Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest Today is a photojournalist
Speaker 1: whose five decades of work have truly run the gamut,
Speaker 1: covering politics, sports, travel, music, and entertainment. His wide ranging
Speaker 1: career includes conflict of journalism, celebrity portraiture, and travel photography.
Speaker 1: It's Brooklyn's Own Brian hammil hammil rose to prominence as
Speaker 1: the on set still photographer for movies like Annie Hall,
Speaker 1: Raging Bull, Manhattan, Tutsi, Bullets Over Broadway, and You've Got Mail.
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. He has photographed the
Speaker 1: most famous personalities of our time, from Mohammad Ali to
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra and Barbara streisand he's even captured some of
Speaker 1: the most iconic images ever taken of John Lennon and
Speaker 1: Yoko Ono, which were compiled in to his recent book
Speaker 1: Dream Lovers, John and Yoko in New York City. Brian
Speaker 1: Hamil is a lifelong New Yorker who comes from an
Speaker 1: incredibly talented stock He's the child of Irish immigrants, one
Speaker 1: of seven. His brothers, Dennis and the late Pete Hamil,
Speaker 1: both became acclaimed columnists journalists, authors, and screenwriters. Hamil and
Speaker 1: I have been friends for decades. I began our conversation
Speaker 1: by sharing one of my favorite memories of him. There's
Speaker 1: a story I tell I want to take a woman
Speaker 1: on a date, and I want to go to have
Speaker 1: dinner with you. And you go, and I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: You go, what day of the week is the date?
Speaker 1: I go, what's on a Monday? And you go, Monday, Monday, Monday.
Speaker 1: You'll take her to this restaurant I think maybe like
Speaker 1: Eel Tray mayor Lee or some Italian place in the Vos.
Speaker 1: And then after that, you said, go to Tayo Mina
Speaker 1: for dessert.
Speaker 2: And I go, really, I mean, you were that specific.
Speaker 2: I said, why you go?
Speaker 1: Because God he comes there for coffee every Monday night
Speaker 1: after Monday evening at like ten o'clock. And my mouth
Speaker 1: fell open. So I take the girl to the restaurant,
Speaker 1: We have dinner, then we walk down the block, we
Speaker 1: go down Houston, we go to Tayo Mina and we're
Speaker 1: sitting there. It's us and another couple. Eventually, I hit
Speaker 1: a Tayomna many times, but you turned me onto it,
Speaker 1: and sure enough the car pulls up, four guys get out,
Speaker 1: they look around, they walk in, they look around, they
Speaker 1: snap their fingers. The other car pulls up. The guys
Speaker 1: get out, you know, like but eventually twelve fourteen guys
Speaker 1: get out with gotty and they come in there and
Speaker 1: sit down at these tables and have coffee and pastry.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And you were the one that said to me, I know,
Speaker 2: I got it. Now.
Speaker 1: You are, of course renowned, legendary in one area. But
Speaker 1: what I want to talk about first is your family.
Speaker 1: And all three are you and your two brothers? You
Speaker 1: only have the two brothers, You had other brothers as well.
Speaker 3: Well, there was six boys, one or seven kids.
Speaker 1: What kind of childhood did you have? What kind of
Speaker 1: work did your dad do? What kind of a home
Speaker 1: did you have? Were you going to become probably the
Speaker 1: most famous still photographer in the business. Then your brother
Speaker 1: goes on to become a reporter for the Daily News,
Speaker 1: big paper. And your brother, Pete is Pete. He's this
Speaker 1: legendary novelist, this legendary writer. What kind of household did
Speaker 1: you grow up in?
Speaker 3: We were lower middle class, no money, seven kids, Parkslope, Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: back when it was a rough and tumble neighborhood. Now
Speaker 3: it's a yupper Fid neighborhood. Yeah, there were seven kids
Speaker 3: in two bedrooms. We were poor, but we weren't impoverished.
Speaker 3: We had We had a richness because my mom and dad.
Speaker 3: Even though my dad was a drinker, my mother what
Speaker 3: do you do for a living? He worked as an
Speaker 3: electrical wire which put fixtures in lights.
Speaker 2: Sure he was head of trade, Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 3: He was in Local three. I didn't realize how poor
Speaker 3: I was until I went away to college up in
Speaker 3: Rochester lri T Rochester Institute of Technology Grade School, and
Speaker 3: I met people from all over the country who had
Speaker 3: money and we had a struggle. I had to work
Speaker 3: up there in Rochester at a drug store, at a
Speaker 3: you know, as a cashier just to make the dough.
Speaker 3: And I had to take student loans, of course.
