Jumpology: a Tribute to Philippe Halsman
By Bob Pakes
During his career, Philippe Halsman photographed an incredible amount of prominent people. From US presidents to comedians, and from Nobel prize winners to Hollywood’s elite. Halsman’s work includes iconic photos of Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy, Alfred Hitchcock, Winston Churchill, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
What distinguishes Halsman from all other photographers, is that once the formal shoot was over, Halsman asked his subjects to jump! And most celebrities did just that. Philippe Halsman: “When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping, the mask falls off, and the real person appears”.
The way a person jumps, says a lot about the personality of this individual. Some people lift their knees up and jump very high, others spread their legs and arms and cannot help but smile. Some people jump with great confidence and reach for the sky, while others mainly try to hold their balance and barely leave the ground. Halsman’s theory became known as jumpology.
In this article we’ll take a look at 40 of Philippe Halsman’s jumpers.
3 … 2 … 1 … jump!
LEFT:
Adlai Stevenson (1956)
presidential candidate 1952 and 1956
RIGHT:
Anthony Perkins (1958)
actor, singer
LEFT:
Audrey Hepburn (1955)
actress
RIGHT:
Bob Hope (1956)
actor, comedian, singer
LEFT:
Brigitte Bardot (1955)
actress
RIGHT:
David Sarnoff (1953)
chairman of RCA Victor
LEFT:
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis (1951)
actors, singers
RIGHT:
Diana Dors (1953)
actress
LEFT:
Dick Clark (1958)
cultural icon
RIGHT:
Dolores Del Rio (1958)
actress
LEFT:
Ed Sullivan (1955)
tv personality
RIGHT:
Eva Gabor (1952)
actress and socialite
LEFT:
Eva Marie Saint (1955)
actress
RIGHT:
Grace Kelly (1955)
actress
LEFT:
Groucho Marx (1952)
actor, radio and tv personality
RIGHT:
Jackie Gleason (1955)
actor, comedian
LEFT:
Joanna Woodward (1957)
actress
RIGHT:
Judy Holiday (1956)
actress
LEFT:
Julie London (1956)
singer
RIGHT:
Kim Novak (1955)
actress
LEFT:
Marc Chagall (1955)
artist
RIGHT:
Milton Berle (1951)
actor, comedian, tv personality
LEFT:
Muhammad Ali (1963)
the greatest
RIGHT:
Peter Ustinov (1955)
actor, writer
LEFT:
Phil Silvers (1955)
actor
RIGHT:
Pier Angeli (1954)
actress
LEFT:
Richard L. Simon (1951)
RIGHT:
M. Lincoln Schuster (1951)
book publishers
LEFT:
Richard Nixon (1959)
US president
RIGHT:
Robert Montgomery (1955)
actor
LEFT:
Robert Oppenheimer (1958)
father of the atomic bomb
RIGHT:
Robert Sarnoff (1954)
president of NBC
LEFT:
Selman A. Waksman (1954)
Nobel prize winning biochemist
RIGHT:
Shirley MacLaine (1957)
actress
LEFT:
Sophia Loren (1955)
actress
RIGHT:
Steve Allen (1959)
tv personality
LEFT:
The Duke & Duchess of Windsor (1958)
British royalty
RIGHT:
Thomas E. Dewey (1965)
governor of New York
Marilyn Monroe deserves a special mention. She was photographed by Philippe Halsman on several occasions, and according to Halsman, Marilyn always loved to jump for him.
Halsman: “Marilyn projects ecstasy, but the clenched fists indicate how tense she actually is and how hard she works on something she does not actually feel.”
In the image below to the right, we can see Halsman jumping with Marilyn.
So, did Elvis ever jump?
He sure did! But only formally, and never in front of Philippe Halsman’s camera.
To the right we see
Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book
This legendary book (first published in 1959) contains 178 photographs of celebrity jumpers and comes very highly recommended!
WOW, some great photography, thanks for sharing these Bob.
But who took the first photo of jumping Elvis and the blonde beauty, then?
Awesome!!!