[1/25/06 UPDATE: Two years after Helmut Newton’s death, it occurs to me that there is nobody who can really replace him. There is nobody daring enough to make people sexy in a skewered yet genuine way. It is all artifice. Like Russ Meyer, Helmut Newton, along with the other strangely respectful deviants, have expired.]
Not to seem even more like an insensitive ho-bag than I generally do, but I had no idea Helmut Newton was alive.
Let alone that he had to die in such horrendous fashion. RIP indeed.
Strange that he died like Desmond Llewellyn — a guy in his eighties in an auto accident. What is it about 1960s icons that have something to do with cultural perversity and octagenarian car crashes? Whatever Helmut’s faults (and there were many), I still loved the bastard. Andy Kaufman meets Hugh Hefner meets Diane Arbus.
Captain Kangaroo died too.