Speaker 1: So when you're growing up and it's tough you talk
Speaker 1: about describing, I mean I had a similar situation in
Speaker 1: my family. We had a two bedroom apartment and by
Speaker 1: the time we left in nineteen sixty six sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and we had six kids, we had my older sister
Speaker 1: and three boys on bunk beds. She slept in the
Speaker 1: same room with us, so I'm very familiar when you're
Speaker 1: living arrangements, you know.
Speaker 2: One bathroom.
Speaker 1: I mean this insanity, but my point is when did
Speaker 1: you first hold a camera?
Speaker 2: And people didn't have cameras back then they were expensive.
Speaker 3: I first held the camera in nineteen six where who
Speaker 3: had a camera. It was a little brownie camera that
Speaker 3: either my sister got us, my sister Kathleen. But I
Speaker 3: took pictures of my my homeboys, all my friends hanging
Speaker 3: at them park benches. And when I showed them to Pete,
Speaker 3: he said, hey, is it good? You want to think
Speaker 3: about being a photographer. And Pete was an art director
Speaker 3: then for a Greek magazine called Atlantis. You know, because
Speaker 3: he was an artist, he had gone to Pratt. That's
Speaker 3: where he met Redford. At Pratt, he read for my buddies.
Speaker 3: So he actually ended up buying my first good camera,
Speaker 3: which was like one hundred dollars camera called Miranda. Then
Speaker 3: of course all the rich kids at RIT had nikons.
Speaker 3: So eventually I put together enough bread to get an icon.
Speaker 3: And RIT was just a great school.
Speaker 2: Did you stay there and graduate from arit?
Speaker 3: No? After two years I couldn't afford the tuition for
Speaker 3: the third year with none of us had. You know,
Speaker 3: I took the student loans. So I said, well, what
Speaker 3: I'll do is I'll take off for a year and
Speaker 3: come back. But in that year that I took off,
Speaker 3: I got drafted and I had to win the army.
Speaker 3: So I was in the army from sixty six to
Speaker 3: sixty eight.
Speaker 2: And where'd you go? Actually?
Speaker 3: I ended up going to Fort twelve Wall, Virginia, which
Speaker 3: is right outside of DC. I did volunteer to go
Speaker 3: to Vietnam because I wanted to shoot photographs. I said,
Speaker 3: let me cover the war, you know. But my kid
Speaker 3: brother John, mayhe rest in peace. He joined the army
Speaker 3: when he was seventeen, became a paratrooper one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy third airborn, and went to Vietnam. So when I volunteered,
Speaker 3: because he joined before I got drafted, I put in
Speaker 3: the orders to transfer everything and I went before the
Speaker 3: colonel in the section I was in, and he said,
Speaker 3: why do you want to go to Vietnam. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm a photographer. I was in RI two and blah
Speaker 3: blah blah. I gave him the whole spiel and he said,
Speaker 3: do you have any relatives there? I said, yeah, my
Speaker 3: kid brother's there. He said, oh, okay, well let us
Speaker 3: digest all that and then we'll give you an answer.
Speaker 3: And I got turned down with the colonel. I did
Speaker 3: never ended up going to Vietnam. And I thought later, gee,
Speaker 3: I wonder if it was the guy I'm not going
Speaker 3: to say his name because he might have kids and grandkids,
Speaker 3: who was a civilian who ran the museum. He was
Speaker 3: very attached to me. He liked me, and he knew
Speaker 3: that I did a good job because I went to
Speaker 3: the Pentagon and I got pictures from one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy third ab on, thinking I'd run into pictures of
Speaker 3: my kid brother, and I designed an exhibit in my
Speaker 3: brain was kind of an anti war exhibit because they
Speaker 3: were very graphic, and so that was up in the
Speaker 3: thing and it became a popular exhibit in the museum there.
Speaker 2: At the Ford. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, when you're doing this, Dennis was working in the trade,
Speaker 1: like you're old man. He didn't emerge as a writer
Speaker 1: to win.
Speaker 3: Dennis started writing for the Village Voice, and an editor
Speaker 3: who read the Voice liked his pieces.
Speaker 2: News.
Speaker 3: No, No, it was for the La Herald Examiner in
Speaker 3: La you know, and Dennis had to learn how to drive,
Speaker 3: to be able to take the gig because they didn't
Speaker 3: have to drive.
Speaker 2: How long was he out there?
Speaker 3: He was out there for a few years, and then
Speaker 3: the editor took over the Herald in Boston. But I
Speaker 3: got a backtrack. You know who Dennis's landlord was at
Speaker 3: the time, in La Schwartzenegger in La. Yeah. So later
Speaker 3: on when I met Schwarzenegger, I said, hey, my kid
Speaker 3: brother told me we were a good landlord. He said,
Speaker 3: how does he know. I said, well, he than the
Speaker 3: building that you own. He said, what was his name?
