Keeping the Archive Alive: Gloria McDarrah, widow of photographer Fred McDarrah

Gloria McDarrah is an editor and former teacher, and the widow of the legendary Village Voice photographer Fred McDarrah. July 2014.

I met with Gloria McDarrah in July 2014, in her sunny coop in the West Village. McDarrah is the widow of Fred McDarrah, who for four decades was the main photographer for the Village Voice and was one of the first major chroniclers of the Beats and the mid-20^th century counterculture in Greenwich Village. For years, he travelled from parties to poetry readings and demonstrations, photographing and documenting the major historical and literary events in Greenwich Village before many other observers knew the value of them.

The gracious McDarrah showed me around her extensive and well-ordered archive of Fred McDarrah’s 250,000 photos. Fred’s homemade notation system allows her to find the right contact sheet in a few minutes, whether you want to find the poet Ted Joans or the Beatnik Riot in Washington Square Park.

Fred McDarrah was born in Brooklyn and served in the Pacific as a paratrooper during World War II. He photographed the American occupation of Japan while in the Army. He joined the Voice as an adman, but became the newspaper’s first staff photographer, where his mailbox said “McPhoto.” For many years, in addition to a small salary, Fred McDarrah was only paid $5 per photo. As a consolation, the first Voice editor Dan Wolf told him that he owned the copyright, which has continued to bring in revenue for his heirs.

Gloria McDarrah worked as an editor and taught in the New York City public schools for a time. Gloria collaborated with Fred on several of his photo books, including The Artist’s World in Pictures and The Beat Generation. She manages Fred McDarrah’s extensive archive of more than 250,000 photos.

Gloria McDarragh was born in the Bronx as Gloria Schoffel. She was raised in Lebanon, Pa., and has lived in New York since 1953. Gloria and Fred McDarrah were married in november 1960.

In 2018, Gloria McDarrah was instrumental in publishing New York Scenes, a glorious retrospective book of Fred McDarrah’s  coverage of New York’s political, cultural and art scenes from the 1950’s to the ‘70’s.

Dylan Foley: You met Fred McDarrah when he went for a job interview?

Gloria McDarrah: He had sent in a resume with a photograph. This was the Metropolitan Sunday newspapers, in the promotions department. His sister had gone to Penn State. We were sorority sisters. They had hired me to be a secretary. My skills were minimal, but I was willing.

DF: Fred took the famous April 21, 1966 Sip-In photos, a seminal moment in the Village’s gay liberation movement? [At the legendary “Sip In”, pre-Stonewall gay activists were challenging a local ordinances banning homosexuals from being served in bars. In a comic series of events, the first several bars served the defiant gay activists with no problem, but they were finally refused at Julius,’ a famed gay bar on 10^th Street.]

GM: Yes. It was at the Howard Johnson’s was below 8^th Street on 6^th Avenue. I just thought Julius’ was gay. [Julius’ is a famed gay bar on 11^th Street, known for its filthy ceiling.] I haven’t been there in a long time.

DF: It sounds like it was fun.

GM: It was, it was.

DF: How did you and Fred fall into all these different social groups—the writers, the dancers, the painters?

GM: The Village was smaller and everyone knew each other. Fred, among his other unpaid jobs, was the doorman at the Artists’ Club, where all the Abstract Expressionists hung out. …as did people like John Cage and Morty Feldman. They were interested in each others’ work, whether they were dancers like Eric Hawkins or actors like Judith Malina and Julian Beck. Everyone seemed to know each other. It was a much more cohesive place. People would call Fred. This was when he was associated with the Village Voice. He was there for 40 years. They wanted him to come take their picture, but Fred had a lot of freedom. He had an authority problem. Nobody could tell him what to do with his photographs. He took what he wanted to take. He was interested in the arts. He wanted to document his times. He was basically a journalist. He originally wanted to be a writer, but he loved taking photographs. Somehow, the photos took precedence and that’s what he did. [He started at the Voice as an ad man]. He was paid $5 a photo. He wasn’t paid expenses. We really didn’t have a lot of money.

We were living in this tenement at 64 Thompson. We had an opportunity to get this apartment, a middle-income co-op. We couldn’t prove we had enough income. I told Fred that we either take this apartment or I was going home to Pennsylvania. He went to Dan Wolf and said, “My wife is going to leave me.” By this time, Fred was getting $50 a week. Dan doubled his salary, so we could say we were middle-class people and could afford to be considered for the apartment.

We had a chance to buy a 3-story building in Tribeca for $17,000. Who had $17,000?

DF: Did Fred cover the Stonewall Riots?

GM: Howard Smith was there. He called Fred and told him to come over. Lucian Truscott IV was there, too.

DF: The Voice headline after the riots was “Fags get upset.”

GM: Arthur Bell was the first openly gay man at the Voice, and Jill Johnson was gay, as well, but bigotry was rampant.

DF: Reading Fred’s books, could you tell me about the 2-hour poem with Jack Kerouac in 1959?

GM: Typical, the girl was doing the typing. It was all fun. We had some bottles of beer, I am sure.  It was at Fred’s apartment on 14^th Street. It was before we had gotten married. Fred had been collecting poems. He had been photographing people for the book, then they gave him poems. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if he even promised them a book.

Kerouac had just come to town. He came with both these guys—Lew Welch and Albert Saijo. Fred wanted Kerouac to give him a poem, and I guess Kerouac said, “We’ll come over and write one right there.” It was almost like a parlor game—half serious and half fun.

Kerouac was drunk. He was their leader. When he wanted something to drink, we went to that bellydancing place, Egyptian Garden.

