Sam Shahid Was the Creative Director Behind Calvin Klein, Banana Republic...and Those Infamous Y2K-era A&F Catalogs
He grew up Lebanese in segregated Alabama and went on to a life of BEAUTY and GLAMOR! He also says he never saw Bruce Weber harass models and tried in vain to make the A&F mag more racially diverse.
Hi, Caftaners! How was your weekend? I did my frequent up-and-back-in-24-hours drive to see my fam in the Boston area (it was Mother’s Day, after all) and had fun delighting my four-year-old niece by pretending to be the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz and scaring her over and over—at her request lol.
For those of you who, like me, continue to be outraged and appalled by our current administration’s violation of the Constitution and of human rights, it seems like the next big nationwide day of protest is June 14, called NO KINGS. Find the protest closest to you here. I am actually going to be away, which bums me out, as much as I’m looking forward to getting away, because I feel an obligation to be at every major anti-47 protest.
I’m feeling a bit wiped out today after all the driving this weekend so I am going to cut to the chase: This week’s Caftan interview is with Sam Shahid, 84, who was the art director behind some of the most gay-fluential ad campaigns of the past 40 years or so and who also is the producer of a beautiful new documentary, Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes, who photographed men in a very beautiful and erotic way in the 1930s through the 1950s. Here’s the trailer:
It’s a gorgeous film that you can watch on Amazon and a big career shift for Sam, who spent much of his career working alongside the iconic photographer (and alleged male-model harasser) Bruce Weber, whom we talk about here a bit, as we do Calvin Klein. (Also my thanks to recent Caftan interviewee Ross Bleckner, who connected me to Sam.)
I cannot believe Sam is 84. He still goes to the gym and then the office every day, and often to dinner at night, and has (at least on the phone) the energy and affect of someone in the prime of their career. He’s very much part of that generation of creatively ambitious gay men who moved to NYC in the 1960s and 1970s and really saw their careers peak in the 80s, 90s and the 00s, before social media really upended the lavish-spending, professional photography-centered fashion industry.
So I’m just going to cut to the interview! But before I do…do you think there’s someone I should interview for Caftan? If so, drop me a line at timmurphynycwriter@gmail.com. I love big names, yes, but I’m admittedly New York-centric and I’d love to interview some gents who really were the backbone of the late-20th-century gay community in, oh, um, Houston or Miami or Topeka or Buffalo or…even Sam’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama! You know, like the town’s most famous, longest-performing drag queen or decades-long bar owner or AIDS activist or…well, whatever! My point is…I’m open! So email me!
And PLEASE CONSIDER SUBSCRIBING TO CAFTAN AT $5 A MONTH TO GET THE FULL INTERVIEWS…IF YOU DON’T ALREADY, THAT IS!
Thanks, Caftaners. Spring is here, yay yay!
Sam, thanks so much for doing a Caftan interview. Can I start by asking where you live?
In NYC in a triplex co-op in the Village near Washington Square. I bought the unit above me that was owned by [the late gay playwright] Terrence McNally, a duplex. So now nobody walks above me. My apartment was actually featured in [The New York Times’] T magazine. I have a lot of art hidden behind panels. But I don’t have a lot visible. The apartment is all white and very minimal and very peaceful. I work every day with so much stuff around me, so when I come home, it’s just me and simplicity, away from the everyday clutter of my life. That way, when I see a piece of art I really love, I put it out and focus there. My sister Carol Lee [who passed away in 2017] had a fabulous apartment in midtown and she thought my apartment was so cold.
I live alone. I wake up around six a.m. I can’t wait to wake up! I hit WQXR, the classic station, then I come downstairs and get my New York Times at the front door. I make myself a double espresso and usually have a croissant or cottage cheese with fruit. Then I read the paper—that’s luxurious to me. My favorite sections are Arts and Style. For gay men, that’s our sports section. I love the print paper, the bigness of the images, including the advertising.
You’re reminding me of the pleasure of reading the print paper, which I haven’t really done since the very early 2000s. You can actually finish the paper and feel a sense of accomplishment versus being hit with endless waves of headlines every waking hour of the day. So then what do you do?
