‘Starstruck’ Interview

Twenty years ago today (November 25, 2002) I drove to Lancaster, PA to interview my favorite amateur photographer Gary Lee Boas.

Gary Lee Boas’ Starstruck (Dilettante Press, 1999) may be the most charming book of celebrity photography ever. The volume contains over 300 portraits of stars he encountered from 1966 to 1980, which he shot as a fan with a Brownie Instamatic. The book’s index is listed alphabetically - here are the “h”s: Buddy Hackett, Larry Hagman, Jack Haley, Halston, Margaret Hamilton, Richard Harris, Rex Harrison, Tom Hayden, Jim Henson, Katharine Hepburn, Eileen Herlie, Alfred Hitchcock, David Hodo, Dustin Hoffman, William Holden, Anthony Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Rock Hudson, Glenn Hughes and John Huston - and that’s just one letter out of 26!

Gary started approaching celebrities for autographs and pictures in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania while a teenager. He was instantly intoxicated by the star aura and soon realized that he could meet more stars in Philadelphia and many more stars in New York.

What was it that made you so enamored with the famous?

As I was growing up, I was an awkward kid in a small town, and it was rough. When I went to school, I felt displaced from the get-go for some reason. I always felt different, I always felt awkward, you know…and being somewhat effeminate I always felt like the sissy.

I was not in touch with my sexuality back then. And you know how kids are cruel, which caused me to withdraw. It got so bad that I didn't even want to go to school anymore. But I knew I had this interest and passion for actors or acting, and there was one side of me that was so backward, but there was another side of me that wanted to be an actor. It was just being around that whole whirlwind of glamour, and I didn't even know what it was yet. I mean I had no idea; I would read these teen magazines and that was my version of what it was.

How was it when you started going to events, and started to make it kind of a regular thing for yourself?

Well, the first encounter was Robert Goulet. I was walking past the local hospital and I noticed people clamoring around a man. I had no idea who he was, but the electricity that you felt from his presence, I thought, “That guy's an actor.” Seeing that the nurses were getting pictures and autographs, I ran home quickly and got my Brownie Instamatic camera. I went running back up and waited for him to come out again.

When he came out, I took that picture that you see in the book and I got his autograph. My adrenaline was just pumping. I knew that was a moment that I would not forget. I came home and talked my mother into following me with him into the next place that I heard he was going.

That whole day was obsessed with having to be where he was because I didn't want to let go of that rush.

It sounds like you understood a basic etiquette about how to approach them, that it's fair to ask them to sign a few things or take a picture, but you didn't really want to bother them.

Thank you for saying that. I always felt "please" and "thank you" worked. Especially when you were meeting the old greats. Half the time they're thanking you for asking them.

So, your mother didn't really get you involved; you got her involved.

Yeah! Basically, I would drag her along. When I started, I was fifteen, I didn't have a driver's license, so she was my wheels.

I remember one of the first times I was standing in front of Sardi's. It was Celia [another fan] and her mother, and me and my mother. We were waiting for Myrna Loy, Paulette Goddard and Joan Bennett. When they came out and I could tell my mother was delirious with them. She whispers to me, "Go up and ask them…" "Oh, okay." I had no idea who these three were; they looked like three old ladies standing waiting for the cab. When I went over, they were all so gracious; especially when you're a kid, you’ve got that "in." "Aw, honey, thanks for asking!" They knew I didn't know who they were. They probably thought I was getting it for my mother.

Which you were.

You often only had a moment with these people. How did you choose to approach them?

When I first started, I would always ask for the autograph first. I didn't take a camera along because I was a photographer; I took the camera along because I was capturing the moment. I was like a tourist going to Yosemite Park or Disneyland. As years went on, I got the picture first. I realized that the picture could always take me back and I could look at it and say, "Oh, man, that moment." The autograph then only became something on a piece of paper.

When you were out there collecting and shooting, were any of the other collectors taking pictures?

Not so much. You know, they barely could afford the index cards they were buying to get the autograph on. But because they had this rapport…I've recognized Carol Burnett playing one character that I thought for sure was this autograph collector Celia, and when I threw the name at her, she was like, "Holy shit, how do you know Celia?" When Celia passed away, I told Merv Griffin. He started crying.

