Richard Young

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is the photographer Richard Young. Once known as the king of the paparazzi, over the last 50 years, he's gone from sneaking into one of Elizabeth Taylor's parties, snapping away until she kicked him out, to becoming a bit of a VIP himself, invited behind the velvet rope by the likes of Vanity Fair, the Golden Globes, and Sir Elton John. He has his own gallery in Kensington full of photos from his archive, a treasure trove featuring millions of images that chart the evolution of contemporary pop culture. His work has been honoured by the University of the Arts, the UK Picture Editors Guild, and acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. Not bad for a working-class Londoner who left school at 14 wanting to prove his market trader father wrong about his prospects. He started out with a borrowed camera before getting a break from his friend David Bailey, who commissioned his celebrity photographs. He befriended many of his subjects, including Freddie Mercury and, eventually, Elizabeth Taylor. His work paved the way for the paparazzi that followed, but his attitude as well as his talent marked him out from that often controversial pack. He says, I understood that trust was currency. Being polite, being calm, saying please and thank you. Those things opened doors that aggression never could. A lot of photographers never understood why I was in the room. The answer was simple: I didn't behave like an enemy. I behaved like a human being. Richard Young, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Richard Young2:11

Thank you very much, and thank you for having me here.

Presenter2:14

Oh, well, you're so welcome. So Richard, you once said that a true paparazzo picture has a bit of magic and spontaneity about it. Tell me about the key ingredients. What are they?

Richard Young2:24

Well, it's got to tell a story. And the most important thing about a photograph is if it doesn't tell a story, then it's not really worth having. You know, I mean, some of the things I've done over the last 52 years, some I regret, some I don't regret, some of them I like to say sorry to everybody. And a lot of people know that they can trust me and they like me. So I've been very, very fortunate. But most of these artists I've chosen today to play, I've had some kind of personal relationship and personal contact with. And they accepted me into their homes, into their work environment, and everything else. So it's been a very interesting journey.

Speaker 22:39

Right to where

Presenter3:03

Yes, we want to get to all of that and that transition from the early days, the rough and tumble and the stuff you might regret, right the way through to being in the inner sanctum with so many of these huge stars. I mean your images are often described as candid, as intimate. How do you put people at their ease when you're taking their photos?

Richard Young3:21

Well the thing is you've got to make people smile. One of the most important factors of the whole job is having a sense of humor, being able to get on with everybody, and as you said earlier, being polite. As long as you use those two very important words, please and thank you, anything can happen.

Presenter3:37

And your wife Susan is working very hard on digitising your archive, those two million images or something that we mentioned.

Richard Young3:41

Correct.

Presenter3:44

How much do you remember about the stories behind the pictures? When you're going through, does it bring it all back?

Richard Young3:50

Well, strangely enough, I remember most things about most pictures I've taken. I see an image, I go, Oh, I remember what happened that day, I remember what how how it came about and everything. And uh it's quite remarkable how much I can remember about an image more than I can remember about other things that are going on in my life.

Presenter4:08

And as you say, you've got a personal connection with a lot of the artists that we're going to be hearing today. What makes musicians such interesting subjects?

Richard Young4:17

I think the reason why I love musicians so much is because I so much wanted to be one myself. I remember when I was much, much younger at home living in Stoughton, in a two up, two down with my mum and dad and my sister. And, you know, I built myself a guitar, which was this a plank of wood with cut gut gut, what it was called, strings and things. Cut gut strings, you mean? Yes.

Presenter4:39

Oh my goodness, really?

Richard Young4:40

Yes, and I was playing it, and my mum said to me, Oh, I'm not going to have all this madness. And she took it away from me and destroyed it, right? So I thought, maybe I'll become a drummer. So I got, I got, so I got hold all these biscuit tins around me. I felt like I was Jim Keltner. I had my knitting needles, right? Or my mum's knitting needles, and I go, da-da-da-da-da. And she said, and she had to take that all away me.

Presenter4:58

Needles and I

Speaker 24:58

Yeah.

Richard Young5:04

I didn't become a musician. It was destroyed for me.

Presenter5:05

You know, it was destroyed for me. Just as well, you found your way to a camera eventually, Richard.

Richard Young5:09

Exactly. The camera plays my music.

Presenter5:12

Let's get started with your first disc then. Who are we going to hear?

Richard Young5:14

Boom.

Richard Young5:15

Well, my first this is Amy Winehouse. I loved her dearly. I was on my way to a hotel in St. Martin's Lane and I was on my way and my phone went off and it was Universal Music's PR saying to me, We got this thing going on in Hammersmith at Riverside Studios and Amy's here. There's a possibility she might get one or two awards. We would love you to come down and photograph it. So I got down there instead of going to the Vanity Fair party, which I was on my way to. And I got down there and I got there about midnight and it was like a speakeasy. It was fantastic. She was up to number three getting her Grammy Award. Her mum turns to me and she said, Richard, you look very hungry.

Richard Young6:02

Have another bagel, and Amy shouts out, He's fat enough as it is, he can't have another bagel.

Richard Young6:08

Which at that time I was a little bit overweight. But anyway, so the evening progressed like that. And at the end, she won five Grammars. Yeah. And she was absolutely amazed by the whole thing. And she was on such great form. And it was so lovely to be working with her. And she cuddled up to her mum on stage. And I got this most incredible photograph where her mother is crying and she's in the arms of Amy Winehouse, her daughter. And it was just so beautiful. And Rehab really tells the story of the night, really, and tells the story of Amy.

