Douglas Kirkland’s Pictures: Brigitte Bardot + The Sound of Music Actresses

Brigitte Bardot: Douglas Kirkland’s pictures. One of the best-known subjects of celebrity (and later film set) photographer Douglas Kirkland was the iconic French star Brigitte Bardot. Long before she became associated with animal rights activism and xenophobic far-right views, Bardot was known as the sex kittenish anti-heroine in classics and near-classics like Roger Vadim’s …And God Created Woman, Claude Autant-Lara’s Love Is My Profession, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, and Louis Malle’s Viva Maria!. Kirkland’s pictures can currently be seen at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ headquarters in Beverly Hills.

Douglas Kirkland’s pictures: From 1960s icon Brigitte Bardot & ‘The Sound of Music’ to Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet in ‘Titanic’

An Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences exhibition of veteran photographer Douglas Kirkland’s pictures opens today in the Academy’s Grand Lobby Gallery in Beverly Hills. Admission is free.

Among those seen in the more than 125 color and black-and-white images featured in “Freeze Frame: 5 Decades of Photographs by Douglas Kirkland” are the following:

Meryl Streep. Angelina Jolie. Susan Sarandon. Brigitte Bardot. Kevin Kline. Sophia Loren. Anne Bancroft. Jeanne Moreau. Leonardo DiCaprio. Britt Ekland. Peter Sellers. Paul Newman.

Kate Winslet. Shirley MacLaine. Ewan McGregor. Barbra Streisand. Dustin Hoffman. Nicole Kidman. Antonio Banderas. Drew Barrymore. Warren Beatty. Mel Brooks. Francis Ford Coppola.

Robert De Niro. Salma Hayek. Baz Luhrmann. Jack Nicholson. Sidney Poitier. Donald Sutherland. John Wayne. Owen Wilson. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Renée Zellweger. Gene Hackman.

Kirkland’s pictures ‘launched’ by Elizabeth Taylor

According to the Academy’s press release, the Toronto-born (in 1934) Douglas Kirkland landed his first gig at age 24, when he was hired by Look Magazine mostly to handle fashion assignments.

As per the release, “It was on his way back from one of those assignments that he was asked to accompany a writer going to interview Elizabeth Taylor, even though the actress had already refused to be photographed. Kirkland managed to convince Taylor to become his first celebrity subject, and his career swiftly moved in a new direction.”

Based in New York through much of his professional life, Kirkland relocated to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.

Movie set photographer

Besides celebrity shoots, Douglas Kirkland’s pictures also include those he took on the sets of more than 100 motion pictures, among them Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music (1965), starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and Eleanor Parker; Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa (1985), starring Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Klaus Maria Brandauer; and James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Gloria Stuart.

Kirkland’s pictures will be on display through Sunday, April 20. Located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, the Academy’s galleries are open Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends, noon to 6 p.m. For more information call (310) 247-3600.

Kirkland’s pictures not by Kirkland

A couple of Douglas Kirkland’s pictures are seen below – but they were not taken by him. The “Freeze Frame: 5 Decades of Photographs by Douglas Kirkland” images come courtesy of Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

Besides The Sound of Music actresses Charmian Carr, Angela Cartwright, Heather Menzies, and Kym Karath, also in attendance at “Freeze Frame” were actress Jacqueline Bisset (The Deep, Class), actor Michael York (Cabaret, Logan’s Run), and cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, In the Heat of the Night).

Charmian Carr, Angela Cartwright, Heather Menzies, and Kym Karath: The Sound of Music actresses with photographer Douglas Kirkland. Four of the von Trapp children from Robert Wise’s 1965 blockbuster The Sound of Music were in attendance at the opening reception for “Freeze Frame: 5 Decades of Photographs by Douglas Kirkland,” the Academy’s exhibition dedicated to veteran Douglas Kirkland’s pictures.