Speaker 3: I said, Dennis Hemmelt goes Dennis hammel Man. Could that
Speaker 3: guy drink a lot of beer?
Speaker 2: And what about Pete? When did he start his career?
Speaker 3: Well, he was at Atlantis, the graphic designer, and he
Speaker 3: wrote a letter to the editor of the New York
Speaker 3: Post back when it was a very left wing paper,
Speaker 3: not how it is now. And the guy called them
Speaker 3: the editor James Wexel was his name, and said, how
Speaker 3: would you like to be a reporter? He said, oh,
Speaker 3: I love it, because I said, because your letter was fabulous.
Speaker 3: I don't know what the content. I never saw the
Speaker 3: original letter, but he went in they gave him a tryout,
Speaker 3: and he had never typed before, so he gave him
Speaker 3: a one week or two week tryout, and he did,
Speaker 3: you know, hunt and Peck to write his news story.
Speaker 3: So he he actually covered hard news story. But he
Speaker 3: quickly caught the eye of Paul Sand, who was the
Speaker 3: famous editor in Pete's friend and just a terrific guy
Speaker 3: and a good writer himself. He decided to think about
Speaker 3: having Pete be a columnist, and he actually and James
Speaker 3: Weschler was, you know, with Dorothy Schiff, who wonted the
Speaker 3: paper that time, was in the hierarchy. Paul Sand was
Speaker 3: the day to day, day side editor, and he gave
Speaker 3: Peter tryout as a columnist, and he became the youngest
Speaker 3: columnist of that paper. He was twenty four and that's
Speaker 3: where he started.
Speaker 1: Now, for you, I don't want to overemphasize in this
Speaker 1: discussion because you're from such a famous family, but I
Speaker 1: of course can't be remiss and underemphasize what you eventually
Speaker 1: become and how you wind up working with the biggest
Speaker 1: people in the business, the greatest film directors. The beginnings
Speaker 1: of your role in the movie industry, how does that start.
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of journalism, you know, for
Speaker 3: different magazines, you know, all the famous magazine and working
Speaker 3: a lot, yeah, freelance. But I you know, as somebody
Speaker 3: said to me, Pete wrote a film which didn't end
Speaker 3: up being very good. It was directed by Frank Perry
Speaker 3: about doc Holiday. So Pete got me to do stills
Speaker 3: on that movie, which was shot in al Maria, Spain.
Speaker 3: And while I was there, I met Jerry Herschel was
Speaker 3: the cameraman and his son was the assistant, Alec, and
Speaker 3: Alec said you should get in the Union. So I said,
Speaker 3: I'd love to get in the Union so I could
Speaker 3: do both the journalism, because it's always in my blood journalism.
Speaker 3: But I ended up getting into the Union. But I
Speaker 3: had to take a test first, and one of the
Speaker 3: questions on the test, after I feel out the application,
Speaker 3: was how do you photograph a man with a bald head?
Speaker 3: So I told about it. This is so like random, yeah, random,
Speaker 3: and it depends on your taste. So I just the answer.
Speaker 3: I put it, and you put a hat on him,
Speaker 3: put a hat on.
Speaker 2: His head, and they gave you a scholarship.
Speaker 3: And the guy guy who the things said, that's the
Speaker 3: funniest answer I've ever heard. That's not what we meant.
Speaker 3: I said, well, it's you know, it depends. You could
Speaker 3: shoot it with available light. You can shoot it with
Speaker 3: a strob, you could shoot it by a window, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: You know. It was the kind of lame thing to
Speaker 3: keep people out of the Union. No, everybody gets into
Speaker 3: the Union, right, which is a good.
Speaker 2: Thing your career.
Speaker 1: The movies you were did stills on because I want
Speaker 1: to explain to people. When I was younger, there was
Speaker 1: a still man or woman on the set a lot.
Speaker 1: The stills photography was something where.
Speaker 2: It was cast specific.
Speaker 1: So let's say you're doing a movie and Hackman's only
Speaker 1: in for two weeks, you get the still unit in
Speaker 1: there to shoot the stills because he's only there for
Speaker 1: two weeks.
Speaker 2: But there were stills.
Speaker 1: Around a lot a lot and some movies, the big
Speaker 1: movies when you had the biggest stars. If you're doing
Speaker 1: something with Leo or someone, then the stills are there
Speaker 1: every day. It's worth it. I mean, you want great
Speaker 1: still photography. And nowadays I just did a film. I
Speaker 1: went to go finish this film in Montana and we
Speaker 1: had stills there for two days.
Speaker 2: The one comes in for two days cast.
Speaker 1: Specific stills for me were always this thing where I
Speaker 1: only act for one camera. There's the movie camera. But
Speaker 1: I did this thing where I'd almost look right into
Speaker 1: the camera and position my body right toward the movie camera.
