This week we’ve given you an “all access” pass to Ken Regan with exclusive photos not seen in his new book of the same name. With today’s conclusion we turn to Ken’s career at present.
Much like Ken’s foray into music photography resulted from a friendship with rock promotor Bill Graham, many of the films he began to photograph on set were those of director Jonathan Demme. They first met when PEOPLE magazine asked Regan to shoot on the set of Demme’s 1987 movie, Swimming to Cambodia.
Madonna (February, 1985) at Mondrian Hotel, Los Angeles
“I spent like a week or two with him on that set and we became really good friends,” Regan said. “He had just broken up with his girlfriend I had just broken up with mine, so we started to go out partying together, and a few months later we had lunch. He said, ‘I’m about to do another film called Married to the Mob and I want you to do the photography for this film.'”
The notice was a last minute one for Regan, as he had already committed to a few pictures over the next few years and regretfully told Demme he wouldn’t be able to work on the project.
“So he takes out this 8×10 envelope and spreads out on the table a dozen pictures of Michelle Pfeiffer and tells me she’s in the film, and I started to laugh,” Regan said. “After partying together in the past, Jon knew we had very similar taste in women and I couldn’t turn it down. From there I did photography for every film he’s done except one. It was a job for other photographers but for me it was love, and I would approach it as a photojournalist; I knew what the magazines wanted.”
