Lou Toman, a newsman’s newsman who captured life in South Florida in all its intriguing, infamous, glamorous glory for more than 50 years as a photographer for the Sun Sentinel and Fort Lauderdale News, has died at age 90.
Toman passed away at an assisted-living facility in Plantation on Tuesday, according to his son, Philip Toman. A celebration of life is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 13, from noon to 4 p.m., at Plantation Preserve Golf Course & Club.
In a career that went from 1956 to 2009, Toman took pictures of everything from garden parties to car wrecks, spring breakers to Super Bowls, pop-culture royalty to presidents.
Toman was there in 1964 when Cassius Clay took the world heavyweight boxing title from Sonny Liston on Miami Beach, changing his name to Muhammad Ali after the fight. He took pictures of the Miami Dolphins’ first game at the Orange Bowl in 1966.
He photographed Elvis Presley, on his final tour, at the Hollywood Sportatorium less than six months before he died. He charmed a reluctant Sophia Loren out of hiding behind oversized sunglasses, stalked Winston Churchill for an iconic photo on Aristotle Onassis’ yacht, and drew the attention of the Secret Service while aiming a long lens at JFK at the Orange Bowl.
“I did it for 53 years because when I woke up, it was something different every day,” he said in a Sun Sentinel interview marking his retirement in 2009. “There was no such thing as a normal day of taking pictures.”
Toman started his career while in high school in Coral Gables, where a next-door neighbor was a retired Life magazine photographer who mentored him. Toman took a picture of a car crash near his home and submitted it to the Miami News, which published it inside the local section. He got $10 for it. But seeing his name in the paper was intoxicating.
He was home on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, where his parents had moved while he was at the University of Florida, and got a summer photography job at the Fort Lauderdale News, which later merged with the Sun Sentinel. Before returning to school that summer, he was offered a full-time job as a staff photographer. It was 1956, and he worked at the newspaper ever since.
For most of his tenure, Toman worked the 7 a.m. shift, when overnight crime news and random oddball incidents would require quick attention.
“Lou was the consummate news photographer. He did courts, cops, everything. Anything that blinked,” said Jerry Lower, who spent 18 years in management roles in the Sun Sentinel photography department. “He got more accomplished before I even got into the office than some members of the staff did all day.”
Lower recalls having lunch with Toman at the old Creolina’s restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, which was filled with police and firefighters. One by one, radios at each table began to signal some emergency, prompting the rescue crews to throw down cash and bolt for the door.
“I think Lou was the third person at the door, on the way to his car. Because he needed to be anywhere the cops were going,” Lower said.
One of his favorite Lou Toman pictures happened in 2000, when a Pembroke Pines woman named Tillie Tooter was discovered alive after spending three days trapped in her car, which had flipped over a guardrail into thick mangroves along Interstate 595. Toman was there when rescue workers raised Tooter from the wreckage, which made news nationwide.
“When I think of that whole situation, it reminded me of Lou and Broward County. When I think of Lou Toman, I think of the bold, brash Broward County,” Lower said.
Many of his best pictures can be found on the walls of The Floridian, the iconic diner and community hub in downtown Fort Lauderdale where Toman was a longtime member of a semi-famous, early-morning breakfast club of local powerbrokers, cops and businessmen. At some point, he acquired the nickname “Lauderdale Lou.”
The owner of The Floridian, the late Butch Samp, was a longtime friend who created the voluminous gallery of pictures. It is both an homage to Toman’s work and a history lesson for visitors in what a distinctive place South Florida has been through the years.
Fort Lauderdale attorney Fred Haddad, part of the morning crew at The Floridian, estimates he had breakfast with Toman almost every day for more than 20 years.
“He was certainly a great guy. I’m sorry to hear it,” Haddad said.
Toman had an anecdote for each of the pictures hanging around the room at the diner, Haddad said. “He told stories about all of them. He knew a lot of people and had really interesting insights.”
Toman was a certified police officer and served as a reserve officer with the Plantation Police Department in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Son Philip Toman, who became a longtime detective with Plantation PD, says his father’s influence was everywhere.
“He was a hard worker, somebody who loved life, and he loved talking to people. He loved telling stories, because he met so many people and he had so many different experiences,” Philip Toman said. “My dad’s a people person. He knows how to talk.”
And he could talk to anyone. While he was shooting the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, he trained his camera on a section of California delegates, including a man wearing a button that said, “NIXON’S THE ONE.”
After taking the picture, he went into journalist mode to get details for the caption, asking the man: “Sir, can you spell your last name?”
The man replied, “Gov. Ronald Reagan. R-E-A-G-A-N.”
Toman responded: “I know who you are. I just want to make sure I get your name right.”
Philip Toman said his father had been in declining health, especially since the COVID-19 shutdown, but that he should be remembered for the wonderful life he lived.
“He was the best dad I could have ever asked for,” Philip Toman said. “He just loved life. … Loved his job, loved his family, loved where he lived. He was just very happy.”
In addition to Philip, of Davie, Toman is survived by his wife, Donna, and son Craig, of Margate.
Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com.
