Original subtitles

(birds chirping)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] What I often ask girls,

is that they describe the body, their body.

Because mostly they are very honest about it.

So you do that.

Breasts, legs, everything.

- [June] He loves big women.

Statues, paintings, sculptures, live ones,

especially live ones, because he can manipulate them.

He can control every muscle in their bodies.

- There's a kindness in your look.

It is the last thing I want.

Keep the head straight onto me, the chin down.

(dramatic music)

What is important.

It hasn't got, hasn't got any guts yet, you know.

Now don't look poverty-stricken, look incredible.

There.

First of all, most photographers are terribly boring people.

And the films of photographers that I've seen

are terribly boring, because they show a guy behind a cam,

they show his back, they show the camera,

and we hear the click, click, click of the shutter

and the dumb talk that goes on

between a model or a sitter and the photographer.

- [Reporter] World famous photographer Helmut Newton

died today in a car crash in West Hollywood.

- [Reporter] (speaking in foreign language)

♪ You've done it all, you've broken every code ♪

♪ And pulled the rebel to the floor ♪

♪ You spoiled the game, no matter what you say ♪

♪ For only metal, what a bore ♪

♪ Blue eyes, blue eyes ♪

♪ How can you tell so many lies? ♪

♪ Come up and see me, make me smile ♪

♪ Or do what you want, running wild ♪

- I'm not gonna tell you all that.

No way!

No way!

I've got to keep something up my sleeve,

for people that have more money than you.

(upbeat music)

♪ Come up and see me, to make a-me smile, oh ♪

♪ Or do what you want, run on wild ♪

- (speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

- I watched everything.

I watched when he waited for the light

to come down at a certain time.

And then it would be very quick

and then get the picture because the light

is coming of the shadows that are moving across,

are going, and he worked a lot with a natural,

with a natural light with me.

And you know he had,

he was a little bit pervert, but so am I so it's okay.

(Grace laughs)

And his pictures, you know, they are erotic

and also with dimensions.

It was just not erotic

but it had suggestion in depths of a story.

They told stories.

Like you know I remember he put one knife in my hand.

And it was beautiful where I am laying naked on a cot.

And the light is coming across, you know.

And it's funny the shadow just covered the part here.

He waited until the shadow just covered here

so there was never vulgar, never vulgar.

Always in beautiful taste.

And not something to take away from the story.

It added to his story.

I'm thinking, what am I doing with this knife?

And he waits until the light comes and hits the knife

so I'm holding it like this

but there is no one else in the picture.

So it leaves to your imagination.

(dramatic music)

♪ You got my attention baby ♪

♪ And I can't make a move ♪

♪ Like a child I starve for love ♪

♪ I'll stand there as long as I have to ♪

- [Helmut] Sometimes when I do portraits

of people that have either

political power or financial power or sexual power.

It's a, they make very good subjects for my camera.

♪ I'm so in love with you girl ♪

♪ You make me feel brand new ♪

- (speaking in foreign language)

♪ Baby if you run away ♪

♪ Baby if you leave ♪

- So the first time he photographed me

was with David Lynch.

David looking at me and I have my eyes closed

and David is holding my face as a, as an artist,

he is looking at an object and now telling her,

the puppet, what she should do,

you know it was completely on the idea

of the director as the author and the actress as,

as the puppet that express,

and in a certain way it's true you express the idea.

When you work with David Lynch

or you work with Helmut Newton,

they are not photographing you,

they are photographing an idea that is in their heads

and you are the vehicle.

So you have to make yourself available or say no.

- The poor thing,

I could start crying when I'm seeing her.

You should do this and just look to the camera like that.

Okay?

(dramatic music)

Do it on your side.

Your feet together, a bit closer to the,

go on, a bit more, a bit more, now with those two hands.

That's right, that's right.

Stick your bottom out a bit that's nice, that's good!

That's good!

Chin down a little bit.

There, like that.

Same thing now with a smile.

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

Now I want you to not smile, but look dangerous.

Very vampy.

That's good, that's perfect.

- Well, I think it is the work of Helmut

that gave on the courage,

because if you were giving an assignment to Helmut,

you obviously were not gonna receive

a pretty girl on a lovely beach.

That's just not what it was about.

I mean you ask Helmut to take on an assignment

the way you would ask, you know,

an Irving, Irving Penn for something that was,

what Phillis and I call a stopper in the magazine,

something that people would remember,

that was hopefully iconic, and, maybe sometimes disturbing,

but certainly thought provoking so we.

Maybe you might consider it brave,

I personally considered it necessary,

because I think so much of what we do,

when we work in fashion, is attractive and lovely,

and what Alex Libermann would call visions of loveliness,

but to contrast with all of that,

I think you really do need work that talks

about the culture at large and is thought provoking

and different and sometimes upsets people.

