CNN ShowBiz Today

On The Shelf

October 7, 1994

CNN’s ShowBiz Today featured Jack Fritscher’s Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera in its “On The Shelf” book segment on October 7, 1994, just weeks after the book’s release amid ongoing national debate over Robert Mapplethorpe’s legacy. In this brief network television appearance, Fritscher explains his intent to move past controversy and restore Mapplethorpe as a person, rather than a symbol, within the memoir’s pages.

“The book is a memoir. What I intended to do in the book is to restore Robert the person, because controversy and in discussions of his technique he was lost. So between those covers, people will find Robert himself.”