Bill Ray

At the time of his death some of his best known work did not appear in publications but was shown in gallery exhibitions. Examples include a photo of Marilyn Monroe singing the happy birthday song to John F. Kennedy in Madison Square Garden (1962), an extensive shoot of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang (1965), Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall (1966), and both on- and off-field photos of the first Super Bowl (1967).

• Name — Bill Ray • Birth Name — William Robert Ray • Born — 16 February 1936 • Birthplace — Columbus, Nebraska • Died — 8 January 2020 • Place of death — Manhattan • Field — Photojournalism

Ray was born in Columbus, Nebraska, and grew up in the neighboring village of Shelby, where he was educated in local public schools. Encouraged by his mother, he adopted photography as a hobby at the age of eleven and within a year was developing and printing photos that he had taken with a medium format Speed Graphic camera that he had been given. Once a week his parents drove him 90 miles east to attend meetings of the Omaha Camera Club. When he was sixteen a local newspaper published a photo he had taken showing the last passenger train that would stop in his home town.

• Illustration — Bill Ray: "The Great Decision," news photo that originally appeared on November 20, 1954, in the Lincoln Evening Journal & Nebraska State Journal and within a few days was re-published in 600 newspapers across the country The following year, just after his high school graduation, Ray was hired as a journalist for the Lincoln Journal. In November 1954, less than twelve months after he began work at the paper, a photo of his (shown at right) was distributed as a wirephoto to hundreds of papers across the country. Appearing with the caption "The Great Decision," it showed a toddler holding a hand ax eyeing a turkey. Ray held his camera close to the ground making it appear that the turkey and boy were about the same size. The recognition Ray received for taking it helped him obtain a job in the Chicago office of United Press International later that year. In 1958, after a short stint working at the Minneapolis Star and Tribune and subsequently turning down a job offer from National Geographic, Ray moved to New York to begin a freelance work for Life magazine. A year later he joined Life as a full-time member of the staff. • Illustration — Bill Ray: Ringo Walked on this Grass, news photo that originally appeared on August 28, 1964, in a Life article on Beatlemania in San Francisco While still free-lancing Ray took photos of jazz bassist, Charles Mingus at a club in Greenwich Village and Elvis Presley just before his departure to serve as an Army Private in Germany. A year later he did a photo shoot of Alan Freed's last television show as a payola scandal ended his career as a rock and roll disk jockey. In what would eventually become the most famous of his photo assignments, Ray worked his way backstage onto a catwalk to shoot Marilyn Monroe in a skintight dress signing the happy birthday song to John F. Kennedy on the occasion of his forty-fifth birthday at Madison Square Garden in 1962. In 1963 Ray moved from New York to become a staff photographer in Lifes Beverly Hills office. Soon after arriving he spent two months photographing the actress, Natalie Wood. A year later he took an arresting photo of a Beatles fan as the foursome arrived in Los Angeles for a west coast concert tour (shown at left). It showed a tearful girl holding a clump of grass and had the caption ""Ringo! Ringo walked on this grass!" That year he also produced a photo essay on the founder of Japan's largest consumer electronics company, Konosuke Matsushita. • Illustration — Bill Ray: A War Comes Home, news photo that originally appeared on August 12, 1966, in a Life article on mixed feelings concerning the Vietnam war in a small Ohio town • Illustration — Bill Ray: Soviet Tanks on the Streets of Prague, news photo that originally appeared on August 30, 1968, in a Life article on the Soviet invasion that brought the Prague Spring to an end In 1965 Life sent Ray to Asia to cover the war in Vietnam and tensions on the border between Tibet and Sikkim. The cover for August 6 showed the six-inch guns of a light cruiser bombarding Vietcong positions and a photo essay in that issue showed action on an aircraft carrier, including a two-page spread of sailors transferring a 2,000 lb bomb that had been received from a supply ship and another showing crew members from a destroyer checking out a suspicious fishing boat. In October of the same year, Ray was in Sikkim to photograph Chinese Red Army soldiers patrolling the Tibetan border of that Indian province. In 1966 Ray produced a photo essay in a small Ohio town from which a relatively large number of young men had been sent to fight in Vietnam. It included shots of a military funeral for a marine killed in action (shown at right) and photos of six families, standing next to their television sets, each set showing President Lyndon Johnson giving a press conference. In varying degrees they expressed doubts about the war and, as the accompanying text said, "doubted Johnson's optimistic appraisal of Vietnam." Before going to Massillon Ray made a photo essay showing the Watts section of Los Angeles as a follow-up to the previous summer's riots. In 1968 Ray was in Prague taking photographs of the Soviet invasion that brought the Prague Spring to an end. One of the images appeared in a double-page spread in the issue for August 30 (shown at left). The accompanying description said, "Suddenly, unbelievably, Soviet tanks were in the streets of Prague, and the brief idyll of liberation, the brave rebirth of national pride and expectation were at an end... Utterly astounded by the treachery and admonished by their leaders to offer no resistance, the Czech people could only gather with their flags in anguished crowds and hurl threats and a pitiful defiance against the steel of the invaders." • Illustration — Bill Ray: A Lead Protestor Against the Vietnam War Drops Her Guard, news photo that originally appeared on April 23, 1971, in a Life article on the antiwar activism of actress Jane Fonda Much of Ray's subsequent work for Life consisted of celebrity shoots. In 1967 he took cover and six pages of photos showing Ingrid Bergman preparing for a role in a Broadway play. A year later he accompanied the many paparazzi covering the Kennedy-Onassis wedding on Skorpiós. In 1969 he contributed photos of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski to an article about her brutal murder. In 1971 he produced a cover story on the anti-war work of actress, Jane Fonda. Ray traveled with her for several weeks during which, he said, "she worked like a non-stop demon in a humorless and even grim manner." During that time he caught her in a pensive moment, relaxing briefly with her daughter, Vanessa (shown at right). Interspersed with his celebrity coverage were special-interest features such as photographs of endangered wildlife taken during a three-month assignment in 1970 and a 1972 photo essay on the activities of a thirteen-year-old boy in Manhattan. • Illustration — Bill Ray: Andy Warhol holding a life-size Polaroid portrait of himself, news photo that originally appeared in New York Magazine on June 16, 1972 Ray left Life after it ceased weekly publication in 1972. Over the next few years he did freelance work for other magazines, including Smithsonian, Archaeology, Fortune and Travel and Leisure. During that period he made 46 cover photos for Newsweek, including one of Andy Warhol that attracted more than usual attention. Ray took the Warhol photo in 1980 using a view camera that had been made by the Polaroid Corporation that was capable of producing instant photographs 22 1/2 × 30 inches from edge to edge. A critic said the photo (shown at left) was "a trenchant portrait of the master of replicated reality."

