Film set stills photographer Loomis Dean dies aged 88

Loomis Dean, a Life magazine photographer who captured famous images of James Bond, Ernest Hemingway, British playwright Noel Coward and Pope Paul VI, has died. He was 88 - reports Montery Herald.

Dean died Dec. 7 in Sonoma of complications from a stroke, his son-in-law, Timothy Gaughan, said Tuesday. He had retired to the California wine country.

During a six-decade career, Dean shot 52 covers for Life. He also worked as a still photographer on film sets, including James Bond films starring Sean Connery.

Dean, the son of a grocer and a schoolteacher, was born in Monticello, Fla. He studied engineering at the University of Florida but decided to pursue a photography career after spending time with a friend in a darkroom.

Dean briefly worked as a junior press agent for the Ringling Circus, where he began taking photographs of performers. After working in aerial reconnaissance in the Pacific in World War II, he took his first assignment for Life in 1946.

The photographer spent three weeks with Hemingway in Spain in 1960 for an assignment on bullfighting, and published "Hemingway's Spain," in 1989.

Family members are planning a celebration of Dean's life at an Irish pub.

Discuss this news here...