Speaker 26:17

Yeah.

Speaker 36:40

They tried to make me go to rehab I said no, no, no

Speaker 36:47

Yes, I've been black, but when I come back No, no, no

Speaker 36:54

I ain't got the time And if my daddy thinks I'm fine

Speaker 37:00

They try to make me go to rehab I won't go

Presenter7:07

Amy Winehouse and Rehab. Let's go back to the beginning then, Richard. You're a Hackney boy, born in nineteen forty seven. Your parents, Hilda and David, were market traders. What do they sell and where?

Richard Young7:18

Well, my dad for nearly 70 years spent most of the time in Berwick Street Market. I went to a primary school in Stamford Hill, which was useless for me because I didn't learn a thing. And then, because I didn't kind of educate myself or be educated or get to learn very much, I didn't get allowed to go to the JFS, which was the Jewish Free School which was in Candon Town. I ended up in William Wordsworth, which was a real kind of like, okay, all the ones that didn't make it.

Presenter7:43

Yeah.

Presenter7:49

A bit more rough and ready, was it?

Richard Young7:50

Yeah, very rough and ready. And I really had to learn how to take care of myself. So my dad was working in Berwick Street, right?

Presenter7:52

Okay

Richard Young7:58

But my dad was only round the corner from the London Palladium. Now he used his store, especially on a Friday, as the front stage of the London Palladium. When the girls came out with their pay packets in those days, you know, and they wanted a pair of stockings for the weekend so that to to impress their boyfriends, especially the ones with the seam going down the back,

Speaker 28:01

Now

Presenter8:14

Yeah.

Presenter8:16

Oh yeah.

Richard Young8:17

He'll get me out the bag and roll it up his thumb and he'd say, Look, darling, look at that.

Presenter8:19

Okay, look.

Presenter8:21

He had all the patterns.

Richard Young8:22

He had order patter and he did Berwick Street market for nearly over sixty years.

Presenter8:26

So he was selling stockings to showgirls. Did he have was it underwear that he specialized in?

Richard Young8:30

No, no underwear, just lady stockings.

Presenter8:32

Okay.

Richard Young8:32

Sometimes there were moments when I had to stand behind it, just to make sure no one nicked anything.

Presenter8:38

So tell me a little bit more about life at home then. I mean, you know, what were you like as a kid? I know that you were into train spotting.

Richard Young8:47

It's funny because train spotting was very important to me from the age of six, seven, eight, and nine before I discovered other things in life. And the thing was, my mum used to buy me a Red Rover ticket, which got me round London to all the different main railway stations. So I'd take my little Ian Allen's train spotting book with me and ticked off the numbers as I went along, right? And I would sit at the end of maybe King's Cross station waiting for that 430 to come in from Edinburgh or whatever, because I knew it'd be a great steam train that'd be put in it. All the other boys seemed to have white bread rolled up cheese sandwiches. I had a smoked salmon bagel.

Presenter8:52

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 29:02

So I just

Presenter9:23

Oh, come on.

Richard Young9:23

Whi which was very, very important.

Presenter9:26

And so you as you mentioned, you know, you've grown up in a Jewish family. Was religion an important part of life at home?

Richard Young9:32

Not really. We weren't terribly religious, although I did all the necessary things of a boy called at age 13. I put my parents through a lot of hardship and a lot of distress in the sense I kept on skipping going to Hebrew classes and going to learn my peace, as they called it, for that famous Saturday morning when it came along when you're 13. And then they held a big party for me and I thought that was fabulous.

Speaker 29:49

Yeah.

Presenter9:49

Mm-hmm.

Presenter9:57

So it sounds like your parents were quite supportive. Did they have the creative streak that would later come out in you? Where do you think it came from in you?

Richard Young10:04

I think the creative streak probably came from my father. Of course my dad was very much into American music. I mean, he loved Frankson Archer, Dean Martin, he loved Sammy Davis Junior. He loved all people like that. Which brings us on to our nec second song, I guess.

Presenter10:07

Mm-hmm.

Presenter10:20

All right, yeah, let's hear it. Disc number two, what have you got?

Richard Young10:22

The artist is Johnny Rae and it's called Walking in the Rain.

Presenter10:25

And what does this bring together?

Richard Young10:27

Well, what happened was my dad, because he was working in Berwick Street, I think he knew people who had worked or had connected with the London Palladium. And he liked Johnny Ray. And he said to me one day, I'm going to take you to the London Palladium. We're going to go and see Johnny Ray. And I went, Great. I never even heard of him at that point. And we went there and I sat there. I think we were in the stores. And my dad was actually thrilled that he was treating me for a change, you know, taking me somewhere because he never did because he was so wrapped up in his work. Of course, that was going to be the first of many, many occasions that I was ever going to go to the London Palladium.

Presenter10:34

Uh

Speaker 210:34

And he likes

Speaker 310:35

Yeah.

Speaker 210:35

Yeah.

Speaker 210:53

Yeah.

Speaker 311:05

Just walking in the rain

Speaker 311:11

Get me soaking wet

Speaker 311:16

Torture in my heart

Speaker 311:21

Fight tried to forget

Speaker 311:25

Just to walking in the rain

Presenter11:32

Johnny Rae and Just Walking in the Rain. So, Richard Young, tell me more about your school days. You don't sound like the most diligent student.

Richard Young11:40

I was not.

Presenter11:41

No. What was going on? What were you distracted by?