I walk to my gym three days a week. I have a trainer. And I walk to and from the gym listening to music, everything from theater to pop to disco. I love that! I really love New York! I just had cataract surgery, and what I see now, it’s so exciting—colors, depth and details I’d passed a hundred times without noticing.
I love that. I write often about the tremendous benefit of strength training for older people. I wish my 80-year-old mom would do it, but she won’t. What’s your workout like.
Aerobics and weight training, which my trainer changes every day.
How do you feel about your body?
Good. I just had my physical done and everything is great. I’ve been lucky. Still, as you age, things start changing. My knees were a problem for a while, but we worked through it. My trainer is like a therapist, too. He’s 30-something years old and he’s great to look at. But he’s smart too!
Walking home from the gym, I usually stop at a bakery and get iced coffee, come home and get ready for work. My office is on Broadway south of Canal St. I walk in and we talk about the day’s agenda. We used to be twenty people and now we’re down to five. These days, we design a lot of art books. I’m also involved with the film world. We finished Hidden Master. The world of fashion is no longer for me.
It’s shrunk, right?
Shrunk is not the world. Once social media came into the picture— Anyway, we have another project I can’t talk about but it’s major. It’s in the film business. I have my fingers crossed. Major, major. It has to do with photography. Think of virtual reality, the computer world.
What are you mostly doing at the office?
Usually sitting with the art directors, collaborating, designing, editing, laying things out. I’m very seldom on the phone. I’m usually in the office until 5:30, six, seven. I usually walk home. I’ll pick up something for dinner. I don’t cook. I watch the news, then I read. Or watch White Lotus.
I also may have plans to meet friends out for dinner. I used to go to Bar Pitti a lot with Joel Grey but he’s in L.A. now. I eat at Il Cantinori three or four nights a week. Jessica Lange and I will have dinner there. Then I’m in bed by ten, eleven. I have a lot of dreams. Sometimes they’re bad. My sister passed away a few years ago. We were inseparable. I dream a lot about her. Last night I dreamed about a house I used to own in Bridgehampton for 16 years, like I’m redoing it or having a party there.
Sam, where were you born?
Birmingham, Alabama. My mom was married at 16 and had me at 18. She was beautiful. She was half Irish and half Lebanese and my dad was all Lebanese.
Yes, and I told you I’m Lebanese on my mom’s side. And it’s interesting because they settled in the Boston area but a chunk of the family settled in the South, and I know there’s long been Lebanese [who were often once called Syrian, as Lebanon was only carved out of Syria officially in the 1920s] in the South. In fact, it was largely these Syrians in the South who brought court cases arguing that they should be classified as white for citizenship purposes. What was growing up Lebanese in Alabama like for you?
I was baptized in the Melkite Catholic church. I used to love to go to the Melkite church—very dramatic.
Yes, I went to Maronite Catholic church with my grandmother, and I thought it was very exotic.
But we mostly went to Roman Catholic church, and school.
How much was Lebanese-ness a part of your upbringing?
I love the food—kibbee, stuffed grape leaves, betenjan, tabooli, fatayehs. The women in the family competed cooking-wise. Every weekend on a Saturday night we went to an aunt’s house. It’s still my favorite food. But I don’t really get it much in NYC. I’ve been to Ilili.
There’s one I really like called Au Zata’ar on Avenue A and 12th in the East Village. It’s actually where the original version of the gay bar The Cock used to be. It’s very good. It’s a nice restaurant that’s not as fancy as Ilili.
I have my mom’s recipes. When she was living, we’d do a whole Lebanese dinner for friends at my place in the Hamptons.
Growing up in the South, did you have a conscious sense of being different and exotic?
The neighborhood we lived in was very white and WASPy. We were seen as gypsies. There were other Lebanese, but not as much as Italians and Irish. My dad was a dry goods merchant.
What were you like as a kid?
