Zerbe differed from the common paparazzo in a major way: he never hid in bushes or jumped out and surprised the rich and famous he was photographing.
[citation needed] "Once I asked Katharine Hepburn to come up from her place at Fenwick, a few miles away, and pose for some fashion photos for me," Zerbe recalled in his book Happy Times.
[citation needed] Examples of his well-known images included Greta Garbo at lunch, Cary Grant helping columnist Hedda Hopper move into her new home, Steve Reeves shaving, Moss Hart climbing a tree, Howard Hughes having lunch at "21" with Janet Gaynor, Ginger Rogers flying first-class, plus legendary stars Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Salvador Dalí, Jean Harlow, Dorothy Parker, Gene Tunney, Thomas Wolfe, and the Vanderbilts.
[citation needed] He was for years the official photographer of Manhattan's famed nightspot El Morocco, the place to be and be seen, whether you were Humphrey Bogart, John O'Hara, or Ed Sullivan.
Zerbe pioneered the business arrangement of getting paid by the nightclub to photograph its visitors, then turning around and giving the photos away to the gossip pages.
He was befriended by a young Gary Cooper, which led to Zerbe's quickly becoming friends with Hedda Hopper, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Marion Davies, and Paulette Goddard.
[citation needed] During the Depression, Zerbe landed his first major job, as art director of Parade, which was headquartered in his hometown, Cleveland.
Soon afterward, Harry Bull, the editor of Town & Country in New York, saw some of Zerbe's society photos from Cleveland and made him an offer to photograph ritzy parties in the Midwest.
Zerbe got himself hired by the Rainbow Room, on the 65th Floor of 30 Rockefeller Center, to set up fashionable dinner parties and photograph the guests.
Zerbe was shocked that at the height of the Depression, unemployed readers craved looking at photos of high-society types dressed in evening clothes and drinking champagne.
He was able to bring his camera, became the official photographer for Admiral Nimitz, and found a way to travel with the stars who flew overseas to entertain the troops.
He was a charming man who was able to rub shoulders with dukes, duchesses, visiting dignitaries, as well as John Hay Whitney, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, and scores of others.
Among them were People on Parade (1934),[2] John Perona's El Morocco Family Album (1937),[3] The Art of Social Climbing (1965), and with Brendan Gill of The New Yorker, Zerbe's greatest collection, Happy Times (1973).