Speaker 1: And when I would go off into that reverie of going,
Speaker 1: oh Bob, you gotta remember when my dad was alive
Speaker 1: and I go and I play it right into the
Speaker 1: fucking camera. But that's not lookdown the barrel of the lens.
Speaker 1: And my point is is that if there was another camera,
Speaker 1: there were still camera, I go nuts. I'd say I
Speaker 1: take the first a d I'd say, get them out
Speaker 1: of here.
Speaker 2: I'll pose.
Speaker 1: They can shoot the rehearsals later on when they cut
Speaker 1: the camera, we'll pose and do it. But I don't
Speaker 1: want that camera in my eye when I'm shooting. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming for you there were rhythms you had to learn,
Speaker 1: and there's things you had to learn about shooting because
Speaker 1: you shot the biggest stars in movie history. What was
Speaker 1: that like for you to learn how to do that properly?
Speaker 3: Well, you have to be discreet, but you have to
Speaker 3: get your work done. You can't tell the studio later
Speaker 3: on when they get see you infurious out of stills. Hey,
Speaker 3: the guy was tough, you know, the actor was a
Speaker 3: pain in the ass. That's not an excuse. They just
Speaker 3: want to see end results. For instance, when I worked
Speaker 3: on Raging Bull, de Niro had an eyeline problem, but
Speaker 3: he would always accommodate me. He was so sweet about it.
Speaker 3: You know, he's of course up there near the top
Speaker 3: of my favorite actors, and he's a good human being,
Speaker 3: great guy. So he would always accommodate me. And then
Speaker 3: sometimes i'd get away were just grabbing stuff and he
Speaker 3: didn't mind. But he would always not make a big
Speaker 3: deal at it. He'd just do it with a hand
Speaker 3: gesture like you know, and then he'd say he'd nother,
Speaker 3: I'll do it for you after him, which do it
Speaker 3: for the cut. Yeah, And the same thing with Chris Walking.
Speaker 3: Very sweet, very nice. He was in any Hall and
Speaker 3: you know, an eye issue, the eye line thing, right,
Speaker 3: But it's so funny when I work with the nero
Speaker 3: again years later on Sleepers, the Barry Levinson movie, I said, Bob,
Speaker 3: let me know, if you know, just do the same
Speaker 3: thing he did last time. He said, no, I don't
Speaker 3: have that problem anymore. You can just shoot away, and
Speaker 3: some actors just let you shoot away, like Dustin Hoffman
Speaker 3: and Jimmy Kahn. Never you know, I worked with him
Speaker 3: and he's a character. I loved him. And you know,
Speaker 3: Nicholson was great.
Speaker 1: No Eyeline without names though, because I'm you when you
Speaker 1: said that before, but not one of the name names.
Speaker 1: They have children or grandchildren. I'm not out to bury
Speaker 1: anybody either.
Speaker 3: But that was the guy who brought in whiskey and
Speaker 3: listen of Rainbow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember other actors without naming names who that
Speaker 1: you that you have some difficulty with the How do
Speaker 1: you win them over? How do you get the job done?
Speaker 1: As you said, the boss wants the pictures, what do
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 3: I tell them, this is this is my this is
Speaker 3: my job, right, this is how I make my living.
Speaker 3: I got I got a little rough with Sam Shephard
Speaker 3: on what the Allen movie. He said, no stills. I said, well,
Speaker 3: you'll do with it. He says, no, no stills. First
Speaker 3: they shooting, and I walked up to him. At the
Speaker 3: end of the day, I still kept trying to grab
Speaker 3: stuff and I said, listen, you know, I don't want
Speaker 3: to be forceful, but this is what I do for
Speaker 3: a living. You know, if you're not going to do
Speaker 3: it for me afterward, I can understand you don't want
Speaker 3: me to shoot your in the take. But you know,
Speaker 3: he said, I don't want to have this discussion. No stills.
Speaker 3: I said, all right, they wouldn't go outside and start
Speaker 3: with these, And he looked at me, and there was
Speaker 3: a pa. You know, they walked PA's walking back and
Speaker 3: forth to the dressing room, and he ran upstairs to
Speaker 3: the producer and the Lime producer Bobby Greenhot. Sweet man, Bobby, Yeah,
Speaker 3: great guy, remember Bobby. And he told me the Stell
Speaker 3: photographer just threatened me. And Bobby Greenho goes, what do
Speaker 3: you mean? He goes, well, he wanted to take me outside,
Speaker 3: and he's a tall guy. Sam Sheppard. Pete had written
Speaker 3: a New York magazine article about him. So that night
Speaker 3: I called Pete and I said, Pete, this guy gave
Speaker 3: me a hard time. I think he's a prick. He goes, no,
Speaker 3: he's probably just zero intimidated by Woody or whatever, and
Speaker 3: you know, you know, just calmed down about it. I
Speaker 3: didn't even tell Pete that I threatened the guy. But
Speaker 3: what are you being? Woody? He said? Greenhot told me
Speaker 3: what you did. I'm so happy you did that. Later
Speaker 3: on I ran into Sam Shepard in the village and
Speaker 3: he couldn't have been nicer and turned out to be
Speaker 3: a nice guy, and we'd have coffee and a joint
Speaker 3: in the village a lot together.
