It was called the “party of the century”: Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball. Benson was positioned on the steps outside the Plaza, and caught Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra as they entered. “Sinatra looked a bit dopey with his mask on,” Benson recalls. “Someone shouted at him, ‘There’s Frankie Batman!,' and he was furious.”
Harry Benson
Benson remembers Capote, who became a good friend. “Jackie and Lee—to me, he always called them the Geishas,” he says of Jacqueline Kennedy and Lee Radziwill. “Because they were very nice to men. You know.” But Capote, he says, “was a tough little bastard, really. He was really a hard man. But we got on like a house and a fire.”
Harry Benson
Sean Connery as James Bond, in bed with Luciana Paluzzi on the set of Thunderball, which was released in December 1965.
Harry Benson
“It was 3 a.m. after a concert at the Olympia in Paris in January 1964. They had so much pent-up energy after a performance, and they really couldn’t go out because they would be mobbed. So we were sitting around talking and drinking. Their manager, Brian Epstein, burst into their suite at the Hotel George V to tell them “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was No. 1 on the American charts, which meant they were going to America to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. That also meant I was going to America with them, and I was pleased… They were excited about having a No. 1 hit in America. I had heard the Beatles talking about a pillow fight they had had a few nights before, so I suggested it. I thought it would make a good photo to celebrate. At first they said OK, but then John said, no, it would make them look silly. Then John slipped up behind Paul and hit him over the head with a pillow, spilling his drink, and that started it.”
Harry Benson
“When we got to the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, I turned on the television in my room and saw Cassius Clay yelling, gesticulating, and bragging that he was going to win the world heavyweight boxing title from the champ Sonny Liston. And I thought that would make a good picture, so I suggested to the Beatles that we go meet Clay. They all agreed, but then John said, no, he didn’t want to meet that big mouth who was going to be beaten by the reigning champ Liston. John wanted to meet Liston. So I went to Liston’s training gym. Liston was tying his shoes and didn’t even look up at me but said, ‘I don’t want to meet those bums.’…. Anyway, I got a big car and picked up the Beatles who thought they were going to meet Liston and took them to the Fifth Street Gym where Clay was training. For once they encountered someone who was as quick-witted as they were. Clay had them walking around holding signs with his height and weight on it. Clay, dancing around the ring, pointed at Paul and shouted, ‘He’s pretty, but I’m prettier.’ He made them line up, lay down, and literally stole the show. This had never happened to the Beatles before. They were taken aback and furious with me afterward, saying ‘Clay made a fool of us, Benson, and it was your fault.’ They wouldn’t speak to me for about a month.”
Harry Benson
At the victory party following the California Democratic presidential primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy made his way down from the podium, through the crowd, and out into the kitchen of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. Benson trailed at his heels. But within seconds, the victory chants were replaced by screams. Kennedy had been shot in the head with a .22 caliber gun, and lay dying at Benson’s feet. “A Kennedy is literally shot in front of me,” Benson said. “I’m saying to myself, ‘Don’t fuck up today. Fuck up tomorrow.’ This is it. This is what I came into the business for.” Benson, the only photographer on the scene, didn’t hesitate, and snapped now-iconic images of Kennedy on the floor, and a fear-stricken Ethel Kennedy turning around to scream: “Give him air!” Benson shot five rolls of film of the assassination, and put each roll in his sock, “in case a policeman with a gun asked me for my film.” He says: “I’d rather photograph for life than die for it.”
Harry Benson
“It just so happened I was up in Southampton on another story, when a friend of mine told me about Jackie Kennedy’s cousin living in poverty.” Benson and his wife, Gigi, found their way to Grey Gardens, the overgrown estate belonging to Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale. “‘Yoo hoo, yoo hoo,’ came wafting down from the second floor.” Edie came downstairs, and agreed to let him in. “There were racoons and cats in the house,” he says. “And the smell of urine.” He recalls Edith Bouvier Beale saying to her daughter, ‘Edie, you haven’t done the dusting.’ Benson says: “What you needed was a bulldozer to remove that filth. I was only in there for half an hour—I couldn’t take the smell.”