Richard Young11:44

Primary school was a a real kind of bad situation because what kind of made it worse was my dad was paying for me to be there.

Presenter11:52

Oh, a primary school, okay.

Richard Young11:53

Yeah, it was a a paying school and uh it was quite strict. But anyway, I went to William Wordsworth in Stoughton High Street and

Presenter11:55

Not

Presenter12:01

Were there many other Jewish kids there? I mean, you mentioned that, you know, you had failed to get into the bigger Jewish kids.

Richard Young12:07

No, it wasn't. It was just me. And then I found out that the guy I was sitting next to I only got only got to know him, but he came along when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, because his name was Mark Feld. Now this guy

Richard Young12:23

came into school one day.

Richard Young12:25

And he's got a three-piece suit on.

Richard Young12:27

And a Jacques Pfaff tie and a John Michael four guinea voyal shirt. I'm going, I've got to be friends with this guy. This guy looks the way my head is thinking. And we connected straight away. You became a friend of mine. And he lived like five minutes away from me. He lived by Stoughtoninton Common and I lived on Evering Road. And some mornings I would go around to him and we'd go to school together and some mornings he would come to me, whatever was easiest. And we stayed friends for a long, long time. I was so influenced by this guy. He was one of the biggest influences on my life. He changed his name later, didn't he? When he became a singer and he was in various other groups, he changed his name to Mark Bolan.

Presenter12:39

You became a majority of the menu.

Richard Young13:06

And every Friday all the other two hundred boys would get on coaches and go out to the Dagnum Fields near the Dagnum Works, right, all the way from Stoughton Unton, really? And they would be playing football in the mud, and Mark would say to me, in this kind of like expression, not cool.

Presenter13:24

So what did you what were you doing instead?

Richard Young13:25

You go and see your m dad and I'll go and see my mum, you know, cash some money off them, which is what we used to do. And we go round to the two ice coffee bar and sit there and listen to some music and watch Adam Faith or PJ Proberry trying to make a life for themselves.

Presenter13:28

We could

Presenter13:31

Mike used to be my boss, I know it well.

Presenter13:46

Okay, so it was already the bright lights of Soho and music and all of that that was drawing your attention.

Richard Young13:48

Oh yeah.

Richard Young13:51

I used to love the bright lights of Soho. The thing was, be the day we got expelled, right, we're standing on the platform of the Root Master Bus seventy three going to the West End, and there was a mar somebody in the street going, Don't even bother coming back and I je wa I just waved.

Presenter14:07

Did you? So they just that was it? You were that was how you left school? Exactly.

Richard Young14:10

Exactly. And I went up to Berwick Street, I went up to my Dad and he's, you know, he's busy serving all these girls and everything. And I said, Dad, I've just been expelled from school. He said, Okay, well stand behind the t stool, make sure no one ex anything.

Presenter14:21

That was it.

Richard Young14:22

That was it.

Presenter14:23

What kind of idea of your future did you have back then? Obviously you and Mark sounded like you were interested in a bigger, more exciting life.

Richard Young14:31

I didn't have anything because I didn't learn anything in school. I was I had dyslexia and all all those other things that peop kids have. And my mum came along to the rescue and got me a job interview working in this menswear shop in Old Compton Street called Sportique.

Presenter14:47

Right now, I'd love to hear your third piece of music, disc number three. What have you chosen?

Richard Young14:52

Well, this is a dedication to Mark, and I'm very friendly with his wife, Gloria, who's coming back to London soon. I'm looking forward to seeing her. And this song is called Cosmic Dancer, and I love it very, very much.

Speaker 315:07

I was dancing when I was twelve

Speaker 315:13

I was dancing when I was twelve

Speaker 315:20

I was dancing when I was out

Speaker 315:26

I was dancing when I was up

Speaker 315:32

Dance myself right at the wound

Presenter15:36

That is Cosmic Dancer by T. Rex. And very poignant, Richard Young, to hear Mark Boland singing about him at that age, twelve, when you would have known him around that time.

Richard Young15:48

I wouldn't be surprised if some of that song was written in school. Even though he was at school, he was writing songs. I know that for a fact.

Presenter15:56

I know that

Presenter15:57

Oh, wow. So he always had his his eyes on the prize. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your progress then. So at sixteen, your mum had got you this helped you get this job at Sportique in Old Compton Street. London was beginning to swing. It was the c one of the coolest boutiques in town. Who were your clients?

Richard Young16:00

Yeah.

Richard Young16:14

Well, all these famous people were coming in and I realized how special this shop was, especially painters. I mean, David Hockney and Francis Bacon, people like that. Film directors, John Houston came in one day, I remember very, very much. And then a lot of musicians came in because it was right near all the studios around Soho. Of course. And then one day... a bunch of guys come in, there's about five of them, six of them. You know, they're all kind of American and they're all smelling a very special fragrance. I wasn't quite sure what it was at that time in my life. We won't dwell on that. Yeah. And

Speaker 316:31

Because it

Richard Young16:50

One of them had hair all curly up and everything and I looked at her and I went, oh, oh it's Bob Dylan. And they're looking at all the all the clothes and there was a t-shirts and all the shirts and everything and one of the guys chose this orange and cream Matelo shirt and it's Italian cotton. It's got a lovely sheen to it and I feel like I'm selling it to you now.

Presenter17:11

Mm-hmm.

Presenter17:13

Oh, exactly. I'm like, oh, sounds nice. I'll take three.

