Liz Enjoying Smell-O-Vision with Husband Eddie Fisher, Chicago

Art Shay is one of Chicago’s great photojournalists. With more than 25,000 published photographs—including more than 1,000 magazine covers—Shay has shaped the way we see the world on the printed page.

Born in the Bronx, Shay took up photography at the age of 12. He served in the U.S. Air Force in World War II, and his first published photographs—of an American military air disaster—were printed in a September 1944 issue of the weekly magazine Look. After the war, he joined Time and Life magazines, writing stories that he occasionally supplemented with his own (uncredited) images. In 1948 he moved to Chicago and took up photography full-time. In the nearly seven decades since, Shay’s camera has documented the famous and the downtrodden, the international and the local, the newsworthy and the intimate.
— Permanent collection label

“Liz Taylor and her then-husband Eddie Fisher diplomatically made believe they were enjoying Smell-O-Vision at the Mike Todd Theatre. The redoubtable, purple-eyed Hollywood angel descended on Chicago to introduce the ill-fated enterprise of her late husband Mike Todd and his son—Smell-O-Vision. With the starring couple of Scent of Mystery shown in an orange grove, Smell-O-Vision was going to add an extra sense to the enjoyment of movies. A Rube Goldberg setup based in the theater basement wafted up the scent of orange blossoms to the audience. When the leading lady came close to the camera you would smell her perfume over all the other smells. In the basement the smell machines involved looked like the engine room of a nuclear submarine. The whole idea was one of Todd’s few financial flops, but Liz played the inheriting widow with wit, rue, and wisdom. Critics agreed it stank.”
—Art Shay