Don Bachardy has been a portraitist his entire life. As a youngster, he would draw pictures to entertain himself and his classmates. As a native Californian, Mr. Bachardy has also been a Hollywood hound for much of his life. When Don's mother wanted to see a film, she would take him and his brother along, even if that meant keeping them home from school to do it.
Don is one of the lucky few whose passions in life have come together in perfect synergy. Encouraged by his lover, the novelist Christhopher Isherwood, Don studied art in college and, thanks to Isherwood's Hollywood connections, embarked on an artistic adventure painting portraits of famous and non-famous alike. In addition to portraits of Hollywood stars like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck, Don spent countless hours creating portraits of Christopher Isherwood, including a famous and haunting series of portraits as Isherwood's health deteriorated near the end of his life.
The Mister and I had a chance to chat with Mr. Bachardy in his home in Los Angeles. Our chat covered a little bit of everything - life with Isherwood, the history of the Santa Monica home the two shared and that Don still calls home, and, of course, his life as an artist. Here's a transcript of our chat with Don Bachardy and his 50+ years as a portrait artist:
Captain Dapper: Do you find that as people sit for you, do you have to do something to put them at ease, so that they let a little more of themselves show through?
Don Bachardy: No, they can’t help but let themselves show through, because there they are. They’re in that chair, on that marble stand, and there’s nothing else to do but be themselves. And even if they’re embarrassed or shy, they can’t hide. And often I’m as embarrassed as they are – and if I didn’t have a brush in my hand to protect myself, I wouldn’t dare look at them like I look at them. It’s something that I’ve done all my life. I was taken to the movies very early, and became a devoted moviegoer. My mother loved movies, and took my brother and me with her when we were – I was seeing movies when I was three and four years old. And my mother and brother and I were a real trio. While my father was slugging away at Lockheed Aircraft, we were downtown watching movies – sometimes going to three in a row. And my mother would even occasionally take Ted and me out of school, if she wanted to go downtown to a movie and didn’t have anyone to go with, yes! So I’m sure it’s what gave me my interest in the way people look. Those giant close-ups. I got hooked on them. As I say, I wanted always to look at people really intently. Inventing myself as a portrait painter was the best excuse I could think of.
CD: So before you were doing portraits in earnest, were you just drawing..?
DB: I drew all as a child, and in the beginning, when I was really young, I just made up people – made up faces. And in grammar school, some of the other kids used to ask me for my drawings. So I made myself popular by drawing. And it was always of people. When I got older, I started working from photographs of people, usually movie actors, because I thought I knew them from seeing them in their movies, so I could bring something extra to the photograph. And the drawings I did weren’t interesting as drawings; I don’t think any drawing done from a photograph can be interesting, because it’s not live. It’s what I call photocopying. And what I was doing without realizing it was developing the accuracy of my eye, because my drawings were very recognizable. And I showed Chris, say, half a dozen of the drawings I was doing when we met, and he recognized them all immediately and was impressed, and he said, “Well, have you ever worked from life?” And I said no. And he said, “Well, you should try.” And in fact, proposed himself as a sitter. He was the very first person I did a drawing of from life. And it was a very peculiar situation because when I copied from photographs, I put in everything I could see. But of course photographs of movie actors were invariably retouched, so that was a fairly safe practice. Chris, who was wonderful looking at 48, still a great beauty, he was nevertheless – there were lines, wrinkles, pouches. I put in everything! Just sparing nothing – every detail, because it was fascinating! When finally I was finished and he got up and came around and stood behind me to look at what I had done, there was a long moment of silence, because it turned out to be the oldest looking drawing of him I ever did. Because I put in, meticulously, every single age indication. And it looked exactly like him at the same time. And it was a long moment before, after a gulp, he said, “You know, it’s good!” Phew! But once we were getting together, he continually urged me to try art school, but it took me four years because I was scared. I was afraid of failing. But finally, I relented and took a six-week summer course at Chouinard, which was the best art school here. It was all the way downtown. But it was just six weeks long, but before the end of the first week, I already – I was in my third year of college at UCLA, and I stopped UCLA and signed up for the full course at Chouinard.
CD: Now, I know you studied in London for a time also...
DB: I went for four years to Chouinard – and I didn’t just go there; I practically lived there. I drove all the way downtown for the 9 to 4 day, and then I’d drive all the way back. And Chris would say, “Let me see what you did,” which was just wonderful, because it gave me impetus to keep going. Because my parents lived in Hollywood, some days I would, after the 4 o’clock class ended, I would go and have an early supper with them, and be back for the 7 to 10. And if I wasn’t having dinner with them, I would maybe go to a movie and then go back to the 7 to 10 class. And having learned from college the drudgery of just taking the classes that were necessary to get some kind of degree or certificate, I just took all the classes with a live model. Whatever the teaching was, if there was a live model, I was there drawing and painting. And after four years of that, I had the idea of going to London to the Slade School. And I did. It was time for me to try my wings, I think, and I used the Slade School as a reason to be on my own from Chris. So, my departure was heartbreaking for us both, because when it came right down to it, I was as scared of London as I was frightened of going to art school for the first time here. And we just wept buckets before I left. And from the moment I got to London, we were just weeping on the phone; we were so lonely for each other. But soon, at my implorings, he came over and joined me. Let’s see: I got there the end of January, and I had the greatest good fortune. I stopped in New York, because we had been seeing Richard Burton and his first wife, Sybil, here. He was making movies, and we became good friends. And so I went to see Camelot, which he was doing with Julie Andrews, and went backstage to say hello, and there he was with Sybil. And they said, “What are you doing here?” and I said, “Well, I’m on my way to London to go to the Slade.” And they said, “Well, why don’t you stay in our house in Hampstead? Richard’s got the next three months in the show, and the house is empty!” And his brother and wife lived right across the street. I said, “Oh, that’s very sweet of you, thank you, but I’ll just go and find myself a little flat in London.” And so I went off, and the second day I was in London, I started looking for a flat. Not only were they incredibly dingy, but they were so expensive! And after two or three days of looking, I dared to call up Sybil and I said, “Is that offer still good?” And she said, “Of course, darling!” So, I was told how to contact his brother Ifor, and I met them in Hampstead, and they took me just across the street to a dear two-story house with a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms upstairs. A bathroom upstairs and a little half-bathroom downstairs. It was just perfect! And so when Chris came over, it was a snug little place for us to live, and we could even entertain there. We could cook for our friends. And of course, when the three months were up, what did Richard do? He went to Rome to make Cleopatra! So he met Elizabeth Taylor! And Chris and I had the house for a year, without rent! Wasn’t that just the greatest good fortune?
CD: Yeah, just to fall in your lap just like that.
DB: Yeah. A perfect house. And Hampstead was right on the northern line; it was a direct line to the Slade School. I didn’t even have to change trains. It took me less than fifteen minutes to get to school each morning. Of course, I was going in mid-term, so I wasn’t asking for credit. So when the term came to an end after a couple of months, but long before it came to an end, I had started asking everybody I met if they would sit for me. As I had here. When I was going to school, I only started doing sittings with my friends, and it just seemed a natural progression to start doing that in London.
Read more of our interview with Don Bachardy after the jump...
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