(dramatic music)

- [Nadja] (speaking in foreign language)

Politically not correct.

(speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

- [Phyllis] Helmut loved chickens,

he loved to photograph chickens.

So I called him up and I said,

explained that we were doing this article

on fried chicken and would he

be interested in doing a picture.

There was a very brief silence and he said,

I've always wanted to photograph

a chicken wearing high heels.

So we got the heels from the Doll Museum in Paris

and sent them to Monte-Carlo

and I got off the plane, went straight to his apartment

to see what he wanted to do, and how he wanted to do it

his assistant was there, waiting for me.

We sent four pairs of shoes, he had chosen two.

They were in a bag, and his assistant

was waiting to walk me up the hill to his butcher.

He didn't blink, he didn't flinch.

He was in his blood-covered apron

and he said, yes, of course

and I tried the shoes on every chicken in the case.

And I took the chicken with the best legs

and brought them back to Helmut

and he shot them in his kitchen.

- Yes, he did, he did in that wonderful days of

faxes, and he wrote dear Anna,

I want to thank you for having the courage

to publish my chicken, most gratifying to me.

Look forward to the reader's letters.

He loved to hear about the reader's letters,

the worse they were, the better.

As Kaiser Wilhelm II said in 1914,

more enemies, more honour!

Love as ever from your favourite old naughty boy, Helmut.

- (speaking in foreign language)

When I take pictures, somebody said Helmut

is like a dog that's looking for place to pee.

Before he takes a picture,

he goes around until he finds a place to photograph.

I've already sniffed it out, I know where I go.

I know where I'm gonna pee.

(speaking in foreign language)

- Wise words from the Altmeister der Fotografie.

Everybody remembers a bad picture.

Nobody remembers the pain that everybody

went through to get a good picture.

Pain is forgotten, but a bad picture is never forgotten.

So you might as well have pain

for everybody and get a good picture.

Spread our, Eric, spread your fingers on her ass.

That's it, there I like that.

♪ Come and see me, make me smile ♪

- Eric, your lips must be closed, always.

Turn your head, more profile.

Excellent.

- [Woman] He has to open and close his lips to breathe.

- [Helmut] Oh yeah, well tell him he can breathe.

Close your lips, stay like that.

Eric, if you get a hard-on all the better,

you get more money.

Beautiful.

Spread your, Vanessa, spread your fingers more.

Good, beautiful.

Eric, if you want to breathe, you breathe.

I love the hand on the cock.

I'm gonna send that to Anna, she's gonna have a fit.

Cover of Vogue Magazine.

(upbeat music)

- When I first met him,

when I was starting off in London

and he was a great friend of one of the editors

that I was working with at the time, Willie Landels,

and he was this mythic figure

and I was, you know, just beginning

and there was a shoot scheduled and I was actually,

it was in, I think it was going to be in California

and he had this idea about putting covers on the cars

and the girls would be in the garage,

two things that I think he liked to do a lot.

And I was so terrified at the idea

of having to work with him that I lied

and said that I was sick and I sent my assistant,

because I was too terrified at the idea

of working with the great Helmut Newton.

- Make it almost look natural.

That it's a little bit more than that, you know.

Yeah.

Look at me, bring that coke to you.

Stop, stop, stop.

Yeah, just the expression like that.

Don't move, don't move.

Hang on.

- [Anna] I think of course a Helmut Newton's woman

was very strong, she was provocative, she was in charge.

She was often tall, she was often blonde.

She had a strong lipstick.

I mean, unmistakably a Helmut Newton woman.

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

- Helmut explained, exposed a lot of the men feeling.

You know I don't think his comment was so much

about the women as much as his own feeling.

I like you, damn you.

I like you and, you know, I shouldn't like you.

Cause you are a weapon.

(dramatic music)

I do consider myself a feminist.

But I do consider that the expression of machismo,

it's an expression of the culture.

Now Helmut of course, he wasn't just simply macho,

it was more complicated than that.

But he does look at women as a sexual object

and also an attraction and an anger towards her.

And I think that's very macho.

Men that are attracted to women and then resent women,

because they are attracted to them,

so they make them vulnerable.

That is intolerable.

And then there is that, you are the devil, you know.

But I think it's very interesting,

because it reveals a culture

and if Helmut represented partially that culture, why not?

I mean, it exists and thank god artists

were able to express it.

There is no neutrality, there is no right and wrong,

everything is tinted with a point of view.

(dramatic music)

(people speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

- [Nadja] (speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

- It's the vision he has.

