Photographer Terry O'Neill passed away on 11/16/19. His favorite subject was Bowie.

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Terry O'Neill on his best Bowie shoots: 'David never needed coaxing'
Thomas Hobbs

He photographed the biggest stars on Earth but Bowie was his favourite. He recalls the star’s irresistible charm, his most outlandish outfits – and his druggiest shoot

From Audrey Hepburn to the Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Elton John, there aren’t many pop cultural icons Terry O’Neill hasn’t photographed. One of his subjects, Hollywood actress Faye Dunaway – who he famously captured hungover, surrounded by newspapers the morning after winning an Oscar in 1977 – became his wife, even if the memory now frustrates him. He agrees that a photographer falling in love with one of their subjects is rarely a good idea: “That was a waste of 12 years of my life!”

Yet the legendary photographer insists none of these stars compared to David Bowie. “He was my creative muse,” O’Neill tells me authoritatively over the phone. “He was so charming and warm, and one of the few people [other than Faye] I really felt friendly towards.”

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“I treated David like a Shakespearean actor as you never knew who was going to show up,” he says affectionately. “He could look alien-like or female-like; it was always so exciting as everything he did was so unpredictable.”

Over a 20-year period, O’Neill captured Bowie’s shapeshifting artistry better than just about anybody else, standing behind the camera as the Space Oddity singer transformed into theatrical glam avatar Ziggy Stardust, then morphed into the coke-addled Thin White Duke, who in 1976 notoriously told Rolling Stone’s Cameron Crowe: “I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator.” Although, O’Neill claims: “I don’t actually remember him saying that stuff.”

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Thanks. I saw the obit in the WaPo and pondered posting. NT

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. Bowie was fascinating in that...

....he could alternately look like a strung-out heroin junkie or the most handsome man alive, depending on how he chose to present himself.

O'Neill seemed to have captured this duality quite well.

No one spoke of the peaks and valleys of fame more than Bowie did.

Still my favorite song of his....the last minute in particular is sublime.

[crickets]

3. Amazing photographer, stunning subject. Both are missed. nt