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 Denis Cameron |
Photojournalist documented both Hollywood and the horrors of war
PHOTOJOURNALIST Denis Cameron, who abandoned the glitzy world of Hollywood for the gritty horrors of Cambodia and Vietnam, has died, aged 77.
Mr Cameron, who lived in Monro House, Fitzjohn’s Avenue, during his final years, captured the fall of the Berlin Wall, Errol Flynn in a casket, Italian pinup Sophia Loren and Ayatollah Khomeini with a style relied upon by American heavyweight publications including Time and Newsweek.
He spent six years entrenched in conflicts in Vietnam and Cambodia as he documented every aspect of war, from damaged children to battle-weary soldiers.
He survived ambush and near execution in Cambodia, but went on to cover further conflicts in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.
In April 1975 he found himself imprisoned in the French Embassy in Phnom Penh after his attempt to evacuate hundreds of orphans by plane collapsed.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mr Cameron, a one-time pilot in Alaska, discovered a future in photography while working around the studios of Hollywood in the 1950s.
A friend of Buster Keaton, Mr Cameron was responsible for the publicity shots of Burt Lancaster on the set of The Birdman of Alcatraz and John Wayne as he filmed The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. His first taste of war was in Cyprus in 1963, followed soon after by the Egypt-Israeli Six-Day War five years later – his image of an Israeli soldier cooling off in the Suez Canal gracing the cover of Life magazine.
He lived in LA, Paris and London but it was South-East Asia where he chose to stay for six years after being sent there on an assignment for only a matter of months.
The twice-married photographer, who leaves behind a son and a daughter, spent his final years in sheltered housing in Hampstead – examples of his work on his walls.
He developed dementia and Parkinsons Disease and died at the Royal Free Hospital on October 6 this year.
ROISIN GADELRAB
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