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When he was in his mid-teens, Roddy McDowall started taking pictures of his friends. Now it is a minor source of anguish to him that he didn't start even sooner, because most of his friends were classic figures in Hollywood history and too many of them had slipped forever into history before his lens found them.
McDowall had begun acting in movies in Britain when he was only 10. He came to Hollywood in 1941, fleeing the Blitz. That year "How Green Was My Valley" made him a child star. "My Friend Flicka" and "Lassie Come Home," with his young friend Elizabeth Taylor, confirmed his star status in 1943.
He started organizing and saving his portraits in 1947, when he was negotiating that difficult but, in his case, eminently successful journey out of child roles and into adulthood. He was Malcolm in Orson Welles' 1948 filming of "Macbeth." He left Hollywood for Broadway and roles in "No Time for Sergeants" and other successes.
"I read somewhere-this was in the '60s," McDowall said the other day, "that John Gielgud had written a fan letter to Ethel Merman. And I thought, `Wow! What a fascinating pair of opposites.' "
The notion became a 1968 book called "Double Exposure," McDowall's portraits with an appreciative text by another star.
"Louise Brooks wrote about Buster Keaton. Anita Loos wrote about Brooks. Kate Hepburn wrote about Lauren Bacall. Henry Miller wrote about Jennifer Jones. Noel Coward wrote about Larry Olivier, and so on. It was lovely fun."
Now McDowall has...