B22 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| WEDNESDAY,NOVEMBER13,2019
R
obert Freeman, who helped define the image
of the Beatles by taking the cover photo-
graphs for five of their early albums, includ-
ingWith the BeatlesandRubber Soul, died
Wednesday in a hospital in London. He was 82.
His former wife Tiddy Rowan said the cause was
pneumonia.
Mr. Freeman’s association with the Beatles was rel-
atively brief – about three years – but memorable. He
shot his first album cover for them in 1963 as their
popularity was soaring, then joined them in 1964 on
their tour of the United States; he photographed his
last in late 1965, forRub-
ber Soul, which drew at-
tention for its distorted
picture.
That image was a
twist on the standard
group shot.
Mr. Freeman was pro-
jecting slides from his
photo shoot onto an al-
bum-size piece of card-
board propped on a ta-
ble. When the cardboard
tilted backward, the ef-
fect was a fish-eye ver-
sion of the band’s faces.
John Lennon dominated
the picture “like some
cruelly impassive,
suede-collared Tartar
prince,” Philip Norman
wrote inJohn Lennon:
The Life(2008).
The band loved it. As
Paul McCartney recalled
on his website after Mr.
Freeman’s death, “He as-
sured us that it was pos-
sible to print it this way and because the album was
titled ‘Rubber Soul’ we felt that the image fitted per-
fectly.”
Another sort of serendipity led to Mr. Freeman’s
cover photograph of the British releaseWith the Beat-
lesin August, 1963, his first work with the group.
He had not been a photographer for long, but his
portraits of jazz musicians such as John Coltrane for
The Sunday Times of London and other publications
had impressed Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager.
Mr. Epstein asked Mr. Freeman to come to East-
bourne, England, to shoot the cover of their second
album.
The conditions were ideal. Light from the windows
on one side of a hotel dining room left their faces
partly in shadows. A maroon curtain created a dark
background behind them.
“They came down at midday wearing their black
polo-necked sweaters,” Mr. Freeman wrote in his
bookThe Beatles: A Private View(2003). “It seemed
natural to photograph them in black-and-white wear-
ing their customary dark clothes. It gave unity to the
image. There was no makeup, hairdresser or stylist –
just myself, the Beatles and a camera.”
Mindful of how to fit the four Beatles onto an al-
bum cover, he asked Ringo Starr to stand in the right
corner of the frame and bend his knee, as if he were a
rung below the others. “He was the last to join the
group, he was the shortest and he was the drummer,”
Mr. Freeman wrote.
The same picture, but with a bluish tint, appeared
early the next year on the U.S. release ofMeet the Beat-
les, which had many of the same songs asWith the
Beatles.
Mr. McCartney said the photograph was not a care-
fully arranged studio shot.
“I think it took no more than half an hour to ac-
complish,” he wrote.
Mr. Freeman’s photography helped define the
Beatles’ iconography before they moved onto a pen
and black ink illustration for the cover ofRevolver,by
bassist and artist Klaus Voormann, and the wildly in-
novative artwork for theSgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts
Club Band’s cover, which was designed by Peter Blake
and Jann Haworth.
The cover of the albumA Hard Day’s Nightwas dis-
tinguished by Mr. Freeman’s photographs of each
Beatle, one row above the other, in five different pos-
es. And his cover photo forHelp!showed the Beatles
standing side by side in matching blue outfits and
making semaphore sig-
nals.
Robert Grahame Free-
man was born on Dec. 5,
1936, in London to Fred-
dy and Dorothy (Rum-
ble) Freeman. His father
was an insurance broker
for theatres in London.
During the Second
World War, Robert was
evacuated to Yorkshire
for about a year while his
sisters stayed in London.
His interest in pho-
tography had its origins
at Clare College at the
University of Cam-
bridge, where he studied
modern languages and
worked at the student
newspaper. After he
graduated and served in
the British Army, he be-
gan working at The Sun-
day Times of London
and other publications,
which brought him to
Mr. Epstein’s attention.
Mr. Freeman’s career ranged well beyond his short
time with the Beatles. While still shooting their al-
bum covers, he was hired in 1963 to be the first pho-
tographer of the sexy glamour calendar published by
the Pirelli tire company. One model he photographed
for the 1964 calendar was Sonny Spielhagen, his first
wife. They would later divorce.
He went on to make television commercials in Bri-
tain and directed the filmsThe Touchables(1968) and
Secret World(1969), which starred Jacqueline Bisset.
He photographed Sophia Loren, Andy Warhol and
Jimmy Cliff, and made a film of a performance by Mr.
Cliff.
While living in Hong Kong with Ms. Rowan, his sec-
ond wife, he took up landscape photography and
formed a company with her to produce and direct
commercials.
In the 1990s, he moved to Spain, where he became
friendly with director Pedro Almodovar and took pic-
tures of him and Penelope Cruz, his frequent star.
He leaves a daughter and a son, Janine and Dean
Freeman, from his marriage to Ms. Spielhagen; a
daughter, Holly Freeman, from his marriage to Ms.