They wanted to get stoned, but I had to go to work the next day. I worked at the ad place, then I worked at Harper’s Children’s Books. It was a great job. I met Maurice Sendak. He wasn’t gay in those days. People would say they were bisexual. Frank O’Hara’s sister used to be around, Maureen O’Hara.

DF: Do you have any memories of the poet Brigid Murnaghan?

GM: She was very nice looking. She always seemed so spaced out to me. I remember the later years when she was toothless.

DF: Are all of Fred’s 250,000 photos archived?

GM: I take no credit. Fred had the soul of a librarian. He worked late every night.

[We spend about 10 minutes looking at the archive, neat rows of white file cabinets, then index cards indicating the contact sheet number. Gloria deftly finds four contact sheets of Brigid Murnaghan…one of the most famous Fred McDarrah’s photos of Murnaghan was of her holding her infant daughter in front of the old Kettle of Fish bar].

DF: Did Fred really sue Life Magazine?

That was amazing. They used a photograph of his of a demonstration, perhaps an anti-war demonstration. I am not sure. The caption made it seem like the photo was taken by the FBI. Fred blew his stack. He said, “No one will ever speak to me again.” He went to Dan Wolf, his counselor and friend. Dan gave him the name of a lawyer, Howard Ende, from a law firm uptown He took it on and got $10,000 and an apology from Life Magazine.

DF: What were the conditions at the Village Voice?

GM: Fred always complained that he wanted more money, but it was like a family. We were very friendly with each other. Rhoda Wolf is still around. Howard Blum is still around.

Clay Felker wanted to fire Fred. He was such a gutless wonder. They took Fred’s name of off the masthead without saying anything. Fred called Felker up and said, “Are you trying to fire me?” Clay Felker backed down and said, “Oh, no, that was a mistake.”

Mailer wrote a column and hated the typos. Dan always thought that the writers should work for practically nothing. He never cut anything. He would let it run on and on. You never had a jump page at the Voice. It would follow one page after another, until your story was done. That was payment enough. He was helping them get famous.

DF: Did you know the poet Ted Joans?

GM: He died not long ago. He was a very sweet guy. I couldn’t imagine being married to him. He was Mr. Unfaithful. He’d go off to Paris. He had a wife and four kids. I don’t know how they were supported, whether they went home to her family.

He was always bubbling over, the charismatic type.

DF: How did Fred wind up at the Village Voice?

GM: Fred met Dan Wolf because they lived in the same apartment. They lived on 66^th or 67^th Street. It was a railroad flat and each person had their own room. There was a common kitchen. It was cheap.

DF: How did Fred come up with Rent-a-Beatnik?

GM: We were talking one night and I don’t know how it came to be, but Fred put an ad in the Voice, “for party entertainment, “Rent-a-Beatnik.” There were definitely people who responded. It was definitely a comic stunt. It was not serious. Who would think of such an insane thing? It was a silly idea. Fred didn’t have to pay for the ad. People from all over the suburbs responded. There was one from Sniffin Court, a little mews in Murray Hill. There was a party there. Fred may have charged $100. I have to check his diaries. He went around getting people to come. I would go wearing black stockings. I was obviously fake because I had a job.

DF: Fred was interviewed for Mike Wallace’s “Beat Generation” documentary?

GM: There was media interest in the story. Fred got Ed Fancher to address an auditorium of people in Brooklyn. I don’t know if it was the psychology of being a Beatnik. Fancher has his office on 10^th Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues. He turned 90 recently.

Lutz money founded the Voice.

When Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post, the first thing he did was fire Tim McDarrah, who was the union rep. [Tim is Gloria’s elder son, a writer.]

DF: Did having children cramp your night lifestyle?

GM: Not very much. Fred always included us in everything. There’s the famous picture of Andy Warhol holding Patrick  and Patrick’s screaming. I guess he was about two years old.

I was working part time, so Fred was in charge of the kids. He didn’t have a desk at the Voice because he didn’t want anyone to know where he was. He had other fish to fry. You don’t get all that filing done at night. You have to put in other times. When he finally reached the buyout stage in the early 1990s, the Voice wanted to hold on to the copyrights of the photos. Fred blew up. Leonard Stern was the owner. Fred actually pointed out that he had gotten paid 5 dollars a photo for years. Dan Wolf had always told him, “These are your pictures.” He would have that. As it happens, it is a gift that keeps on giving—selling pictures, giving reproduction rights.

DF: Where did Fred obtain that iconic shot of Kerouac with his arms spread?

GM: It was a poetry reading. George Preston, a professor at City College. He would have these readings Sunday night. Somehow or other, Kerouac came to one of these readings. We do it to this day. If someone wants to reproduce a photo, we are very strict. One-time use only. If you get a contract from someone it is all in their favor. Cross it all out and write in what you want. If they want the picture, they’ll do it.

DF: Did you know the dancer Freddy Herko?

GM: Who is Freddy Herko? I’ve gotten requests. I got a six-page list of events at Judson and other places like the Living Theatre. It was from Getty.

DF: Have you heard of the play “Home Movies” by Rosalyn Drexler?

GM: I worked with Sherman Drexler, her husband. I was a teacher for a while at JHS 50 in Brooklyn.

DF: Yes, the painter Sherman Drexler told me that “moving to Newark was the worst decision in my life.”

DF: I’ve always liked the picture of Diane diPrima and LeRoi Jones sitting in the Cedar.

GM: LeRoi was a very self-contained kind of person. Hetty [Cohen, his first wife] was quite different, very warm and would stop and chat. He was very reserved.

DF: What was Fred McDarrah’s style of shooting?

GM: He didn’t like a lot of fuss. He never had a studio where he would shoot people. He was a street photographer. He always called his pictures snapshots.