Speaker 1: Photo journalist Brian Hammel. If you enjoy conversations with brilliant photographers,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with Pete Souza, white House photographer
Speaker 1: for both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
Speaker 4: The most interesting part of my job was that I
Speaker 4: saw him and all these different compartments of his life.
Speaker 4: I saw him as a dad. I saw how he
Speaker 4: behaved with his children. I saw him when he was
Speaker 4: on the basketball court. Most competitive guy I've ever met
Speaker 4: in my life. The general public doesn't see that, but
Speaker 4: I saw that part of him. One rule that everybody
Speaker 4: at the White House staff knew was that six thirty
Speaker 4: or seven o'clock he was in dinner with his family.
Speaker 2: Full stop.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Pete Souza, go
Speaker 1: to Hear's Thething dot org. After the break, Brian Hamill
Speaker 1: shares the backstory of how some of the most memorable
Speaker 1: images of John Lennon came to be I'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the thing. Brian Hamill is
Speaker 1: known for his photos from some of the most significant
Speaker 1: films in history. In fact, one of his early jobs
Speaker 1: on set led to the iconic movie poster for Woody
Speaker 1: Allen's film Manhattan. I wanted to know if Hamill set
Speaker 1: out to take the one lucky frame that became the
Speaker 1: poster or was it just another behind the scenes shots.
Speaker 3: No, it was where Gordon Willis may rest in peace.
Speaker 3: Phenomenal talent.
Speaker 2: I worked with Gordy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, phenomenal talent. He took a long time to light it.
Speaker 3: But once stuff is lit by Gordon, it goes like clockwork.
Speaker 3: When I saw how gorgeous it looked, I had one
Speaker 3: of the grips, get me a ladder so I could
Speaker 3: get up on the ladder and get a good conversation
Speaker 3: that was close to Gordon's composition and bingo. I shot
Speaker 3: about eight or nine frames, and Woody, who doesn't like
Speaker 3: to do many takes, he said, let's move on.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna tell two quick stories. One time,
Speaker 1: I do Malice, this very tepid thriller I did with
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman and Bill Pullman, and Gordy was the DP,
Speaker 1: and Harold Becker was the director, and Harold who was
Speaker 1: like a Jewish gangster at a book and with that
Speaker 1: accent of his and that voice of his. Harold and
Speaker 1: GORDI are there and when they're standing there together talking
Speaker 1: Gordon I think it was day one and turns out
Speaker 1: and he goes.
Speaker 2: When everybody is shut up.
Speaker 1: He screams at the crew and we all teach other like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is not at all what I had in mind,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And I realized I said
Speaker 1: I needed to go the other way. I needed to
Speaker 1: fight through the wall. So I go up to Gordie
Speaker 1: the next day. I go, hey, I mean, I see
Speaker 1: you're here at the crack of dawn and you're on
Speaker 1: your feet getting everything set up.
Speaker 2: I go, can I get you a cup of coffee?
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, sure, I'll take a cup of coffee.
Speaker 2: How do you like it? And I'm like it with
Speaker 2: milk and two sugars or whatever the fuck it was.
Speaker 2: I go get it.
Speaker 1: And I brought him his coffee every morning that I worked,
Speaker 1: and he could not have been nicer to me. It's
Speaker 1: like something simple like that. He could not have been
Speaker 1: nicer to me. Now, all of Woody's movies, all of
Speaker 1: his ouvra is just it saved my life. It saved
Speaker 1: my because when I really needed to take my mind
Speaker 1: off my problems, that's the only thing that worked, like Gangbusters. Now,
Speaker 1: who was a director who you're a photographer and you
Speaker 1: have an eye and you talk about composition and ladders
Speaker 1: and go and all this other stuff. Who is a
Speaker 1: director who you learned from? Did you learn from anybody
Speaker 1: when you were watching them shoot films?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure?
Speaker 3: Well, of course? Was that was a masterclass for me
Speaker 3: in film mate Michael Chapman. Michael Chapman was you know,
Speaker 3: legendary DP and he had been Gordie's operator.
Speaker 2: Right the Raging Boat. Yeah, Chapman was a DP.
