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This story ran orig­i­nally in Todays Inspiration.

This expe­rience occurred around 1946 – 47-​​I was just back from the Army in Europe and enrolled at Pratt Institute. I had the chutzpah to call Albert Dorne to request a visit. He was very kind and invited me to his studio located in mid town Manhattan. It boggled my mind and though I can’t remember the details I shall never forget upon entering the studio, in the foyer were dozens of beau­tiful framed works of many of the famous artists of the time. The actual studio was huge and luxu­rious with a large skylight, more framed pictures, a pool table, a large tabouret and drawing board. He was extremely gracious and kind when I showed him my port­folio and generous in his crit­icism and advice. At one point a gorgeous blonde lady came in and he intro­duced her to me. I can’t remember if she was his wife, friend or model. All I could think was that this was the life! (I learned recently that she was a good friend who handled his financial affairs). Mr Dorne was a giant in the industry and a wonderful person to take the time for a youngster.

Best regards

Dave Broad

Calendar Girl
by Tom Watson

A once in a lifetime assignment that exceeded my expec­ta­tions started with a concept presen­tation to Seatrain Shipping Company. Seatrain was not unlike many Indus­trial accounts that I worked on in my career. It wasn’t a bad account, but not partic­u­larly stim­u­lating with creative oppor­tu­nities. Well, not until they agreed to have me create and produce a Pin Up Calendar for the coming year. By the 1970s’ and pin up calendars were virtually a thing of the past. However, beau­tiful sexy ladies are never a thing of the past, and the client wanted his logo to be seen by his customers all year long.

Seatrain shipped cargo every­where, but for the calendar we focused on just the United States. I chose 12 loca­tions which would become the theme for each month of the year. For example, I used the Statue of Liberty as an East Coast location for one month, a Midwest Corn­field location for another month, and the next month it was Hawaii, and so on.

One of the more difficult tasks was selecting 12 beau­tiful models over several days of exhausting (?) inter­views.. yuk, yuk. Well, the exhausting part was trying to narrow it down to only 12 gorgeous ladies. Part of the proposal to the client was to keep the total budget rela­tively low. That meant using photog­raphy (illus­tration would require more time and a bigger budget, although, that would have been my pref­erence) and most important, we had to elemenate travel expenses. I had heard of rear view projection from 35 mm slides for a back­ground scene, but never used it before. So, I did some research and selected 12 familiar scenic slides from various photo morgues. Jim Blakely was recom­mended to me, since he had expe­rience working on Playboy Club photo assign­ments for most of their S.F. promotion. I had to twist Jim’s arm a little, but he finally agreed to take on the assignment as a char­i­table gesture, and a gallant display of his human­i­tarian side. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration.

Seatrain wanted the calendar girls to be sexy but not erotic or raunchy, so we (well, the client) decided we should subtly cover up the “bare essen­tials.” Each scene and model would be char­ac­ter­istic of a general region of the U.S., and each model would have one or more props with the Seatrain logo in plain view. For example, one month the model was wearing just a thin wet unbut­toned beach shirt and a bikini bottom, holding a large conch shell to her ear, and a coastal beach scene projected in the back­ground. The conch shell had the Seatrain logo painted on it. We used a fan to add the effect of a sea breeze. As much as I would have liked to have photographed at the real loca­tions, we had complete control in the studio, espe­cially with the lighting. Bad weather was not a concern, nor any other unpre­dicted problems that some­times appear on location shooting . And, using rear view projection, really looked like they were shot on location.

One of my models was Suzanne Somers, whom several years earlier had a bit part as the pretty blonde in the T-​​Bird in the movie “American Graffiti,” and later became a star in the hit TV series “Three’s Company.” She was about 27 when she modeled for the calendar, and she had modeled for me a few times before.

While preparing for the morning shoot in the studio, I knocked on Suzanne’s dressing room door and she responded, “Come in. I want to show you some­thing.” As I stepped in, I was busy looking at my notes for the upcoming shoot, and began explaining how I wanted her posi­tioned. When I looked up, she was sitting at the mirror applying her makeup, and to my aston­ishment, she was wearing nothing from the waist up. I gulped and eluci­dated with utmost sincerity, “Oops, Sorry Suzanne, I didn’t know you weren’t dressed,” and started to leave. She quickly replied, “Wait, it’s okay. I brought three halter tops to try on for you,” as she held up a shopping bag. I tried to act unphazed, but I doubt that I pulled it off. Strug­gling to gather my composer, I blurted out, “Great, I would like to see them,” imme­di­ately thinking, yikes!, what a poor choice of words! Showing no discomfort, she spon­ta­neously tried on each halter top, and of course, they all looked terrific on her. I under­standably pondered over which halter top I would use in the photo.. another tough decision. As much as Jim would have been willing to help me make this difficult choice, I knew his first priority was setting up his equipment for the day’s shooting, so I thought it best not to disturb him.

Well, Suzanne was perfect as she posed on a bicycle with her care­fully selected halter top, a pair of very short shorts and tennis shoes, as the breeze from the fan softly ruffled her long blonde hair. The back­ground was a view of El Capitan in Yosemite. Jim did a fine job behind the camera, and all the models were ideal. Suzanne modeled for me later, on several more assign­ments before moving on to fame and fortune. She was an excellent model with an infec­tious smile, sparkling blue eyes and always a good sport. That was the only pin up calendar I did in my career, and one of the most enjoyably assign­ments, as you may have guessed!

Norm Nicholson

In the 1960’s I was fortunate to land a nice illus­tration commission from Young & Rubicam. It entailed a series of full page illus­tra­tions for Kaiser Aluminum that appeared in Fortune magazine, Business Week and other publi­ca­tions. Each ad consisted of three pages. The first page was solid black with a die cut and small bit of copy under­neath giving you a small glimpse of the illus­tration on the third page. The die cut was over a vivid pink sky I had painted in the illustration,which happened to be a picture of a heli­copter flying over very rough terrain bringing a fully assembled aluminum trans­mission tower to its permanent site. With in the illus­tration I chose to paint a hot pink sky for visual impact. I thought I could get away with it. Upon delivery of my art to Y&R, I was confronted by one account exec reviewing my illus­tration. ”Wow” was his remark. “Why the pink sky?” “For visual impact” was my response.” Yeah but skies are blue” he said with a very serious tone to his voice “We will let let you know if they approve it”

Previ­ously I had been told by Don Sternloff a creative director at Y&R that Henry Kaiser himself viewed and approved all corporate identity ads. Two days later I received a phone call from the agency ”Henry Kaiser loved the illus­tration pink sky and all” I was told. ”I knew he would like it” I responded” “What made you so sure?” I was asked. Having worked at Kaiser Graphic Arts right out of Art Center College, before opening my studio in San Fran­cisco, I was aware of Kaisers affinity for the color pink. I told the caller from Y&R all of Henry Kaiser’s Perme­nente Cement trucks in Cali­fornia were painted a hot pink. On another occassion I viewed an article in Archi­tectual Digest Magizine about Henry Kaisers home in Hawaii as well as a suite of rooms he kept at the Fair­mount Hotel. The color PINK was dominate in the décor.

So when it came to painting the sky pink in my illus­tration, not only was pink used for visual impact, I thought how could I miss with Kaiser’s taste for PINK!