100 PHOTOGRAPHS 33
Harry Benson didn’t want to meet the Beatles. The
Glasgow-born photographer had plans to cover a news
story in Africa when he was assigned to photograph the
musicians in Paris. “I took myself for a serious journalist
and I didn’t want to cover a rock ’n’ roll story,” he scoffed.
But once he met the boys from Liverpool and heard them
play, Benson had no desire to leave. “I thought, ‘God, I’m
on the right story.’ ” The Beatles were on the cusp of great-
ness, and Benson was in the middle of it. His pillow-fight
photo, 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., freezes John, Paul, George and Ringo in an
exuberant cascade of boyish talent—and perhaps their
last moment of unbridled innocence. It captures the sheer
joy, happiness and optimism that would be embraced as
Beatlemania and that helped lift America’s morale just 11
weeks after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The follow-
ing month, Benson accompanied the Fab Four as they flew
to New York City to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, kick-
starting the British Invasion. The trip led to decades of col-
laboration with the group and, as Benson later recalled, “I
was so close to not being there.”THE PILLOW FIGHT Harry Benson, 1964