Biographie

7 décembre 1916 · Maple Shade, New Jersey, États-Unis

28 juillet 2017 · Paris, France

John Godfrey Morris

In London during WWII he edited Robert Capa's historic pictures of the D-Day invasion, and got them shipped to New York in time for the following week's issue of "Life" magazine. He also worked for the "New York Times", the "Washington Post", "National Geographic" and the Magnum Photos agency.

In the early morning of June 5, 1968, he witnessed the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. "The most terrible event I think I ever witnessed up close," he said in an interview.

During the Vietnam War he successfully argued that Eddie Adams' photograph of the Saigon police chief shooting a captured Vietcong insurgent in the head should appear on the front page of the "New York Times". It became one of the most iconic images of the war. He likewise persuaded editors to run a photo at the bottom of the front page despite a Times policy against nudity. It was the photo of a young naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm bombing raid that had burned her badly and singed her clothes off (it was credited to Nick Ut, whose given name was Huynh Cong Ut). Both pictures won the Pulitzer Prize.

He grew up in Chicago and became involved in journalism as a student at the University of Chicago. After graduation he got a job at "Life" magazine as a clerk, working his way up to Hollywood correspondent. After the start of WWII he became London picture editor, in charge of "Life"'s photographic coverage of the war in Europe.