Death of a paparazzo prompts photographer to gloss over the past

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/jan/09/news-photography-justin-bieber

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Isn't the past a wonderfully pleasant place where good manners were the norm and where journalists and celebrities were each other's best friend? In the wake of last week's death of US paparazzo Chris Guerra, killed while pursuing Justin Bieber, a Huffington Post writer asked other paps whether modern celebrity photographers were going too far.

One of the interviewees was veteran snapper Brad Elterman, who said - wouldn't you just know it? - that the game nowadays isn't what it used to be. Here's his risible quote:

"The photographers back then would gather in a restaurant called Chasen's on a Sunday night. This was a pack of paparazzos, there was five or six of them. And Dean Martin would come in, Frank Sinatra would be there, Sammy Davis and so on. And the photographers were all greeted by the celebrities…

Frank Sinatra would say, 'Hi Bob, hi Bill, how's it going?' They took the pictures, they posed for the pictures, and nobody had the audacity back then to get in the car and follow them, to see where they're going, what's happening next."

So Sinatra was a pussycat who adored press attention? Can he be serious? Throughout his years of fame, he had several brushes with photographers and was openly scathing about journalists.

Here's just one example, taken from the Kitty Kelley's Sinatra biography, <em>His Way</em>, about his visit to Australia in the mid-1970s...

He caused an uproar by describing journalists there – who were aggressively pursuing his every move and pushing for a press conference – as "fags", "pimps", and "whores". He later demanded that journalists apologise for "15 years of abuse I have taken from the world press".

Of course, there were times when Sinatra was gracious to journalists, but only on his terms. And it is also fair to say that press photographers didn't engage in the kind of hot pursuit that has become common in the States and, for a time (before the death of Princess Diana), happened in Britain too.

But the relationship between celebrities and paparazzi has always been tense. Nostalgia tends to obscure the reality. Clearly, some paps lack a photographic memory...

<em>Sources:</em> HuffPo/The Guardian/Kitty Kelley via Wikipedia