By Iain Blair

Went up to Santa Barbara for the gala opening night of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s great new exhibit, “MADE IN HOLLYWOOD: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE JOHN KOBAL FOUNDATION” which has an accompanying book “GLAMOUR OF THE GODS” published by Steidl. It runs through October before traveling around the country and should not be missed if you have any interest in seeing career defining images of such icons as Garbo, Deitrich, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Louise Brooks,Joan Crawford, Marlon Brando and Bogart.

John Kobal was the pre-eminent authority on Hollywood photography and was the first collector and author who systematically sought to understand photography’s important role in creating and marketing the great stars central to the Hollywood mystique. His collection of fine art celebrity photography, one of the largest personal collections in film history, is being made available to the public through this special exhibition. I knew John back in London in the ‘70s and ‘80s – he sadly died in the early ‘90s, and he was a larger-than-life personality who had a fund of wonderful stories about meeting people like Deitrich when he was just 22. His enthusiasm for the glamorous icons of old Hollywood rubbed off on me, because when I first arrived in Hollywood in my ‘20s, I also met many of the great old stars, including Mae West, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn and George Raft, who were all surprised that anyone still wanted to talk to them about their amazing careers.

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