Stevens maintains that Avedon-then married to his second wife-confessed to her not only the affair with Nichols (“We’re equally corrupt: we were made for each other”) but also make-out sessions with author James Baldwin (really just some “innocent kissing,” though) and illicit middle-of-the-night Central Park forest trysts (“My heart would be pounding just like before a sitting”). Coming out had been a no-go for him: He didn’t want to be typecast as “the gay photographer,” he told her it would have been “bad for business.” Yet Ms. Stevens maintains that Avedon was resolutely, if privately, bisexual.

“Something Personal” is indeed saturated with gossipy revelations about Avedon’s private life and musings in a chapter titled “Forbidden Affinities,” Ms. The New York Post’s Page Six gleefully reported on the book’s revelations about Avedon’s supposed love affair with film director and writer Mike Nichols, his disdain for Vogue editor Anna Wintour and his prickly relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy.

No one knew him better than Norma Stevens, who for thirty years.

She collaborated with him on all his commercial, editorial, and fine-art projects and traveled the world with him for his ad campaigns and museum exhibitions. An intimate biography of Richard Avedon, the legendary fashion and portrait photographer who helped define Americas image of style, beauty and culture. Avedon: Something Personal Stevens, Norma Published by Random House (2017) ISBN 10: 0812994434 ISBN 13: 9780812994438 New Hardcover Quantity: 1 Seller: GoldenWavesOfBooks (Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.) Rating Seller Rating: Book Description Hardcover. Earlier this month, a few torrid details leaked about “Avedon: Something Personal,” a biography and oral history of Richard Avedon assembled by the photographer’s longtime business partner, Norma Stevens, and writer Steven M.L. Something Personal un libro di Avedon Richard: Stevens Steven M.L. Norma Stevens was a copywriter and creative director in advertising when Richard Avedon wooed her to become his studio director in 1976.

Avedon by Norma Stevens