Saying Farewell to a Friend

HERB RITTS

1952-2002

Ask anyone who knew Herb Ritts and the first thing they will say about him is that, in the world of fashion and celebrity photography, he was the exception: never did a nasty word about anyone cross his lips. He just wasn't wired that way. Ritts's world, instead, was one of beauty, in its simplest sense. Beautiful places, beautiful houses, beautiful images—these were the things with which he surrounded himself. Brought up in privilege in Brentwood, where he was neighbors with Steve McQueen, he was never ashamed of his preference for the better things in life. On a trip to a remote part of East Africa to work on his 1994 book, Africa, he showed up in a tiny plane and, in true L.A. fashion, had his masseur and massage table in tow.

The main wellspring of beauty for Ritts was people. From the picture that launched his career, of a friend named Richard Gere basking in the San Bernardino heat in 1978, it was clear that this young photographer had a knack with gorgeousness. That's why, in the late-80s fashion world, he became one of the premier photographers of the Amazonian supermodels. When photographing entertainers endowed with more human proportions, as he did for Vanity Fair beginning in 1984, he brought out their essential radiance, and the images became iconic: Michelle Pfeiffer in drag, Madonna in Mickey Mouse ears, k. d. lang getting a shave from Cindy Crawford. "He always saw the potential in everyone," says lang, "whether it was their profile, their sense of humor, or their spirit." As Gere puts it, Ritts's eye for loveliness "came from a delicacy of his heart and mind. He made everyone beautiful, because that's what he saw."

The Herb vibe was infectious. When Elizabeth Taylor agreed to pose, post-brain surgery, with a shaved head revealing a scar, when a very young Julia Roberts stripped down to baggy men's underwear, they did it because Herb asked them to. When they were with Ritts, the stars wanted someone else to be happy.

The photographs of Ben Affleck on the following pages were the last pictures Ritts took before he died, on December 26. It's a source of pride for Vanity Fair, this fact, and, it must be said, the cause of some regret. To those who worked with him, when it came to taking photographs, he couldn't be stopped. "He sang behind the camera," says stylist Sarajane Hoare, who worked with Ritts for 17 years. "His most famous quote was 'One more roll!'"