Harry Benson

From Wikipedia:

Harry James Benson (born 2 December 1929) is a Scottish photographer. His photographs of celebrities have been published in magazines. He has published several books and won a number of prominent awards.

Life and work

Benson was born in Glasgow and raised in Troon, Scotland.

His pictures have appeared in Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He took over a hundred cover shots for People.

Benson was assigned to travel with The Beatles on their inaugural American tour in 1964. One of his most recognisable images shows the band in a gleeful pillow fight at the hotel Georges V in Paris. Other celebrities Benson has photographed include Bobby Fischer, Michael Jackson, who allowed him access to his bedroom, and Elizabeth Taylor, whom Benson photographed before and after her brain surgery. He has also photographed political figures, including every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, and covered war zones. Benson was standing next to Robert F. Kennedy when the senator was shot on 5 June 1968 and has remarked on the difficulty of steeling himself to document the historic moment: “I kept telling myself ‘this is for history, pull yourself together, fail tomorrow, not today.'”

Benson has been the subject of many exhibitions, including one organised by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.

Benson was the recipient of the 2005 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Portrait Photography and the 2005 American Photo Award for Photography. He has twice been named Magazine Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association (1981 and 1985). He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Scottish Press Photography Awards in April 2006. Benson was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2009. Benson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2014 he took an official photographic portrait of the Queen, commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. This was more than fifty years after his first portrait of the Queen, taken when she opened a coal mine in 1957. […]

Harry Benson met The Beatles in January 1964 when they were in residence in Paris, playing 37 shows between January 15 and February 4.

January 14, 1964, London

I was ready to head to Kenya in the morning. Then the phone rang. It was my boss, Frank Spooner, the picture editor of the Daily Express. “I’m taking you off the Africa assignment,” he said. “We’d like you to go to Paris. The Beatles are on tour there.”

My heart sank. Yes, I’d heard of the Beatles. They were getting bigger—hit song after hit song. But, at 31, I considered myself a serious journalist. As a staff photographer for London’s leading daily paper, I’d covered the rise of the Berlin Wall and broken stories in Egypt, Northern Rhodesia, and Russia. I was more interested in Kenya’s new government than in following around some rock-and-roll group.

“Frank, I’m supposed to go to Africa tomorrow,” I told him. “I’ve had all my shots.” Spooner heard me out and rang off. And I thought, Great, I dodged a bullet. At the Express, I’d built my reputation on hard news. And no place was more cutthroat than London’s Fleet Street, where staff photographers like me fought for scoops, tooth and nail, against guys on rival papers. I knew that once they put you on a music story, you’d be pegged as a show business photographer.

The phone rang again. Spooner had spoken with the top editor. “You’re going to Paris,” he said. “We think you’re perfect for the job. You’re presentable. None of our other photographers are good-looking.” And that was that. I was off to photograph the Beatles.

January 15, Paris

I met John, Paul, and George at the airport in London. Ringo would join us later. They were friendly and polite and sharp. Barely into their 20s, they joked around a lot and were quite mischievous, which I liked.

The band’s manager, Brian Epstein, all of 29, knew that photos in the Express would give the group great exposure back in Britain. So they’d agreed to give me full access. I remember John sitting down with me that day and saying, “I know this is good for you. But this is good for us because you’re doing our publicity for us. Otherwise, this would cost us a lot of money.” My assignment was to wire back one good photograph a day, preferably some kind of exclusive.

I was about 10 years older than the Beatles, which earned me some respect. They related to the fact that I was a scruff from Glasgow, a tough town like Liverpool. When we landed in Paris, a member of their entourage pulled me aside and said, “They like you. You’re not ugly.” Not ugly? Spooner had been right: Physical attractiveness mattered with them. They went to a stylish tailor in Soho — Dougie Millings in the Old Compton Road — who designed their collarless suits. So I fit in. I liked clothes and I wore a jacket.

That night, the band was playing in a music hall outside Paris. Just before they went onstage, I realized I needed another lens. When I went to the car to get it, I heard the first few bars of “All My Loving.” And it clicked for me, even before I’d seen them perform. Their sound was new. I knew right then: I was on the right story. I knew they were going straight to the top.

Harry Benson – From The Beatles Stormed America in 1964. I Was With Them, Day and Night | Vanity Fair, January 17, 2024

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