Rowan, an author; six grandchildren; one great-
grandson; and a sister, Barbara Floyd.
Mr. Freeman stayed in Spain for about 20 years,
selling his photographs privately before a stroke led
him to move back to London.
“He lost the use of his left hand and couldn’t walk
properly,” Ms. Rowan said by phone. “He’d shuffle
around his apartment and would take pictures in Bat-
tersea Park from his wheelchair.”NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICEPHOTOGRAPHER
HELPEDSHAPE
THEBEATLES’IMAGE
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butresultedinmemorablealbumcoversRobertFreemanisseenataPirelliCalendareventinMilanin2013.Mr.Freemanwashiredin1963
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Please include I Remember in the subject fieldR
obert Norris, a rancher known for his role as
the Marlboro Man in television commer-
cials for the cigarette brand, died Sunday at
Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care in Col-
orado Springs, Colo. He was 90.
His death was announced in an obituary posted
on his Tee Cross Ranches website. A cause of death
was not provided.
Mr. Norris, portrayed in Marlboro advertisements
with a cigarette in his hand or mouth, was the face
of the Marlboro brand for more than a decade.
He was first approached on his ranch after ad ex-
ecutives spotted him in a photo with actor John
Wayne, who was a close friend, his son Bobby Norris
told KKTV in Colorado Springs.
The Marlboro Man first appeared in 1955 after the
cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company Phi-
lip Morris and the advertising agency Leo Burnett
Worldwide revamped the cigarette brand. Mr. Norris
was one of several men who depicted the Marlboro
Man during the decades-long campaign.
Marlboro was founded as a women’s cigarette
brand before it was repositioned as a masculine
product with a rugged cowboy feel and personality.
Professor Scott Ellsworth, a lecturer at the Uni-
versity of Michigan and former oral historian at the
Smithsonian Institution, conducted nearly 60 inter-
views with former Marlboro men, Philip Morris ex-
ecutives and Leo Burnett staff over two years to ex-
amine Marlboro’s marketing strategy.
“The Marlboro Man campaign is easily one of the
most successful advertising campaigns of all time,”
Prof. Ellsworth said. “It absolutely conquered the
world.”
The ad campaign helped Marlboro become the
world’s leading cigarette brand in 1972, where it has
remained since. More than 43 per cent of all ciga-
rettes bought in the United States last year were
Marlboro, according to Forbes.
Barry Vacker, an associate professor of critical
media studies at Temple University, said the Marl-
boro Man came during a turbulent period of the
Cold War, the civil-rights and women’s-rights move-
ments and the emergence of rock ’n’ roll.
“The Marl-
boro Man
stood as an
iconic symbol,
an individual
in control of
his destiny,”
Prof. Vacker
said. “He was a
reassuring fig-
ure at the
height of our
fear of nuclear
annihilation
and a conser-
vative counter
to changing
values.”
He said the
campaign’s
cultural signif-
icance could
not be
matched.
Mr. Norris,
although nev-
erasmoker,
was featured as the Marlboro Man in commercials
that ran for about 14 years in the United States and
Europe. He eventually abandoned the campaign be-
cause he felt he was setting a bad example for his
children, according to his ranch website.
In 1964, the surgeon-general declared smoking a
health hazard, and the tobacco industry faced in-
creased regulations. Philip Morris, the country’s
largest cigarette maker, acknowledged decades lat-
er that smoking causes lung cancer after increased
pressure from lawsuits, regulators and Congress.
A federal ban on television and radio advertise-
ments for cigarettes took effect in 1971, and the
Marlboro Man campaign, among others, was dis-
continued in the late 1990s in the United States as
part of a sweeping settlement of litigation brought
by nearly all the states against the major tobacco
companies.
Mr. Norris was born in Chicago on April 10, 1929,
into a family of mostly financiers and lawyers. He
grew up in St. Charles, Ill., about 65 kilometres west
of Chicago, and attended the University of Ken-
tucky, where he played football.
He married Jane Wright, then a recent graduate of
DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., in 1950, and
moved to Fort Collins, Colo., in 1953. That year, Mr.
Norris entered the horse and cattle business.
A few years after moving to Colorado, Mr. Norris
bought 20,000 acres and established the Tee Cross
Ranch. It eventually expanded to 63,000 acres, and
a second ranch was created in Arizona.
Mr. Norris, a philanthropist with an affinity for
the arts and animals, served on numerous boards
and founded the Colorado Festival of World Theater,
according to the ranch website.
In 2003, five baby elephants, which had been or-
phaned in Zimbabwe, were brought to the ranch. At
the urging of his children, Mr. Norris adopted one
elephant and named it Amy, a relationship chron-
icled in a children’s book,Cowboys Love Elephants
Too, written by his daughter Carole Sondrup.
Mr. Norris leaves his sister, Lavern Gaynor; his
children, Ms. Sondrup, Steve Norris, Leslie Penkhus
and Bobby Norris; and 13 grandchildren. His wife
died in 2016.NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICERancherbecame
iconicface
ofacigarettebrand
MARIELPADILLAROBERTNORRIS
COWBOY,90RobertNorrisisseeninanadas
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