and nightlife was booming. The city had seven daily newspapers and three press associations. They all needed society photographs. 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. The nightclub era Around 1934, Zerbe was in business in Manhattan. He was the staff photographer for both the Rainbow Room and a bustling nightclub, El Morocco. Zerbe said that from 1933 to 1938, he spent most nights from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. at El Morocco eating, drinking, and taking pictures. Many considered El Morocco the classiest nightclub in town and looked down upon the Stork Club regulars as "tacky". El Morocco was the place to be seen – particularly if one just came from a Broadway show. Zerbe photos taken at El Morocco are readily identifiable due to the blue-and-white zebra-stripe fabric on all the banquettes and couches. World War II prompted Zerbe to enlist in the Navy. 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. After the war, Zerbe took up photographing café society with gusto. 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. He traveled to France to photograph estates and country homes – and the residents as well. In the 1940s, Zerbe worked for the Hearst newspaper chain, and wrote a Sunday column for the Sunday Mirror for more than 10 years. From 1949 to 1974, he was the society editor for Town & Country. He traveled around the globe photographing big celebrity events. Zerbe had several "coffee table" photo books published. Among them were People on Parade (1934), John Perona's El Morocco Family Album (1937), The Art of Social Climbing (1965), and with Brendan Gill of The New Yorker, Zerbe's greatest collection, Happy Times (1973). Death Zerbe died on August 19, 1988, at his Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan. He was 85. The Zerbe photographic archive was purchased by Frederick R. Koch, eldest son of industrialist Fred C.