--- title: TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson | TIME description: The Beatles were on the cusp of greatness, and photographer Harry Benson was in the middle of it. His pillow-fight photo was taken in the swanky George V Hotel the night the band found out “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit No. 1 in the U.S. canonical: https://time.com/video/UchdAGJa/ og:title: TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson og:description: The Beatles were on the cusp of greatness, and photographer Harry Benson was in the middle of it. His pillow-fight photo was taken in the swanky George V Hotel the night the band found out “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit No. 1 in the U.S. og:url: https://time.com/video/UchdAGJa/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UchdAGJa/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson twitter:description: The Beatles were on the cusp of greatness, and photographer Harry Benson was in the middle of it. His pillow-fight photo was taken in the swanky George V Hotel the night the band found out “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit No. 1 in the U.S. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UchdAGJa/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson [Watch (HLS stream): TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UchdAGJa.m3u8) (19:57)  _Published 2016-11-17. The Beatles were on the cusp of greatness, and photographer Harry Benson was in the middle of it. His pillow-fight photo was taken in the swanky George V Hotel the night the band found out “I Want to Hold Your Hand” hit No. 1 in the U.S._ --- Jul 28, 2023 4:52 AM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Donna Ferrato](/video/dNkC7a04/) ### TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Donna Ferrato [100 Photographs: The Pillow Fight](/video/QVNFmPTJ/) ### 100 Photographs: The Pillow Fight [TIME'S 30 Most Influential People On The Internet](/video/cuAGJfqf/) ### TIME'S 30 Most Influential People On The Internet --- ## Transcript Please welcome Kira Pollack and Harry Benson from down here. I'm sorry, Phillip. When you want me to go for it, I run. Ron Galella is here. Yeah. So, Harry Benson? Mm hmm. It's such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you very much. Thank you. And this is the man that made this picture so cool. I'm just the Beatles. This whole series of pictures is phenomenal. And I love what you say about a picture that makes that moves. Can you talk about that just a little bit? Because I think we're going to talk through that one when we keep going forward. Yes. Well, I. I like pictures that do move. I don't like studio photographs. And in the Robert Louis Stevenson was a poem I got at school of a boy in a railway carriage looking out the window of the railway carriage and the ends up by and seeing different thing and my saying and each and glimpse and gone forever. And that's like the photography on like it can't happen again and it's, it's life and, and this picture was important to me because it within two weeks I was in America and with the Beatles and went you know, Ed Sullivan Show and Mammy, I took them to see and Cassius Clay. Muhammad Ali. And wasn't Muhammad Ali then he was right up to the fight. Anyway, I said to the Beatles, I'd like to take you to see Cassius Clay. And they said, All right. And then John Lennon said, No is a big mouth and he's going to get beaten. So I went to Liston, who didn't even look at me, said he didn't want to. He didn't want to meet nice bums. So I went back with a big car. And now the thing I'm going to see Sonny Liston. I took them to see Muhammad Ali, who completely dwarfed them, meaning that they had to say who the most beautiful, who's the greatest, and tell me I'm beautiful. And they had to, because no one had treated the Beatles like that. They controlled everything thing. You know, it's and it was funny and you know that. But one of the great things and they wouldn't. Talk to me after work entirely. They wouldn't talk to me. And John Lennon said he made us look look foolish and stupid. And it was your fault, Benson. But I didn't care because the following day I went off to Jamaica to photograph Ian Fleming because the James, you know, the James Bond movies coming out, you know. Dr. No. And that then they went back to Miami and the Beatles had gone. I covered the fight with Clay and Liston, Amazon, Liston's Corner, and I'm sure that fight was fixed because when Sonny went back to his column, The Sixth Round, I'm literally about two feet away from them, and they were shouting, And you're going to be a bum all your life, Sonny. You know, you have got to go out and shoot guys. And they wouldn't go and they took them to hospital afterwards too. And and then went round the back and Miami Herald guy took me round the back and of the