Haresh Shah
The Beauty That Only Mothers Can See
‘How about Terry?’ Bill asks. The question is directed more to his wife Irene than to me. And then looking at me, he adds: ‘You’ve got to see Irene’s daughter Terry. She is such a knockout!’
‘Bill!!!’ Goes Irene.
‘What? I think Terry is beautiful, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, she is, but…?
‘But what? I think she would make a perfect Playmate! She is just what Haresh just described. An all American pretty girl next door. What could be more American than a girl from Park Forest?’ He adds and smiles at his own clever connection – certainly a proud resident of southern suburb of Chicago.
‘She probably would, but…!
‘But what? Come on Irene. You’re just being modest. Let our friend Haresh here decide!’ Irene gives me a help me look.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ Now excited, Bill continues.
‘Not really.’
So it went for a while between husband and wife.
Irene looks intrigued and seems comfortable with her daughter posing for Playboy.
‘Let me talk it over with Terry first.’ She says finally.
Encouraged, I put in my bit: ‘If Irene doesn’t mind and if Terry would be comfortable posing for me, I will be happy to submit her photos to Playboy here in Chicago.’
I have just returned back to the States and am spending some weeks in Chicago as I drive cross country to my final destination of Santa Barbara, California. Bill (Houston) is an old bowling buddy of mine. Both him and Irene work for Time Inc., my previous employers. We are having lunch near Time & Life building in near north side of Chicago. Catching up. Bill is Irene’s second husband and we are talking about Irene’s daughter.
About future plans, I’m telling them that even though I may eventually look for another job, for the time being I was enjoying my freedom and intended to concentrate on my writing – something I had always wanted but never had enough time to do. And continue pursuing the nude photography for a while, especially since I had eyes and ears of the people at Playboy. And I tell them about the test shootings I have done so far and how two of them had already made it to the pages of Playboy in Germany. And who knows? I might just be able replicate the same in the US.
Irene calls me a couple of days later to tell me that she had spoken to Terry and invited me over for lunch at their home on Saturday. She sounded quite enthusiastic and thrilled at the prospect of her daughter becoming a photo model, pretty as she was.
On Saturday, I get into my Buick and drive down to their home in Park Forest, a thirty miles ride (48 kilometers) south of downtown Chicago. Its your typical ranch style three bedroom family house, with the living areas down below and the bedrooms several steps up above. Sitting at the kitchen table are Bill and Irene and Irene’s mother, having coffee. They call Terry down from her room. She is pretty for sure in an all American way. Straight dark hair hanging down below her shoulders, parted in the middle to frame her face like that of Joni Mitchell. She doesn’t wear any makeup that I can detect. Looking unpretentious and simple, down home un-intimidating beauty that one would have seen walking the isles of a local supermarket. She is probably nineteen or twenty and lacks that sparkle and the spunk that would make her sexy and desirable. Basically, she is Eliza of My Fair Lady, who can be transformed into a sophisticated and sexy young woman. We talk as I munch on my sandwich. She is soft spoken and probably a bit intimidated in my presence. Her smiles come easy, but shy – precisely what I find quite seductive as much as her hesitant and sparse eye contacts. Nothing to be concerned about, she would perk up once we are alone. I know, there is a forest preserve not far from where they live and even though its mid-October, its warm enough for us to do the shoot outdoors in the nature. And she is up for it.
‘You can use our bedroom upstairs. There is plenty of light in there.’ Offers Irene.
I am not so sure, with her parents and grandma around how she would feel about prancing around in the nude. Even I myself feel a bit ambivalent. But seeing that none of her family in the room seem to have any reservations; why not?
‘You’re not inhibited because I am here, are you?’ Grandma chides her granddaughter. To which Terry goes, grandma!! And that breaks the ice.
I tell Terry to go upstairs and undress and call me when she’s ready. When I walk up and enter the bedroom, she is lying on the bed, in a pose similar to the famous Modigliani reclining nude. The expressions on her face passive and somewhat timid. Seen through my lens, there is no denying that she is a real beauty. Her figure is near perfect and as alluring as is her pretty face. Her skin is smooth as silk devoid of any blemishes. She has followed my instructions to Irene about making sure to remove her bras and panties hours before so that the elastic marks from the either wouldn’t show on her body – something I had learned from Pompeo Posar, while assisting him in Munich.
There is enough light coming through the bay windows. The room is furnished with a king size bed and a couch against the wall and ample space on the carpeted floor. The couch has large plaid and the rug irregular patterns on them, not the most ideal backdrops. But the first session is normally meant for the model and the photographer to get acquainted and comfortable with each other, build a certain rapport and let the resulting photos later show what poses and camera angles work better than others. She relaxes after a few sips of wine and the session goes well. I still want to shoot outdoors and she too is up for it. One of my strengths as a photographer is the head shots and this is something better done with a longer lens and in an open space that gives you shallow depth of field. So we get out of the house. I don’t remember on that very afternoon or a few days later – and go to the forest preserve. Terry and I are happy with the results.
