Information AboutHerb Ritts |
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He was born in Los Angeles, California to a prosperous family who owned a Furniture business. In 1974 he received an Economics degree from Bard College in upstate New York and soon after returned to Los Angeles to work as a sales representative for his family's business. However, Ritts started taking night classes in Photography and decided to dedicate himself to the art in the late 1970s . His first break into the business occurred as a result of taking portraits of his actor friend Richard Gere . These photos gained national exposure on the covers of many magazines. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he worked with '' Harper's Bazaar '', '' Rolling Stone '', '' Vanity Fair '' and '' Vogue '' magazines on portraits of famous people and artistic photos of models. Subjects of his black-and-white celebrity portraits included Kofi Annan , Cindy Crawford , Tenzin Gyatso (the Dalai Lama ), Madonna , Jack Nicholson and Elizabeth Taylor . Ritts also directed several Music Video s. In 1991 two of these, Chris Isaak 's " Wicked Game " and Janet Jackson 's " Love Will Never Do (Without You) ", won MTV awards. He also directed the video for Mariah Carey 's 13th #1 single My All , shortly before his death. He died in Los Angeles from pneumonia-related complications. Reports state that he was HIV-positive . However, that was not the cause of his death. He leaves his partner Erik Hyman . Ritts' final published photographs were of actor Ben Affleck in Vanity Fair magazine. ''See also:'' The Erotic Male In Photography EXTERNAL LINKS |
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