George Barris (1922–2016, New York) | Photojournalist
George Barris was born June 14, 1922, on Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to Joseph and Eva Barris, immigrants from Romania. On his sixth birthday his brother Willie gave him a box camera. He taught himself to load it, work the shutter, and develop and print his negatives at home. By his teens he was being paid to photograph friends, their families, and the local church pastors. People knew him as the kid with a camera. He wanted to be a professional, and he had a clear idea of why: photography would let him travel and meet people. He shot local events and brought the pictures to newspaper and magazine editors, who told him the way to get assignments was to arrive with ideas for picture stories of his own.
Military Service
Barris served as a U.S. Army photographer from 1942 to 1945, working out of the Office of Public Relations. In 1945 he was assigned to General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s victory homecoming celebration and assembled an album of the events. Eisenhower sent him back a signed album of his own.
Professional Background
After the war Barris freelanced in Hollywood. His first magazine assignment came from Parade, and he went on to shoot for publications including LIFE and Cosmopolitan. Through the 1950s and ’60s he photographed Charlie Chaplin, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, and Marilyn Monroe. He worked primarily with the Rolleiflex and the Nikon.
He first photographed Monroe in New York in 1954, on location for The Seven Year Itch. They became friends. In June 1962, shortly after Fox fired her from Something’s Got to Give, Monroe asked Barris to photograph her and record her story for a book she wanted to publish in her own words. They worked through June and July at the Hollywood Hills home of Tim Leimert and on the beach at Santa Monica. Barris photographed her on July 13, 1962, the last professional photo session of her life. She died that August. The images became known as the Last Photos.
Barris moved to Paris afterward and lived there for twenty years.
Books
Marilyn: Norma Jeane, with text by Gloria Steinem, Henry Holt, 1986
Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words, Birch Lane Press, 1995. The book he and Monroe had begun together, published with 150 photographs and the interviews recorded during their sessions.
Barris also contributed photographs to Norman Mailer’s Marilyn, 1973.
Exhibitions and Appearances
Barris’s Monroe photographs have sold at auction for four decades. He appeared regularly at Monroe retrospectives and memorials, including Marilyn: The Exhibit at The Hollywood Museum in 2012, where he signed books and spoke about the sessions.
George Barris died September 30, 2016, at his home in Thousand Oaks, California, at the age of 94.