A Day In The Life Of A Paparazzo
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Richard Terry has gone through his share of battles trying to get the perfect picture.
Jennifer Aniston rarely left her Malibu beach house during the summer of 2005. Richard Terry knows this because he sat outside every day for two and a half weeks. He felt like he had been trapped on a desert island.
When Courtney Cox finally walked by, Terry was spacing out, shirtless, and using his former t-shirt as a camera case. He scrambled together his camera fast enough to catch Aniston holding Cox's baby. And then, after taking three pictures, the memory card on Terry's camera was full.
He had killed those two and a half weeks waiting for Aniston by "taking pictures of seagulls and all this other shit." The pictures were enough, however.
The photo agency X17 sold them for over $100,000 worldwide, according to X17 co-founder Brandy Navarre. Terry said he earned a profit of about $11,000 for lots of waiting and only a few seconds of actual work.
Terry has gone through many extremes to catch celebrities at their most mundane, often at the expense of his safety. He is especially proud that he is still hanging in this aggressive business at the age of 57, in decent enough shape to run after celebrities and fight for elbow room with paparazzi over 30 years his junior. But he is not the only one who is aging.
A Vietnam veteran named Green was homeless until X17 lent him a camera. Now he has an apartment in Brentwood, an upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles.
"We also have a former cop from Brazil working for us," Navarre said in an e-mail. "He has a family with grown children. He's in his late 40's -- wonderful guy."
Terry is unique not just for his age. He's also been targeted more than most people.
"I'm basically non-violent," Terry said. But he has many stories about being victimized, and then fighting back.
One of his favorite paparazzi colleagues is Trevor Wayne, a tattooed 23-year-old from TMZ. Unlike Terry, Wayne said he has never been beaten up on the job, even though he said he shoots video "like a maniac." But Terry puts his video camera unusually close to celebrities' faces, a source of pride for him. Wayne said Terry moves his camera closer than is actually necessary to get a good shot. This leads to violence.
On one occasion, Terry said, a paparazzo kept bumping him as he filmed, trying to make him miss his shot. "So I threw an elbow into the dude, a fat guy, and he folded over like a soft pillow."
Terry said he didn't feel anything during the fight, but when he came home, he noticed his stomach had a cut on it, presumably given to him by the fat guy he elbowed. He has a scar there now, which he lifts his shirt up fairly often to show off.
Terry said he was "seriously bummed" about another since-resolved fight he had with his X17 boss, Francois "Regis" Navarre, over his camera, which hasn't been working properly since Britney Spears' bodyguard slapped it, he said.
In a video posted to X17, Terry, bleeding from his forehead, shows an assault by Jay-Z's bodyguard (camera to the face). In another video, Mel Gibson singles Terry out from a group of paparazzi, approaches, and says, "Don't you dare touch me."
Terry had just asked Mel how the new baby was doing.
"I picture Richard being a little overzealous that day and Richard getting a little too close," Brandy Navarre said, speculating on why Gibson selected Terry to threaten.
Terry said he was also beaten up by a famous producer after he crashed a party at his house to take pictures.
"These little Japanese babes come out and go, 'You guys gotta leave now,'" Terry said. "All of a sudden, this guy comes out from like out of nowhere...bam. And he runs and hits me, and I go flying up and down the driveway."
Terry wouldn't give the producer's name because he said it will ruin the surprise when he retaliates, something he insists will happen.
A Los Angeles native, Terry once aspired to be a film star himself before he began exposing stars in pictures. He said he was raised in Brentwood by a mom who had a publishing firm and a dad who did acting and advertising.
Paparazzi
It always seems to be a battle for the paparazzi whenever a
celebrity decides to show their face in public.
"My dad passed away before I started doing [paparazzi work] unfortunately, but my mom thinks it's funny," he added.
Terry went to Santa Monica Community College and then began doing extra work and small-time modeling at age 24, a time he fondly remembers as his handsome years.
"I used to run three to five miles on the beach every day. I did 300 pushups, then I'd surf all day," he said. "I was always chasing girls, and screwing around. Time flies by and here I am, still single."
One of his bigger extra roles was a Happy Days episode called, "Fonzie Joins the Band." Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, Terry glares while Fonzie steals his girl.
After a decade of trying to make it in Hollywood, he found that "it's not who you know but who you blow." The business became frustrating. So he painted houses instead, a job he still does sometimes.
He said his clients include movie producer Brian Grazer, whom he shook hands with in the midst of a photo shoot a few weeks ago.