Each collector had their own little quirk of what it was they collected: record albums, lobby cards, blah blah blah. I don't remember anybody ever addressing it as a business. I don't remember anybody saying, "I'm a dealer."

It's a big issue now.

Even people who've seen me around for thirty-five years have the nerve to ask me, "This isn't going on eBay, is it?" And it's an insult. First of all, with the money [they]'re making, does it really matter? And if you can't tell the difference between a true fan just by the way they react and what they have for you to sign and the way they go about it compared to a dealer, then you have a problem.

Obviously, somebody who is standing there with ten 8 x 10s that are exactly the same one, isn't that a dead giveaway right there? Compared to some little old lady whipping out a napkin, because that's all she's got on her.

What’s been the stars reaction to you since your book has come out?

I've had people actually call me and ask, "Do I know you?" Like Al Pacino. And I thought, you know, "By name, you don't. But every time you see me you say hello.” When he got the Directors Guild award last year, he came in the room, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hi, how are you?" I tell him all of this and he says, "Are you the bald guy?" He had gotten my book and he was amazed at why I photographed him at that period of time.

When did you photograph him?

He was doing off-Broadway at the time, and he was nobody. He was dating Jill Clayburgh. She was doing Pippin, and I had gotten her autograph at the Imperial Theater and I was waiting for Irene Ryan (Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies) and she was just leaning up against a wall smoking a cigarette. As I was waiting for Irene, I was standing there and she was standing there, and she said, "Would you do me a favor? I'm dating an actor who's doing an off-Broadway show…"

Did you tell him this when he called you?

Yeah, he just cracked up because he knew I wasn't lying. The time period all tied in.

What was your photography philosophy at the time?

In that time, the one thing I did realize, [is that] I was capturing a moment. I wasn't just taking a picture. And I didn't think about it like that then, but then again, my camera didn't allow me to do much more because I raised it, and whatever was in the frame was in the frame. I couldn't zoom in on Ella Fitzgerald…like I might today with a 35mm. People want to see the people in the background, they want to see the fans, the cat-eyeglasses, the bandanas, the '59 Ford, whatever.

Who else has contacted you since the book came out?

Oh, God…Olivia de Havilland, Blythe Danner…

People must be really pleased to be included.

Warren Beatty actually said that he used my book as a reference [for] his kids as to the difference of what a true fan was compared to somebody who just stalks Mommy and Daddy to make money for a game.

Did you send books to people like Olivia de Havilland?

Mm-hm.

How did you find her?

I have all their home addresses.

Liz Taylor is one of your favorite stars, and you’ve taken her picture on a number of occasions, but there is that great photo of you and her together.

I was at this event, something political I remember because Liz Taylor was married to Senator John Warner of Virginia at the time, and as she was the focal point. Nobody was really tending to her because everyone thought somebody else was tending to her. The picture of me and her in the book happened purely by accident. She stepped off this canvas - it was a tent in the middle of a field, an outdoor theater, and it was time to go over to showtime - in her high heels and she literally started sinking in the ground. She reached over to grab me and said, "Honey, could you help me please?" I mean, she was going down! Everybody assumed she was being taken care of, when she wasn't. And that's when my friend snapped that picture, so that's why it sort of looks like she's grabbing to reach out for me; she's really grabbing not to fall.

Of all the photographs in here, the Richard Nixon is the one I most envy. He is so famously socially awkward and yet you two obviously made some sort of special connection. Do you think that he sensed your being a little awkward as well?

Maybe that's it. At that time, he was really available, like clockwork, outside his Upper East Side home. I went to his apartment building with his book. I had many of them in fact -- as much as I'm embarrassed to say, it ended up being on five-dollar sale in Barnes and Noble, so I thought "Ooh, easy Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews”. I was staying with a friend who lived on 72nd and Riverside, so every morning I would just walk across the park with four or five of his books and have him autograph them at seven in the morning. After the second or third day, he said to me, laughingly, "How many of these do you have?" Well, frankly, I'm giving them as Christmas gifts, so I have about twenty-four all together. He said, "Well, it's not 'cause I don't want to see you seven or eight more times, but it would be a lot easier for you if you'd just come down to my office." He said, "I’m at One Federal Plaza, bring them down and I’ll write a little dedication note in each of them."

