As a film and television producer, Mark Sennet has been blessed to work with some of the best in film and television, including George Clooney, Stephen King, and Steven Soderbergh. But before his entry into moving pictures, Sennet made his living a different way — as an acclaimed photojournalist.
Now, the photos that have previously graced the covers of Time, Life, and People Magazine are on display at Southern California Arclight Cinemas in a retrospective show entitled, From the Mind of Mark Sennet. Filled with timeless photographs, the exhibit features pictures of influential icons such as Paul Newman, Steven Spielberg, John Wayne and James Stewart, Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Paul and Linda McCartney, Mel Brooks, Liberace, Chewbacca, Tina Turner, and many others.
But the show at the Arclight doesn’t begin to reflect the collective works of Sennet. During his multi-decade career, he was not only a photojournalist for Time-Life, but he was also the special photographer for the movie The Empire Strikes Back and People Magazine, the official photographer for Spielberg’s E.T., a photojournalist assigned to the Reagan Campaign, and was continually asked to photograph the famous and influential people of the time.
Sennet began his career by being at the right place at the wrong time while covering New York City’s Italian American Civil Rights League rally as a freelance photojournalist in June 1971. That day, crime family boss Joe Colombo was shot and seriously injured. Standing next to Sennet, wearing press credentials from the league and disguised as another photojournalist was the assassin who shot Colombo. “This guy opens a briefcase by the fountain at Columbus Circle and he pulls out his gun and walks over and shoots Colombo right in front of me,” Sennet recalled. “I hit the deck…I didn’t know what to do. I instinctively thought ‘I better take a picture.'”
That photograph, purchased by the Associated Press, launched a career that spanned 30 years, which included work at the London Daily Express, a 28-year career at Time-Life, and contracts from both the Australian and New Zealand Tourist Boards to photograph their respective countries. While at the London Daily Express, Sennet covered five Royal Tours, including Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and other royal family members, as well as the White House during Watergate, where he became friendly with then-Vice President Gerald Ford. In recent years, he was requested to cover the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Sennet has many stories to go with the pictures, including the friendships he struck with many of his subjects, the history made as photos were taken, and how he snuck on to closed movie sets to shoot without permission.
Arclight is featuring From the Mind of Mark Sennet at the Sherman Oaks location from now until September 3rd, then will move to the Santa Monica location, where the show will run until January 7th. The series will then move to Arclight Cinema locations in Pasadena, Bethesda, Hollywood, and Culver City, CA. Sennet’s work can also be seen online at Sennet Photography, where many prints not included in the show are available for purchase, and on his Instagram @MarkSennetPhoto.
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Photo Credit: kavzov / Shutterstock.com