Richard Young17:14

My work sounds nice. I'll take three. So, anyway, you know, I didn't think very much more of it and everything. And about a year later, Highway 61 Revisited came out, and I looked at the album cover. Bob Dylan is sitting down with his Triumph T-shirt on. Behind him,

Richard Young17:30

The matcholo shirt that I sold, the orange and cream matcholo shirt, is on the guy behind him who's now went oh Oh my God my first claim to fame I sold him that T shirt

Presenter17:41

Well, I want to come to the track in a minute, but I want to talk a little bit more about music first, if you wouldn't mind, Richard, because I know that after several years of working in Soho, in 1970, you made quite a big decision. You decided to sell all your records and you bought yourself a plane ticket to New York. And I know you went there with two phone numbers. Whose were they? What was the plan?

Richard Young18:01

Well the first phone number was this young lady who was a girlfriend of a guy who was working in the shop with me. By this time I was working in a shop called The Squire Shop on the Kings Road and he was one of our assistants and he said to me, I've got this girlfriend who lives in Brooklyn. She'll put you up for a few weeks and everything. So give her a call when you get to New York, which is what I did straight from the airport. And the second number I had was a guy that was the producer and kind of running Electric Lady Studios, which I had no idea what Electric Lady Studios was at that time.

Presenter18:35

I mean, it's it's still completely legendary.

Richard Young18:36

It is the biggest studio, biggest name, world-known name recording studio anywhere. And it was Jimi Hendrix studio. And I knocked on the door and I said, I come to see Eddie Kramer. And I said, oh, come on up, he's in the office. Now, the guy didn't even say, hello, how are you? What's happening? Do you want a job? I said, yeah, okay. They took me down just by Studio A. They sat me down by the desk. They said, right, you're going to allow the artists in, see them out, fire away, master tapes, have a cup of coffee, and that's it.

Presenter18:42

Yeah.

Speaker 218:42

Yeah.

Presenter18:44

Yeah.

Presenter19:08

So this is Eddie Gramer, the legendary record producer.

Richard Young19:11

Really legendary, and what a lovely, lovely man he was. He was so kind to me and everything.

Presenter19:16

How did you know him?

Richard Young19:17

He was one of my customers.

Presenter19:18

Ah

Richard Young19:19

Yeah.

Presenter19:20

I see.

Richard Young19:20

Uh

Presenter19:20

So you were working at Electric Lady Studios assisting Eddie Kramer. Whose sessions did you work on? What kind of artists were you pulling shoulders with?

Richard Young19:28

The most important one was Stevie Wonder. He was cut in Talking Book at the time.

Presenter19:33

And what was he like to hang out with? What did you do with it?

Richard Young19:35

He was lovely. He was so gentle and so lovely. And it was years later, maybe not, well, about maybe three or four years later. By now, I'm into photography. And I get invited to the Royal Garden Hotel where Stevie is staying, right? Through I think it was the Motown people that invited me there. And Stevie would recognize you by your voice. And I remember walking into his room and we started chatting. I said, you know how great it was to see him again. Hey, Richard, how are you? I thought that was fantastic that he remembered my voice.

Speaker 219:54

Um

Speaker 219:58

And the

Presenter20:09

How lovely. Well, you've already told us a little bit about this track, but would you like to introduce your fourth disc for us?

Richard Young20:15

Well the next track is positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan because I eventually I lived not very far from 4th Street.

Speaker 320:25

You got it light, I know I say you are my friend.

Speaker 320:33

When I was down, you just think pretty

Speaker 320:42

You got a lot of nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend.

Speaker 320:51

You just don't want to

Presenter20:53

Bob Dylan and Positively Fourth Street.

Presenter20:58

So, Richard Young, you came back to London in nineteen seventy four. You started off working in a bookshop on Regent Street, and I think it was the owner of that shop who started you off with your camera. He sent you on various missions photographing authors. You didn't have a camera of your own at the time, though. How did you manage?

Richard Young21:15

How did you manage? I said, I don't know that much about photography. What do you want me to do? He said, Well, I want you to go down to the West Country and photograph the surrounding area, architecturally, of Thomas Hardy.

Richard Young21:27

So I did. I went down to near Dorchester, Wessex country and everything, and spent a week photographing all these places on this list that he had given me. Came back to London, I gave him the two rolls of film and he got them processed and he came back the next day and he went like this, showed me the blank film, two blank films. Oh no. And he said, you know, why has this happen? I said, well, look, everybody is just assuming I know about photography and I don't really know that much. I'm sorry. He said, well, you've got six weeks to learn how to use it or you're fired. He was mighty, mighty upset. But he let me keep the Nick on camera. And from that time on, when I got it all wrong and everything, I used it every single day, walking to work or whatever, just taking pictures of anything on everything that moved in London. Especially over the weekends, I would go to all the marketplaces where my dad was and just photograph markets still holding photography really. Street photography. I didn't realize it was going to turn into a paparazzi situation.

Presenter21:44

Pull the market.

Speaker 221:46

Oh

Presenter21:48

Oh no.

Speaker 322:19

Great.

Presenter22:19

Switch.

Presenter22:25

Yeah.

Presenter22:28

Yeah.

Richard Young22:32

And then one day where I was living just off Ladbrook Grove, next door to me about three or four doors down were all these American people who come to London especially to set up Rolling Stone magazine English edition. And then one day they came over to the flat and they said, listen, we've got a really important person coming in this weekend.

Richard Young22:53

And they told me that this guy's coming into London from Rome and he's just been released by the the Italian Mafia and he's had his ear cut off and his name Paul Getty Junior. And I thought, wow And I've heard the name Getty before.

