Terry O’Neill was born in the East End of London and left school in 1952, aged 14, with the firm ambition of becoming a jazz drummer. He was already accomplished, and easily found work with small combos playing on the London scene. However Terry had bigger ideas and had set his sights on studying with the great drummers on America’s East Coast. Becoming an air steward would get him a free ticket to New York, and so he applied.
Advised by BOAC’s personnel department that getting a foot in the door would help his chances of finding such a job, Terry joined the company’s technical photographic unit as a trainee. Regular courses at art school were part of this training and sparked an unexpected interest in photojournalism. Hanging around at London Airport, photographing picture stories with his little Agfa Silette camera, was his way of indulging the new pursuit as this bustling location provided plenty of material. One day in 1959 he happened upon the sleeping, drained looking figure of the Home Secretary Rab Butler, and photographed him. The picture was snapped up by the Sunday Dispatch, who put it on their front page the next day, and the Editor offered him a part-time job as their photographer at the airport. Overnight the drummer became a photographer.
At the beginning of the 1960s Terry began working for the Daily Sketch, which was the principal picture paper at the time. His approach to subjects was polite and professional, his style inevitably informal and spontaneous. This fitted with the times; the rising stars like The Beatles and The Stones did not want wooden, prefabricated images as had been the style in the 1950s. They wanted to appear relaxed and natural. As a result Terry became much in demand and his star began to rise alongside those of his subjects.
On the back of this early success Terry made the bold move of going freelance. He was a huge success and his work began appearing in Look, Life, Vogue, Paris Match, Rolling Stone and many others. Finding that he now had access to high-profile subjects, he made sure to photograph anyone that he admired, becoming one of the most published photographers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Terry’s success as a photographer went hand in hand with the camaraderie of creative London in the 1960s and 1970s. Friendships with stars like Richard Burton and Michael Caine meant that he could bring people together for photographic shoots. When Elizabeth Taylor wanted to meet David Bowie, Terry brought them together for a series of classic pictures. He spent his evenings at the Ad Lib Club in London where actors, musicians, models, designers and photographers could meet and exchange ideas over dinner and drinks. During the day they would work, and Terry would photograph them.
During the 1980s Terry became the photographer of choice for Hollywood, and his commissions from the time are nothing short of a catalogue of global superstardom.
Giles Huxley-Parlour
Until April 23
Chris Beetles Fine Photographs
3-5 Swallow Street
London, W1B 4DE
