Swinging Sixties photographer Terry O'Neill dies of prostate cancer aged 81
The British photographer Terry O'Neill, one of the most famous documenters of the swinging Sixties, has died at the age of 81.
O'Neill, who photographed everyone from Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn to The Beatles, Faye Dunaway and, latterly, Nelson Mandela and the Queen, died at his home last night following a long battle with prostate cancer.
Awarded a CBE in this year's honours list for services to photography, O'Neill was famous for his charm, which coaxed an easy, intimate sparkle from everyone who sat for him.
Many of his sitters remarked on his diplomacy - he hadn’t a harsh word to say about anyone, even the famously cantankerous Sinatra - and yet his talent for dry asides of the sort your favourite uncle might make, was resolutely mischievous. On photographing David Bowie with a ferocious hound for the Diamond Dogs album: "He [Bowie] didn’t turn a bloody hair. Mind you he was zonked out at the time, all the time."
Born to Irish immigrants in London, 1938, O’Neill grew up on the outskirts of the city near where Heathrow lies today. It’s little known that as a child he spent two years training for the priesthood: "my parents were thrilled, but I could never bring myself to honestly say yes, I totally believe in a god". He stumbled into photography quite by accident: "I took a job to become an air steward so I could play drums in America, and they assigned me to the photographic unit."
In 1959, a chance photograph of Rab Butler, then home secretary, asleep at the airport caught the eye of Fleet Street editors, and furnished him with a job at the feverishly popular Daily Sketch, where youth and enthusiasm – "I’d do five or six jobs a day, while the old timers wanted to do one and go back to the darkroom and play shove ha’penny" – ensured he fast became one of the most published photographers of the Sixties. "Within two weeks I had photographed the Beatles and the Stones…nobody ever fazed me after that."
He credits his photographic fluency to chasing what’s known as "the bull", as in bullseye – the centre spread of the Sketch’s tabloid pages. "I thought, I’ve got to get that spread, and it was always in me. I’d plan one image, down to the last detail and it all worked from there." Listening to him describe the shots on these pages, it seems the words "Listen, I got this idea" seem to have prefaced most of them, whether Pete and Dud on lilos, or Raquel Welch on a crucifix.
A spokesperson from his agency, Iconic Images said: “It is with a heavy heart that Iconic Images announces the passing of Terence ‘Terry’ O’Neill, CBE. As one of the most iconic photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will forever remain imprinted in our memories as well as in our hearts and minds.”
