April 11, 2014

Leee Black Childers — yes, Leee with 3 e's — told Andy Warhol that he wanted to be a photographer.

And Andy said:
"Say you’re a photographer, and you’re a photographer,’... And he pointed across the Factory to Candy Darling, who was one of the great drag queens, and he said: ‘Look at her. She says she’s a woman. She is.’ So from that moment on, I was a photographer.”"
The link goes to a NYT obituary, which has a great slideshow, including of 1970s-era Warhol, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, and Iggy Pop.
[W]hen Lee was 6 or 7 he insisted on writing his first name with three E’s, which caused a frustrated teacher to call his mother to school. His mother defended the spelling, and from then on he was known as Leee....

Mr. Childers attended Kentucky Southern College, a Baptist school near Louisville. In 1967, he recalled in an interview, he read a story in Life magazine about Leary and LSD.

“I thought, ‘That seems fun,’ ” he said. “So I just got in a car and drove to San Francisco for the Summer of Love.”
Do you remember that issue of Life magazine?



Thanks for the warning Life Magazine, but young people could read The exploding threat... turmoil in a capsule... and think "That seems like fun." A few months later we got this one, the "exploding threat" having exploded into art:

7 comments:

Robert Cook said...

As a teenage rock fan in the 70s I bought many rock music magazines and I remember Leee Black Childers' photos and byline from the time very clearly.

Even punks and drag queens get old and die.

R.I.P. LBC

Fernandinande said...

exploding threat.

RUM, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

Mark O said...

Theeee Yankees win.

Unknown said...

rip

he took some really classic pics in his time. childers also features very prominently in the book, "please kill me" which is an oral history of the new york punk scene of the 70's (which obv has roots in warhol's factory).

also those life magazine covers and the article are fantastic and make me want to put a blotter on my tongue! B) i had never seen it before. great stuff!

Carol said...

I don't remember either of those Life issues, but do remember the 1967 Newsweek pot issue. Wow! I knew I definitely had to try it.

The Godfather said...

I was at Harvard in the early '60's when Timothy Leary was introducing the world to LSD. It wasn't illegal then, but the University insisted that Leary not give LSD to undergraduates, and he was fired for violating that rule. In one of my classes, the teaching assistant brought in a grad student who had become VERY familiar with LSD to explain it to us. He thought it was great stuff, but his brain was so obviously fried, that he became the best argument I ever heard against using LSD.

khematite@aol.com said...

When Bob Dylan was touring with Bobby Vee in the environs of North Dakota around 1960, he called himself "Elston Gunnn"--spelled with three n's.

http://expectingrain.com/dok/who/g/gunnnelston.html