Every picture tells a story by ACC Art Books

every picture tells a story TERRY Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;NEILL

MUHAMMAD ALI When O’Neill met Ali in Dublin

“It was the start of summer 1972 and Muhammad Ali was in Dublin training for a fight against Alvin Lewis. I flew over to take photographs and interview him for the Daily Express. I was doing some interviews for the papers at the time and remember that they ran that story for three days. That’s how big Ali was, and outside of his early days as a professional, 1972 would be one of the most active periods in his fighting career.” In the 1960s, Muhammad Ali was at the height of the boxing world when the universe changed. As a U.S. citizen, Ali was not immune to the Vietnam conflict and by refusing to be drafted into the armed services (on the principle of being a conscientious objector), caused a systematic denial of his boxing licence in every state. Eventually arrested for draft evasion, he was stripped of his passport and did not fight for more than three years. As opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow, Ali became one of the highest profile objectors and his brave stance gained respect and momentum. He eventually reclaimed the right to fight, and in 1971 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Fights were set and Ali was ready to stage an incredible comeback. “Ali was starting to fight again when I had this incredible opportunity to meet him. A year before these photos, he lost the Heavyweight Championship of the World to Joe Frazier in what was billed as ‘The Fight of the Century’. When I met him for these photos, he was in the middle of building his global crusade to recapture the title. “Ali was great to photograph. He paid no attention to me and was either training or raving about being the greatest— or he’d just sit in a room and say nothing for hours, watching training films of himself. He was a funny type of bloke—he was either all giving or saying nothing. He was completely focused. He was like Sinatra in that respect, both driven and determined. “When I started to talk to him and ask him questions for the interview, that’s when he blew up! He swore and said ‘Are you writing a book on me?’ And his brother, who was there, —

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Magic pictures happen when the combination of an idea, patience and luck occur at once

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He was electrifying on stage

DAVID BOWIE The last performance of Ziggy Stardust

“Tony DeFries, David Bowie's manager, invited me to the Marquee Club on Wardour Street in Soho to take photos of a very special performance from David Bowie. I didn’t realise at the time that this would be the last performance of Ziggy Stardust. He was performing songs—a process that would take several days—that would be broadcast on a television programme in the United States called The 1980 Floor Show. I was given unprecedented access. Backstage I took rolls of photos of Bowie getting made up in the mirror, having his nails painted, sitting having a quick fag and sitting as still as anything while someone applied a gold disc to his forehead. —

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CLINT EASTWOOD On set with a reluctant star

“Like I’ve been saying, most of the time on film sets you are just sitting around waiting for the moment when the director calls you back over to shoot the scene. So in between takes, I’d just wander around, chat to the people working and look around for opportunities for images.” In the early 1970s, Terry O’Neill found himself working more and more taking press shots for Hollywood Studios. He was naturally gifted, and after a decade spent on the streets of Swinging London, O’Neill knew a good, unposed image when he saw one. The studios liked him because the actors and directors liked him. “I can talk to anyone,” Terry recalls. “I never had a problem just striking up conversations with people, whether that person was Audrey Hepburn, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney or Sean Connery. For the most part, we were all just working. I was working behind the camera and they were working in front of it. I never treated them with kid-gloves, never gossiped behind the scenes and they trusted me to hang around to get great shots of them.

If it was a bad shot, or a shot that was less than flattering to them, I didn’t run it. That’s not what my job was. And I think they respected me for that. “I was also around the same age as most of the people I was taking photos of. And there is an advantage in being English in Los Angeles. Maybe it’s the accent,” he laughs. “I think Brits are just born with the natural gift of the gab. Plus, the Hollywood types were really obsessed with the ’60s Brit scene. I remember when I first came to Hollywood in the early 1960s—to shoot people like Fred Astaire—all he wanted to talk about was The Beatles. Imagine that! “I was on the set of a western called Joe Kidd, starring Clint Eastwood and directed by John Sturges. Clint was cool, no surprise, but didn’t really like having his picture taken. So the shots I was able to sneak in between the takes, other than a few classic portraits, were mainly off-the-cuff, when he wasn’t looking." —

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AVA GARDNER How Ava changed my life

