40 Glamorous Portraits of Classic Beauties Taken by Melbourne Spurr ~ Vintage Everyday

January 5, 2022

40 Glamorous Portraits of Classic Beauties Taken by Melbourne Spurr

January 05, 2022 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, celebrity & famous people, female, portraits

Melbourne Spurr (1888–1964) was an American photographer known for Hollywood celebrity portraits. He arrived in Hollywood around 1917 and worked for the noted photographer Fred Hartsook taking portraits of the early stars.

Classic beauties taken by Melbourne Spurr in the early 20th century

Spurr photographed Mary Pickford while working at the Hartsook studio and so impressed her that she personally helped launch his career as a Hollywood portrait photographer. By the mid-1920s, he was one of the premier celebrity portraitists in the world.

By this time, though, the major movie studios were mandating that their stars could only be photographed by their own photographers. Spurr chose to keep his own studio, and was eventually shut out in favor of men like George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Eugene Robert Richee and others who worked for the big motion picture studios.

Spurr shined in Hollywood for one glorious decade - the “Roaring 20s” - but then moved on to photographing other notables like US presidents, artists, authors and dancers. These glamorous photos are part of his work that Melbourne Spurr took portraits of classic beauties in the early 20th century.