Lots of fun! Always smiling—I was great! But I lived in my own world because I didn’t fit in with playing football. I loved movies and theater and music. In my head, I’d imagine the road being a runway. The McGuire Sisters were popular and I’d be on the runway performing them by myself. I’d go to movies downtown by myself, like Singin’ in the Rain, and then come home and perform the songs.
Did people think you were gay?
Yes. But the word “gay” didn’t really exist at that time. My aunt and mom would sometimes call other kids “strange.” But no one ever asked, “Are you a homosexual?” But in school I’d be called a sissy. It hurt. Once I wore a scarf around my neck. I’m sure I was emulating Gene Autry.
One older cousin said, “You look like a girl.” I said, “Why? Gene Autry wears this.” And another time I was on the baseball field and I put my hands on my hips. And the next day one of the kids said to me, “My dad said, you’re really feminine. You put your hands on your hips and guys don’t do that.”
Other people told me I was gay or a fag before I even knew that I was, precisely because of things like body language. But when did you have your first feelings for men?
When I was nine years old. I was naked with my cousin and he jerked me off. And I said, “Wow!” And then he told some of his friends and they wound up making love to me in the back of the church, where I was an altar boy. There was one guy, so good-looking, named Frank Roper. I wonder what he looks like now. He reminded me of Troy Donahue or Tab Hunter. We’d just kiss on the steps in the back of the church. I loved it!
And in your teens?
I was only sexually active once. A couple guys slept over my house, including a Lebanese guy whose last name was Wehbe, and we started kissing. I just loved it! And then one day I was by myself at home and this guy came over and we made love. And I loved it!
Was there any sense of guilt?
Not at all. And then in high school, my parents would have the priest over for dinner, Monsignor Keyes. He had a few glasses of wine and then he and I took a walk in the backyard. He put his arms around me and wanted to kiss me. And I said, “No!” And he said, “Oh, come on!” “NO!” But I never told anyone. I didn’t feel like it was terrible, though, I just let it go.
I’m glad you had the wherewithal to resist, because a lot of kids don’t.
He was old and unattractive. If he’d have been attractive…
Haha! So, you grew up in the cradle of segregation. Do you have memories of that?
Once, a Black woman knocked on the back door of our house and asked for a glass of water. So I gave it to her. But my aunt saw me and said to me, “How dare you!” and took the glass in front of me and the woman and broke it. I’ll never forget that.
Did you understand why your aunt did that?
My aunt told me it wasn’t sanitary.
But did you understand that your aunt was angry at you because the woman was Black?
Yes. Absolutely. But it wasn't something that was always in front of me. We lived in a white neighborhood, went to a white school.
When would you see Black people? Downtown?
Not that much. Oh, on the weekend, my dad would get in the car and drive to the place where the Black men hung out waiting for jobs. We picked up this one guy and he came to the house and cut the grass. We’d give them lunch on a paper plate—a can of pork and beans and Saltine crackers. They’d sit in the yard. Once, my dad wasn’t there and it was hot and I invited the guy to sit with me in the shade. He was nervous and said, “I can’t do that.” I said, “Yes, you can.” But he was so nervous.
We also had a maid named Ada who lived in the Black part of town, a real shanty. My mom would pick her up and she’d come and do the ironing. Then my mom would ask me to drive her home in our Cadillac. And I said to Ada, “What are you doing in the back seat? Sit with me in the front seat.” She said, “I can’t do that.” I said, “I’m not going to drive you home until you do.” So she did, and when we got to her home, all the young Black kids came around screaming at her, “That’s wrong! That’s wrong!” And we never saw her again.
Wow. Did you have a sense that all this was wrong?
Yes, but those occasions didn’t happen often, so you just went on with your own life. I went to the University of Alabama, where I was the social chair of the fraternity. This is the late fifties, 1960. The first Black woman had enrolled there [Tim: According to the Internet, her name was Autherine Lucy] and I remember that the fraternity brothers had hung the Dixie flag from our fraternity. And I went up there and cut it down. And they said, “What are you doing?” I said, “This cannot hang over this house.” They were very upset about it and nobody spoke to me for a couple days.