“Ava Gardner was one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. I was lucky to photograph her and to know her. And she did me the most remarkable favour. “I told Ava that I really wanted to work with Frank Sinatra. An idol of mine, I grew up with his music and there will never be anyone who comes close to Sinatra. I really wanted the opportunity to take photos of Sinatra at work and knew he was going to be in Miami shooting a new picture. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ she said. “A few days later, Ava hands me a letter. ‘When you see Frank, just give him this.’ “So I went down to Miami, as nervous as can be. You hear

all sorts of things about Sinatra and I really didn’t know what to expect. As he rounded the corner with a bunch of guys—one stunt double dressed identically and one really big guy, clearly his heavy—I started taking some pictures. He walked right up to me and for a minute I thought he was going to do something—I don’t know what! It’s Sinatra! So I shakenly handed him the letter from Ava. He looked at me—I’ll never forget that look—before looking down and reading the letter. Then he looked up, smiled, and said, ‘It’s OK fellas—this kid is with me.’ “To this day, I have no idea what was in that letter. But I owe Ava a lot for that. A lot.”

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There was something between them, they were magic on the set

” it was a production. There were divers just out of camera waiting to dive in if she needed help. I stood on the other side of the pool and captured some beautiful photos—in black and white and in colour—of her at the pool, then this great sequence of the penultimate moment when Finney picked her up and tossed her in. It looks like she is having a great time—her terrific smile—but inside, I imagine she must have been terrified. “During breaks between scenes, someone set up a beachcricket game. Audrey jumped right in, picked up the bat and started to play. These are just great shots of not only a beautiful woman, but I hope these portray what she was like off camera. She was one of the most kind and generous people I’ve ever worked with. She lit up a room and never took a bad picture. My job was easy—I just had to be there and press the button. I can’t say enough good things about Audrey. I was lucky to be there.” —

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I waited a long time to photograph Sophia Loren. And I'm glad I waited

” “I was on the set of Brass Target, starring John Cassavetes and Sophia Loren, in 1978 in Switzerland. It was a chance to finally work with Sophia Loren, someone I’d long admired, so I jumped at the opportunity. Sophia Loren began her film career in the 1950s but it was with her unforgettable performance in Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, the first time the award was given for a foreignlanguage performance, and shot her to superstardom. After a string of successful films, she took some time off in the 1970s to raise a family, but still appeared in Italian features. Following the box office hit A Special Day in 1977, she was cast as Mara in Brass Target. “When you are asked to take photos on a film set, a few things go through your head. Where’s the set, who are the stars and will I be able to sell the images? When the answer to the second question is Bardot, Hepburn, Welch, well you just know no matter how the film pans out, you have photos of some of the greatest actresses of our generation. But there was always one name I wished they would say to me— so when I finally heard that name, they could have been filming the worst film ever made in Timbuktu and I still would have gone. “Sophia Loren is a great beauty. In Brass Target, I was present during several different scenes. The most memorable, of course, are these images of Loren frolicking in bed, as natural as the morning, clad in a white silk nightdress. She was about 44 when this was filmed and I can’t think of a 21-year-old ingénue who could have looked, well, more beautiful. I did my best to stay out of the way and I was thrilled with these images. Sultry, sexy, sophisticated—this was my fleeting moment with a great superstar. One I won’t soon forget.” —

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NELSON MANDELA A once in a lifetime opportunity

“This was one of the greatest honours of my life. To be asked to take photos at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration in Hyde Park, London, 2008.” Terry O’Neill was commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to photograph the former President of South Africa, anti-apartheid revolutionary and philanthropist Nelson Mandela at a massive benefit concert on his behalf. Nearly 50,000 people attended the concert which raised awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A vast number of celebrities were also in attendance, including President Bill Clinton, and memorable acts performed on stage, including The Who, Amy Winehouse, Annie Lennox and Joan Baez. “I met Nelson Mandela at his hotel and I took some

beautiful candids of him relaxing, reading the paper, and a wonderful portrait of Mandela with his wife, Graça Machel. It was all such a whirlwind, to be quite honest. I knew I was privy to a historic moment and I was with one of the most important people alive. You could just feel his presence in the room. I tried hard to remember I was there with a job to do! As guests arrived, I took more photos, including President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and other ‘larger than life’ figures. "When it was time to leave and we said our good-bye, I nearly burst into tears. I realised that I was with one of the greatest human beings of the last 100 years, 1,000 years. It was a very emotional moment for me.” —

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ELVIS PRESLEY Tom Jones takes Terry backstage to meet The King

