Cecil Beaton photographed pretty much the entire creative class of the 20th century —writers, musicians, artist and actors —and captured his subjects’ likeness for eternity. Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton’s estate has combined remarks from his journals, The Unexpurgated Beaton together with his famous portraits to create a new book. He didn’t always say the most flattering things about his subjects and friends, but there’s nothing TOO mean in these particular excepts. Jean Cocteau once called him “Malice in Wonderland.”
About Marlon Brando, Beaton wrote;
“Perhaps Mr Brando is at his best when playing roles closer to his nature. Pallid as a mushroom, smooth-skinned and scarred, with curved feminine lips and silky hair often falling in picturesque disarray, he seems as unhealthy as a lame duck. Yet his ram-like profile has the harsh strength of the gutter. Is he pretending to be tougher than he is? Does he try to hide an intelligent, sensitive core, or is he a charlatan pretending to be an intellectual? Whatever he may be, his anarchic muggings and behaviour are always intensely interesting to watch on the screen…”
Cecil Beaton: Portraits & Profiles is available on Amazon. Here are a few examples of his talent and barbed tongue;
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: Cecil was no fan of Elizabeth Taylor. When he was asked to photograph her in April 1968, he asked for the exorbitant fee of five thousand dollars and was delighted to be turned down: "She’s everything I dislike." But he had to photograph her here, at the Proust Ball in 1971, on which occasion he picked her apart, jewel by jewel.
JOAN CRAWFORD: If Hollywood were Mount Olympus (and it surely is mythology in the making), then Miss Joan Crawford would set any Bullfinch to sharpening his quills. Like the titled queen bee in one of her own films, she has been fed on royal jelly, surviving the irreparable outrage of years to become the last of the great movie stars.
JEAN COCTEAU: Conversationally, Cocteau is without peer—witty, fantastic, funny, cruel. The full charm of an electrically wired personality makes you forget his appearance—that of a dressed-up monkey on an organ-grinder’s stick. But isn’t there something of a tradition in France for ugly vitality (Cocteau, Colette, Barrault) versus classical good looks?
GRETA GARBO: Other actresses appear magnetic and sensitive until the projector stops, and the illusion created by the director and his aides is dispelled. Only Garbo, when the properties are back in the box, puts on nobility with her mackintosh.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: With eyes like aquamarines and a head the shape of a pineapple, Mr. Williams is plump and portly. Some critics have accused Mr. Williams of being too preoccupied with sex as a theme; others find his symbolism pretentious or his writing in bad taste. But his importance as a powerful purveyor of drama cannot be underestimated.
ANDY WARHOL AT THE FACTORY: Most curious and indescribable, the haunted world presided over by the zombie, more dead than alive since he was shot, of Andy Warhol. At first the mercurial groups of strange people, sitting around in silence and moving pointlessly around his huge factory, were difficult to capture. But eventually I felt I had a valuable addition to the exhibition. Warhol, looking through some art magazines says, ‘Isn’t the art scene today revolting! Oh I wish I could think of a way of making it worse!’ May 1969, New York.