hospital where we could see through the window and there were doctors shouting and then nothing telling him there was nothing wrong with them that would lengthen the mind. You would fixed up with some gangs of a guy called Frank Niland. Well, Harry, the one of the greatest things about this. You know. Just to go back to the Beatles first. Thing. Is that this picture on the list of the 100 most influential picture is by far the happiest picture on the list, right? Yes. There's nothing that even compares closely to. No, no, I didn't I never was a peddler of. Gloom peddlers of gloom. He calls me photojournalist. No. No. I photographed what I see. And what you see. Shoot in form. Okay, so I want to go we're going to pivot a little bit because the other privilege of having Harry here tonight, and as you can tell, he has many great stories. Eisenhower. He has photographed every president since Eisenhower. He is the only photographer. Takes pictures, not a. Very. Okay, fine. But it's pictures that move. Right. We're going to start from behind this home. Okay. We'll keep going. Kennedy, you see that wet day in Paris? I wasn't doing well. I was chasing them all around Paris and it finishes up there, the Triumph with de Gaulle and at the auditorium to a large but this height. And I thought the only way I'm going to get him is going up, climbing up here. But was climbing up and slipped and climbing up and sitting down. And while I'm doing that, I turned around and Kennedy is looking at me. It was like, You poor soul, I'll wait for you. And then I get up and he stays there and just gives me a little nod after it was over and I thought I was very nice. I got a picture, you know. You know, And, you know, that was when Jackie went to Paris. And then she took by storm. This was his first trip to Paris. That's right, 61. That's LBJ at that was an important civil rights thing. He had signed it there at the up at the Statue of Liberty. Next one. I worked a lot with President Nixon. I must say. I liked him and this is him in retirement. You let me know when you get out of office. I went up to San Clemente and they took me into a room and I waited and then the president came out and he was all dressed, you know, he wasn't I wasn't a broken man. And after it was over, I said, I want to thank you, Mr. President, but I know this isn't the greatest time of your life. You know what to that effect. And he said, You know, Harry, you've got to let professional people do the job. I'm not so nervous now, but it's very hard to be critical. And somebody that allows you to do your job, that makes and, you know, and I felt sorry for them. Nixon This is Gerald Ford. The day that he was told that he was going to be sworn in as president. I just how did you get this picture? Well, and what is he doing. In drawing the dishes? Before he went to the White House and and, you know, I asked him the night before if I could get a picture, come get leaving. But they invited me in, you know, and they would have been it was a sweet man. He was a decent guy. Nice man. Such a great picture. And you never see a picture like that anymore. No. Doesn't exist. No, they don't. I mean, Obama was very cold. Yes. And next one. Next one. No, he wants Jimmy Carter. This was after the Iran hostage thing. And and also Teddy Kennedy had also entered the race for to be president. So when I went into his office, the Oval Office, he was looking out the window and he came over and sat down and said, when I came in, you were looking out the window. Would you do that again? And he said to me, I've been looking out the window all morning. That's right. And I said, Do you mind? I would like to go out and take a photograph. I went out and took a picture and I didn't think it worked because I really couldn't see anything. The just the light was all wrong, but it worked. It's great. Next one. I did this. I was given an assignment by a great editor from Vanity Fair. Tina Brown and the Reagans had agreed to to dance. So they showed me in the room, the map room. They come down from the second floor and it went into the map room. But what the what the the reads and the press people didn't know that. I brought in a white background and turned into a studio. Okay. So when Nancy and the president came in, she went, oh, my goodness. But I also had a hand on a tape recorder with Frank Sinatra singing Nancy with the Laughing Face, you know, that great song. And she said, Oh, I love that song. And they did that for I wanted to do and they kissed. And the president kept looking at his watch and he said, you know, I'm keeping keeping the president of Chile waiting. She said, Oh, Ronnie, let him wait. You know, that song is going through. And and this picture saved Vanity Fair because Tina Brown at form asked for that. We had this picture and she was sure it was going to jump off, you know, the world dance and