British photographer Terry O’Neill, whose images captured London’s Swinging ‘60s and who created iconic portraits of Elton John, Brigitte Bardot and Winston Churchill, has died at age 81.
O’Neill died Saturday at his home in London following a long battle with cancer, according to Iconic Images, the agency that represented O’Neill.
“Terry was a class act, quick witted and filled with charm,” the agency said in a statement posted to its website. “Anyone who was lucky enough to know or work with him can attest to his generosity and modesty. As one of the most iconic photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will forever remain imprinted in our memories as well as in our hearts and minds.”
Born in London in 1938, O’Neill was working as a photographer for an airline at Heathrow Airport when he snapped a picture of a well-dressed man sleeping on a bench. The man turned out to be the British home secretary, and O’Neill was hired by a London newspaper.
In the early 1960s he photographed the Beatles during the recording of their first hit single, and he captured the image of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill clutching a cigar as he was carried to an ambulance after a 1962 hospital stay.
O’Neill later said that when photographing the Beatles he placed John Lennon in the foreground because he thought that “it was obvious John was the one with the personality.”
Soon O’Neill was photographing the hottest stars of the mid and late ‘60s: Bardot, Raquel Welch, Michael Caine, Steve McQueen, Diana Ross and Audrey Hepburn.
He photographed many other big names over the course of a career that spanned decades, including model Kate Moss, Queen Elizabeth II, singers David Bowie and Amy Winehouse and former first lady Laura Bush.
O’Neill’s photos of Elton John remain among his most recognizable. One shows the singer, exuberant and sparkling in a sequined baseball uniform, with an audience of thousands in the background.
“He was brilliant, funny and I absolutely loved his company,” John tweeted Sunday.
Another iconic O’Neill photo, this one from 1977, depicted actress Faye Dunaway lounging poolside the morning after winning a best actress Oscar for her performance in “Network,” the statuette sitting on a table and newspapers strewn on the ground.
O’Neill was married to Dunaway for three years in the 1980s. According to British newspaper The Guardian, the couple had a son. O’Neill later married Laraine Ashton, a modelling industry executive.
In an interview with the Guardian last year, O’Neill discussed how he viewed his past photos.
“The perfectionist in me always left me thinking I could have taken a better shot. But now when I look at photos of all the icons I’ve shot – like Mandela, Sir Winston Churchill and Sinatra – the memories come flooding back and I think: ‘Yeah, I did all right.’”
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More