Terry O’Neill: Every Picture Tells a Story

EDITOR’S NOTE

Black and white has always been Terry O’Neill’s chosen medium. And it’s always his black and white photography that makes me linger over one image or another. He photographed everyone from Robert Redford to Sean Connery, from The Rolling Stones to Frank Sinatra (having compiled his pictures in the book Sinatra: Frank and Friendly). Terry O’Neill has many a tale to tell. And he has told the tales behind many of his legendary photographs (and, somehow, by doing so, he doesn’t take from their mystery, but adds to it). But with good-natured tact, charm, discretion. Always the professional, never intruding. It’s the approach he has also used in his photography. “I suppose I get on with these people because I never wanted to be up front.”

And then there is his colour photography. My favourite of them all is perhaps this one on the cover of this very book: Every Picture Tells a Story. “The Morning After” – Terry O’Neill’s famous photograph that shows a contemplative Faye Dunaway by a deserted Beverly Hills Hotel swimming pool, having just won an Oscar the previous night for her sublime performance in Network. About this shot, O’Neill said: “I set up the whole thing. I said to her, that if she won, I knew exactly the photograph I wanted to take. I’d seen people the day after, when it has suddenly dawned on them what winning an Oscar means. I wanted to capture that 6.30 a.m. moment of realisation.” The way Terry O’Neill captured the glamour, significance and gravity of the moment, with simplicity, honesty and elegance, makes it timeless and impossible to replicate. And quite frankly, makes you nostalgic for a time when movie stars were so much more than celebrities. They were great by the standards of their profession. They “were individuals. Now it’s like they all come out of the same factory.”

DETAILS

A new edition of the bestselling Every Picture Tells a Story from one of the greatest photographers from the early 1960s onwards, Terry O’Neill. This updated edition includes 32 additional pages of new stories behind some of the O’Neill’s most iconic images.

From the morning he spent with Faye Dunaway at the pool in Beverly Hills, to walking around Vegas with Sean Connery dressed as James Bond, a chance encounter with Bruce Springsteen on the Sunset Strip, to taking Jean Shrimpton to a doll hospital – these are the stories behind the images as only Terry O’Neill can reveal.

“I was walking up the Miami Beach boardwalk to the Fontainebleau Hotel where Sinatra was staying… I just reached out with the letter in my hand and he took it. He opened it, read it… turned to his security men and said, “this kid’s with me.” I never found out what Ava said to him in that letter. From that moment on, I was part of his inner circle.” – Terry O’Neill

From The Beatles to the Rolling Stones, Terry O’Neill fast became the photographer of the 1960s. Having an eye – and ear – for music and musicians, he instinctively knew what bands to focus on. And they in turn trusted him. “I remember sitting in a pub with the Beatles and the Stones. We were just hanging-out and talking about what we’d do next, after all of this was over. By this, we meant the fame, being the ‘new kids of the moment’. Usually, this sort of celebrity doesn’t last. Little did we know that 60 years later, we’d still be at it.” Music led O’Neill to Hollywood and working with stars resulted not only in to memorable moments but long-lasting friendships. He travelled with Frank Sinatra. Took Raquel Welch to the beach. Went in the ring with Ali. Put The Who in a cage.

O’Neill captured many of the most unforgettable faces from the frontline of fame, and his photographs exude his own brand of serene simplicity, intimate behind-the-scene moments and the rare quality of trust between photographer and subject. The list of people Terry O’Neill has worked with since the early 1960s is a Who’s Who in celebrity; from film to music, sports to politics. Terry O’Neill: Every Picture Tells a Story is like going through a walking tour of memory by a man who has seen, met and photographed them all.

Hard cover, 224 pages

Language: English

Size: 288 mm x 227 mm

Published by ACC Art Books, 10th June, 2021