that. Right, right. Yeah, that right her right It's more like collect didn't want to twist the cover George Bush in with a spaniel in the water. Nice and very, very good looking man actually. Next one picture. Next one. Oh. See, the trouble with this picture is if she had one, I would have made a lot of money. No, I would have no, I would have become, you know, too president. And I like it because they the lips don't touch. Although there is a whole sequence of our rolling over them and then top of them and then they kiss, you know, But I like that one better, don't you. Oh, they don't they just because the lips don't quite meet, you know. And you know he very sensual next love George Bush. So I didn't want to do him. He came in with a club and I said, do you take a swing of it? And he didn't tell me you were just looking to get something different. This makes sense, Nancy. Do next went on Obama and that so it was called and that and that's what the photographer told me. There was a big cold. Well, George Bush would jump, dummy and Bush would ask some other doggies and been to the kennel or, you know, got a chance for stamp or something, you know. But he wasn't chatty. You know, when you see that, you don't see many pictures from there. Okay. So it turns out you also. Yes, have documented 40 years of a President elect Trump. Elect him, that he was all wrapped up when Mike Tyson this time. And he said and he said, Mike can do these moves. And I just asked him, would you show me the moved? And they re in and they the top of the Trump Tower. Next one this is in this is in what they call it down in his casino. Yeah that's right. And and he told me, he said, I can walk over to that cage and I can get $1,000,000 right now. I said, you know, I've never seen $1,000,000 in my life. You we will you get, get or get to do a picture of you hold the million dollar and said you've got it. So I went over and sat with the million dollar sets. And so it had to be the right amount. You know, next one is your first. There he is. I was just not so long ago the first lady and and that she that's a different picture than what I got with with Nixon and Pat Nixon wasn't you know I mean I said and never got that was what Rosalynn Carter is. And, you know, Mamie Eisenhower never performed like that. No, it's true that. And you know something? We're not going to see that again either. You've got to get a bath of at the beginning, you know, I mean, you don't get the next one. That said. Oh, you didn't on the table. No, you had to cut that one. And. No, but so, okay, you've met all of these presidents and there's got to be some threads that go through. Do you see any of the characteristics from the presidents you've met and and were you aware when you were photographing Mr. Trump then that he would ever be in the position he is now? Do you know? I said in a magazine about two years ago, before he ran away from Tony, that I said, I said him. I said to him, You should run for president. Mean is there. Right. I'd say that. Well, no, I've said that to him. You know, it's crazy, you know, there's your first vision for your first lady and you. Has he been good to your camera? I mean, he understands the camera and allows you to photograph him many times. Yes. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know. And I don't get close to people. I don't want them to phone me up and say, oh, please don't use that picture. So, you know, tell you I don't want to get close to a that close and leave that to you to. Write. To. Thank you. You know, I bring the pictures back and you've got to have good editors, good editors here tonight. Jim Gain, Nancy and you and David Friend. Great editors and the great editor. He owes me money. But yeah. I'm sure we. All know the Ron Galella over there and great photographer. And so do. We. And and I want to ask you something, Donna. When ask why did you not get beaten up there? I Yeah. Did you not get beaten up there when you were taking these pictures? No, no, I know. I only was the only time I ever got beaten up was by a woman who is very angry that I was photographing her friend who was, you know, and I would take the picture. She came up and started hanging on me and kind of off the porch. And that was very threatening to me. And so I said. I thought you would been beaten up every time you took the camera. You know that guy. Anybody want to beat me up? I'm I'm not. About. Anybody that tend to be terrific. So I think we might have time for one question. No, we don't have time for any questions. I got the. Jim Gaines got a question, David friend. Okay, Harry, thank you so much. And once again. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos: Harry Benson","description":"The Beatles were on the cusp of greatness, and photographer Harry Benson was in the middle of it. 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