Marilyn Stafford

Marilyn Stafford Profile

• Marilyn Stafford was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925 and moved to New York where she acted in off-Broadway roles and early television.
•Her life as a photographer began after moving to Paris, where she reshaped fashion photography by shooting new ‘ready-to-wear’ clothing in the streets.
• Marilyn has photographed many of the 20th century’s leading cultural figures, including Édith Piaf, Le Corbusier, Twiggy, Sharon Tate and her mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
• Marilyn is the author of three books, including Stories in Pictures: A Photographic Memoir 1950.
•She launched the global competition the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award, honouring the work of female documentary photographers.
•Submissions to the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award 2019 are open until Friday 13 December. Apply at: https://fotodocument.org/fotoaward

For more than 50 years, Marilyn Stafford has made Britain her home, but even before she came to these shores, it was her chance meetings with some of the most famous people of the 20th century – and legendary Magnum photographers – in post-War Paris that set her upon a life in photography. Marilyn is 94, but she is not one for dwelling on an eventful past that would be the envy of many other photographers. Instead, she is making plans for next year, including an exhibition of her street and fashion photos next spring, and presenting the award in her name honouring female documentary photographers. Throughout our conversation, there is a lucidity of thought and clarity in the memories she shares that rolls back the years with the sureness of a camera shutter at 1/250 sec.

Brought up as an actress in Ohio, Marilyn moved to New York after the end of World War II to find work in the theatre. But