A Conscience With a Lens

Poorer than nickels.

And yet, there was something beautiful about the pictures. Something sadly beautiful.

"The beauty of those Chicago slum pictures was not that there were pictures there of birds in flight with beautiful color," says Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, a photographer who was a friend of Parks's for 30 years. "It was a beauty of the human spirit. There was beauty, no matter how hard the life. And that's what Gordon found interesting."

A year after his Life magazine spread, Parks directed his first movie, "The Learning Tree," adapted from his autobiographical novel of the same name. Two years later would come his hit, "Shaft." The movie, from the Ernest Tidyman novel, was about a black private eye who solves a kidnapping. It was an amalgamation of Parks's interests in fashion, dignity, breaking barriers.

Parks received fine reviews, Richard Roundtree became a star and Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for the "Shaft" musical score.

"Just auditioning for that movie was such a big deal," says Sherri Bronfman, who played the kidnapped daughter Marcy. "That was like the beginning of black movies being done.

"The white movie executives didn't know anything about us as a people. Parks did. We were used to auditioning for white directors who we felt didn't know us."

Bronfman showed up to begin filming the movie dressed in a miniskirt and maxicoat. She was happy. She waved hello to Parks and got herself to the wardrobe department. She was given a brown outfit to wear. On the set, Parks looked at her. He didn't like what wardrobe had outfitted her in. "He said, 'What you were wearing when you came in, go put that back on.' He had an eye," says Bronfman.

In black America, "Shaft" became both movie and cultural moment. Shaft was cool, stopped traffic with a wave of the arm, and didn't kowtow to anyone. He wasn't afraid of the man because he was The Man.

"Shaft showed our men in a whole other light," says Bronfman. "Shaft was take-charge. And the way Gordon allowed language to go in the movie.

"The stereotypes were not there. The characters were clearly defined."

Parks kept writing, autobiographies and photo books. He was generous with his time.

Moutoussamy-Ashe was in a photo exhibit at a Harlem gallery in 1976 along with Dawoud Bey and Frank Stewart, two other photographers. At night she had studied Parks, looked at his images, thought she might someday meet that impressive man, but probably not. But there he was, at the door of her opening. "The great Gordon Parks showed!" she remembers. "We were just three novice photographers. Even the gallery owner said, 'Wow.' We were just stunned."

As he grew sicker last year, he seemed to grow lonelier. There were nurses around, but no wife. He had been married three times and divorced three times. He was smitten with photographer Ming Smith, had been for years, and asked her to marry him. "I blushed," says Smith. "I told him I'd think about it."

Visitors to his United Nations Plaza apartment were awed by the beauty and the decorative touches. There were always fresh flowers. Artwork and books were everywhere. On New Year's Day, Smith and Bronfman went by to visit. There was laughter, cookies, sweets. He insisted on playing something on the piano. He rose, stiffly, and sat down. He played Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."

An old man, young again. The women smiled.

When Bronfman reached in the closet for her coat, her eyes stopped. She saw it hanging there. Shiny and black and cool.

"His 'Shaft' coat," she says.