Palm Springs has long been a playground for Hollywood’s elite, where the spotlight dims just enough for stars to take a break and bask in the desert sun. For Lawrence Schiller, legendary photographer, filmmaker and bestselling author, Palm Springs wasn’t a place to get away; it was the lens through which he captured a rare, unfiltered glimpse of American icons. Through his ICONIC images, he has allowed the world to witness pivotal moments and intimate glimpses into the lives of legends.
Palm Springs Through Schiller’s Lens
Schiller’s connection to Palm Springs dates back to his formative years. Although he was raised in San Diego, California after moving there from New York in 1943, he recalls his high school days spent playing tennis in the desert, a passion he shared with his brother. “Besides Wimbledon, there’s no better place to play tennis than in Palm Springs,” he shares. This early introduction to the sun-drenched courts and the laid-back atmosphere solidified the resort town as a place of respite and inspiration. “Palm Springs was where you went to kind of chill out, and you could forget about what was happening in the rest of the world because Palm Springs was a world to itself.”
His professional journey into the heart of the city began with an assignment for the esteemed French magazine Paris Match. “They said, ‘We want you to go to Palm Springs to photograph Frank Sinatra,’” Schiller recounts. “I don’t remember exactly why, but I remember I had to go out and rent a nice car. I didn’t want to drive up to Frank Sinatra’s house in the car that I had, so I rented a Mercedes, and I drove to Palm Springs.”
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That moment marked the beginning of a remarkable career that would capture the ICONIC faces and moments that shaped a generation. Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Muhammad Ali—the list of Schiller’s subjects reads like a who’s who of 20th-century America. His camera witnessed it all, often up close and in the quiet moments between headlines.
“Everybody knows about my pictures of Marilyn Monroe…she left us in 1962, but she’s alive today to every teenage girl or young woman,” he says. “My pictures are still an important image of the best of the best of Hollywood, even though her death was tragic.”
Over the years, Heather James, owner of Heather James Fine Art, mounted several exhibitions of Schiller’s photography, including a dual show with fellow photography icon Steve Schapiro, spotlighting images of Barbra Streisand. “Heather James helped me establish myself with art galleries,” Schiller reflects.
Schiller’s work’s timeless appeal remains clear in his ICONIC photographs, including those of Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman and Alfred Hitchcock, which were featured at the Palm Springs Modernism Fall Show in October 2024. This enduring relevance reveals how Schiller’s lens captured more than moments.
A Witness to History
While Palm Springs holds a special place in Schiller’s portfolio, his career reached far beyond the desert. Photography began as a way for him to see the world, quickly becoming his lifelong storytelling tool. From investigative journalism to film and publishing, his work offers deep, multifaceted perspectives on significant figures and cultural turning points. His first major break came in high school when he won the Graflex Awards, earning him a trip to New York to serve as an assistant photographer. He arrived on the night of the Rosenbergs’ execution– a controversial moment in history when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed via the electric chair for conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union– and captured a city in protest, his first experience photographing a historical moment in real-time.
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Schiller went on to document some of America’s most pivotal moments, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a meeting in Watts, California during the 1965 riots, Richard Nixon’s 1960 concession to the election, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the final months of Bobby Kennedy’s life. Eventually, a conversation with Paul Newman launched his directing career, starting with a scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and leading to an Oscar and 18 Emmys.
“I’m just a teenager going on 89,” he laughs. Schiller’s lens may be at rest, but his vision remains sharp, shaped by decades behind the lens and a life lived at the intersection of fame, history and the quiet beauty of Palm Springs.
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