Robert Frank’s Elevator Girl
One of Robert Frank’s most well-known photographs, *Elevator Girl*, caught the attention of his friend, the writer Jack Kerouac.
In his preface to the photo book *The Americans*, Kerouac wrote:
"That little elevator girl who raises her eyes to the ceiling, sighing in an elevator full of blurry demons—what’s her name? Where does she live?"
It was 1959. Kerouac had just completed his long journey *On the Road* across the United States, giving rise to the Beat Generation with his novel. Around the same time, Robert Frank undertook a similar journey, using his camera to tell his own story of America and its people.
In 1955, Robert Frank traveled across the United States with a Guggenheim Foundation grant. Accompanied by his wife, son Paulo, and daughter Andrea, Frank documented both grand events—such as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago—and everyday life, capturing the continuous flow of ordinary living.
The result was an extensive body of work, first published in 1958 by French publisher Delpire under the title *Les Américains* (now a collector’s edition). The following year, the work was republished in the United States by Grove Press, with a preface by Jack Kerouac. Today, it remains a best seller through the German publisher Steidl.
Paraphrasing Kerouac’s words, Robert Frank "dissected" America and transferred a "sad poem" onto film, securing his place among the great tragic poets of the 20th century.
*The Americans* portrays an America very different from the one depicted in the photo essays of popular magazines of the time. The people Frank photographed did not necessarily live under the myth of the American Dream that prevailed in that era.
His subjects included factory workers in Detroit, cross-dressers in New York, Black passengers on a segregated bus in New Orleans, people on the streets and in cars, a waitress in a diner, a funeral, a jukebox, an empty kitchen with a perpetually glowing TV, a store window, a gas station attendant, a dancing couple, another on a motorcycle—and a young elevator girl in Miami.
Let’s return to that elevator girl. Jack Kerouac’s questions now have an answer. The girl from the photograph was named Sharon Collins. She was 15 years old when Robert Frank captured her image.
Elevator Girl, Miami Beach 1955 © Robert Frank
She saw herself in that photograph only about fifteen years ago, during an exhibition in San Francisco.
“I stood in front of that photo for at least five minutes, without understanding why I was stuck there,” Sharon recalls. “Only later did I realize that the girl in the photo was me. In that elevator, Robert Frank took about four pictures of me, without using a flash. Then, when the elevator had emptied of its ‘demons,’ he asked me to turn around and give him a smile. He smiled at me too.
He saw something in me that most people have never seen. I suspect that both Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac saw something deeper in me, something only those very close to me can see. In this photo, there isn’t necessarily loneliness—it’s more… dreamlike."