Presenter23:06

But you didn't really know the the story'cause it was it was a notorious crime at the time. Yeah.

Richard Young23:09

It was notorious. It was a crime at the time. It was really weird. It was a weird one. And the grandfather had to pay a $2 million ransom to get him released.

Presenter23:17

Okay. But you hadn't really heard about any of that. You just said, Okay.

Richard Young23:20

I just I was naï to the whole thing.

Presenter23:23

So he being

Richard Young23:23

Suddenly the kid arrives in London. He's staying like two or three doors away from me. And Craig, my friend Craig, who was the acting editor of Rolling Stone, he said to me, We're going to the Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday and we're taking Paul with us and everything. Come with us. You will really enjoy it. So we all went to the Hard Rock. We walked through Hyde Park and I photographed Paul with his girlfriend at the time, Martine. Great pictures.

Presenter23:27

Hmm.

Richard Young23:49

We got to the Hard Rock Cafe, but then there was someone else at the Hard Rock Cafe waiting for us, and it was an American writer called William Bowers.

Presenter23:56

Oh wow.

Richard Young23:57

And I was more impressed with that than I was with anything else.

Presenter24:01

So the photos that you took of Paul Getty Junior after his kidnapping ended up earning you thirty pounds?

Richard Young24:09

Yeah, it was more than I was getting paid for two weeks' work in the bookshop. And I remember sitting by the picture desk for an hour or so, and then suddenly I thought, well, wait a minute, where's my negs and contact sheets? Because I brought it to them, so surely I must own the copyright to those pictures. And I said to one of the picture editors, Can I please have my negatives and contact sheet? And they all looked at me like no one's ever asked for that to be sent, you know, sent back. So they went off, got it, and gave it to me, and then that was it. And I went off and sold it to an agency which that came later, much later.

Speaker 224:24

Uh

Presenter24:24

Right.

Speaker 224:32

Did they give them to you?

Presenter24:41

Richard, I think we better have some more music. This is your fifth choice today. What are we going to hear next and why are you taking it with you to your desert island?

Richard Young24:48

Point blank by Bruce Springsteen. And this song hits me very hard in the heart because at the time this album came out, The River, my first wife, God bless her, Rita, was dying of breast cancer. And I used to play the album a lot, but this one particular track really resonated with me and in my heart. I just love it.

Presenter25:08

And it's a

Presenter25:10

But it connected with you during such a difficult time. So she was very young and you had a young family, didn't you?

Richard Young25:15

My two boys were three and five, and she passed away at the Royal Marston, and uh it was a very, very tough time for all of us. And um, yeah, she was very loved and very missed.

Presenter25:26

What got you through it, Richards?

Richard Young25:27

My parents helped me through it and also um what got me through it? Meeting Susan nine months later, Stephanie got me through it. My wife today, she she understood the situation and she held my hand all the way through it, and she still ho holds my hand today.

Presenter25:36

Uh

Speaker 325:36

Yeah, she's your wife today.

Speaker 325:46

We were standing at the bar and it was hard to hear The band was playing loud and you were shouting something in my ear

Speaker 325:54

He pulled my jacket off and as a drummer counted for it.

Speaker 325:58

You grabbed my hand and pulled me out on the floor.

Speaker 326:02

You stood there and held me and you started dancing slow And as I pulled you tighter I swore I'd never let you go Well I saw you last night down the avenue

Presenter26:15

Point blank, Bruce Springsteen.

Presenter26:17

Richard, one of your iconic photos is from the time that you gate-crashed Elizabeth Taylor's party. It was for Richard Burton's 50th at the Dorchester. What happened there?

Richard Young26:27

They wheeled in the birthday cake on a silver big trolley with all these major D's around it and everything and I'm photographing it and every time I my camera went off because the flash was much stronger than the guest because they're all Welsh people and they had all the incematics and everything. So in my camera my flash went off. She went and of course I just took it down. I kept on taking about 10 or 12 pictures of her cutting the cake, kissing and k like the kiss. The Richard Burton kiss. Oh incredible.

Presenter26:45

And it goes out.

Presenter26:53

The Richardson.

Presenter26:56

Tell me about that moment.

Richard Young26:57

Well, she broke off from cutting the cake and then grabbed hold of Richard and they went into a big embrace with each other and it was just fantastic. And then everybody sat down and the dancing began and Elizabeth got up and started dancing with some other chap who was probably a dear friend of theirs. And I went over now confident that I got some good pictures in the film and I'm going and she turns around and comes right to me and she can't scream, she can't make a scene because there's too many people there. But her nose is nearly touching my nose. She said, I don't know who you are, but get out of here now. So I just turned and walked. Don't say anything. Don't don't don't don't answer back. Don't say a word. Don't even try to justify the situation. And I walked out that front door and went straight to the Daily Mirror.

Speaker 227:27

Hmm.

Speaker 227:30

I don't know who you are.

Presenter27:48

You were freelance in those days.

Richard Young27:49

I was freelance so I could have gone anywhere. Those pictures just went global everywhere. The National Inquirer in America did about a six page spread on it.

Presenter27:54

Mm-hmm.

Presenter27:58

And this was a massive break for you, wasn't it? I mean, that week changed your life. It's not.

Richard Young28:02

That changed my whole life where photography was concerned. I gave up working in a bookshop. I moved into my own little bed sit, or whatever at the time, in Notting Hill.

