Photographer Jeremy Cowart enjoys the glitz and pressure and
excitement of celebrity photo shoots, but laments that he never really gets to
connect emotionally with his subjects. That changed in a
big, unexpected way during a recent photo shoot for the cast of a Tyler
Perry-produced show called The Haves and
Have Nots.
One of the cast members is John Schneider, a television star
known for his Dukes of Hazzard days in
the early 1980s and as Superboy’s dad in Smallville
during its 10-year run from 2001-2011. Cowart perceived John, like the rest of
the cast that day, to be “extremely professional, humble and a lot of fun to
work with. He was killing his portraits… smiling, goofing off and he even threw
in several impressions of famous actors and presidents.” Cowart was “very impressed
by his ability to light up the camera and have a good time.”
But once the session wrapped, John approached him and
whispered, “Hey, can you sneak a few more portraits of me? There’s something
going on and I just need a photo.” Cowart readied his camera as Schneider
walked back on set – and immediately began weeping.
“He was so good at impressions that I thought this was another
impression and I thought ‘wow, what an acting talent.’” But soon it became
clear that the emotion was genuine. Cowart put his camera down and gave Schneider
a hug.
“My Dad died about an hour ago,” the actor confided. “I
found out during our lunch break. And I wanted you to capture that for me.” Then
he went to the screen on which the portraits were displayed and pointed to the final
one. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s my Dad.” Cowart was stunned into respectful
silence. Schneider left shortly
thereafter to join his family. He later gave Cowart official permission to
share this story and the portraits.
“I was stunned,” wrote Cowart later. “Shocked.
And deeply moved, obviously.”
I’ve heard some say that posing for self-portraits is an
oddly self-centered sort of tribute – what normal person would react this way to
the passing of a loved one?
A similar criticism was directed many years ago at Eric
Clapton for composing and performing “Tears in Heaven,” the gut-wrenchingly
soulful song he wrote after he lost his young son in a terrible accident. Cynics
pointed to the song’s success as evidence of Clapton’s “exploitation” of the
tragedy. What those people didn’t recognize is that, put simply, artists
express themselves through their art. As a songwriter, Clapton worked through
his grief the best way he knew how: by seeking out the melody and lyrics that
would give him the catharsis he needed and his son the tribute he deserved. “I
almost subconsciously used music for myself as a healing agent,” he revealed in
an interview, “and lo and behold, it worked... I have got a great deal of
happiness and a great deal of healing from music.”
I don’t know what was in John Schneider’s head and heart
that day, but it seems evident that, like Clapton, he sought catharsis through
his art. As an actor accustomed to baring his emotions on-camera, he strove not
only to express his personal loss in Cowart’s images, but also to memorialize his
closeness to his father in one particular portrait of himself that captured an
almost mystical bond – the father in the son, and the son in the father: “That’s
my Dad.”
“As a father myself,”
Cowart wrote, “I wept for him. We all did that day.”
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 1/22/14)
