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Life Stories
Leibovitz’s career
spans four
decades, starting
when she was
just 20 years old
life stories
Annie
Leibovitz
Posing with her
controversial
portrait of
a pregnant
Demi Moore,
taken for Vanity
Fair in 1991
Her photos are as iconic as
her friends, but the celebrity
photographer’s life has been
beset by personal and financial
loss, says Mandy Appleyard
november 2010 MARIE CLAIRE <#R#>
Life Stories
Leibovitz became the
Rolling Stones’ 1975
tour photographer
Her iconic
portrait of
John and Yoko
was taken
hours before
Lennon’s death
Leibovitz’s
official White
House photo
of the Obamas
I
t was an ambitious
and lavish shoot, even
by Annie Leibovitz’s
standards. The Palace of
Versailles had been
closed to the public so
the famed photographer
could shoot her glossy magazine cover in
privacy. Gilt mirrors and glass chandeliers
glistened, and a fabulous pastel-pink
carriage was positioned outside the window.
Actor Kirsten Dunst and a cast of others
were dressed in outrageous pompadour
wigs and voluminous satin gowns as they
posed for Leibovitz in the now-classic
Marie Antoinette shoot. The photographer
herself, tossing a mane of long blondegrey hair, energetically paced the floor,
ordering her models into different poses.
The stylised extravagance of this shoot
is the hallmark of Leibovitz’s photography:
indulgent depictions of beautiful celebrities,
with the occasional crazy prop thrown
in. Most of her shots, like this one for the
September 2006 US Vogue, have achieved
legendary status in their own right. They
capture a moment in time or epitomise a
whole fashion trend or social movement.
They are criticised like artworks or seen as
commentaries on celebrity culture, women
or society, and replicated again and again.
<#L#> MARIE CLAIRE november 2010
It’s likely you’ll
be aware of Annie
Leibovitz’s work
On location
even if you don’t
in Spain with
necessarily know
Penélope Cruz
her by name. Think
for Vogue in 1997
of a naked and
heavily pregnant
Demi Moore; an unclothed John
Lennon curled round an impassive Yoko
Ono in a shot taken five hours before he was
shot dead; Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of
milk; the 15-year-old Miley Cyrus draped in
a satin sheet; Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes
and baby Suri at their ranch in Colorado.
But as well as the gloss and glamour,
Leibovitz’s recent years have been beset by
tragedy. Her long-time love, author and
activist Susan Sontag,
died in 2004, followed
six weeks later by her
beloved father and then
her mother barely two
years later. Then, last
year, it was revealed that,
despite being arguably the most highly paid
photographer of a generation, she was on
the brink of financial ruin, with creditors
suing for unpaid bills amid reports that she
owed $24 million (about £15.5 million).
So when Leibovitz celebrates her 61st
birthday on 2 October, it’s fair to assume
that it will be a modest affair. Accepting
a lifetime achievement award in New York
in May last year, her voice quivered as she
admitted to the 700-strong audience:
‘I’m having some tough times right now.’
The photographs, of course, are what made
Leibovitz, and what will most likely save her.
Perfect examples of flamboyant excess, they
mirror her colourful personal life (stories
abound of lost cameras and cash, unpaid
parking tickets, even abandoned rental
cars). As her one-time assistant Dan Kellum
explains: ‘Annie wanted her life to be like
a magazine spread. Everything beautiful.’
Leibovitz’s life never lacked colour. Born
Anna-Lou Leibovitz, she grew up one of six
children in Connecticut, the daughter of an
airforceman and a dancer. After school she
did a photography
module, sending her
first shots to Rolling
Stone aged just 20. She
was hired immediately
and, within three years,
was the magazine’s chief
photographer. In her 13 years at the title,
she photographed the leading lights in
American music and culture before moving
to Vanity Fair magazine. Summing up her
raw talent, energy and enthusiasm, its
editor, Graydon Carter, says: ‘Annie will
wear you out. She’ll beat you {continued}
‘Annie wanted life to
be like a magazine
spread. Nothing
out of place’
Life Stories
Despite her incredible
body of work, Leibovitz
faced financial ruin in 2009
because she’ll have more patience than
you do. And she will eventually get her shot.’