Presenter28:05

Mm.

Presenter28:13

Just with the money from those those pictures.

Richard Young28:15

Well, no, the Betsy came first about for about a month or so. And then I decided I want to buy a house which was around the corner on Finstock Road. And I went round there and I looked at it. And they wanted £27,000 or something. So I went to the syndication department at Daily Express. I said, can I borrow £500 for a deposit for this house? She said, well, how much is the house? I said, £27,000. She said, well, why don't you just take the £27,000 and pay for it outright? She said, the money you're going to make on those pictures, which is about the last time I ever made anything like that whatsoever, and that's 52 years ago, I did. Well, I didn't take it all. I took some.

Presenter28:53

But it got you your first house.

Richard Young28:55

He got me the house.

Presenter28:56

And Richard, your relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, which had obviously been

Presenter29:01

She chucked you out and then

Richard Young29:02

Yeah.

Presenter29:03

But it did come full circle, didn't it?

Richard Young29:05

It did. It was a real full circle situation. It went from being, we hate you, go away, you know, to Richard, we love you, and we want you to be there. And did someone call you to come to my party? I hope they do because I want you to be at my party. But most important part of my whole relationship with Elizabeth Taylor was in the year 2000, I get a phone call on my mobile and it's from her attorney in Los Angeles saying, are you in London next week? And I said, yeah. Well, Liz Taylor has asked me to call you to say, would you mind going with her to get her dame hood from the Queen or whoever was giving it to her and do the official lunch party and the Oliver Messel suite at the Dorchester. Over the years, from the Dorchester first Dorchester experience to that point, we have formulated a really lovely friendship. And I really treasure that as something very, very special.

Speaker 229:31

Yeah.

Speaker 229:44

And

Presenter29:55

Yeah.

Presenter30:00

I mean, reflecting on those early days, Richard, how do you feel about, you know, breaking the privacy code? Because photographers were banned at the party. You'd snuck in. You weren't supposed to be there.

Richard Young30:09

Sorry.

Richard Young30:11

You know, there was lots of things we did which I don't regret so much, but I just want but if I had the chance to apologize to everybody out there that might be listening, sorry. It was done because it makes great pictures and it makes it puts a smile on people's faces. Nothing was done with any kind of bad attitude or bad feelings whatsoever. Everything was done because it you know The world needs these pictures to make people happy. If I open a newspaper up in the morning and I see that someone's having a good dance and everything and they're enjoying themselves, that's a much nicer one than seeing someone looking very miserable.

Speaker 230:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 230:35

bad feelings whatsoever.

Presenter30:53

So round about the mid seventies, Richard, your mate David Bailey gave you a bit of a break. He'd started a new magazine, hadn't he?

Richard Young31:00

Ritz magazine appeared on the scene, and Ritz was the magazine that Bailey and a another chap called David Litchfield, no no relation to Patrick Litchfield, bought this magazine together, and they used the editorial office, because they didn't have an office, at the back of Langham's Brazery.

Presenter31:17

which was like one of the coolest restaurants in London at that time.

Richard Young31:21

And it was this opened by owned by Michael Caine and Peter Langham and the main chef Richard Shepard Rand Langham's. I got a phone call that winter of 76 and it was from Bailey's office or from David Litchville's office saying we would like you to come and see us because we would like you to be our social photographer at Ritz magazine because we've seen your pictures in the Standard and the Express and the pictures that you're taking are the pictures we want to see in our magazine. There's only one small problem. There's no money involved. Right? You do all this work but you don't get paid. No. So what happened is they said to me, you can give them to your paper, namely the Daily Express. The Daily Express can use them, then get a few extra prints from the printer, you know, the guys in the printing room, you know, drop them a few bobs. I would walk into the Daily Express most mornings with three rolls of film, dropping all the pictures at the desk. I said, I was at Bianca Jagger's birthday party last night. I was at this birthday party. I went to Shirley MacLean's party last night. You know, they went crazy. They're going, where did you get all this stuff from? And I couldn't tell them it came from Ritz magazine. I let them think it came from me.

Presenter31:56

Yeah.

Presenter32:31

I think we'd better go to the music, Richard. Your sixth choice today. What are we going to hear next?

Richard Young32:35

I became very friendly with George Harrison. I love this song. It's called Isn't It a Pity. He said, what are you doing on Saturday? I said, well, not a lot. Please come early on Saturday morning, about 10-ish. And I'd like you to take some pictures of me and the family, but they're not for publication or anything. They're just for my own personal use. I said, thank you. I'd love to be there. And I thought I was going to be there for about an hour and a half. Anyway, I didn't leave till like just gone midnight.

Speaker 333:04

Isn't it a pity?

Speaker 333:10

Now isn't it a shame?

Speaker 333:17

How we break each other's heart

Speaker 333:24

And cause each other pain

Speaker 333:31

How we take each other's love

Presenter33:39

George Harrison and Isn't it a pity? Richard Young, you took many photographs of Princess Diana during your career. How would you describe your acquaintance with her?

Richard Young33:50

Um

Richard Young33:52

It wasn't Paparazzi, that's for sure, thank God. My my relationship with Princess Dinah was actually very, very nice. But my favourite picture I've done of her at all was one of the very first pictures in a black Elizabeth Emmanuel dress, Taffy dress.

Presenter34:11

Was this the one where she was getting out of the car?

Richard Young34:14

Correct.

Presenter34:14

It was a bit of cleavage on show, wasn't there, which got her into a little bit of trouble at the time.