Before he became a paparazzo, he also once painted the home of the X17 founders, Francois and Brandy Navarre. During the painting job, he noticed how nice their home was. Terry ran into Francois again about a year later, and soon after he began taking pictures for the Navarre's agency, since Terry lived in Malibu at the time, a good spot for star-sightings.
It was about seven years ago now, after a chance Ben Affleck spotting at the liquor store, when Terry earned $500 for the first picture of his paparazzi career, he said.
Brandy Navarre said Terry is one of X17's more reliable workers, usually putting in seven days a week.
"He's good at video because he doesn't get embarrassed and he sits there and asks questions," she said.
On a typical day, Terry said he wakes up early, reads the New York Post, plays poker at the Hollywood Park Casino, and then talks to his boss on the phone about where to find the A (or F) listers.
After turning in about three to four videos, Navarre said, Terry's day usually ends by 10 p.m. There are exceptions, of course, because drunk celebrities tend to stay out later.
Recently, Terry secretly filmed a sweaty, wasted-looking Kiefer Sutherland from upstairs at a restaurant, "trying to bite his friend's arm."
Terry would not disclose his average weekly pay. But Navarre said X17's regular, L.A.-based photographers usually make anywhere from $800 to $3000 per week, depending on their output. This is about half as much as they made in 2007, Navarre said, thanks to the economy and Britney Spears' newfound sanity.
Terry uses a small, cheap-looking camcorder, while other paparazzi have fancy cameras. But he said his is much more convenient for secretive filming.
Obvious bedfellows
Most pictures don't require as much dedication as the Aniston one did, since celebrities often encourage attention from the paparazzi.
"We have great relationships with these people," Brandy Navarre said of celebrities.
Lindsay Lohan, for example, snapped at the paparazzi to move out of her way one day last month as she walked through a "gang bang," the paparazzi's term for a chaotic shoot. Lohan was on her way to a party for her line of leggings. But later that same day, a publicist for Lohan's leggings line was making friendly small-talk with the paparazzi and exchanging business cards with them.
While the agencies might have great relationships with some stars, the photographers don't always play nice, preferring to mock Lohan during the gang bang."Lindsay, that grey is really bringing the color out of your eyes, you know what I'm saying?" one paparazzo yelled. Lohan's appearance attracted about 30 paparazzi.
Paparazzi
Terry always seems to stand out amongst the paparazzi.
One of them, Giles Harrison, was convicted of falsely imprisoning Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver with his car in 1998. Harrison, a man the size of a linebacker, is also "kind of a dork," according to Terry. The dislike is mutual. Harrison said that Terry should "get some deodorant."
But Terry is friendlier and less guarded than the other paparazzi, freely giving his crude take on Hollywood. He will gladly go off for half an hour telling stories of his greatest hits, which include photographing a hung-over-looking Goldie Hawn as she tried hiding behind a fat guy -- "I see this chick, and she's just totally tweaked"; flattering Ellen and Portia -- "I go, 'Ellen, you and your wife look so gorgeous together.' They just got all wet"; waiting hours in front of a restaurant for Brad Pitt -- "Just as soon as I take a piss, he walks out"; parking in the bus-only zone at Cedars-Sinai just as Britney Spears' ambulance rolled up; telling Bill Maher that he sucks (Maher was once rude to Terry); being hit on by his house-painting clients; and losing "hot chicks'" phone numbers.
Pulling no punches
Terry, who wears glasses and has blonde hair, a slight belly, dirty fingernails and a red face, has no qualms about describing people's appearances, either.
Ellen DeGeneres has an enormous amount of arm flab, he said, and Jessica Simpson, with the weight gain, looks much different in person than she did years ago.
"The cool thing about having small boobs though is when you get older you don't have to worry about them sagging down," Terry said later, reflecting on how old age makes people ugly.
But Terry isn't cynical, often praising actors and taking genuine pride in his work.
"Of all the young actresses, she's the one that really is talented," Terry said sincerely of Lohan. Although he later made fun of her for twittering about her humanitarian work in India.
"The coolest fucking cat there is, is Donny Osmond," Terry said. He also still has a cigarette that Sean Penn flicked at him, which he plans to sell.
Terry, who does not use e-mail, now lives in a Bel Air apartment inherited from one of his sisters. Terry said he cared for her when she became terminally ill. Before she died, she also gave him a pitbull-lab mix. He now rides around town with the dog, leaves it in the car during photo shoots, and once had to chase it down in front of Ellen DeGeneres. Though the dog has chewed up the upholstery in his car as well as Terry's skin, he feels obligated to keep it.
"One thing about this job...I get to see all kinds of hot babes everywhere," Terry said. "I'm damn lucky to have a good job."