Leibovitz climbed to the top of her game,
with a host of celebrity friends and an
enviable bank balance. Reports put her salary
at $2 million a year (about £1.3 million) and
her day rate for advertising work at
$100,000 (about £65,000). Her financial
ambitions spawned a burgeoning property
portfolio: a penthouse in Chelsea; a pied-àterre in Paris. She bought two houses next
door to each other in Greenwich Village in
2002 and set about converting them into
one house. She also acquired the 200-acre
country estate in Rhinebeck, New York,
where Chelsea Clinton was recently married.
But cracks eventually began to show. One of
her building projects in New York was beset
with structural problems and resulted in
a lawsuit. Then there were accusations of
anger issues – Leibovitz
gained a reputation for
her temper and there
were fears of a relapse
following a stint in rehab
for cocaine addiction.
Yet her relationship
kept her strong. Leibovitz was ensconced in
a partnership with Sontag, 16 years her
senior, whom she had met on a photo shoot
in the late 80s. Sontag had had a number of
high-profile female lovers, but neither she
nor Leibovitz referred to themselves as a
couple. ‘“Companion” or “partner” were not
in our vocabulary,’ Leibovitz says. ‘We were
two people who helped each other through
our lives.’ But Sontag was ambivalent about
Leibovitz’s desire for children.
Nevertheless, Leibovitz gave birth to
Sarah, in 2001, at the age of 51, reportedly
with the help of a sperm donor; she went on
to have two more children – twins Susan
and Samuelle – with a surrogate. But,
despite her joy at being a mother, in 2004
her life began to unravel as she endured the
death of the woman she loved from
leukemia. ‘Susan didn’t
want to die,’ Leibovitz
said. ‘She fought this
fight… she was so brave.’
By December 2004,
Leibovitz was shuttling
between her lover’s
bedside in New York and her seriously ill father
in Florida. Sontag died while Leibovitz was
with her father; she had rushed back, but
missed that last moment. She photographed
Sontag on the hospital trolley, the bruises
from an IV visible on her arms. Leibovitz’s
father died weeks later; her mother in 2007.
‘We were two
people who helped
each other
through our lives’
<#L#> MARIE CLAIRE november 2010
AT A GLANCE
1949 Born in
Connecticut
1970 Hired by
Rolling Stone
1983 Joins Vanity Fair
1989 Meets long-term
partner Susan Sontag
2001 Gives birth to
Sarah; has two more
children with surrogate
2004 Sontag dies
2010 Private equity
firm bails Leibovitz out
of £15.5 million debt
The past three years have seen all this
compounded by money woes. Leibovitz’s
finances deteriorated at an alarming rate,
leaving New York columnists speculating
over how anyone so successful could be so
bad with money. She let millions trickle
through her fingertips and was forced to
turn to financiers Art Capital for a $24 million
(£15.5 million) crisis loan. By last September,
Leibovitz was facing legal action for
non-payment of the loan; however, in March
this year, a private equity firm stepped in to
bail her out and manage her assets.
Graydon Carter, who has worked with
Leibovitz for decades, sees the reason
behind her financial crises clearly, however.
‘The mind that can take these extraordinary
pictures is not necessarily the same mind
that is a perfect money manager,’ he said.
Today, as the world’s most famous
female photographer stands on the point of
financial ruin, her trump card in her fight for
financial survival is the images for which
she is famous. Nobody will be hoping more
than her that they can provide her and her
family with a way back from the brink.
Photographs by Corbis, Getty Images, Rex, WireImage
With daughters
Sarah, far right,
and Susan in 2006
Leibovitz
photographed
Susan Sontag
in 1989; their
relationship
lasted until
Sontag’s death
in 2004