And when you have a vision creatively,

you don't have necessarily lived that vision.

It doesn't have to be you,

it's actually usually very much not you.

I mean, a lot of people thought a lot of things

about me after The Night Porter and other films,

they couldn't be more wrong about me as a person,

but that doesn't matter.

I couldn't care less what, I know what I am.

But what you actually produce is an art form,

like Helmut the visuals, that we had,

you could imagine all these things and how great that is.

That's what art needs to have.

It needs to have you coming in to imagine.

And then immediately you say,

oh, but he is probably really weird,

you know, he is doing this and that and that also.

That's only gonna kind of sort of fuel

the whole thing more so it's good.

It's great to be a provocateur.

That's what the world needs.

The form of provocation cause it stimulates thoughts,

it stimulates ideas and it stimulates

all sorts of actually conversations that don't

really have anything to do with the man himself.

And who cares for the man himself?

We're looking at his art.

(dramatic music)

- I really wasn't aware that it made such a big scandal.

I know basically, I kind of heard around a bit

oh, sexism and racism, but I never felt bad at all.

You know.

I mean it's like, again, acting.

In films, these things really did exist,

being in chains, I never saw it like that.

Because you know, sometimes you can go through

a period of experimenting even sexually, you know.

I mean, I've tied up guys before.

White guys.

(Grace laughs)

Big white guys!

I don't want to say who, but.

(Grace laughs)

I'm standing in this empty truck.

Just standing like very dominant

and Dolph is standing down

and I'm just looking down at him like this.

I am kind of getting into Helmut's head, you know,

and it's more of the black and white.

Because, and, because you know he had Dolph

kind of looking like the worker

behind a fence and he cannot get to me.

So in a lot of these pictures

it's like he wants me but I'm not available.

I am so close and in his face

but there is this distance still, you know.

Until the one of course where he

is holding and I'm looking behind.

(dramatic music)

♪ I've been looking so long at these pictures of you ♪

♪ That I almost believe that they're real ♪

♪ I've been living so long with my picture of you ♪

♪ That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel ♪

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

- [June] I'm often asked, if I'm jealous

of the girls he photographs.

It's the job, it's his livelihood.

It's how he makes his living.

It's more than a job.

It's a passion, an obsession.

- [Helmut] That's it!

- [June] He's obsessed.

- I never saw Helmut as like, the womaniser.

He would probably come off to be from his pictures.

This was not Helmut.

But if you see his pictures,

you would think this guy is just like.

Yeah, come on, baby!

(Grace laughing)

You know, his amazing fantasies

and his beautiful creative mind, you know.

And loving the beauty of women, I saw that, you know.

(dramatic music)

- I got the contact sheet, yeah.

At the time also, as we were sort of opening up

at the same time, in you know, me my way

and his own his way and we actually came together there,

made these extraordinary images very quickly.

There was a kind of magic there, freedom of,

we were on a cusp of something

we were about to launch and so there was no.

There was, yeah.

All the things later sort of

became different but that was,

there was a real beauty there, yeah.

(dramatic music)

For the ones that we did in Nord-Pinus Hotel, the nudes,

I think they're some of the most

amazing photos of me, absolutely.

And they are, focuses something about the child in there.

It's almost like the child sort of not

really wanted to reveal who she is,

which is what I was at that time.

In was in about, in my late 20s.

And, there's something rebellious about it, saying

oh, not too close, you know, I will do it my terms.

You do it my terms, I'll do it my terms.

You photograph me, but I will do

as I want in this photo as a model.

Which I have always done.

It has always been the way I actually worked

in this business, it's like that.

So all that began, there was something very,

there was something very exciting in the

making of the image of myself.

Because I never really thought about it before.

You know, now we think about the image all the time,

all the time, but there I hadn't really thought about it.

I was acting, I was doing these

interesting films, I was,

and suddenly I was actually seeing

what an image can do and how important it can be.

And if you start with an image like Helmut Newton did me,

in that hotel, at that time, at the age I had,

when you start out with that,

I'd just done The Night Porter.

So these images went beautifully with that.

So you start to create

something that you hadn't even imagined.

Whereas now you do imagine it, but then it was all natural.

We were just sort of figuring it out.

(dramatic music)

He'd never really done nudes, I'd never really done nudes.

He said, it doesn't matter whether you're nude or not,

just be there and just stand there, just do that,

stand in front of the window, go on the bed,

just sort of give me attitude, he said.

Which I did.

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

- [June] When I asked him,

if he realised how deeply subversive he was,

if the anarchy was intentional

or if he was just a naughty boy,

he said he is a naughty boy, who grew up to be an anarchist,

but he is still a naughty boy

and he will always be a naughty boy.

