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Sinatra, Hepburn, Curtis and co laid bare in series of touchingly intimate portraits
Terry O Neil —
British photographer Terry O'Neill has spent his life peering into the world of celebrity. One of the world's most collected photographers, he has snapped stars including Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn and Faye Dunaway.
Running until March 1 at The Little Black Gallery London, "The Best of Terry O'Neill" showcases some of his most iconic photos of leading ladies on the set and in repose. "They were all beautiful," the 75-year-old photographer says. "They don't make girls like that today."
This photo shows Dunaway at the Beverly Hills Hotel the morning after she won an Oscar for "Network" in 1977. "I was sick to death of all those Oscar pictures of actresses holding up the Oscar and grinning like idiots," he says. "I knew her money would go up from half a million to like 10 million dollars a movie. I wanted to capture all that the next day
"She was sensational," he says of Audrey Hepburn, who he photographed on the set of "Two for the Road" in 1967. "I couldn't take a bad picture of her. And she was the loveliest person you could ever meet."
The circus surrounding today's celebrities makes it difficult to get the same level of intimacy. "If I photograph someone now the publicists only want one picture here and one picture there, and they want to control everything," O'Neill says." They've ruined it."
Luck was on O'Neill's side in when he photographed Brigitte Bardot on the set of the 1971 western "The Legend of Frenchie King."
"This was the last frame on a roll of 35mm," he says. "I had this great set up and just as I was waiting to take the picture the wind blew. I thought, 'Should I shoot it?' I did and it turned out to be one of my best sellers ever."
Raquel Welch turned heads with her figure, but she wasn't always comfortable putting it on display. In 1966 she worried that her provocative costume in the fantasy-adventure film "One Million Years B.C." would stir controversy.
"One day she said to me, 'I'm going to get crucified for wearing that bikini,'" O'Neill says. "Immediately my mind goes to crucifying her. I shot it but I didn't hand it in because I felt people would be offended by it. It wasn't meant to be an offensive picture. I've only released it recently."
O'Neill took this photo inside Elizabeth Taylor's dressing room as she shot the film "A Little Night Music" in the late 70s. "She was going to announce her engagement to John Warner later that day," he remembers. Despite her big screen presence O'Neill says Taylor was more of a delight than a diva: "She was really quite shy at being a star." You can see O'Neill in the mirror.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor posed for this photograph on the set of Burton's 1971 film "Villain." "They were so publicized at that time," O'Neill says. "I wanted to get a picture of them as I knew them, a loving couple."
In 1963 editors commissioned O'Neill to photograph English actors Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp for a feature on "Faces of the 60s."
"She was another great girl," he says. "I really admired her because at the top of her career she chucked it, married a photographer and went down to live in Penzance."
O'Neill remembers photographing the supermodel again the following year: "People used to always say she had a face like a doll, so I took her down to the doll hospital and did her with these."
O'Neill was friendly with Ava Gardener, the actress and ex-wife of Frank Sinatra. In 1968 she wrote a letter introducing O'Neill to the legendary crooner. "I'm waiting for him to come on the set of a film and he walks around the corner with all these bodyguards," O'Neill says. "I gave him the letter and he said, 'Right, you're with me.' Then for the next three weeks he totally ignored me. After the three weeks I realized he'd given me everything he could possibly give me. It was fantastic. It was a lesson about being there and getting in there and trying to stay out of people's way."
O'Neill photographed the actress Joan Collins throughout the 1970s. They frequently shot in her home, as in the photo above. "It's a different time now and I don't think these types of relationships work," he says. "The sense of trust isn't there any more."
Despite his prowess with women, O'Neill also shot male icons like Winston Churchill, Clint Eastwood and Nelson Mandela. "Most men don't like being photographed," he says. "They just do it and see it as part of their job." This photo shows James Garner on the set of the 1966 film "Grand Prix."
O'Neill says this photo of a 17-year-old Rod Stewart largely came down to chance. "I went down to his house in Essex and he said, 'Do you want to do the shoot with horses?' The horse coat he had on totally matched the horse. You make your own luck but it's all luck."
British actor-comedians Dudley Moore and Peter Cook were inseparable. In 1975 O'Neill photographed the pair wearing raincoats and floating in a swimming pool at the house of Keith Moon, the lead drummer for The Who.
In 1968 Tony Curtis portrayed the Boston Strangler in the film of the same name. "He was doing this very serious role, and was a very live wire," O'Neill says. "There is no one like him around."
O'Neill took this photo during the publicity shoot for David Bowie's 1974 album "Diamond Dogs." At one point the dog at Bowie's side grew angry and started barking like mad, but Bowie remained calm and in character.