Beyond that I drop off a selection of her photos to Alfred DeBat, who works as #2 to Lee Hall in Chicago’s Foreign Editions, and serves as a liaison between our group and the US editors. I get into my car and continue driving west until I finally reach Santa Barbara, exactly three months after I had landed in New York. I lived with Mark and Ann in their farm house for a month and decided it was as good a place as any to settle for a while. I found myself a spacious two bedroom apartment not far from UCSB campus and the tar covered Pacific shore in the valley of San Ynez mountain range. Knowing that unlike in Germany, selecting a Playmate in the US was a long drawn out process with voting among editors and then still subject to Hugh M. Hefner’s seal of final approval. I leave it at that, but working with Terry further inspired and encouraged me to give my photographic ambition a serious push.
Luck would have it that the German Playmate Barbara too was now living in Southern California. Even though when still in Munich, we didn’t quite hang out, but when I called her in San Clemente, it was as if we were long lost friends reunited. We decided to do some projects on spec and see if we could get them accepted, if not by either German or the US Playboy then probably by Oui – the American edition of highly successful Lui – the magazine which Playboy had cross-licensed from the French publisher Daniel Filipacchi. I had done some small writing and contributed some pix to Oui, thus knew some of the editors.
Forming a creative partnership with Barbara further encouraged me to expand my technical abilities. Whereas up until then I used only natural light, I invested in a set of artificial lighting equipment.
One of the projects we had most fun doing was A Day in Life based on the Beatles’ song I read the news today oh boy! We cleared out my dining area and papered the entire walls, the floors and even the pillow with the pages of Sunday edition of The Los Angeles Times, and created a tableau of her waking up, reading the paper and tearing the pages up in tatters, feeling furious and frustrated at how much in turmoil the world found itself in one single day!!
Nothing came out of those efforts, but they gave us something fun to do together which evolved in a lifelong friendship. I guess we both must have felt lost in our new environment and having found each other from the “home town” was quite comforting.
Also during the period both Mark and Ann were super supportive of my efforts and I ended up photographing their friend and also found a pretty young lady at the local laundromat to pose for me.
At the time I was collecting and living on my unemployment benefits, which required me to report personally once every week to the unemployment office in downtown. As everywhere else, the mention of Playboy as my employers triggered their curiosity. Normally it would be the beautiful reddish blonde Monica at the window and we would talk about the job I had just left and what it was then that I was now doing. Once in a while I would find Monica’s boss Mrs. Buckwalter at the window. Also pretty, but a woman in her mid to late forties. She was even more inquisitive. After weeks of our talking, she wondered out loud:
‘I wonder if one of my daughters would make it as a Playmate?’
Apparently she had twins. She pulled out their photo from her purse to show me. They were in their early twenties and it wasn’t just their mother talking, the girls were indeed very pretty.
‘Would they want to give it a try?’
‘I don’t know. But if you think they even have long shot at making it, I will talk to them.’
From what I understood, the girls didn’t seem too excited about the prospect but were intrigued enough to want to meet and speak with me. Over the phone, the sister who was talking to me happened to mention how much they loved Indian food. So that was easy!
Not only were they pretty, they were also smart and spunky and happy young women. Perfect Playmate candidates. Fun to have them around as dinner companions.
I hadn’t yet broached the subject and they didn’t seem to be in hurry either to bring it up. We were just eating, drinking and enjoying being together. And then out of a clear blue sky, the older by five minutes sister Shannon, looking at her five minutes younger one Emma says:
‘Poor Mom!’
‘Why is she poor?’ I quip.
‘Just that she is really convinced that we could be Playmates.’
‘Well, she is right.’
‘No, we don’t think so.’
‘Let me decide. I wasn’t sure before, but now that I have seen you in flesh and blood, walking and talking, I am sure that it would be worth trying. Also what you have going for you is the concept of double trouble and double delight. Perfect sister act.’ I pause, and then continue, ‘That’s, if you two are up to it!’
‘That’s the thing. We actually aren’t. We agreed to see you, because she spoke so highly of you and mainly just to please her. Thinking what must it have taken for her to make you see us!’
‘Not much, once she showed me your snapshot.’
‘Thanks. You’re being kind! But as I mentioned, us sisters just aren’t into it. And we want you to know that has nothing to do with the nudity. It’s just not something either of us aspires to’
‘In that case, you certainly shouldn’t.’
‘We’re glad you understand. We are also glad that at least we agreed to come out and see you, because this evening has been so delightful. And the food!!’
Sorry dear Mother.
© Haresh Shah
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
SISTER SITE
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Next Friday, May 3, 2013
FEEL GOOD SISTER
There are images that remain with you forever. One of them is me meeting Ann for the first time at Ristorante Positano in Munich, almost exactly forty years ago. The beautiful mélange of the east and the west and her mysterious eyes shining through that dark corner of the restaurant had such a mysterious look that my second name for her is mystery lady.
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