Dreaming in that past century was something that as a photographer and occasional writer I could indulge with pleasure. I could go to just about any magazine or newspaper in Vancouver and see the editor without previous appointment.

In that last century I went to Charles Campbell  then editor of the Georgia Straight with the idea of doing a fashion spread with story by David Boswell (he of the Reid Fleming The World’s Toughest Milkman). I further suggested we use dancers from Ballet BC.

Because I was a friend of the Marble Arch Hotel owner, Tony Ricci, we used the finest room of this then sleazy hotel.

People with keen eyes might notice that in the second photograph there is a framed portrait of Vancouver poet Michael Turner. A few years before, I had photographed him in that room with a beautiful woman in black underwear lying on the bed behind him. I had been commissioned by the Toronto literary magazine, Quill & Quire to take the portrait. As soon as the magazine was published, I received a phone call from the editor who called to thank me. He told me that my photo had elicited the first complaint ever for his staid magazine.

Desire and Murder and Michael Turner at the Marble Arch 

Boswell’s scenario was about three women luring a man into the room and killing him with a snub-nosed .38 revolver.

And so it happened.