“It’s strange to think I never had the opportunity to take photos of Elvis Presley in the 1960s. I was focused on London and Los Angeles and in between those two cities I’d be on various film sets. Our paths just never crossed. Of course, it was hard to get to Elvis because you had to go through the formidable Colonel Tom Parker. But when I found myself in Las Vegas, I had a way in and that was through my friend Tom (Jones). “I don’t remember the exact year, but I was in town visiting Tom. He was headlining at the Flamingo, packing them in night after night. Jones was a superstar in Vegas and every door would open to him. There were always great people around him too, from big names like Bing Crosby or John Wayne, to other actors and performers like Raquel Welch. People forget that besides being one of the most talented actors at the time, Raquel was a good cabaret singer and dancer and loved the stage. It wasn’t unusual to have Raquel and Tom doing a duet. Spending time with Tom was always going to be good fun. This time was no different.” In the late 1960s, Elvis Presley was at a career impasse. Musicians he inspired started to overtake him. After spending nearly a decade away from the stage and recording studio in order to kick-start a Hollywood career, Presley and most likely his management, knew that the money was in music and Elvis was not an actor. A television special was arranged, simply called ‘Elvis’ but now widely known as the ’68 Comeback Special, and his career was turned around overnight. Understanding the financial benefits only Las Vegas could offer, he found the town to be a natural home and he was quickly signed to lucrative residency. “Tom asked me if I had ever photographed Elvis and he was surprised that I said no. ‘Do you want to?’ You can pretty much guess the answer. “Reportedly, when they met, Elvis asked Tom, ‘How did you learn to sing like that?’ and Tom answered, ‘By listening to you.’ I’m sure that’s true, we all grew up listening to Elvis. But I didn’t realise they were friends at that time, friends enough for Tom to be welcomed backstage with me tagging along. “The next thing I knew, I was meeting Elvis! I started to grab a few photographs of him backstage. I had to hurry because we had to get to our seats and he had to get ready to perform. Tom fixed us a great vantage point in the audience and I was able to take a few good shots of The King. “I never got another chance.” —

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TWIGGY A supermodel is born

U.S. Vogue three times in 1967 alone. She soon became her own brand, launching several endorsed products such as Twiggy lunchboxes. “I don’t remember why exactly I was trailing along with them on this particular day, but I do remember it was in Knightsbridge and she was going shopping for some shoes. I was taking photos the whole time, and this sweet shot of her appeared on the contact sheets and it just feels like a moment frozen in time. “It’s incredible how tiny she is, she was called Twiggy, after all, but the details of her clothing, the fur, the pearl bracelet and the barrette all add up to a wonderful image of what the mid-sixties looked like. It really was a stylish time when young people could be and do anything they wanted to, if they worked hard enough at it.”

“I met Twiggy through her manager, Justin de Villeneuve. Like (Jean) Shrimpton, she was another girl who went from salon assistant to sensation, seemingly overnight. She’s often referred to Jean as a real role model for her and I’m sure because of Shrimp(ton) and Twiggy hundreds, if not thousands, of young women wanted to be models. They were superstars in their own right.” Twiggy burst on to the scene in 1966 after being discovered as a Saturday girl in a London hairdresser's. After being encouraged to cut her hair short for headshots, she was immediately featured as the ‘new face of 1966’ and a star was born. She took London by storm and soon after America followed, with a widely covered press event in 1967 and international press picked up on her soon after. She appeared on the covers of magazines worldwide, including —

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STEVIE WONDER A moving assignment

In 1970, a then only twenty-year-old Stevie Wonder was in London and was scheduled to visit a local hospital for blind children. “This is where I get lucky. To receive that call and have someone say to you, ‘Do you want to go with Stevie Wonder and visit a children’s hospital with him?’ These are one-in-a-million opportunities and I just think I got more than my fair shot of opportunities. Incredibly lucky,” O’Neill remembers, shaking his head. “He was young but already incredibly accomplished. He already had a few hits out—‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)’ and ‘My Cherie Amour’—so everyone knew who he was. Again, here’s another young person who is incredibly gifted. What a voice. “Being blind since birth, he was already very active in different charities, especially those dedicated to handicapped people. So I don’t think this visit was unique, I had the feeling that he did pay visits to hospitals and centres from time to time. Only this time, I went with him. What I saw that day and captured on film are some of the most touching and human photos I’ve ever taken. This is just a man who, despite being born with a handicap that would have prevented most people from climbing to the top of the entertainment world, did exactly that. Stevie Wonder is one of the most gifted, accomplished and awarded entertainers I’ve ever seen. He was just playing Hyde Park again—only a few weeks ago (Summer 2016). He’s still at the top of his game. These photos, taken nearly forty years ago, exemplify a man with real character and humility. That’s the wonder.” —

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And the photographer, after all, is the person who makes our whole scene, simply by recording it David Hemmings, 1967

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