Fame in a Freeze-Frame

Francesco Scavullo, the prolific photographer who turned 70 on Friday, chronicled the era of celebrity while becoming one himself.

A fashion-obsessed kid from Staten Island, Scavullo began sweeping the studios of New York photographers when he was a teenager. His first job behind the lens was with Seventeen in the ‘50s. Then he moved to Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, making his mark with the increasingly sexy covers of Cosmopolitan. From the late ‘60s until the ‘90s, he was the only one to turn models with generous “bosoms,” as he called them, into unmistakable Cosmo girls.

A Scavullo portrait was part of the wages of fame in the disco era--for Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand and many more. In addition to models and celebrities, he had a waiting list of private clients willing to pay $10,000 to be made over by his team of primpers before sitting for the master.

Beauties still pass through the doors of Scavullo’s studio on New York’s East 63rd Street, hoping to be photographed for a cover that will join the gallery on the waiting room’s white walls.