- [Helmut] She shakes her head too much.

- [Woman] Sorry.

(people speaking in foreign language)

- [Helmut] Will you ever forgive me?

- It was actually extraordinary

that Helmut was accepted by the industry.

Because he was much more dangerous,

much more ambiguous and frightening

than an Avedon or a Penn.

And I think he was accepted,

because probably it was the right time.

It was the 60s, the sexual revolution,

he did photograph women nude

and there was a twist to it

and it was a moment where society was accepting nudity as,

I mean, we can also talk about Robert Mapplethorpe

who is younger than Helmut Newton

and photographed male mostly naked, but,

that was where the artists were.

It had been very long taboo for many years

to see the naked body and now we could see it,

but the naked body is not just naked.

The naked body is a temptation, or a it's fear,

it's an embarrassment, it's many things.

And each photographer photographs one aspect of it.

(dramatic music)

- [Nadja] (speaking in foreign language)

- I don't think anyone else could have made me do that.

Helmut made me show my tits in that way,

without feeling any embarrassment.

Or shame or anything.

I was rather prudish, I think I still am.

You know, I was brought up by nuns in a catholic convent.

It took me years to decompress and get over that, really.

And Helmut was one of the first people I met

who didn't have any of those hang-ups.

It was the very first session I did with him.

I was living in a basement in Chelsea

with my second husband, my punk husband Ben

in frightful squalor you know, we had nothing, no money.

And I borrowed Ben's leather jacket to do this.

I, I took it with me, and he loved it.

And that's all he wanted,

for me just to wear the leather jacket.

That's why it looks like that.

(dramatic music)

That second picture really is my soul.

Definitely, my external, you know,

what I was wearing, really didn't matter, you know.

I made it into something else.

And he saw that and took that picture.

(dramatic music)

- I was very shy and I just turned 17

and there was never a moment where I felt uncomfortable.

It was just an amazing experience where I walked away,

saying, this man is incredible.

He had a little bit of a twinkle in his eye,

that nothing was serious,

everything understated and very witty.

So him putting together a mis-en-scene like this,

he just thought about it in the moment.

And he thought it was interesting,

'cause, I think, considering that I looked so innocent

and, you know, it was a funny thing to put us together

like this and he's offering me sweets

as if I don't know him.

That was very much typical him,

because he thought of things off the moment.

(dramatic music)

Definitely, when I look at the pictures,

it's definitely not me.

So it's his imagination and it's my imagination.

I love the fact that I can be this different

through his lens and play around in different people,

different character roles.

I think he was trying to look for

the different facets of who I could be.

There's one is the Dirndl which represents

very much the German girl and then, the sexy girl as well

and then the sort of the night time,

the darkness of fashion I think, that was always my take

of that, for that was representing sort of

the darkness of fashion and, and what else there is to it.

And, so I think for me it was just sort

of the woman in different, different places.

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

Okay.

Yes, push, push, push.

Yeah, the head more to me.

- A twinkle in the eye, coming from Helmut

with some fun setups he had thought of last minute.

The husband's posing with the lover,

and they're behind the door.

- [Helmut] That's great, that's great.

Go, go, go!

- Which is very Helmut Newton.

And again, this is how you recognise also

his photos cause it's that, it's the high fashion

come together with a, an interesting angle

of some kind and together with sexiness.

- [Helmut] That's good, chin down a bit, Claudia.

Down, down, a bit more to me.

Not too much.

There, perfect!

- That was quite funny,

because they looked for anyone who could play

the role of the maid with her head in the oven.

They literally went to a university

and asked for any students

who would be willing to come on board.

And I remember the girl arrived

and had no idea who Helmut Newton was

and what was about to going, what at was about to happen.

And was a bit surprised when she was asked

to put her head into the oven now for the picture

and I was just standing behind her,

which made us all laugh, including her.

- Listen, get her the telephone number,

we'll call, get her telephone number, we'll call on that.

Hello?

Just one minute.

What are you speaking, English or French?

Okay.

The what?

No, no, I don't speak Spanish,

I speak English, French and German.

But, alright, now I tell you something,

I'm in the middle of a meeting, you gotta be quick.

- (speaking in foreign language)

- And you, you're on?

Good, film this girl!

Go closer, go closer!

This is perfect.

Look how pretty they look.

Mostly Berlin, because the sun comes out very rarely.

So they have a somewhat unhealthy blueish-white skin.

Which, I think, is great.

And they have beautiful, Slav' lips,

and the high cheek bones and they're well-built.

They're funny, because all Berliners are funny.

The rest of the Germans are boring.

But Berliners have got something.

