Jerome Zerbe, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Jerome Zerbe

American photojournalist

Date of Birth: 24-Jul-1904

Place of Birth: Euclid, Ohio, United States

Date of Death: 19-Aug-1988

Profession: photographer, photojournalist, journalist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Leo


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About Jerome Zerbe

  • Jerome Zerbe (July 24, 1904, Euclid, Ohio – August 19, 1988) was an American photographer.
  • He was one of the originators of a genre of photography that is now common: celebrity paparazzi.
  • Zerbe was a pioneer in the 1930s of shooting photographs of the famous at play and on-the-town.
  • According to the cocktail recipe book Bottoms Up (1951), he is also credited with inventing the vodka martini. Zerbe differed from the common paparazzo in a major way: he never hid in bushes or jumped out and surprised the rich and famous he was photographing.
  • Rather, Zerbe often traveled and vacationed with the film stars themselves.
  • As one biographer stated, Zerbe never rode in a rented limousine, and his coat pocket always had in it an engraved invitation to the high-society events."Once I asked Katharine Hepburn to come up from her place at Fenwick, a few miles away, and pose for some fashion photos for me," Zerbe recalled in his book Happy Times.
  • "She arrived with a picnic hamper full of food and wine for the two of us.
  • I snapped her just as she came to the door."In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Zerbe's library held well over 50,000 photos.
  • Some of his well-known images were of Greta Garbo at lunch, Cary Grant helping columnist Hedda Hopper move into her new home, Steve Reeves shaving, Moss Hart climbing a tree, Howard Hughes having lunch at "21" with Janet Gaynor, Ginger Rogers flying first-class, plus legendary stars Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Salvador Dalí, Jean Harlow, Dorothy Parker, Gene Tunney, Thomas Wolfe, and the Vanderbilts. Zerbe claimed to be the first – and only – society photographer.
  • He was for years the official photographer of Manhattan's famed nightspot El Morocco, the place to be and be seen, whether you were Humphrey Bogart, John O'Hara, or Ed Sullivan.
  • Zerbe pioneered the business arrangement of getting paid by the nightclub to photograph its visitors, then turning around and giving the photos away to the gossip pages.
  • Today, the practice is a common public relations stunt.

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