Charles W Gray
Charles Gray (there was no W. back then) was one of my best clients. In his time in Vancouver he was forever changing back-up singers and musicians trying to hone his R&B/funk groove. Consequently he was back to my studio for new shots every few months. The shot above is with Aaron Smith on the left and Charles Gray is on the right.
I remember him giving me a compatibility test once. He invited me to his apartment and sat me down and put on a Richard Pryor album and watched very carefully to see if I could dig the humour. It was an easy test. I already loved Pryor and his off the wall style and the way he could make middle class white people feel really uncomfortable.
Charles eventually became frustrated with the Vancouver arts scene. He was moving toward acting and the stage and was finding it difficult to get decent paying work. He once said to me that it seemed Vancouver only had room for one token black and that was Leon Bibb and he got all the action. So Charles packed the family up and moved to Toronto.
We lost track of each other until thirty or so years later I dug out this photo from my archives. I had always liked this studio shot and wanted to post it here but couldn’t remember Aarons name. I tracked down Charles via Facebook and contacted him thereby getting Aaron’s name and of course finding out what Charles has been up to.
Check out his CV at the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com
