Monday, November 12, 2007

Norman Mailer, 1923-2007


Norman Mailer died on Saturday, November 10. He was 84. I photographed him, quite by accident, at his home in Brooklyn Heights. It was an accident because I was on an assignment for Lord & Taylor. The department store was giving its annual Rose Award to Mailer and I was documenting his life. I had already photographed his friends George Plimpton, Milos Forman, and Yitzhak Perlman. I was at his brownstone to photograph his wife when he unexpectedly came home (it was all supposed to be a big surprise). I have no idea what Mailer thought, but he did not take much notice of me and went to his kitchen table and started ripping open the day's mail. I like to think he was looking for royalty checks.

Here is the obituary from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/11mailer.html?ref=obituaries