Harry Benson
“Dolly Parton makes everyone feel right at home with a down-home welcome when she meets you,” Benson writes in his book. “She was getting ready for me to photograph her. I walked over to ask when she would be ready and saw her standing near a window, putting on the finishing touches of her makeup. I said, ‘Dolly, don’t move, just keep doing what you’re doing,’ and she obliged. It was a completely natural picture, no lights were set up, yet it was the one I liked best from that day.”
Harry Benson
“The running back for the Buffalo Bills had just broken the National Football League record of 2,000 yards rushing in one season, in a winning game against the New York Jets and was showering in the locker room after the game.”
Harry Benson
Benson went to the Seychelles Islands with Roman Polanski in 1976 on assignment for French Vogue. “It occurred to me to bury Roman in the sand like pirates do with their prisoners. He thought it was a good idea until a big wave came up and surprised us. Roman began to panic. I knew I could get him out but jokingly pretended I couldn’t. When I told him I would go into town for help, he yelled, ‘You #@%*! Scotsman, get me out of here!’ I did, and we both had a laugh.”
Harry Benson
Moss poses for Benson backstage at the Vivienne Westwood show in Paris in 1993.
Harry Benson
“[Nixon] let me do what I wanted with him,” Benson says. “I liked Nixon, too—he made my life easy. If you asked me who I would rather work with, Republicans or Democrats, I would say Republicans, because they’ve got manners.”
Harry Benson
Designer Halston surrounded by many of his spandex-clad models—including Alva Chinn, Chris Royer, Karen Bjornson, Margaret Donahue, Shirley Ferro, and Pat Cleveland.
Harry Benson
Valentino posed with colorful friends in 1978. In 1984, Benson photographed him again, and the shot of the designer peeking out of the window of a sleek black limousine became an iconic image.
Harry Benson
“He was tall, he was very strong,” Benson says of Michael Jackson, “He had a very firm handshake.” One of the only photographers ever to do so, Benson ventured inside Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in 1993— and again in 1997, just after the birth of Jackson’s son, Prince Michael I. Benson captured the singer, in a sequined jacket, in Prince Michael’s nursery, where he sang to the child until he fell asleep. “Michael was very proud of his first-born son.”
Harry Benson
“Clinton was easy,” Benson says. “Reagan was fun.” Benson photographed Reagan many times over 30 years—from the time he announced he was running for governor of California, to his final formal portrait, in 1998. “He would always get you sodas,” Benson recalls. “He was like that.”
Harry Benson
The picture of modern family, Benson photographed the Clintons at rest in 1992—with an adaptation of Grant Woods’ famous painting American Gothic hanging nearby.
Harry Benson
Benson photographed Oprah for her first cover of People magazine. “She had been named one of the most influential people of the 20th century. The award-winning talk-show host and philanthropist was running every morning before taping The Oprah Winfrey Show and was in great shape. Afterward we went for a coffee near her office.”
Harry Benson
“The 43rd president was governor of Texas when I first photographed him at the Governor’s Mansion. I told him I had just become an American citizen and he shrugged. But within a few seconds he turned and pointed his golf club at me and said, ‘An American citizen. That means you can vote and I am asking for your vote.’ I laughingly replied, ‘We’ll see how it goes today, Governor.’”
Harry Benson
Benson has photographed every president since Eisenhower–but no one’s been as easy as President Barack Obama. “The trouble with Obama is that I’ve seen nothing but good pictures of him,” Benson says. “So I’d go and do another good picture of him. He’s no challenge.” In the vast trove of faces that Benson has photographed—including 11 presidents—it seems like there is no person who has escaped his lens. “Except one,” Benson sighs. “Putin.”
Harry Benson
Harry Benson: Photographs, by Harry Benson. Edited by Gigi Benson. PowerHouse Books, 2009.
Harry Benson