Charmian Carr and Douglas Kirkland. Besides the four actresses seen above, The Sound of Music also featured Nicholas Hammond, Debbie Turner, and Duane Chase as the remaining three von Trapp brats. Best Actress Oscar nominee Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and Eleanor Parker starred. Also in the cast: Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Peggy Wood, Richard Haydn, Daniel Truhitte, Marni Nixon, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Ben Wright, and Norma Varden. Among the non-The Sound of Music talent found in Douglas Kirkland’s pictures are Britt Ekland, Peter Sellers, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

‘Meet the Oscars’: Judy Garland miniature statuette + two Academy Awards from very first ceremony

From Douglas Kirkland’s pictures to Oscar statuettes: in other Academy news, the 50 Oscar statuettes to be presented at the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony next Feb. 24 will be on display at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Meet the Oscars” exhibition beginning Friday, Feb. 1, on the fourth level of the Hollywood & Highland Center – in Hollywood, where else? – and continuing through Saturday, Feb. 23. Admission is free.

Visitors will be given the chance of holding an actual Oscar statuette while pretending they are Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz (neither of whom has ever won an Academy Award). The exhibition will also feature interactive Oscar trivia kiosks, the Honorary Award that will be presented to production designer Robert Boyle (North by Northwest, Fiddler on the Roof), and samples of Boyle’s work.

Most notably from a historical perspective, the exhibition will display:

• The miniature Oscar given to Judy Garland for her “outstanding performance as a screen juvenile” in 1939, the year she was seen in Victor Fleming’s classic The Wizard of Oz and Busby Berkeley’s more mundane Babes in Arms.
• Two statuettes presented at the very first Academy Awards ceremony, held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in May 1929, specifically, the ones handed to director Frank Borzage and screenwriter Benjamin Glazer for their work on the romantic drama 7th Heaven, starring Best Actress winner Janet Gaynor (also for Sunrise and Street Angel) and Charles Farrell.

“Meet the Oscars” will be open Sundays through Thursdays from noon to 7 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 8 p.m. On Saturday, Feb. 23, the exhibition will close at 5 p.m.

50 Oscar statuettes to invade Manhattan

More or less contemporaneously, the exhibition “Meet the Oscars, New York” will display 50 new Oscar statuettes, two inscribed Academy Awards, and one Oscar for the public to hold.

The East Coast version of “Meet the Oscars” will take place at the Times Square Studios in New York City from Feb. 15–23. The exhibition will be open daily from noon to 7 p.m. Admission is free.

The two inscribed Oscar statuettes are the ones won by Gary Cooper for his performance as the title character in Howard Hawks’ World War I drama/comedy Sergeant York (1941) and by film editor Thelma Schoonmaker for her work on Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award fave The Departed (2006).

The 50 new statuettes featured in the exhibition will be presented to the winners at a future Academy Awards ceremony.

Gary Cooper & Thelma Schoonmaker Oscar sextet

Gary Cooper and Thelma Schoonmaker have each won three Academy Awards.

Cooper won his second Best Actor Oscar for Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 Western High Noon. Eight years later, he was given an Honorary Award “for his many memorable screen performances and the international recognition he, as an individual, has gained for the motion picture industry.” Suffering from terminal cancer, Cooper was unable to attend the ceremony. James Stewart accepted the statuette on his behalf.

All three of Schoonmaker’s Oscars were the result of her film editing work on Martin Scorsese-directed Best Picture contenders. Besides The Departed, she also won for Raging Bull (1980) and The Aviator (2004).

Oscar weight in britannia

Each Oscar weighs 8½ pounds and stands 13½ inches tall. Handmade annually by R.S. Owens & Company in Chicago, the statuettes are made of britannia, a metal alloy, and are plated in copper, nickel, silver, and 24-karat gold.

In one format or another (depending on the Writers Guild strike), the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in the congested heart of Hollywood.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.

Douglas Kirkland’s pictures (Brigitte Bardot, with The Sound of Music actresses) via the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Douglas Kirkland’s Pictures: Brigitte Bardot + The Sound of Music Actresses Charmian Carr & Angela Cartwright” last updated in October 2018.