20th Century Photographers

17Douglas Kirkland

Photographer’s Forum, February 1995

Douglas Kirkland (b. 1934) has had a career spanning decades. Early on he apprenticed with Irving Penn and later, in 1966, worked as a photographer on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. He worked as a photographer on more than 150 films, including the shot of John Travolta’s dance sequence in Saturday Night Fever. Through the 1960s and 1970s he did a variety of fashion, editorial, and celebrity work. He photographed for Look magazine for over 10 years and later worked at LIFE and in the 1980s for Geo magazine.

He is perhaps best known for his celebrity portraits, including those of Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, Bridget Bardot, and others. His portraits of Marilyn ...