Wow. Sam, being Lebanese, did you have any sense of yourself as being not white, or not quite white?
No. As a family, we looked white.
Right. Same.
But I was so proud to be Lebanese. My sister had a problem with it, but I didn’t. She wanted to be accepted. She was accepted to the, um, what was it called? Very prominent families… And she became the first Lebanese girl to be accepted, and my family was so proud.
Was it the Junior League?
Yeah, that’s it! So my dad was so proud of her and said, “We’re going to the Melkite church this Sunday to sit in the front pew.” We were so thrilled. But then what happened was horrible. A good friend of mine in school was marrying a good friend of my sister. They were having an engagement party at the Birmingham Country Club, and in those days, they would tell you who your date was. And I wasn’t invited, which was strange, because I was one of the groom’s best friends. But they invited my sister and told her they were pairing her with a doctor-to-be as her date. And she was so excited because she had this crush on him. She told my dad that she wanted to buy this expensive dress.
So she got all dressed up. And the night of the event, her date was supposed to pick her up at 7 o’clock, but he hadn’t arrived by 9 o’ clock. And my dad said to her, “If he shows up, you’re not going with him. No gentleman would be two hours late.” So she went to her room, ripped the dress off, and started screaming, “I hate what I am, I hate being Lebanese, I want to change my name!” So we called my cousin Diane to come over and calm her down. But my sister never got over it.
A while later, my dad was in the hospital and the now-doctor was employed there, and my dad saw him. And my dad called in his own doctor there and said, “I wanted to give this hospital money, but until you get rid of that guy, you’re not getting one penny from me.”
I love being Lebanese. I love being different. I love the music, the food. But it was hard for my sister.
But how did your sister know for sure the rejection was because she was Lebanese?
It had to be. Birmingham Country Club would not accept us. There was this other place where all the rich Republicans were members. And I had a Lebanese aunt whose husband’s last name was Hall, which she could hide behind. So she made reservations at this place with her friends, and went up to the desk and said, “I’m Mrs. Hall and I have a reservation.” And the desk lady said, “I’m so sorry, but we don’t have any openings.” And my aunt said, “What are you talking about? I made a reservation.” “I”m sorry, we don’t have any.” My aunt had arrived in a fur stole, jewelry up to her elbows, and had died her hair blonde—and she looked so obvious.
So obviously what?
Lebanese, Greek or Italian. The woman looked at her and knew right away.
Wow. So Sam, take me into your career.
I graduated from college and then went into the Army. I went into the National Guard. I wanted to work in advertising. I had a professor and went with him to a lecture and he said The New York Times did a survey and who do you think in retail advertises the most? Ohrbach’s. They never showed the product. It just read [something like] “Ohrbach’s—the place to come to.” To create their image. I just loved their ads!
So when I got out of the Army, I knew a guy working at the ad agency in Birmingham. They hired me as a production guy, but really I was in the mail room. I worked there for two years but I’d known from the day I was born I wanted to come to New York. But in those days you had to go to Atlanta first. So I did, and I lied. I said, “I deal with suppliers in New York.” I kept bringing New York up. So they hired me. Atlanta was the little New York. A lot of New York people in advertising transferred to Atlanta.
So I told my bosses I needed to go to New York to find a new engraver. And the guys there told me where to go interview in NYC—and two of them accepted me! When I went back to Atlanta, I asked the art director, “What should I do?” And he said, “Go with Grey. You’ll meet a lot of young people you’ll like.” He was basically telling me there were a lot of gay people there. So I took the job for $10,000 a year, which I thought was so much money. This is like 1969. I sold my car for $600 and came to NYC.
Oh, great, so this is my favorite period of NYC, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. What was Grey like? Were there openly or semi-openly gay people there?
All the writers and art directors were gay. They’d always have cocktail parties after work, and they all lived in the East 60s. A colleague of mine had a boyfriend who was head of Charles of the Ritz, and they’d have a cocktail party every week. And also, the bar at the Four Seasons was all-gay after work.
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