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Peter & Alice Gowland in pool with balloons |
For many years, Peter Gowland’s name
has been synonymous with glamour photography. The son of an actor,
Peter was born in Hollywood and became involved with the movie industry
at an early age. After he decided that he preferred doing still
photography to acting, he went on to photograph some of the biggest
stars in Hollywood, interiors of beautiful Los Angeles homes, and
numerous swimsuit models. As a photographer, he has over 1000 magazine
covers, photographs in prestigious publications (including Playboy
centerfolds) and 25 books to his credit. Peter has even designed and
distributed his own brand of cameras, which he still sells to this day.
At 90 years old, he can stand back and look at a most distinguished
photographic career. This Double Exposure Cover Story not only
spotlights his work, but also focuses on his wife, Alice, who has
always been a very integral force behind Peter’s success. Married for
64 years, their marriage and teamwork is truly inspirational.
Peter’s first appearance on the silver screen occurred when he was just
six weeks old in a movie called “Small Magnetic Hand.” His father,
actor Gibson Gowland, was the star of “Greed,” a 1924 silent movie
classic, and he appeared in over 80 films altogether. “He was mostly a
villain in the pictures,” says Peter. “Every time my father was working
on a film, I was on the set all day.” His parents divorced when Peter
was two years old, and his father got custody of him. Although Peter
appeared in numerous films, he discovered that “I was more interested
in talking to the camera crew. I didn’t want to be an actor.” He first
brought a camera onto one of his father’s movie sets when he was around
13. Peter also quickly learned how to capture the “peak of action” by
photographing a child on a swing (this photo is still on his website,
and Alice considers it one of his best images).
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Director Alfred Hitchcock © Peter Gowland |
The Early Years
Alice Adams was born in Pennsylvania and her family moved to California
when she was seven. “The interesting thing is that Peter was born on
Hyperion Avenue [in Hollywood], and my family moved to that same street
when I was 10 years old,” Alice explains. She attended John Marshall
High School, and Peter went to Hollywood High (she is four years
younger). By age 20, Peter knew he wanted to become a professional
photographer. “My mother bought me a new Rolleiflex, and my love of
photography took off from there. I was working in the movies as an
extra and photographed all these actors,” he says. “I took the camera
with me in a paper bag and pretended that it was my lunch, because you
weren’t allowed to take a camera on the set.”
Peter met Alice in 1941, when a young man she was dating brought her to
Peter’s house to be photographed. Alice says, “I didn’t want to go, but
my date said, ‘we’ll just see if he’s home,’ and that’s when we met. I
was very impressed because he had just completely remodeled this
California bungalow.” She was equally impressed by Peter’s beautiful
photograph of a child in the living room and by his darkroom, which he
had converted from a second bedroom. Nonetheless, he didn’t ask her out
right away as she was dating one of his friends.
On December 7th of that year, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Alice’s
family had gone to her aunt’s house, and she was very concerned about
her two brothers in the Navy. Although she was worried and alone, she
remembers, “I used it as an excuse to call Peter because I did want to
see him again.” After that historical event, they began dating. “I got
her into bed two weeks later,” begins Peter, “—By marrying me,” Alice
laughingly interjects. After a brief courtship, the couple was married
on December 21, 1941. In December 2006, the couple will celebrate their
65th wedding anniversary.
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Actress Jayne Mansfield © Peter Gowland |
Innovative Teamwork
Peter was still working as an extra in the movies (“I averaged $35 a
week”), in addition to doing some photography. He began to write
articles for magazines, but didn’t make any money in the early days
because agents took so many cuts from his income. “I needed a writer
because I couldn’t write. So Alice took over this job, because she’s
the one with the brains,” he chuckles. She also learned how to make
photographic proofs. Peter took pictures of numerous celebrities on
movie sets, including Tab Hunter, Lex Barker (Tarzan), Peter Lawford,
Jayne Mansfield, Esther Williams, Joan Collins, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mary Tyler Moore.
Alice says, “I learned about the business of photography that way.”
The Gowlands had their first child, a beautiful baby girl named Anne,
and Alice urged Peter to photograph her. After their initial success
selling these photos to a children’s calendar, Alice said, “See? We can
make money with our pictures.” They registered Anne with Central
Casting (she performed in several movies until the age of six,
when a hair-pulling scene that she was in marked the end of her
career).
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"The Road Back," 1937 © Peter Gowland |
Before he joined the army during WWII, Peter photographed a bathing
beauty on the beach. “He was very handsome and never had trouble
attracting pretty girls,” Alice says. When Peter was sent overseas,
Alice sent the pictures to See magazine. “They paid $200 each for those
pictures—in those days it was good money. There was a good market for
pinups,” says Alice. The couple tried to get an agent in New York but
they weren’t interested in Peter to begin with. “So I just pursued it
on my own,” Alice states. “I’d look up a company and send them [Peter’s
photographs].” Early in his career, Alice and Peter told magazines that
they weren’t as interested in the money as they were with Peter’s name
being on the cover with the picture. “That’s how his name became
better-known. When that happened, the agents called us.”