Some of Ray's best known work did not appear in publications but was shown in gallery exhibitions. Examples include the photo of Marilyn Monroe singing the happy birthday song to John F. Kennedy in Madison Square Garden (1962), and his many photos of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang (1965), already mentioned. In addition he photographed Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall (1966) and both on- and off-field photos of the first Super Bowl (1967) in collections that Life decided not to publish. In 1959 held his first solo exhibition at the Leica Gallery in New York. A critic noted that he was as yet only 22 years old and while the show seemed premature, there was "enough imaginative work to indicate that a new and refreshing talent has appeared on the photojournalistic scene." After his career had fully matured he participated in a group show held in 1998 at New York's James Danziger Gallery and a few years later was in another group show in New York, this one held at the Howard Greenberg Gallery. In 2003 he was given the first of a number of retrospective solo exhibitions, this one at the Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, New Mexico Subsequent retrospective solo shows were mounted at the Leica Gallery (2006), the Museum of Nebraska Art (2012), and again at the Monroe Gallery (2014).

Ray was born on February 16, 1936, in Columbus, Nebraska. His father was George Webster Ray (1889–1960), who owned a lumber yard. His mother was Waunita Williams Ray (born about 1896), an amateur painter. He had three siblings, all much older than he: two brothers, James W. Ray (born about 1921) and George W. Ray (born about 1929), and a sister, Bess A. Ray (born about 1924). He grew up in the small village of Shelby, Nebraska, where, as noted, he attended public schools and then the University of Nebraska. Ray said his childhood was a good one. He told an interviewer, "Both my parents were just perfect. I had a terrific childhood. My mom was very busy with her art and loved the idea of my pursuing something like that. We were not by any means wealthy, but she always found money if I needed a camera." In 1958 he married Marlys J. Greshwalk and had been married to her for 61 years at the time of his death. As well as housewife and mother, Marlys was Ray's assistant, handling such chores as loading his cameras and recording data about his photographs. Beginning in 1972, when he resumed freelancing after the demise of the weekly Life, she was his agent as well. Regarding her work he said "she was the fastest there was at loading a Hasselblad, and she always kept the film straight. You have to know which roll is which, because I would say, 'We're going to push this roll a half [in development time to increase contrast],' or whatever. Under pressure, you have the president or Moshe Dayan and only a limited amount of time, so you really shoot like hell. We traveled a lot. We spent months in Japan, and we traveled for about 10 months with Carl Sagan around the world." The couple had three daughters, Hilary, Ashley, Sabrina. Ray died January 8, 2020, from a heart attack at his New York City home. He was 83 years old.