Speaker 1: What's it like for you to be on a movie
Speaker 1: set and you're shooting these people and do you get
Speaker 1: like a real or not? Now because you've done it
Speaker 1: forever and you you're and I want to get to
Speaker 1: John Lenond in a minute, But was it just like
Speaker 1: really like a high for you? Did you sit there
Speaker 1: and go I can't believe I'm on the fucking set
Speaker 1: of this movie while they're making this and you could
Speaker 1: tell it's great.
Speaker 2: Well, it's good, it's unfolding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on good movies. Yeah, but you know, at the
Speaker 3: beginning of my career, I worked on a half a
Speaker 3: dozen garbage cam movies, right, even while I was in
Speaker 3: the Union. You know, you got to work your way
Speaker 3: up to get and I actually the first really terrific
Speaker 3: movie I worked on was Annie Hall. Actually The Gambler
Speaker 3: was a good movie.
Speaker 2: Jimmy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now do you stop at some point? Is there a
Speaker 1: time where you just stop and you don't want to
Speaker 1: be on sets anymore? Did like did it run its course?
Speaker 1: And you were like, I think this is my last movie?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 3: Well, my career got kind of fucked up when I
Speaker 3: got THROATCTS. I had to take.
Speaker 2: Off for a year, and you got that what year.
Speaker 3: I got the surgery done in two thousand and then
Speaker 3: I had a gift into two thousand and one with
Speaker 3: the radiation, which is you know, do you.
Speaker 1: Remember running to me on the street. Yes, I'm cutting
Speaker 1: a film. Yeah, the only film I ever made that
Speaker 1: I directed. I hated every minute.
Speaker 3: You looked at me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know who you were. Forty mangan Arrow was
Speaker 2: around the corner to go get lunch. I was on four.
Speaker 2: I can't believe you your fucking memories. Unbelieva.
Speaker 1: I'm not forty third Street and down that block between
Speaker 1: ninth and tenth was the editing house and next door
Speaker 1: I go out and smoke a cigarette. I get out
Speaker 1: of the ending room and go smoke a cigarette, and
Speaker 1: then I and the firehouse was next door, right, and
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't know what percent, like eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the guys in that unit were killed in
Speaker 1: nine to eleven that September.
Speaker 3: Including Patty Brown.
Speaker 1: I ran into you on the corner and you said
Speaker 1: to me, alec I took a look at you.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know who you were.
Speaker 3: My head was swollen, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Your and your and your face was was was swollen
Speaker 1: and yeah, and you told me what happened.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, stage four cancer.
Speaker 2: And so all gone. You're good, Oh yeah, I'm good now.
Speaker 1: But that but that would you say that was the
Speaker 1: cause of interrupting your well.
Speaker 3: I put a hurt on my career for a year
Speaker 3: and a half. But my two North stars, Woody and
Speaker 3: Barry Levinson, both hired me right away, right, you know
Speaker 3: when I when I was good enough to work, and
Speaker 3: I did another ten or fifteen movies after I healed up.
Speaker 2: What's the last movie you did?
Speaker 3: Last movie I I did was It Might Have Been
Speaker 3: with You with Michael Currente.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and six Do We Do It was
Speaker 3: called Brooklyn Rules.
Speaker 2: Brooklyn Rules with Freddie Prince Junior. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the last one I did with Karente. Before that,
Speaker 1: I did Outside Providence that he adapted from the Farrely
Speaker 1: Brothers book. Right, yeah, And Karrente he doesn't make movies anymore,
Speaker 1: and he's no.
Speaker 3: He just shot a pilot that he sent to me
Speaker 3: in It's good. It's good pilot wise guys in Federal Hill,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's that's his Uh, that's home town,
Speaker 3: that mill, you know that, And it's good. I hope
Speaker 3: it gets picked up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He's a nice guy. He's a determined guy.
Speaker 1: Well when he when he focuses, he's a classic example
Speaker 1: of a director who needed a good producer so he
Speaker 1: could just focus on making the movie.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Like when we made the movie Outside Providence. He would
Speaker 1: literally walk up to me and I mean, who's funnier
Speaker 1: than Karente was a very funny guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now talk to me about Lenin. You had a big exhibit, Well,
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 3: A book that came out. I had an exhibit. The
Speaker 3: last exhibit I had of my London pictures was in
Speaker 3: a terrific gallery in Rheinberg, New York, the Betsy Jacket
Speaker 3: Russo Gallery. But my Lenden pictures have been displayed in
Speaker 3: New Mexico at a terrific gallery that only does black
Speaker 3: and white stuff down there, and the Peter Fretterman Gallery
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. But the last exhibit I had of
Speaker 3: those photographs was some of those photographs, not all the
Speaker 3: ones in the book. He wrote the forward for the book.
