--- title: Photographer Spotlight: Bill Ray’s Classic Celebrity Portraits description: A Who's Who of '60s pop culture: Marilyn, Sinatra, Brando, the Beatles, Liz Taylor, Elvis, Brigitte Bardot, Natalie Wood and more. canonical: https://time.com/3877915/photographer-spotlight-bill-rays-classic-celebrity-portraits/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-08-25T12:51:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:50.736Z og:title: Photographer Spotlight: Bill Ray’s Classic Celebrity Portraits og:description: A Who's Who of '60s pop culture: Marilyn, Sinatra, Brando, the Beatles, Liz Taylor, Elvis, Brigitte Bardot, Natalie Wood and more. og:url: https://time.com/3877915/photographer-spotlight-bill-rays-classic-celebrity-portraits/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda75cf002e685f51/69884abae53aba023d4dd1c2/19_985998.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen 1967 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Photographer Spotlight: Bill Ray’s Classic Celebrity Portraits twitter:description: A Who's Who of '60s pop culture: Marilyn, Sinatra, Brando, the Beatles, Liz Taylor, Elvis, Brigitte Bardot, Natalie Wood and more. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda75cf002e685f51/69884abae53aba023d4dd1c2/19_985998.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Photographer Spotlight: Bill Ray's Classic Celebrity Portraits by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Aug 25, 2013 12:51 PM UTC  Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair, 1967\. "Steve told me that he 'absolutely had to have sex four times a day,'" Bill Ray remembers. "Struck dumb, I didn't ask him what happened if he didn't, or how he found the time." Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair, 1967\. "Steve told me that he 'absolutely had to have sex four times a day,'" Bill Ray remembers. "Struck dumb, I didn't ask him what happened if he didn't, or how he found the time."Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Aug 25, 2013 12:51 PM UTC Whether he was shooting as a staff photographer for LIFE or freelancing for other major publications — _Smithsonian_, _Fortune_, _Newsweek_ — [Bill Ray](http://www.billray.com/) never shied from an assignment, however large or (seemingly) small, during the course of his long career. Global events and quiet moments; armed conflicts and avant-garde artists; the grit and menace of the early Hells Angels and the bracing glamor of the Camelot years, he covered it all. “I threw myself, one hundred percent, into every shoot,” Ray says today. “And I loved it.” For this Photographer Spotlight, however, LIFE.com chose to focus not on the dizzying variety that, in part, defines Ray’s portfolio, but on his tremendous work in one particular mode: namely, celebrity portraits. Even a partial roll call of the men and women Bill Ray photographed for LIFE reads like a Who’s Who of Sixties pop culture: Marilyn Monroe, Sinatra, the Beatles, Natalie Wood, Liz Taylor, Elvis, Steve McQueen, Jackie Kennedy and on and on and on. But even more remarkable than the number of genuine legends Ray covered is that he managed to capture something utterly distinctive about each and every one. It’s difficult to imagine one photographer capable of showing us something elemental about personalities as wildly disparate as, say, Brigitte Bardot, Sonny Liston and Woody Allen — but Bill Ray did just that, again and again. Some photo captions in this gallery include Ray’s memories of what it was like to photograph these people. But we’ve also included, below, a few of the longer — and often hilarious — stories Bill Ray tells about documenting the lives and careers of the 20th century’s most famous public figures. [**\[Buy Bill Ray’s** **_My LIFE in Photography_** **, from which some of these memories, slightly edited, are taken.