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  Home Page » Features » Columnists » John Peel » Local Renaissance Man Tells All

Local Renaissance man tells all

by John Peel
This old man with thinning white hair, living in a tiny, aging trailer south of town, this personable recluse, he has a story to tell.

Well, let's be clear. More than one story.

Well, let's put it this way: How much time you got?

Sit down for a conversation with Gleb Derujinsky, and you may not get back out of your seat for a while. He has lived in the Durango area now for 30-plus years. But rest assured: He's been around.

Around the world of photography. Around the world of auto racing. Around the world of flying. Just simply, around the world.

It's not possible to check all of the 84-year-old's wild stories, the many accomplishments and awards, the facts and figures. But everything fits - starting with the stunning wooden sculptures, his father's, that decorate the trailer.

The beginning Derujinsky grew up in New York City, the son of Russian immigrants - his father a famous sculptor, his mother a classical pianist. His love affair with the camera began at age 6, he says. By age 10, using money from a modeling gig, he had bought a camera and constructed his own photo enlarger. That contraption got him into the Camera Club of New York, where he had access to huge lenses, state-of-the-art equipment and members with knowledge.

World War II hero Allied forces needed a three-mile-long road to the front, but this part of Belgium was a swamp. They desperately required gravel, but there was none to be found.

I'll get you that gravel, the brash young corporal told his commanding officer. How? Just get me trucks and a crew and about three days, and don't ask. He convinced Belgians to tear up a section of railroad tracks to use the gravel underneath. Patton needs it, he told them (in French, which earned their respect).

“You're no longer a corporal," the nervous Derujinsky learned upon his return with the valuable gravel. What did I do wrong, he wondered as the officer took a piece of cloth from his pocket. Sergeant stripes. A promotion.

Groundbreaking fashion photographer “There ain't nothing I don't know. Period," he says, the sun beating down on his back through the large, south-facing picture window. “You can test me anytime you like."

He experimented with film, with negatives and prints, with a strobe. He mixed chemicals. He placed models in commonplace settings - eating popcorn in a parade, with a policeman, with tavern patrons; that became his signature.

“All my life I've been inventive, using things other people have been using but not in the same way."

In the midst of a competitive New York City market, he shot for Esquire, Look, Glamour, The New York Times Magazine and foremost with Harper's Bazaar for 17 years. With Harper's, “If you weren't different," he jerks his thumb toward the picture window, “down the road."

Award-winning film director When the cameraman left the room during a job for Johnson & Johnson, Derujinsky, the director, took his seat. “Is there film in this thing?" That's how he got the shot the cameraman refused to try, an extreme closeup of a woman smearing cream down her arm.

“Three shots. Done," he says. “This is it. … Nobody's going to get me off that seat. Since then, I worked the camera in everything I ever did."

Later, he takes from a shelf the first-prize plaque awarded at the 1967 International Advertising Film Festival in Cannes. It's not the only trophy in the trailer's confines.

Champion glider pilot Two glider pilots of differing styles duel in Marfa, Texas, for the U.S. Soaring Championship. One relies on a hand calculator, one on a daring style based on feel and taking chances. Want to guess which one's Derujinsky?

This is the plot for a 1970 film, “The Sun Ship Game," by legendary documentary filmmaker Robert Drew. Gleb's wife, “Wally," shoos the Doberman out of the way so she can get to the computer and burn a copy of the DVD for the newspaper guys to take.

Throughout his life, he says, Derujinsky sought out experts for advice. That was true for piloting planes and cars. Oh yes, he raced for Ferrari.

“I know something about driving and quick driving," he says, and recounts the time he followed legendary Grand Prix racer Stirling Moss around the track. “Again, I was taught by the best in the world."

American A framed photo of Franklin Roosevelt stares at the trailer's occupants from a desktop. “I see him, and he calms me," explains Derujinsky. As a youngster, he experienced the Depression and watched as Americans turned the country around, whether by Roosevelt's New Deal programs or the end of prohibition. “He got them working and drinking."

From his World War II days, he's no big fan of Germans and Japanese, even Russians. “An American is a decent guy and treats people in a humane way."

Classical musician Somehow our interview has turned into Derujinsky playing the piano. He's demonstrating the music used in a documentary piece about him. First he plays part of a Chopin funeral march, then a Beethoven sonata.

His piano wizardry kept him from getting an unwanted assignment during World War II. An officer liked the way he played and crossed him off the transfer list.

Obsessive raconteur After several requests, he pulls out flat boxes of 16-inch by 20-inch black-and-white prints of his fashion photos. They're from Paris, Greece, Hong Kong and Kurdistan, as well as Flagstaff, Ariz. Other boxes contain color prints of more-recent shots, some taken right outside his door. Each one has a story, so it's no quick task going through five or six boxes.

“Gleb is a piece of work. He is a truly amazing man," says Margy Dudley, who has displayed Derujinsky's photos at Open Shutter Gallery, which she has owned for eight years. He does things his way and always thinks outside the box. The gallery is one of Derujinsky's hangouts.

“Everything he says is true," she confirms. “It all checks out."

We still haven't delved into the carbon-fiber bicycle frames he designed and built for the U.S. Olympic team or the jewelry he made for his Durango shop or his decades as a ski instructor at Purgatory or the photos he took of a Nazi concentration camp that he was one of the first to enter. But after three hours without letup, it seems time for Gleb, and his audience, to take a break.

“Everybody says I'm crazy," he says, then pauses as if he's about to change the subject. But doesn't. “Anyway, I am."

johnp@durangoherald.com John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column.