Speaker 2: And how did that come about? How did the relationship
Speaker 2: with Lenin come about?
Speaker 3: I got an assignment from a Sunday supplement in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two. After I started working on movies, I did
Speaker 3: concurrently photo journalism, and Pete had done a piece on
Speaker 3: him years earlier when it was the Beatles. He did
Speaker 3: a piece on the Beatles for the Saturday Evening Post,
Speaker 3: and he had written some columns defending him, because remember
Speaker 3: that he went to that whole ordeal where they were
Speaker 3: trying to, you know, not let him stay in the
Speaker 3: yeah and kick him out and everything, and Pete defended
Speaker 3: him in a cluster of columns. I think it was
Speaker 3: The Post at that time when Pete was the columns
Speaker 3: for the Post. So I said, he used to want
Speaker 3: in touch with Lennon and he said yeah. I said,
Speaker 3: I just got an assignment from this magazine, a Sunday supplement,
Speaker 3: and he said, yeah, you should do it. I said, well,
Speaker 3: how do I get in touch with him? He said, well,
Speaker 3: I'll call him. So he called him and the next
Speaker 3: day he said, yeah, tell your brother to come by tomorrow.
Speaker 3: He lived in the village at one oh five Bank
Speaker 3: Street at this time, and I had already shot the
Speaker 3: concert at the Garden, which was in August of seventy one.
Speaker 3: There was a concert that John and Yoko did that.
Speaker 3: It was a benefit concert for Willowbrook with you know
Speaker 3: heraldover I remember when he was a champion of his career. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I go over there and I decided, hey, listen, you
Speaker 3: know I meet to John Lennon. Let me take all
Speaker 3: these photographs. And they were already being distributed through the
Speaker 3: agency I had that I worked on with the land
Speaker 3: called photo reporters. So I got some you know, silver
Speaker 3: gelatin eight x tens made up and I figured, at
Speaker 3: some point I'm going to give it to John and Yoko,
Speaker 3: these prints, but I'm not going to do it right
Speaker 3: away because I don't want to think I was a
Speaker 3: brown nose. So I ring the bell and I figured,
Speaker 3: you know, it's going to be makeup pair of publicists
Speaker 3: and all the bullshit that goes on when you're photograph
Speaker 3: a star. And hear the voice saying, yeah, come on up.
Speaker 3: The apartment was a couple of flight the top floor,
Speaker 3: so he answered the door himself and he stuck at
Speaker 3: his turn and goes, hey, Brian, John like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can start. He goes, would you like a cupa?
Speaker 3: And you know the Irish and he's English with Irish roots.
Speaker 3: He was offering me tea. But I was still a
Speaker 3: little nervous, and I figured, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 3: go and I'm going to see the you know, the
Speaker 3: whole team you know that he's got behind him, And
Speaker 3: I walked in through. I declined the tee and I
Speaker 3: walked into the room and the only person there besides
Speaker 3: Jean was Joko, and they gave me all the time
Speaker 3: in the world I needed.
Speaker 2: Why do you think he did that?
Speaker 3: He was he was just a nice guy.
Speaker 1: It was a solid guy, and maybe he craved just
Speaker 1: normal exchanges with people in normal right moments with people
Speaker 1: after having so much insanity, and.
Speaker 3: You know, I foughto left and now I don't know,
Speaker 3: forty five minutes and then he said you got enough,
Speaker 3: and I said, I'd love to get you walk in
Speaker 3: the streets. He said, yeah, let's do it. So the
Speaker 3: two of us, the three of us, okay, and we
Speaker 3: walked around the village and people would stop him, but
Speaker 3: not like you know Stosha New Yorkers in the village,
Speaker 3: Andy John that was blah blah blah. And he was
Speaker 3: listened to all of them. He was a good listener.
Speaker 3: He wasn't like he didn't, you know, try to cut
Speaker 3: people short. The same with yoga. She was exceedingly nice,
Speaker 3: and all the bullshit about all the negativity about her
Speaker 3: really bugs the shit at of me to this day
Speaker 3: because she's a nice person.
Speaker 1: Brian Hammel, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio, app,
Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Brian Hammel shares his experience working in Northern Ireland during
Speaker 1: the troubles. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Photo journalist Brian Hamill has been lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be present for some remarkable cultural moments, but he's
Speaker 1: also been present to capture moments of strife and conflict,
Speaker 1: the Troubles in Ireland, the nineteen ninety four Northridge earthquake,
Speaker 1: and sadly, the assassination of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 3: Pete was very friendly with Bobby and I had met
Speaker 3: Bobby in the village and who had a beer, and
Speaker 3: Pete introduced me to him. So Pete went to Ireland
Speaker 3: to work on his first novel, and Pete sent Timmeal
Speaker 3: letter saying you know you have to run for president.
