A photographer’s second act
For 25 years, Mark Sennet photographed the people who defined an era, including Muhammad Ali, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Andy Warhol and Dolly Parton, as a Time-Life photojournalist for Life and People magazines. He went on to a career as an Emmy-nominated film and television producer.
In 2022, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The signs had come slowly, and not to him. Sennet has said in interviews that it was his wife, Pam, and their daughter, Lauren, who first noticed the misplaced keys and wallet and the forgotten location of the car. He was being treated for depression, and the forgetfulness was attributed to that. Years passed. Then, two weeks before Lauren’s wedding, he had a grand mal seizure. A week in a neurological care unit produced the diagnosis. A month later, he walked his daughter down the aisle.
What happened next is the part worth attention.
The turning point came through a friend who recognized the family needed support and encouraged Pam to call the Alzheimer’s Association’s 24/7 Helpline. Pam took her advice and made the call. Sennet has described what that call meant to her: a care consultant on the other end of the line and the sense of having someone beside her, even though the voice was on a phone.
The referrals that followed led to support groups and specialists near home.
Pam, a nurse, has spoken publicly about the years since. There is cueing about what the day holds. There is attention to nutrition. There are movies that are harder to follow than they once were. She describes the two of them as taking it day by day.
Sennet took up physical therapy, gym work and long walks and stayed with it. At his family’s urging, he went back to the camera. Working with Lauren and the Atlanta chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, he began a coffee-table book in two halves: the famous faces of his early career and, beside them, the work he has made since his diagnosis, including people living with cognitive disorders and the physicians and researchers working toward a cure.
“Keep active, keep moving, keep laughing and don’t ever give up,” he told the Alzheimer’s Association. He hopes the photographs will make people smile.
That runs against a common assumption that a diagnosis is an ending.
Dementia care research points the other way. Physical activity, social connection, creative work and support for the caregiver are consistently associated with better quality of life for both people in a household. Sennet’s second act is one man’s version of that. It is not unusual. It is what living well with the disease can look like.
Sennet will speak on Hilton Head Island on Thursday, Oct. 8, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Grace Community Church, 450 Spanish Wells Road. The talk is hosted by Memory Matters as part of its Memories Do Matter Speaker Series, presented by Dave Ekedahl. The program is free and open to the public, and registration is required. Visit mymemorymatters.org/events or call 843-842-6688.
Ginny Underwood is director of development at Memory Matters, which has served families affected by dementia in Beaufort and Jasper counties since 1997. mymemorymatters.org.