I almost needed a dolly to bring in the fucking box of books! And his secretary was like, "You gotta be out of your mind!" "No, he told me to bring them down here." And finally she said, "Wait a minute." She got him on the phone and then he came out. He said, "Well, I'm not doing anything right now, why don't you just bring'em in?" So I'm sitting in the office while he's signing all these books and I'm looking around and I'm seeing...even during that time, I was never very news-oriented, be it whatever that Watergate business was about. I have no idea what any of that was and I couldn’t care less. I just knew I met a nice man and the man was nice to me.

And he was sincere. When he took my hand, every time we would meet, he would take my hand and not only shake my hand, he would cup it, to where I felt engulfed in him. He pulled me into him, as he had more of me than I had of him.

Tell me about Butterfly McQueen. Did you recognize her right away?

That one was on 8th Avenue in a deli. She asked where the milk was, and I heard that voice. As soon as I heard it, I thought, "Oh my God, it's Butterfly McQueen!"

You had your camera with you?

My camera is with me all the time. I walked out the door; I'm always pre-thinking, how am I gonna make this approach? By that time I had graduated to the flashcube, you know with the four [flashbulbs]…and I don't know what, but if you hit a certain button it would eject these things. It would release them. And as I took the last picture, it ejected and fell on the ground and she went off on me about littering the streets of New York. She went into this whole tantrum about how dare I just throw that on the ground because I'm done with it and blah blah blah and I was so shocked that she's screaming at me…

In that voice…

Yeah! [Laughs.] …I didn't respond, I just stood there and let her scold me.

Alfred Hitchcock and Grace Kelly. I mean, that's kind of amazing to get them together, because of all the stories now, people will talk about his obsession with her.

Yeah, well, that was at the Lincoln Center, where they honor somebody every year.

He's still directing. Look, he's directing in the photo.

[Laughs.] "Grace, over here!" Well, believe me, that whole night, he was so out of it, she was directing him. He was borderline senile, and she kept saying, "Hitch! Over here, we gotta go over here. We gotta do this, we gotta do that."

Elton John: this is one of my very favorite pictures in the book.

That was at the Tommy premiere. I can't say I had a good encounter with him any more than a bad one, but all I know is that like John Waters, he's a very big fan of my photography. He has bought prints and he sent his boyfriend to my show in London, along with The Beastie Boys. The boyfriend introduced himself, but I have not yet properly met Elton himself. But whenever I dealt with him in a press situation, Elton John was rude. He is as evasive as he can be; if he can get away without doing it, he tries.

The fine art world has taken a real interest in your work.

The art world seemed to seize it, and I was lucky enough to go from not even being a photographer, to having my work shown in galleries around the world…I mean, who'd have thought? That was never my goal. Never in a thousand years would I have ever thought my work would have been shown in a gallery as art. And be called "the artist"—I don't know what to do with that word. I don't know how to respond to that word when people say, "Oh, and this is the artist, Gary Boas…"

When you look at the work now, do you think of yourself as an artist?

Well, now that I listen to people's reaction, I must have had a natural eye to capture a moment and wait for that special moment, because I know, a lot of times I would have my camera up to my eye for the longest time 'til I took the picture, so I must have been waiting for something. When I hear people about my pictures and say things…I can't tell you how many times it brought tears to me. And I keep thinking, thank God I didn't collect stamps or coins!

Who have you missed that eats you up?

Today, my goal is, believe it or not, Doris Day. I always pray to God that Doris finds out about my book and somehow we connect.

Why don't you write to her and send her a book?

[Sighs.] Yeah, I know I should, but it's funny: I don't know how to put my feelings into words, especially when it's important to me.

Top Image: Elton John, at the premiere of “Tommy,” New York 1975, by Gary Lee Boas

Second Image: Elizabeth Taylor, with Gary Lee Boas, Vienna VA 1975 (photographer unidentified)

Third Image: Richard Nixon & grand-daughter, New York, by Gary Lee Boas

Bottom Image: Gary Lee Boas, lying on his bed in Lancaster PA 2002, by Chris Buck