Speaker 3: Basically he sent them from Ireland. Bobby wrote him back
Speaker 3: a letter and said I need you back here. And
Speaker 3: Pete he had just finished his first novel, which was
Speaker 3: called A Killing for Christ, a thriller. So he came
Speaker 3: back and then he said to me let's go to
Speaker 3: La together. I had just gotten out of the army.
Speaker 3: I should precede this by saying, Martin Luther King got
Speaker 3: assassinated fourth, Yeah, April fourth, and I got out a
Speaker 3: couple of days later. I'll never forget the phone call.
Speaker 3: My mother called me crying on the phone. So anyway,
Speaker 3: we got out to La Pete and I and we
Speaker 3: ended up at the Ambassador Hotel. We were up in
Speaker 3: the room, the hotel room before he went down to
Speaker 3: give that speech, the victory speech, you know. Anyway, he
Speaker 3: was supposed to go out the back of the ballroom,
Speaker 3: and then Pete was up on the stage near Bobby
Speaker 3: right here, and I was shooting this way in the crowd,
Speaker 3: shooting up, and Pete said, he gestured for me come
Speaker 3: around the curtain, and I made my way up there
Speaker 3: and said like that, were going out this way through
Speaker 3: the kitchen. But anyway, I walked right by Sirhan. I
Speaker 3: was from here too, I don't know, thirty feet beyond
Speaker 3: where he actually got murdered, maybe twenty five feet because
Speaker 3: I wanted to have the candidate come to me so
Speaker 3: I could photograph him coming at me, you know, in
Speaker 3: the kitchen. So I was all set and then boom boom,
Speaker 3: boom boom, and my heart sank. I went holy shit,
Speaker 3: and I could hear somebody screaming, no Jack Ruby's, no,
Speaker 3: Jack Ruby's. I don't know who that ever was. But
Speaker 3: Pete was right there. It was next to Rosie Greer,
Speaker 3: and I was you know, he saw the whole thing
Speaker 3: go down and luckily, you know, five people got shot.
Speaker 1: Well interesting how divided the family was about Sirhans parole. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, Bobby Kennedy Junior said he's sat with him
Speaker 1: and said, this guy didn't kill my dad, thanks, and
Speaker 1: other members of the family were, you know, vehement about
Speaker 1: him not getting any parole. I mean, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of opinions about that because I'm kind of a
Speaker 1: conspiracy not about both assassinations. And when people talk about
Speaker 1: the angle that Sir Haan was at compared to where
Speaker 1: the gun was shot into his masty, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of questions here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bobby Jr. Is very answer that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, completely.
Speaker 1: Now one last question, which is you shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't like this blanket term. It's a little tedious
Speaker 1: to me, but you shot the troubles over in Ireland.
Speaker 1: You were over in the caase of photography or were
Speaker 1: you an assignment for for that.
Speaker 3: The New York Times magazine? When was that nineteen seventy two, Right,
Speaker 3: that's a bloody sign.
Speaker 2: This was a very busy time for you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, seventies were it was that from my career?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what did you see over there? Well?
Speaker 3: I was lucky because my parents are from Belfast, so
Speaker 3: I haired kind of a hook with the IRA. Honestly,
Speaker 3: people hit no coment. Yeah, right, And I got introduced
Speaker 3: to Martin McGinnis, who sort of put me under his wing.
Speaker 3: And you told about the guy with balls, you know,
Speaker 3: the Brits, and he said they're gonna be shooting at us.
Speaker 3: He told me. I said, yeah, I'm down. So they did.
Speaker 3: They shot at us. And if you look at the.
Speaker 2: You wanted to go to Vietnam, here was your chance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shot it. And actually Pete came over because he
Speaker 3: was doing a piece for New York Magazine. So some
Speaker 3: of the photographs were also in the New York Magazine
Speaker 3: with Pete's piece. But Gail she who wrote the piece
Speaker 3: where I did the photos for the New York Times magazine.
Speaker 3: But Martin McGinnis, what the Sterling guy. He was. He
Speaker 3: was the head of the provos and he was young.
Speaker 3: He was like twenty two something. He was younger than
Speaker 3: I was. I think I was twenty twenty four or
Speaker 3: twenty five when I was there. But you know, when
Speaker 3: you're that young, you feel like you're immortal, you know.
Speaker 1: Photo journalist Brian hammil You can see some of Brian's
Speaker 1: work in person at the Betsy Hakarusso Gallery in Rhinebeck,
Speaker 1: New York. On October ninth, his photos of John Lennon
Speaker 1: will be on display in honor of what would have
Speaker 1: been the musician's eighty third birthday. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: at CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio.