Part 52

At one time, the name Salk was synonymous with one thing only -- the revolutionary polio vaccine discovered by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953. In the 1970s, however, another national figure of the same name has emerged -- Dr. Lee Salk, Jonas' younger brother, who is probably the most highly respected and best-known child psychologist in America today.

The most successful of his five books, What Every Child Would Like His Parents to Know (1972), has been translated into 16 languages, while his most recent work, titled simply Dear Dr. Salk, was published in March by Harper & Row.

A soft-spoken, highly energetic man who bears a close physical resemblance to comedian Phil Silvers, Dr. Salk recently invited me to share his thoughts in an interview at his Upper East Side apartment.

"What I try to do as a psychologist," he said, sitting in a large, circular chair in his spacious library, "is to use all the media to present what I consider useful psychological information that has been distilled for the consumer -- to take the jargon out of it, and the ambiguity, so people can use it to deal effectively with their problems. While most people see me as a child psychologist, I'm really an adult psychologist who has focused on some of the most difficult issues that affect all people. ... In my initial years of practice, it became clear to me that most of the problems originated in childhood, and I felt that perhaps the front line of mental health is really in those early, critical years."

Since 1972, he has been writing a column titled "You and Your Family" for McCall's magazine, which has a readership of 16 million.

"I frequently deal with family concerns, including problems that have to do with older people," he explained. "I choose a different topic each month. Frequently the topic revolves around a number of letters that come in. The June issue, for example, has an unusually large column because we're dealing with sexuality. We get hundreds and hundreds of letters, so I can't answer them personally, but I do read them all. When I'm giving a speech across the country, I like to use airplane time to catch up on my mail."

As a television personality, he appears at least twice a week on NBC's News Center 4. His off-the-cuff manner is no deception: Salk does each of his broadcasts live, without a script, speaking spontaneously on a current issue.

His latest book, Dear Dr. Salk, answers questions ranging from the spacing of children to problems specific to teenagers. When asked how his approach compares to that of Ann Landers or Dear Abby, Salk replies: "I must say that they fall far short of what I'm trying to do. These people are not professional psychologists. They tend to sensationalize -- to appeal to the voyeuristic tendencies people have. I'm not saying they don't help people, but they don't always provide people with knowledge.

"A good deal of what I say is not direct advice. In answering a question, I try to provide knowledge about the problem, which the person can use, to answer his or her own question. I really feel I shouldn't give people a series of do's and don'ts"

His knowledge is based on a 25-year career as a professional clinical psychologist. Following his graduation from the doctoral program at the University of Michigan, Salk spent three years teaching at McGill University in Montreal, then returned to Manhattan, where he grew up. He still maintains a private practice, and is on the staff at Cornell University Medical School, the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic and the Lenox Hill Hospital.

Dr. Salk won the custody of his two children, Pia and Eric, in 1975 after a precedent-setting divorce trial in which it was ruled that he was "the parent that can best nurture their complex needs and social development."

A problem of many parents, he said, is not that they spend too little time with their children, but that "it's basically useless time, because they're not actively involved with the child." Salk himself makes a point of having breakfast and dinner with Pia and Eric virtually every day, and includes them in his social life whenever possible. "Their friends are frequently my dinner guests." Each summer he spends three months with them at an island retreat in Maine, while commuting to New York for his professional commitments. Dr. Salk enjoys cooking, and also likes to go to restaurants.

Dr. Salk's newest project is a 13-part series for public television, to be aired starting September 29. He will appear each week with three children to discuss such topics as love and attachment, divorce, and "making a family work." The programs, he said, "are geared to family viewing time, so children and their parents can watch together."

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EASTSIDER FRANCESCO SCAVULLO Photographer of the world's most beautiful women

6-16-79

As Richard Stolley, the managing editor of People magazine, is fond of saying, every publication on the newsstand is actually two publications. One is the inner contents, and the other -- far more important in terms of sales -- is the front cover. A stunning cover can make the difference of tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for a national magazine, and that's why Cosmopolitan has engaged the talents of photographer Francesco Scavullo for virtually every one of its covers for the last 11 years.

