Stephen Drew Paley (born March 2, 1942,
New York City, United States) is an American photographer, radio producer, television producer,
music supervisor
A music supervisor is a person who combines music and visual media. According to The Guild of Music Supervisors, a music supervisor is “a qualified professional who oversees all music related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games ...
and actor.
His photographs have appeared in ''
Life'', ''
Look
To look is to use sight to perceive an object.
Look or The Look may refer to:
Businesses and products
* Look (modeling agency), an Israeli modeling agency
* ''Look'' (American magazine), a defunct general-interest magazine
* ''Look'' (UK ma ...
'', ''
Vogue'', ''
Newsweek'', ''
Rolling Stone'', ''
The New York Times'' and ''
Vanity Fair,'' and in the books ''The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll''. and ''Shooting Stars'' (edited by Annie Leibovitz) and ''Wild: Fashion Untamed '' (published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press). Paley has shot album covers for (among others)
The Allman Brothers,
Cher
Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the Honorific nicknames in popular music, "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female ...
,
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...
,
Cream,
Sly and the Family Stone,
Laura Nyro,
Wilson Pickett,
Lulu,
MC5,
J. Geils Band,
Iron Butterfly,
Memphis Horns and
The Sweet Inspirations. Paley was one of the “special magazine photographers” on the films, ''
Midnight Cowboy'' and ''
Paint Your Wagon''.
Paley's many arts and entertainment pieces were broadcast on
National Public Radio (1984–91). ''Callas In Her Own Words'', the four-hour radio documentary Paley produced and edited about the life and career of the soprano
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
was broadcast on
WFMT in Chicago (2002) and an earlier version was heard on
KUSC in Los Angeles (1988), and on many other stations around the country and the world. For KCRW, Santa Monica's public radio station, Paley produced three-hour radio programs on
David Raksin (2004),
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. (June 1, 1921 – October 6, 1985) was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many world-famous vocalists at Capitol Records ...
(1986) and
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...
’s years as a rhythm and blues label (1987).
For
KCET
KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE-TV ...
, Los Angeles’s public television station, Paley produced a series of programs on 1950s
Googie architecture with the writer
Alan Hess (1986).
At
Warner Bros. studios, Paley was head of music for
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures (legal name Orion Releasing, LLC) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Amazon through its Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) subsidiary. In its original operating period, the company produced and released films ...
and
The Ladd Company (1979–1983), supervising music for the films ''
Arthur'', ''
Excalibur'', ''
Caddyshack'', ''
Wolfen'', ''
Night Shift'', ''
Chariots of Fire'', ''
Blade Runner'', and ''
The Right Stuff''. He executive produced the Academy Award-winning song, "Arthur's Theme," and then commissioned
Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...
and
Carole Bayer Sager to write the
Grammy
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...
-winning song "
That's What Friends Are For" for the ''Night Shift'' soundtrack where it was introduced by
Rod Stewart
Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling ...
. Paley gave composer
Thomas Newman his first theatrical movie to score
(''Reckless") and hired
James Horner to compose his first important film score for
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...
's first directorial effort (''
The Hand'').
For ten years (1974–1984), Paley compiled and edited the music that accompanied many of
Diana Vreeland's exhibitions at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. ("Romantic & Glamorous Hollywood", "American Woman of Style", "The Glory of Russian Costume", "Diaghilev," "Fashions of the Hapsburg Era", "The Manchu Dragon", "The 18th Century Woman", "La Belle Epoque", and "YSL" on Yves St. Laurent.) When Vreeland died, in 1989, Paley was asked by the Met to produce the music for her memorial service.
Paley was Director of Talent Acquisition for
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America
Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, also known as SCA), is the American arm of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group ...
(1970–1975) where he was the A & R (Artists and Repertoire) liaison to
Sly and the Family Stone.,
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He rose to prominence with the Yardbirds and after fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to a mainly instrumental style, with a focus ...
and
Rupert Holmes. Among the gold records Paley worked on were Sly and the Family Stone's "Family Affair" and "If You Want Me to Stay",
The Looking Glass's "Brandy" and "Jimmy Loves Mary-ann," along with "Superstition", which Paley hired
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
to write and produce for guitarist
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He rose to prominence with the Yardbirds and after fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to a mainly instrumental style, with a focus ...
, but the record turned out so well that Stevie Wonder kept it for himself!
For
CBS's ''
Camera Three'' (1976), Paley produced and co-wrote, with
Frank Rich, ''Anatomy of a Song'', a television program that examined
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...
’s creative process of writing a song (1976) and Paley produced the first television biography of composer
Bernard Herrmann. (1976). Paley was also a segment producer for the
ABC News television magazine program ''
20/20'' (1979–1980).
At nineteen, Paley was directed by
George Abbott on
Broadway in a featured role in
Hal Prince’s production of ''
Take Her, She's Mine
''Take Her, She's Mine'' is a 1963 American comedy film starring James Stewart and Sandra Dee based on the 1961 Broadway comedy written by Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron. The film was directed by Henry Koster with a screenplay by Nunnally Jo ...
'' with
Art Carney,
Phyllis Thaxter and
Elizabeth Ashley (1961–1962).
References
External links
Flickr.comCamera Three: Hirshhorn, Man And Museum (TV) Still photographs by Stephen Paley*
ttps://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/14/books/books-of-the-times-warhol-on-warhol-as-dictated-by-warhol.html?scp=6&sq=stephen%20paley&st=cse Nytimes.comSelect.nytimes.com*
ttp://www.discogs.com/search?q=Stephen+Paley&type=all&btn=Search Discogs.comIbdb.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paley, Stephen
American photographers
1942 births
Living people