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

- I think he was Weimar.

That's how I think of him, like connected to Brecht

and Weill and all that wonderful George Grosz.

You know, that wonderful period of German art.

Expressionism, that was Helmut.

(upbeat music)

- I loved my parents, they were great.

Very different, the influence on me,

my mother was a very spoiled woman

and quite hysterical in many ways,

but pretty wonderful, pretty wonderful.

And very encouraging, she encouraged me very much

to become a photographer.

My father was, he was horrified by the idea.

He was, oh, Jesus, none of my sons!

One son became a, a farmer and the other one

wanted to be a photographer.

I mean, what a downturn in the family, you know.

You take pictures for the weekend, for a hobby, my boy.

You'll end up in the gutter, my boy.

And he was right, I did.

But it was a good time in the gutter.

I was determined, I wasn't gonna grow up to make buttons,

you know, it wouldn't interest me to go into dad's business.

(upbeat music)

My mother used to chase me with my gouvernante

into the Stadtpark, in the Schöneberger Stadtpark here,

for two and a half hours, every day.

I really hated this park, but it has memories.

This fence has not changed.

And I had a, one of those push rollers

that kids have, made of wood.

And I come down the hill, at great speed,

and I see a little girl, I think I was,

I must've been six years old.

I turn around to the little girl

and, of course, I slip, the roller on the floor,

and me, I'm landing on this fence with my wrist.

Wrist was broken, came home screaming.

You shouldn't turn around and look at girls.

(upbeat music)

When I was thirteen, Hitler came to power

and very soon, one was surrounded by Nazi imagery.

(upbeat music)

Everybody knows I'm a Jew and that's fine.

But imagine a kid, that's a crazy one.

Pictures, and all he wants to do is look at the pictures,

and all he sees is Nazi pictures

and the way, you know, the glorification.

Like Leni Riefenstahl.

I mean, she did a very good job

for the government, for the Nazis.

An excellent job, nobody could have done a better job,

because she is also a bloody genius.

- (speaking in foreign language)

- Helmut photographed women

as Leni Riefenstahl would have photographed men.

There was something powerful and beautiful

and frightening and also repellent, and you know.

And I'm sure you could read that in his photo.

(dramatic music)

You see that is a German thing,

you see this research, that Nazi promoted about

the beauty of the white, all the perfection of the body,

the inferiority of a race in comparison to another race.

You feel hints to this.

And, and, and you still,

and you still feel that he's working,

that he's, in his brain Helmut is working out all this.

- Uh-huh, go on, yeah, and again, uh-huh.

People have accused me of, even now,

having a certain influence.

And I say, well, it's natural, you grow up with it.

I mean, you also grew up with the knowledge

that the Nazis would come and put you in,

you gotta cross the road, if you crossed at a red light,

it's likely you'd end up in a concentration camp.

I mean it was a scary time.

But, you know, kids are different.

Kids seem to have a strength.

We knew it was dangerous.

You know, there were the Nuremberg laws

about not, well, you even,

had to have Jewish girlfriends

and we weren't supposed to be with what they called Aryan.

So, it was all a strange time.

(singing in foreign language)

- One thing I never forget, I went out with a girl

to where the, the barrier was

and I hung onto the barrier

and I undressed her underwater.

And I was thrown out of the, out of the, the, the pool.

There, there's always the, you know, guy comes,

like a, a lifesaver, comes by

and I was thrown out and I was forbidden to come back.

And then of course, they had signs on,

Jews and dogs not allowed.

That didn't stop me, 'cause I liked swimming.

This is my friends and my girlfriends.

I did a lot of of photographs of my friends.

I tried to do fashion pictures, like what I saw in Vogue.

Then I wanted to become a Rasender Reporter.

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

- I learned everything, the craft, I was an apprentice.

A true apprentice, I learned to negative retouch,

I learned how to light in the studio,

you know, I learned to respect a piece of film.

That was a very happy time.

In two years, that woman was wonderful, wonderful.

I worshipped the ground she tread on.

(dramatic music)

I ran in the day and I tried to hide at night.

But some people were very kind to me

and some of the kind people were party members

that really stuck their neck out, their necks out

and there were people that were,

their cellars were filled with Jews.

But how many good Germans were there?

Like, every German says, you know,

there were sixty million Germans.

And everyone says I know a nice Jew.

There must have been sixty million nice Jews,

but they got word of them anyway.

That's not all those nice Jews.

(dramatic music)

I left on fifth of December, 1938, for Trieste,

to catch a ship to China.

That was, I can remember the name of the ship,

it was called the Conte Rosso, Lloyd Triestinno ship.

I never made it to China, I got hung up in Singapore.