\]**](http://www.blurb.com/books/4553425-my-life-in-photography-by-bill-ray-foreword-by-rog) --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- _— Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com_  Pvt. Elvis Presley in Brooklyn, 1958, before leaving the States to serve in Germany. "Elvis was the most polite young man I ever met," Bill Ray recalls. "But I also saw a keen intelligence in his eyes -- an amused, knowing look. He obviously enjoyed hitting his marks and delivering his Aw, shucks country-boy lines like a pro." Bill Ray  Gina Lollobrigida signs autographs in front of New York's old Metropolitan Opera House, 1958. Bill Ray  Frank Sinatra on the set of the movie, Can-Can, 1959. Bill Ray  A regal-looking ("haughty," in Bill Ray's eyes) Elizabeth Taylor at a Hollywood luncheon to mark Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's historic visit to the U.S., 1959. Bill Ray  Legendary saloonkeeper Toots Shor (right) with John Wayne on closing night at Shor's famous New York watering hole, 1959. Bill Ray  Jackie Kennedy in Hyannisport, 1960\. "She was a classic beauty," Ray notes. "Her manner, poise, and dress were always perfect; even faux pearls seemed just right on her." Bill Ray  The magnificent Ella Fitzgerald at the old Madison Square Garden in New York ("with its lousy dressing rooms") on the night Marilyn sang to JFK, May 1962. Bill Ray  Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday" to JFK, New York City, May 19, 1962. Bill Ray  Heavyweight champ Sonny Liston glares at Floyd Patterson during the weigh-in for their second title bout in two years, Las Vegas, July 1963\. The fight lasted a little more than two minutes, with Liston flooring Patterson three times in the first round. Bill Ray  Natalie Wood, 1963\. "She was divine," Bill Ray told LIFE.com. "She was divine to look at, and to photograph. She had that wonderful face, a great body, those amazing eyes — just a beautiful young woman, and a lot of fun to be around." Bill Ray  Jill St. John, 1963. Bill Ray  Marlon Brando and Paul Newman supporting a sit-in for fair housing, Sacramento, Calif., 1963\. "Both were staunch liberals and champions of the underdog," notes Ray. Bill Ray  The great Austrian actress Senta Berger, 1964. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  The Beatles arrive in Los Angeles in August 1964. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Woody Allen, Las Vegas, 1966. Bill Ray  Michael Caine, 1966\. "He seemed to have perfected a way to make things look easy, and so things became easy," Ray told LIFE.com. "Most guys would crawl on broken glass to bed a beautiful girl. But not Caine. He wouldn’t walk across the street. But if a gorgeous girl did the walking, and if it wasn’t dinner time, he was more than happy to oblige. You could really hate a guy like that — except that he was so charming that you were happy to be around him, hoping some of it would rub off on you. Which, of course, it didn’t!" Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, 1966\. "He could sometimes seem cool, calculating, even ruthless with people, but part of that was a way to make sure he wasn’t being cheated or taken advantage of. To me, he was always very warm, very welcoming. And when he began to sing — wow! It was just impossible not to be moved by music that powerful.” Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Nancy Sinatra, 1966. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair, 1967\. "Steve told me that he 'absolutely had to have sex four times a day,'" Bill Ray remembers. "Struck dumb, I didn't ask him what happened if he didn't, or how he found the time." Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Future NBA Hall of Famer and UCLA Bruins star Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) being fitted for trousers with a 51-inch inseam, Beverly Hills, 1971\. "I hit the jackpot that day," Ray says, "when the tailor came out and looked to be about four feet tall." Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Brigitte Bardot in Spain on the set of Edward Dmytryk's run-of-the-mill adventure-romance Shalako, 1968. Bill Ray  Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, London, 1968. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Jane Fonda and daughter Vanessa, 1971\. "I traveled with her -- in her self-appointed role as lead protestor against the war in Vietnam -- for several weeks while she made her way back and forth between California and New York, stopping at towns and army bases along the way. She worked like a non-stop demon in a humorless and even grim manner. This is one of the few times that I saw her drop her guard and relax." Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  George Harrison and Bob Dylan at the Concert for Bangladesh in New York, 1971. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Ann-Margaret, 1972. Bill Ray  David Frost and Diahann Carroll (who were once engaged, but never married) watch themselves as they appear on two different talk shows, 1972. 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