With photo assignments dwindling after the Brooke Shields controversy, Garry Gross, a lifelong animal lover, opened a dog training school. He soon created large-format studio portraits of dogs, lighting them the way he would fashion models.
(Garry Gross)
Garry Gross, 73, controversial fashion photographer moved to dog portraits
With photo assignments dwindling after the Brooke Shields controversy, Garry Gross, a lifelong animal lover, opened a dog training school. He soon created large-format studio portraits of dogs, lighting them the way he would fashion models.
(Garry Gross)
NEW YORK — Garry Gross, a fashion photographer for 30 years who was best known for controversial photos of an unclothed 10-year-old Brooke Shields, died Nov. 30 at his home in Manhattan. Mr. Gross, who in recent years had focused his cameras on dogs, was 73.
He died of natural causes, said his sister, Linda Gross.
In 1975, before Shields became known as a child actress, her mother, Teri, signed a contract allowing Mr. Gross to take photos of the child, in thick makeup and bejeweled, sitting and standing in a bathtub.
Mother and daughter received a total of $450 for the shoot.
Within a few years Shields had become a star with her appearance as a preteenage prostitute in the 1978 film “Pretty Baby.’’
And when she was 17, she tried to block any further sale of the photos, contending that they were an invasion of her privacy and caused her embarrassment.
After a protracted legal fight, New York State’s highest court ruled that she could not break the contract. In its 4-to-3 decision, the Court of Appeals said Mr. Gross could market the photos as long as he did not sell them to pornographic publications.
By then Mr. Gross was already a figure in the New York fashion scene. His work had been featured in magazines like GQ, Cosmopolitan, and New York. He also shot portraits for the record industry, including a cover of Lou Reed holding a hand mirror, but not bothering to look into it, for his 1979 album, “The Bells.’’
Garry Donald Gross was born in the Bronx.
After graduating from City College in 1958, he became an apprentice to noted photographers, first Francesco Scavullo and then James Moore. He also studied with Lisette Model and Richard Avedon.
With photo assignments fading after the Brooke Shields controversy, Mr. Gross, a lifelong animal lover, decided to become a dog trainer. And in 2001, with Victoria Stilwell, now host of the television show “It’s Me or the Dog’’ on Animal Planet, he opened a dog training school.
He soon combined his passions, creating portraits of dogs
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