I was at the Straits Times

and I was such a bad reporter

that I got thrown out after two weeks.

On the streets without a penny.

I was too slow.

By the time I had my little run, I call set,

everything had fizzled, the event had gone.

- (speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

- Yes, it was, I walked into his studio

and I was sitting in his little front waiting room,

I suppose you'd call it.

And I was looking at the pictures

on the wall that were absolutely wonderful.

Things I'd never see before in Australia.

And all of a sudden I thought, this man must be very old.

Thought he was a very old man.

And then the door opened and in walked this

marvellous looking, wonderful, bright-looking man.

And that was the first time.

(dramatic music)

I did indeed do a little modelling

for a knitting book called The New Idea.

I never got paid, they never paid me anything.

But he married me instead or I married him instead.

- June had a lot of authority, she ran the set.

And Helmut seemed like a little boy

that was playing with his toys

and she gave him the toys to play with.

So she had more authority than Helmut.

And Helmut was very comical,

he was laughing, it was playful.

So actually, after I worked with him I started

to see the lightness in his photos.

The photos were frightening,

but there was also a sense of humour about it.

So we had a lot of fun at the Hotel Rafael,

doing the second shoot, where he made me quite sexy.

I remember, there is a photo of me with a,

I mean, I'm not nude, but my legs are naked,

I have a very big décolleté

and I look like a high class girl from Madame Claude,

or something like that, the biggest brothel in Paris.

(Isabella chuckles)

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

There's an old Rolleiflex,

there, there's Erich von Stroheim,

my hero, one of my heroes.

There's a.

The iron virgin.

(dramatic music)

Your left hand more to the other hand.

No, no, that's, there, that's it.

Beautiful, stay there, Larissa, stay.

Open the door a bit, Carla.

It's good.

Now, your head was, much better, Carla, before.

Like this, stay.

And I've got 10,000 dollars,

to buy more diamonds for my Juni

(dramatic music)

- I think they were everything together.

I mean, I think this is the dream

of every couple in life, no?

To have met your perfect person

that you respect and you can work with,

build something together, is wonderful.

And even when they had difficult times,

as we all know, you know,

June was doing her little revenges on him,

you know, like every couple.

She was in a hotel in Paris

and he was downstairs waiting for her,

I think a couple of days.

- [Helmut] That's never happened.

Now they've had it, look.

- [June] Show me.

Show me, show me.

Wait, wait.

Wait, wait, wait, I wanna see those,

how far they've had it, yeah, they've had it.

Oh, Helmi!

Oh, well.

How long have you had them, Hel?

- Oh, I don't know.

A long time.

- [June] They look like as you've had them for a long time.

- [Helmut] They're Perry Ellis.

- [June] You got them in Carnaby Street,

I think, in the 70s.

- No, no, no, I got them at Robinson's Los Angeles.

- [June] What, in 1980?

How old would you say the sweater is?

Let's have a look at the sweater, Helmi.

Let's have a look at it.

Here, that's it.

Especially the bottom of it, that's right.

Wait, wait, I'll get your legs.

Yeah, how long do you think you're gonna

have to keep the sweater for?

- I hope forever.

This is my beach sweater.

- [June] Is this your beach sweater?

- It's pure Cashmere.

- [June] It's not, it's just lamb's wool.

- That is not, the other one is lamb's wool.

This is pure Cashmere.

- [June] That is lamb's wool, Helmi,

you don't know the difference

between lamb's wool and Cashmere.

- You wanna feel it, feel it.

- [June] It's Cashmere.

Why are you always right?

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] (speaking in foreign language)

- I think for a moment Helmut regretted it.

I think it was when Karl said

Helmut, it's very wonderful, but are you sure?

It's very courageous of you, but are you sure?

And Helmut wasn't sure for a moment.

But we've both relaxed into it.

I, I think it's marvellous that they

just haven't been stuck in an album.

(dramatic music)

- [Helmut] June?

- I'd say there is love between us, but I don't think it,

if it shows in the pictures, all the better.

But there is love,

there's a lot of love in the pictures

that he took of me in the hospital.

Because the only way he could see me in the hospital

was to have the camera between the two of us.

So when he came in after the operation,

you see those pictures out there,

he said Juni, throw the bed sheet away.

And I said, I can't, I haven't the strength.

I can't throw anything away.

And he said just, and he had no idea

what he was going to see.

And I pulled it off very slowly.

And I thought he was going to faint.

But he didn't, only because he already

had the camera in front of his eyes.

And was able to start clicking.

So of course there's love in that.

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

- That's how he copes with all

the operations that he goes through.

And especially if these heart attacks that he's had,

I think they're over now,

but the only thing that kept him going

was the little camera that was by his side.

