08/23/2026
🇺🇸 I've never been so good at remembering the ends of things, but I do remember the beginnings pretty well. Timothy Edward Dunn and I first met at a photoshoot in Milan for L'Uomo Vogue in November 1981. The photographer was Paolo Roversi --nicknamed "PAOLOroid" since he used a bulky large-format camera --which shot sumptuous 8" X 10" Poloroids. It was the first of many jobs that Tim and I would both be booked for. There was no plan to it; it was pure coincidence that we'd find ourselves working together, usually doing runway work. In Paris, Milan, London, Hamburg, we kept crossing paths. Eventually we became friends and then, best friends.
One spring day in Paris, Tim was waiting to hear from his agency that he was booked for a shoot in Greece, me for a shoot in Nice. It was one of those rare times that we both had time to kill at the same time. So we ran around town together. We sneaked into The Grand Palais which was empty, between expos. That was the day that I explained to him "how to see" and how to take a photograph. Tim eventually became a superb modernist art photographer.
Tim was my champion. It was early '83 in New York, when I was broke and losing hope of ever getting anywhere as an art director, that he decided that the best thing for me was to go for it from a position of love, security and strength. So, when he moved from Paris to New York in spring of 1983 he found a stunning sublet for us to live in: 110 Bleecker, NYU's faculty and grad student housing. That first apartment was a 2-bedroom on the 16th floor; the second, a 3-bedroom on the 24th floor which gave global views of all of midtown out over the roofs of the landmark low-rise village. The Empire State Building was our distant roommate. Having a beautiful place to live and a beautiful friend there took the pressure off. He said that my only job was to get the right job; I could pay him back when I was able. And I did.
Tim loved modernity. I introduced him to MoMA, The Met, The Guggenheim. Kandinsky and Mondrian, the Bauhaus and Philip Glass. We got season tickets to BAM's Next Wave Festival and The New York City Ballet. Gin and tonics with sunsets were a summer ritual. In just three months (but felt like an eternity), I landed my first salaried executive job: art directing and producing fashion and home catalogs for Bloomingdale's for $35,000 a year. I credited Tim for that. His friend Barbara Bickel congratulated me, "35 at 25, not bad!" Added bonus: the job put me in a position to hire Tim and his other best friend, eventually my other best friend, fashion photographer Beth Bischoff.
The most memorable New Year's Eve party of my life was 1984. We devised a "Big Brother is Watching" motif for which I cut out photo eyes from the newspaper, Xerox-enlarged to two feet wide, silhouetted and mounted all over our apartment walls. Invitations read "Black Tie or Party Gowns. You Choose." We filled a bathtub with ice and scores of bottles of champagne. What we didn't know was that 1984 would be Tim's best year of his career. He bought an condo in Century City, part of his plan to launch into acting. But by the middle of 1985, something was up. Inexplicable scalp rashes. Weight loss. Fatigue. Every time he got on a plane Beth and I fretted. And then he didn't come back. So I jumped on a plane to LA and found myself checking him into Cedars Sinai. He was writhing in pain and the nurses and orderlies were fearful and wary of going into his room and I eventually had my top-of-my-lungs Aurora Greenway moment, shouting at them how the virus was and wasn't transmitted, pounding on the nurses' station — with them calling security.
Tim wasn't one of those guys who got "a weird cold" and died one terrifying week or month later. He went to death's door and stayed there for years. He wasn't so upset with having lost his spectacular looks for which he was the highest paid male model in the world one year. He hated losing his living. He died in 1989. Tim Dunn had the most influence and more faith in me than anyone in my life besides my parents. More, actually. Gay men in New York City in the 80s and 90s used to say, "I've lost 35 friends." "I've lost 42 friends." "It seems like a funeral a week." It was. And all I could think was: I didn't lose 35 friends; I lost the ONLY one.
Timothy Edward Dunn. My hero. 📖 by Bob Cole
