Schatzberg was born to a Jewish family of furriers and grew up in the
Bronx.
Photography Schatzberg began his photography career as an assistant to photographer
William "Bill" Helburn. He also studied under designer and photographer
Alexey Brodovich alongside
Richard Avedon and
Irving Penn. At age 28 he left Helburn to start his own photography studio. As a fashion photographer, he photographed for magazines such as
Vogue,
Esquire and
McCalls. As a still photographer, among Schatzberg's most famous images were the cover photo of the
Bob Dylan album
Blonde on Blonde, released in 1966, and for
The Rolling Stones record sleeves. A collection of Schatzberg's images of Dylan was published by
Genesis Publications in 2006, titled
Thin Wild Mercury. He went on to direct films such as
The Panic in Needle Park, which starred
Al Pacino in 1971,
Scarecrow, which shared the grand prize at the
1973 Cannes Film Festival,
The Seduction of Joe Tynan with
Alan Alda and
Meryl Streep,
Honeysuckle Rose with
Willie Nelson and
Dyan Cannon,
Misunderstood (based on a novel by
Florence Montgomery) starring
Gene Hackman,
No Small Affair starring
Demi Moore, and
Street Smart in 1987, which earned
Morgan Freeman his first Oscar nomination. He was a member of the jury at the
2004 Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, he was developing a
Scarecrow sequel with writer Seth Cohen that was not made. In 2021, Schatzberg revealed his intentions to make one last film, admitting that he "[doesn't] know what it is yet." He sought out and was considering adapting
Atticus Lish's novel
The War for Gloria. ==Personal life==