To photograph the nurses and the doctors

and everything that was happening to him.

He even took it into the operating room.

And as he was wheeled by, I was sitting,

waiting in the alley, wherever it was,

and they wheeled him by and the nurse said,

one nurse said to the other,

what is he gonna do with the camera?

And the other one said,

he thinks, he's gonna photograph himself.

And they roared with laughter as they wheeled him past.

Yes, it is a protection.

(people chattering)

- [June] Do you still like the picture, Hel?

- I love the picture.

It's amazing.

I love the look on that girl's face

and that false breasts and all that.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [June] But look.

(chattering in foreign language)

- She was so influential in everything that he did.

I mean women were always the driving force

in any of his photographs,

but I think in terms of being a muse

or being someone who's council and advise and opinion

he always sought, it was always June.

He needed his mother.

(people speaking in foreign language)

- You're gonna see more night pictures now,

because I love night.

It's my, the influence of Brassai

that is still coming through.

Even after all those years, you know, it's,

the night has a special mystery for me.

And he was a great master of the night.

I'm not bad.

(dramatic music)

(speaking in foreign language)

Very, very sexy.

(dramatic music)

- It was just him and me.

He didn't tell anything about what he wanted.

I just look at his eyes and I knew what he wanted.

And it was, we had this connection so special,

you could, that's the atmosphere, it was so.

(dramatic music)

With other photographers, you know,

when you are young and not so bad,

you know, they try to, you know.

But with him it was so much respect.

There was never a mention about the,

he's trying to, you know.

It was, I had so much respect.

It's not like a father, but like a,

it's very difficult to say.

I felt, I felt good, I felt safe.

It was like, I don't know,

doing a cinema, the story, you know.

And he made me feel like a one million dollar baby.

The feeling that Helmut gave me

when he was photographing is huge power.

So when I was with furs and jewels and hair

and lipstick and nails, it's just, you go into

a character like, you know.

Like you have all the nails and these are the nails

on skin and all that sort of stuff going on.

Because he's penetrating,

he's actually getting inside of you.

He's getting inside the part of you

that's really interesting and bringing it out.

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

(speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

- This is a very favourite picture.

But it has a lot of reference to my life.

It's photographed in the Vogue studios in Paris

where I spent years and years and years.

And then June dropped in, we were gonna have lunch

at the canteen together and I hadn't finished.

So she just sat down.

She didn't even know that

she was in the frame of my picture.

She had no idea.

And the whole sheet context is very interesting.

It's June's different expressions

while I was taking these pictures.

- (speaking in foreign language)

(people speaking in foreign language)

- He was fortunate to be working at a time

when designers like Yves Saint Laurent

and Karl Lagerfeld were really at their height.

And they were dressing and giving the designs

of that time were very much a Helmut Newton woman.

And it all sort of came together in the right moment.

(dramatic music)

- (speaking in foreign language)

(dramatic music)

♪ We could be shameless, famous, young and cool ♪

♪ With a look that leave us weightless ♪

♪ Drop dead gorgeous, wow ♪

♪ You got me feeling ♪

- For me, there is a kind of what,

I call modernity about certain women at a certain time.

Means I would choose today, a girl

that would be entirely different from a girl

that I would've chosen, let's say, six years ago.

My, my idea has changed with the change

in what goes on around us.

I never know the type of girl that I want until I see her.

I know the kind of photograph that I want to take.

It's in the back of my mind, it's a little big vague,

like the idea of the girl is vague.

I'd always say, I'll know the girl when I see her.

And most of the girls that I found,

they're generally beginners.

And they have been found through go-sees.

I'm always nice to the girl,

because you ask them to come,

the least you can do is look at the book

and say something nice.

I'm not gonna say, you look like hell.

You look like the back end of a bus,

or your ass is too big or something.

I can't do that, even if she has an ass that's too big.

Some of them sell themselves

really, really, really hard, you know.

Especially American girls are very

forward and very on a hard sell.

What happened in Milan which was funny,

we had a big go-see like the one we were gonna have here,

we're having here and I mentioned something

about that I need, all the girls were in the room

and I mentioned to one girl that I needed,

I was looking for a girl with a lot of bosom.

And everything was finished, everybody had gone,

the door opens and a girl came back and she said,

I just wanted to show you I've got a lot of bosom.

She opened up her shirt.

Of course that's a hard sell.

- If Helmut asks to see you, your career is made.

That's it, you're on top.

So you get very excited, very excited.

And when I went, he said, he look, oh,

your breasts are too small.

(Grace laughs)

I know, okay, so I went, breasts are too small, okay.