Richard Young34:15

Wasn't that you got a

Richard Young34:18

Absolutely. Because no one at the palace warned her that should she be wearing a dress of that nature, she should have a clutch bag. And she didn't have a clutch bag, so there was nothing to hide it, anything. And of course, I was being pushed at the time more and more by the rural photographers into the curb, into the rain and into the puddles, because they all thought she was going to come in a much more modern edition of a Rolls-Royce where the door opens that way. But it didn't.

Speaker 234:27

I

Presenter34:27

Yeah.

Speaker 234:27

She didn't have a clutch bag.

Presenter34:50

So you got the shot because the door is

Richard Young34:52

Because of the way the door was opening, she had to get out and she's right in front of me. And she's leaning forward and of course, you know, it exposed maybe a little bit too much for a young princess. From that night onwards, she whatever royal it is, they always had a clutch bag that that could protect them.

Speaker 234:59

Yeah.

Presenter35:12

Mm-hmm.

Presenter35:15

Richard, I know that Diana's death was a turning point for you professionally. You mentioned that the word paparazzo became something that you no longer wanted to be associated with. How did that change your professional identity and your approach?

Richard Young35:29

Very easy really. I just carried on being who I am and who I was and without using that word because at that time we were starting to on a much more regular basis to be invited in anyway because I established myself so so well with Ritz magazine and going to all those glamorous parties that they were sending me to. They were getting used to seeing me coming in and being the the photographer. And even now after 52, 53 years, I'm going to be 79 this year, I'm still being commissioned to do jobs. Fantastic. I mean I find it's quite astonishing.

Speaker 235:44

Make

Speaker 335:56

Uh

Presenter36:05

Fantastic.

Presenter36:08

One of the musicians that you photographed many times over the years was Freddie Mercury and you became great friends.

Richard Young36:14

Freddie would ring me up sometimes, especially when he was having his 39th birthday party in Munich at Mrs. Henderson's, which was a gay club. And he said to me, Darling, because everybody was darling, I want you to come to my 39th birthday party. It's in Munich and it's at Mrs. Henderson's and everybody's coming in drag. I said, Everybody? He said, everybody. So I thought, oh my God. So I said to Susan, I need a lovely dress and everything else. But as you can see, I got a problem here. Because you've got a beard. I had a big beard and not very much hair. So she went off to Selfages and bought me this wig. And she went up to the counter and she said, I need a lovely flying wig for my husband. And the woman behind the counter says, oh, don't worry, darling. We have lots like you in here.

Speaker 236:26

Mm.

Presenter36:44

I had a

Presenter36:45

Yeah.

Presenter36:47

Hmm?

Presenter37:01

And how was the party?

Richard Young37:02

Oh, the party was great. So I'm standing outside Mrs. Henderson's in my dress and my heels and everything, you know, my kitten heels, my tights, which my dad gave me. Well done, you. I'm standing there with my kitten heels on, and Freddie gets out the car. He said, oh, darling, I didn't mean you, I meant everybody else.

Speaker 337:13

Well done here.

Presenter37:26

Oh Richard. You documented a lot of the highs for Freddie and the Baron. But obviously, you know, you were taking photos right up to the end of his life. So that must have been tough. What was that like to see? Well, the night before the funeral.

Richard Young37:29

But obviously

Richard Young37:33

I must

Richard Young37:35

Well, the night before the funeral the f night before the funeral, Jim Beach would ring me up and said, Um, the band wants you to photograph the funeral. Now, I don't do funerals. I do bermitzas, I do weddings, but I don't do funerals.

Speaker 337:44

Mm-hmm.

Richard Young37:48

He said, Would you touch it? I said, No. Jim, I don't d shoot funerals and stay and especially Freddy's.

Richard Young37:55

He said, Well, would you come anyway, bring a camera and see how you feel on the day? So I did. I had my camera back, didn't expose the camera. I went into the chapel where everybody else was. Now, do you think for one second I'm going to pull my camera out? And I've got Elton John standing next to me crying his eyes out. No way am I going to be doing that. That's not the way I work.

Speaker 237:59

Hmm.

Richard Young38:16

After the funeral there was a wake at Julia's Wine Bar in the restaurant where everybody's getting and everyone's telling their stories of whatever p story they may have had about Freddy. I felt a bit more comfortable with that and I took a few pictures there, but

Presenter38:25

Mm-hmm.

Richard Young38:30

Never at the funeral.

Presenter38:31

It must have been really tough to to document what was happening to him.

Richard Young38:34

Well the thing is you know you you gotta look at it this way. I lost a friend

Presenter38:38

Mm-hmm.

Richard Young38:38

And he and I and I counted him as a friend because, you know, he invited me to s some very ter you know, personal things to him, which was his birthday parties and and dinners and things. And when someone treats you with that much respect, you don't you don't start taking pictures of their funeral. Come on. I was suffering just as much as anybody else was that day. I mean, I lost a friend.

Speaker 238:47

Yeah. Things

Presenter39:00

What's lovely, Richard, is that one of your pictures was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, a beautiful shot of Freddie with his cat. How did it feel that that piece was saved for the nation? I think it's currently on display at Nottingham Castle.

Richard Young39:15

That's correct, so I hear. He's with Tiffany, his cat Tiffany, and Freddie loved his cats, and I was very privileged when I heard that the National Portrait Gallery have um acquired that picture and they they have used it.

Presenter39:29

On that note, Richard, I think we'd better have some more music. Your seventh choice. What is it?

