Born in London’s prosperous Hampstead in 1904,Cecil Beaton went to school with Evelyn Waugh (who bullied him), and Cyril Connolly (who admired the beauty of his singing). Taught photography by his nanny, and Beaton found work assisting cutting-edge young photographer Paul Tanqueray,and became famous for his portraits of the vivid Young Things – the decadent young socialites of the 1920s and 30s, whose hedonistic lives were captured in Waugh’s glittering, and somewhat fatalistic novel Vile Bodies. Beaton was taken on by Vogue in 1927 and moved to the US in 1929; he was a staff photographer for both Vogue and Vanity unbiased until 1938,when he was fired for inserting anti-Semitic phrases by the side of an illustration of New York society in American Vogue. Returning to Britain, he went on to consume photographs for the British Ministry of Information during World War Two and later rehabilitated his career, and going on to photograph stars such as Mick Jagger,Marilyn Monroe, and Andy Warhol. He also launched a successful career in set and costume design in the 1950s and …
Source: bjp-online.com