Branching Out
After Peter returned from Germany, the couple used a G.I. loan to build
a studio on Overland Avenue in Los Angeles. “It was a lucky thing,
because young people today just don’t have the money to do something
like this,” Alice notes. At that time, they were broke. “We slept in
the living room,” Peter recalls. Their early studio clients were
people’s children. Peter branched out to architectural photography
after Alice approached people who owned beautiful homes in the area,
and told them that she worked for The Los Angeles Times (although
she didn’t). “One year alone we had about nine covers of the
newspaper’s Home magazine and the article inside,” Alice says. This led
a contact with another writer who contributed to the Times and other publications, for which Peter also photographed interiors.
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Peter with a display of his magazine covers |
Peter has contributed to magazines like Modern Photography, Popular Photography, Rangefinder, Photo Techniques, Better Homes & Gardens, Pageant,
and many others. Alice enjoyed writing stories, which were illustrated
by Peter’s photographs in some of these publications. Peter has also
photographed nine centerfolds for Playboy,
and the Gowlands once attended parties at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy
mansion. For the first centerfold he shot, $100 was distributed between
the model, film for the shoot, and Alice and Peter. According to Peter,
years later a playmate received an Italian sports car and $100,000.
“Times have changed,” he asserts.
To See a Gallery of Peter Gowland's Images, Click Here
Between Peter’s glamour and architectural photography, clients began
approaching him, rather than the other way around. “We’ve also done 25
books,” reports Peter (the last two books were self-published by the
Gowlands). “There’s an interesting story about the very first book,”
Alice relates. “We received a telegram from Crown Publishing saying ‘we
want you to do a book on how to photograph women—no charge to you.’”
After negotiating a contract that included royalties, Alice and Peter
produced the book in 1953. “It sold like hotcakes,” says Alice. Fawcett
later sold 600,000 copies of Figure Photography, which was the
Gowland’s best selling book.
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Actress Arlene Dahl on the cover of "See" © Peter Gowland |
During the ’60s, a photographic group in Sydney invited Alice and Peter
to come to Australia to do a lecture. Before they left, Playboy
magazine called to ask Peter to photograph the girls of Australia
during their trip. Yet another phone call came from a young man named
Peter Hill who had once worked for a pharmacy when he was 20, before
discovering a colorful book in a trash can in an alley—which turned out
to be the Gowland’s first book, How to Photograph Women. Hill said that
the book was such a great influence on him that he became a top
photographer in Australia. He became Peter’s assistant on his photo
shoots in that country, “and we still get emails from him every week,”
Peter remarks.
Still Active
Peter & Alice reside in Santa Monica, California, in a house
they’ve owned for 51 years. “We bought the lot for $4000 and built a
bridge over a stream to build the house,” Peter explains. “Sometimes
the rain brings rocks and mud into the pool.” Throughout the years, he
has done much of his glamour photography at this pool, and even built
an arched shooting bridge over it, as well as a waterfall. “Nobody
knows that it’s our pool the girls are standing in when they see the
pictures,” says Alice. Numerous celebrities have also been photographed
in the Gowland’s pool over the years.
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Model Tina Peshek © Peter Gowland |
Although they’re no longer accepting photo assignments, Peter and Alice
are nonetheless still active. “Once in a while, I’ll get my 35mm camera
out and shoot some candids,” explains Peter. “I have about 100,000
black-and-white pictures in my files and just as many color shots.
Every time I take a shot now, I feel like I’m taking the same picture
over and over again.” He still sells his cameras by phone and via his
Website, as well as his photographic prints. “We ship several cameras a
month,” Peter says. His camera models average $1000–$6000, which
include the Wide-angle Gowlandflex, Gowland All Moves Pocket View,
medium-format, 4x5 glamour, and 8x10 aerial models. Peter began
designing medium- and large-format cameras soon after they moved to
Santa Monica 50 years ago. “He’s still very involved with his camera
business and gets up first thing in the morning to answer his email,”
says Alice.
“I’ve read some of the comments on the Web about him and his cameras,
and I think they appreciate him because he gives time to people,” Alice
continues. “I once said that when we retired, I wanted him to get out
of the camera business, but it hasn’t happened at all.” Peter says
affectionately, “Alice does 90% of the work around here, and all I do
is sit around and talk.”
You can learn more about Peter and Alice Gowland on his Website, http://www.petergowland.com
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Last Updated: Jul 10th, 2010 - 16:19:44
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