A Photo Journey

The MClub held one of its Lunch & Learn events at the Santa Barbara Club with the iconic photojournalist Santi Visalli as the guest speaker. The dining room was full with over 50 guests eager to hear about Santi’s life and how he came to photograph famous folks all over the world including five presidents. Montecito Bank and Trust president and COO George Leis welcomed guests. MClub director Maria McCall told us that George has just been selected to be on the National Board of Directors for the YMCA. She then introduced the guest of honor, Santi Visalli.

Santi has lived in Santa Barbara for 22 years with his wife, Gayla, who was a Reader’s Digest editor. Before that he traveled the world for 40 years with his camera for leading magazines, newspapers, and book publishers. He was born in Sicily before World War II and left in 1956 to go around the world with two friends. It took them three years. In the beginning Santi had to take his camera into a store to have the clerk show him how to load it with film. He is very much self-taught.

He told us he was enthralled with American film like the Lone Ranger and John Wayne. “My heart throb at age seventeen was Doris Day. When I once got to work with her on a movie set she told me to come to her trailer at 3 pm. I imagined all sorts of things. When I arrived there was Doris with her mother whose hair she was going to cut. She thought it would be a unique picture.”

Santi has worked with such directors as Federico Fellini. His photos have appeared in and on the covers of 50 magazines and newspapers worldwide including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and Life and on and on. He has created 14 coffee table books, which are cityscapes such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles and all published by the best in the business, Rizzoli. The books run over 200 pages each taking over a year to shoot.

Visalli always wanted to come to America and eventually wound up in New York, broke. His first job was as a dishwasher (one day) then a bus boy (two days) then promoted to a waiter. He told the owner, “I don’t speak English.” “Not to worry because the menu is in Italian and you’ll look good in a tuxedo.” In 1981 his exhibit, “A Love Affair with New York City,” broke attendance records at Nikon House in Rockefeller Center, attracting more than 11,300 visitors.

As for gossip according to Santi, the artist Salvador Dali was the cheapest man. “I was with him for three days and he never once reached into his pocket.” Of all the presidents – Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton – Nixon always did something for the camera. The others were more presidential. Santi tells of meeting the Pope. He said that he’s not religious but when the Pope grabbed his two hands in his he felt an electrical charge he’ll never forget. The silent star Rudolf Valentino was a gardener in Italy when he was discovered by actress Lillian Gish’s sister Dorothy. Santi taught Robert De Niro some Sicilian gestures for his part in The Godfather.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to hear all of the stories from memory lane. If you’d like to know more about the MClub, call Maria at 805.564.7362. They will be doing a Tauck tour of Sicily in September with host Santi Visalli going along to add to the experience.