Book focuses on career of Thousand Oaks celebrity photographer Orlando Suero
Mike Harris
During his heyday from the 1950s to the 1980s, Thousand Oaks celebrity photographer Orlando Suero photographed everyone from John and Jacqueline Kennedy to Bridgette Bardot to Jack Nicholson.
But his son, Jim, doesn't feel his father ever got the proper recognition.
Until now, that is.
A career-spanning coffee-table book, Orlando: Photography, was published in late October by German publisher Hatje Cantz.
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Jim Suero, 52, who grew up in Thousand Oaks with his dad and the rest of his family from the mid-1960s to the late-1980s, was a driving force behind the volume.
Jim Suero said his father's 1954 photographs of the Kennedys had been featured in a 2001 book, Camelot at Dawn, but that reflected only one portion of his dad's large body of work.
"I set out to seal my father's legacy" with the new book "and I think I've accomplished that," Jim said recently. "It's been long overdue."
Orlando Suero, 93, who recently returned to Thousand Oaks after years away, is a bit more modest about what his son says is his overdue legacy.
"I don't want to blame anyone for that," said Orlando Suero, who now lives in an elder care home with his wife of 67 years, Peggy. "The fact is I did my photography. It turned into a book. I never intended for it to be turned into a book."
Does Orlando Suero, who stopped shooting in the late 1980s, consider himself famous now?
"Oh, I don't know about that," he said. "But I'm very proud of the book. It's a terrific book."
Orlando Suero, a New York City native, started taking photos in 1939, at the age of 14, using a Kodak Jiffy camera given to him by his father.
He later attended New York Institute of Photography and worked at camera shops and photo labs, including one where he printed the images for renowned photographer Edward Steichen's monumental exhibition "The Family of Man."
One of Orlando Suero's first assignments, in 1954, was to spend five days with Sen. John Kennedy of Massachusetts and his new wife, Jacqueline, at their Georgetown duplex, documenting their everyday lives.
He later went on to photograph some of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, among them Natalie Wood, Michael Caine, Sharon Tate, Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Dennis Hopper and Nicholson.
"Because of his friendly and unaffected approach, his subjects opened up to him and his camera in a way that few others have been able to accomplish," according to the book.
Asked who some of his favorite subjects were, Orlando Suero, a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient, said without hesitation, "Lee Marvin. He was in the Marine Corps like me."
Another favorite was French beauty Bardot, he said.
Orlando: Photography has its roots in work Jim Suero began a few years ago.
"These images have been seen online, but my father's name was never tied to them," said Jim Suero, a forester with California Department of Parks and Recreation, who now lives in Sacramento.
"So that's when I started an Instagram account so at least his name is attached to these images," he said.
The book really began to take shape when Jim reconnected in late 2016 with an old friend, Rod Hamilton, a photographer, independent filmmaker and also a former Thousand Oaks resident.
"Things kind of snowballed from there," Jim said.
Jim Suero and Hamilton spent the next two years putting the book together and are credited as its editors. Jim Suero said Hamilton was as much a driving force behind the volume as he was.
"These photographs have literally been in boxes for decades, and me and Rod started archiving and scanning and organizing them and then got them all together and were able to land with a publisher and bring these photos to light," Jim said.
Many of the photographs were previously unseen, according to the book.
"My dad had been known for his Kennedy photos, but never had his whole body of work, spanning decades, been in a book or on display," Jim said.
"Now it is," he said.