So I left of course, feeling a bit, you know,

the whole build-up to oh, it's Helmut Newton,

it's Helmut Newton, it's God,

you know, it's God calling you!

And then I thought, okay, he's not going to call me back.

Helmut kept calling me back and he said, I forgot!

You have small breasts!

So it's such a crazy story.

Three times, four times.

Because he really, I could tell, he wanted to photograph me.

And finally we worked together.

Playboy wanted to do the shoot with Dolph and I,

because, you know, we had become this.

How do you say, almost like Elizabeth Taylor

and Richard Burton type of couple in Hollywood, you know.

(upbeat music)

- I've been coming here every winter

from December till the end of March.

Loved the climate and then I,

the first time I came which I think was in '56 or '57,

it was with June, it was just,

you know, I felt I was in an American movie.

I love, I love Los Angeles, I love Hollywood.

♪ Wish I was a millionaire ♪

♪ I'd play rock music and grow long hair ♪

♪ I'll tell you boys ♪

♪ I'd buy a new Rolls Royce ♪

♪ Pretty women, they'd come to me ♪

♪ I'd give them all the third degree ♪

♪ I'd give them satin sheets ♪

♪ To keep them off the street ♪

- My girlfriend Penny, I've known her,

now I think I've been, I've been known her for your years.

I've been going there to pump petrol.

What struck me first about Penny

was those fingernails that I called Californian fingernails.

I mean, she's that nice family lady

and she pumps petrol in her own station

and she's got these incredible fingernails.

Thank you, Penny.

- Thank you.

- Have a lovely day.

- You, too.

- Isn't it gorgeous?

- Oh, it's beautiful.

- What's the forecast?

- No rain in sight.

- That's how we like it.

That's how we like it.

- Very good.

Bye, bye, dear.

- Bye, bye.

- See you.

- [Penny] Bye, bye.

- Helmut was completely aware he never,

he never locked himself away the way some

famous people do as they achieve great recognition.

He was always very open to the world and yes,

fashion might've changed and moved on

and we became aware of a new generation of designers.

But I feel that,

because he was such a brilliant photographer

and he had such a strong and intelligent point of view

with that amazing wit,

his pictures remained the same,

not that they were stuck,

but the vision remained a totally identifiably Helmut.

The clothes could've changed, the girls changed,

but the actual image, you could look at any image and say

that's a Helmut Newton photograph.

And there aren't that many photographers

of which you can say that.

- Do you want me to take my clothes off?

I've been living here for, I don't know, 25 or 26 years.

Every year I come here and I'm very fond of it.

(speaking in foreign language)

- (speaking in foreign language)

- Why should I think about it?

When it comes, it'll be too early

or it'll be too late, whatever.

There's nothing I can do about it.

I don't want to spend my time,

I believe in using my time to,

for things that are more positive.

I don't think that death,

as far as I'm concerned, is positive.

♪ I've been looking so long at the pictures of you ♪

♪ That I almost believe that they're real ♪

♪ I've been living so long with my pictures of you ♪

♪ That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel ♪

- Can't pinpoint even one thing if you live through that,

if you live through those times, can you?

I mean, you just, you survive or you don't.

He survived and gave his beautiful work.

Maybe it's, you know, inspired by all sorts of things

that happened or he's seen, then he returns and,

and he does other things, I'm sure.

And thank goodness, so when people say,

he shouldn't be seen and all that.

It's a travesty, because what we do with memory

and what we do with all the things that we actually deny

and when we go into denial about things,

it's because they're too heavy to actually

take on at the time and they come up

through ourselves much later on.

And very often turn into an extraordinary form of art.

Not hard for, not hard for Helmut,

extraordinary creations, what does he want to say?

Extraordinary work, all right.

(dramatic music)

(people speaking in foreign language)

- [Reporter] World famous photographer Helmet Newton,

died today in a car crash in west Hollywood.

(dramatic music)

♪ You've done it all, you've broken every code ♪

♪ And pulled the rebel to the floor ♪

♪ You spoiled the game, no matter what you say ♪

♪ For only metal, what a bore ♪

♪ Blue eyes, blue eyes ♪

♪ How can you tell so many lies? ♪

♪ Come up and see me, make me smile ♪

♪ Or do what you want, running wild ♪

(Helmet singing)

♪ There's nothing left, all gone and run away ♪

♪ Maybe you'll tarry for a while ♪

♪ It's just a test, a game for us to play ♪

♪ Win or lose, it's hard to smile ♪

♪ Resist, resist ♪

♪ It's from yourself you have to hide, oh ♪

♪ Come up and see me, to make a-me smile, oh ♪

♪ Or do what you want, run on wild ♪