few at the end of the book) contain text with photographs. Photo collections with text usually bore me, but this one was so interesting with details of the stories behind the women and that era, that I was dissapointed when the text ended. I have one other photo book containing women of the 20's but the photography, poses, and beauty of the women in this book surpasses the other book by a long shot. The strict physical characteristics that Ziegfeld had for his women are evident in this collection. Included in this collection is Miss Universe from 1926. I wondered to myself if they stripped her of her crown for posing nude? This book also provides excellent examples of the use of lines when posing the female subject. The book refers to it as the "Line of Beauty". If one enjoys the history and images of that era, this is a must have book that won't dissapoint. A superbly bound hardbook with mainly full page images of excellent quality.

My one sad point of the book was to learn that there are boxes full of more of Johnston's images that someone is holding on to with plans to sell individually and deny the world to see them as a collection.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Purchased for the photos, enjoyed the text February 20, 2007

By T. Mose

Format:Hardcover

I purchased Jazz Age Beauties for the beautiful photographs. Alfred Cheney Johnston brought an aristocratic air to classically posed black and white nudes. The photographs from the 1920s illustrate that beauty is timeless. However, as I read through the text, I gained an insight of life passing from youthful beauty to adulthood and often the troubles that followed. The text brought the photos to life. More than just a book of excellent photographs, Jazz Age Beauties offers the reader a glimpse into another time, not unlike our own.