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Photographer, filmmaker Gordon Parks dies
Artist chronicled black America for 'Life' magazine, directed
movie 'Shaft'
NEW YORK - Gordon Parks, who captured the struggles and
triumphs of black America as a photographer for Life magazine
and then became Hollywood's first major black director with "The
Learning Tree" and the hit "Shaft," died Tuesday, a family
member said. He was 93.
Parks, who also wrote fiction and was an accomplished
composer, died in New York, his nephew, Charles Parks, said in
a telephone interview from Lawrence, Kan.
"Nothing came easy," Parks wrote in his autobiography. "I was
just born with a need to explore every tool shop of my mind, and
with long searching and hard work. I became devoted to my
restlessness."
He covered everything from fashion to politics to sports during
his 20 years at Life, from 1948 to 1968.
But as a photographer, he was perhaps best known for his gritty
photo essays on the grinding effects of poverty in the United
States and abroad and on the spirit of the civil rights movement.
"Those special problems spawned by poverty and crime touched
me more, and I dug into them with more enthusiasm," he said.
"Working at them again revealed the superiority of the camera to
explore the dilemmas they posed."
In 1961, his photographs in Life of a poor, ailing Brazilian boy
named Flavio da Silva brought donations that saved the boy and
purchased a new home for him and his family.
"The Learning Tree" was Parks' first film, in 1969. It was based
on his 1963 autobiographical novel of the same name, in which
the young hero grapples with fear and racism as well as first
love and schoolboy triumphs. Parks wrote the score as well
directed.
In 1989, "The Learning Tree" was among the first 25 American
movies to be placed on the National Film Registry of the Library
of Congress. The registry is intended to highlight films of
particular cultural, historical or aesthetic importance.
The detective drama "Shaft," which came out in 1971 and starred
Richard Roundtree, was a major hit and spawned a series of
black-oriented films. Parks himself directed a sequel, "Shaft's
Big Score," in 1972.
He also published books of poetry and wrote musical
compositions including "Martin," a ballet about the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr.
