JIM FRANK

Jim Frank (1944) was born in Big Spring, Texas. His Father, Jim Frank Sr was stationed in Big Spring during World War II. His Mother, Anne, a model and aspiring singer, took a train to Texas to marry Jim Sr and soon Jim Frank Jr was born. 

They moved back to NYC, then out west to California, first in La Habra, then Beverly Hills where they settled in 1962. Jim Frank’s father had been a professional football player and got into real estate when they moved to California.  

Jim Frank went to Santa Monica City College and was first introduced to photography working for Playboy photographer Ken Marcus. His first major, and most lasting gig, was shooting for “The Great Life” — a gossip and party column featured on the last page of The Hollywood Reporter for 26 years. Jim Frank’s photography became synonymous with “The Great Life” column throughout the 1970s and 80s.   

Jim Frank’s work during this period captured a unique and otherwise “never before seen” view into the parties and backrooms of Hollywood. Jim was very much part of the scene he was capturing — he was roommates with John Blyth Barrymore (brother of Drew Barrymore) — and his work reflects the intimacy he shared among Hollywood’s best and brightest.   

Jim Frank was a tactician of his craft who also brought artistry and unfettered truth to each frame, while simultaneously capturing both the beauty and essence of his subjects — sometimes in rapid succession. His peerless contact sheets reveal the consistency of his approach.   

The intimacy captured in Jim Frank’s archive is a singular and unique window into the rise and fall of the “New-Hollywood” era. Small crops from The Hollywood Reporter belie the depth of this historic body of work of both cultural and aesthetic quality — Jim Frank’s photographs make you feel the room, they put you there. 

From 1979 to 1981 Jim used the same approach while hanging out at Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace in West Hollywood, a West Coast "Studio 54" as a roller rink. This work was featured in Liberty Ross’  book “Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace 1979-1981” published by Idea Books in 2021.  

After The Hollywood Reporter, Jim Frank moved to People Magazine in the mid-1980s. Instead of intimate shots at parties & premieres, he began photographing the intimate interiors of the “fascinating as well as the famous.”
He also captured the Oscar’s and the Golden Globes and began traveling with celebrity subjects, doing profiles for European Magazines like Hello! 

The work in Jim Frank’s archive, largely unseen outside its original context and available here online for the first time, is a missing link that tells a story about what it was like to be Jim Frank — and what it was like to be in those very exclusive spaces with the most famous people in the world. 

We are very honored to share the legacy of Jim Frank with you.