He has done album covers and posters for Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Judy Collins and many others. Among the publications that rely on his most often for covers are Vogue, Playboy, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, People and the magazine that started it all -- Seventeen -- which ran its first Scavullo cover in 1948, when he was still a teenager himself.

He never had any formal training in photography, but got plenty of practice during his Manhattan boyhood when he began taking pictures of his sisters and their girlfriends. Francesco delighted in applying makeup to their faces, running his hands through their hair, and dressing them in sexy gowns. He quickly made two discoveries -- first, that there's no such thing as an ugly woman, and second, that the photographer and his subject must be personally compatible. Although he charges approximately $3,000 for unsolicited private portraits, Scavullo won't photograph anyone with whom he has bad rapport -- and that includes all people who don't take care of themselves physically or abuse themselves with drugs.

A small, lithe man of 50 who walks with the gracefulness of a dancer and looks considerably younger than his years, Scavullo recently agreed to an interview at the town house on East 63rd Street that serves as both his studio and his home. Dressed in blue jeans, an open-neck white shirt, and Western boots, the chatty, unpretentious photographer sat back on the couch with his arms behind his head and a mischievous smile planted on his face. Asked about the large pills he popped into his mouth from time to time, Scavullo explained that they were vitamins and organic supplements.

"I'm very health-conscious," he said in a gravelly voice with a broad New York accent. "I don't eat meat, and I very seldom have even chicken or fish. I don't drink tea, or coffee, or alcohol -- except for a little wine. ... A lot of people stop smoking when they start working for me, because I hate it -- all this pollution in the air of New York already. I think smoking is great if you live out in the West, and you sit on top of a mountain like in the Marlboro commercials."

As we were talking in his spacious living room, decorated with Scavullo's own paintings, a member of his staff came from the studio below and said, in reference to a woman who was being made up for a shooting session, "She's still not ready, Francesco." Scavullo sighed.

"A seating with a man takes 20 minutes," he remarked, "and with a woman it takes the whole afternoon. Makeup," he added, "is used more intensely in photography than it is in the street. I think women look best without any type of makeup in the daytime. Sunlight has a very bad effect on it. Some of the ladies going by on the street look like they're holding a mask a fraction of an inch away from their face."

He has never developed the habit of stopping beautiful women on the sidewalk, but, said a grinning Scavullo, "if I see someone wildly attractive walking by, I get excited. I might turn around and whistle or something."

Number one on his list of the world's most beautiful women is 14-year old Brooke Shields, who also lives on the Upper East Side. She is one of the 59 models, actresses, and other celebrities featured in his first book, Scavullo On Beauty (1976), which came out in paperback last month from Vintage Press. The volume is filled with life-size shots of women's faces, many of them showing the difference before and after the Scavullo treatment. It is accompanied by frank interviews dealing with clothing, diet, exercise, makeup, and related subjects. Scavullo On Men, his second book, was published in 1977. And he has two more in the works -- a picture book on baseball, with text by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the New York Times, and a retrospective volume covering his photographs from 1949 to 1980. Both will be out next year.

A resident of the Upper East Side since 1950, he likes to dance until dawn at Studio 54 "whenever I don't have to get up too early the next day." Asked about his favorite local restaurants, he said he rarely goes to any, but that his entire staff orders lunch almost every day from Greener Pastures, a natural foods restaurant on East 60th Street.

Beauty, he believes, "is an advantage to everything -- man, woman, child, flower, state. I mean, everything. Beauty is the most fabulous thing in the world. I hate ugliness." His advice to amateur photographers: "Get a Polaroid. It is a very flattering camera to use, because it washes everything out." He couldn't resist adding: "If you can't be photographed by Scavullo, have your picture taken with a Polaroid."

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