Richard Young39:33

It's a Queen song, It's a Beautiful Day.

Presenter39:34

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 339:36

It's a beautiful day.

Speaker 339:40

Yeah.

Speaker 339:42

Real life

Speaker 339:47

The world's gonna stop me now, mama.

Speaker 339:57

Sometimes I feel so sad, so sad, so bad.

Presenter40:05

Queen and a beautiful day. Well, Richard, it's almost time for your next challenge. You're about to become a castaway on a desert island. So in your words, you've lived a life of private jet and exclusive parties. How do you think you'll get on roughing it on the island?

Richard Young40:20

I love my own company. I love who I am.

Presenter40:22

That'll help.

Richard Young40:23

By loving who you are makes it easier and I could spend days with my books maybe and whatever else I can allow to take which w which w will be w a wonderful luxury thing but I have to take it easy on it because otherwise it could make give you food poisoning.

Presenter40:37

Okay, we'll come to that. You've got your discs though, you've got your books. I mean, how will you be with your survival skills? Will be you be able to fend for yourself, to put up a shelter, all of that?

Richard Young40:38

But we just

Speaker 340:46

Uh Yeah.

Presenter40:50

He started confident there, but then I could see it just evaporated.

Richard Young40:54

Yeah, I just start trying to think. The way I'm so cock-handed with everything. I mean, it's

Presenter40:56

My hat

Presenter41:00

Is there anything about the experience that you're looking forward to?

Richard Young41:03

Yeah, this being on my own.

Presenter41:07

It's because life is still hectic. I mean, you've got the gallery, haven't you? So your your little grandson in the gallery on your Instagram the other day?

Richard Young41:11

Yeah.

Richard Young41:13

Oh, the gallery's busy and um people come from all over the world, especially for the pictures of Freddie Mercury and Queen. The the Far East from S Japan and South Korea, they're all big Freddie Mercury fans. It's quite astonishing.

Presenter41:24

It's quite

Presenter41:26

What advice would you give to aspiring photographers today? You must get young photographers coming to see you.

Richard Young41:31

Pick up a roll of film.

Richard Young41:33

Learn to take pictures with a roller film first before going to digital and then the understanding of actually taking photographs will become much greater and more valuable to you than just picking up a digital camera. But with a roller film, you've got to really make sure you get it right. And with a roller film, black and white or color, you've got to get the timings, everything right. And especially with a roller film, you can't look at the back of the camera to see what you've got because it's not there.

Presenter41:37

Mm.

Presenter42:03

Mm-hmm.

Richard Young42:03

It's on the film.

Presenter42:04

I mean, so much has changed, Richard. You know, technology, obviously, as we're talking about, celebrity culture, but newspapers too. I mean, you know, do you think that the decline that many newspapers are facing has affected photography?

Richard Young42:15

This effect

Richard Young42:17

The one thing that happened to me in nineteen ninety one I was in the Daily Express one day and the picture editor says to me, You see those big metal cases over there, there's about a dozen of them. Take one home, it's yours. I don't want to ever see you again.

Richard Young42:31

And inside was a miniature Apple laptop, a scanner and a modem. So I got home, I put a very primitive Apple laptop, I put it together with the scanner, so I scanned in my legs, so it ends up on the computer, and then you've got to learn to put a caption underneath the picture. Now, I was useless because all my captions went through the pictures. I got it in the end. I enjoyed doing the technical side of it, the technology of it and everything. It's got much, much easier now. I mean, guys are walking around premieres and what have you, and they're sending their pictures from their cameras straight to the main online straight away.

Speaker 242:58

Technology

Presenter43:09

Straight away

Presenter43:10

They don't get as much money as you used to in the old days.

Richard Young43:12

There is no money in it anymore.

Presenter43:14

Maybe

Richard Young43:15

I mean, I I took it all.

Richard Young43:20

Sorry, boys.

Presenter43:20

Sorry.

Presenter43:21

We're about to send you to the island, Richard, but before you go there, we'll let you have one more disc. Your final choice today. What's it going to be?

Richard Young43:28

My final choice is one of my favourite men in this whole world and sadly we lost him some years ago is Leonard Cohen and this is called The Gypsy's Wife. Now this song is again very much like the Bruce Springsteen song. This song is very much dedicated to my wife Susan because it's just a beautiful song and she reminds me of being with a gypsy a gypsy wife. In what way? Because she's lived in so many places around the country in very many different locations. This is her song and it just fits her so well.

Presenter44:06

And you actually met Leonard Cohen. You struck up an acquaintance with him at the shop back in the day, didn't you?

Richard Young44:08

You struck a

Richard Young44:11

Leonard Cohen. I met Leonard Cohen in 1968. I was working in the Squire shop on Kings Road and Stewart, who was the manager, brought him downstairs because I was running the trouser department and sweater department in the basement. I see. And he said, you're going to enjoy serving this guy. Now, the reason why he said that was because I was drowning everybody's ears out all day long, listening to Leonard Cohen vinyl on the stereo going through the shop. So anyway, he brought him downstairs and it was a Monday morning and I was tidying up, straightening the trousers. And I turned around and I went, oh.

Speaker 244:25

I see.

Richard Young44:45

God oh high

Richard Young44:48

And it was Leonard Cohen. And I said, Can I help you? He said, Yeah, I want a pair of black Gabardeen trousers. So I found him a pair of black Gabardeen trousers. He put them on. The waist size was fine, but they were too long for him. So I got on my knees and pinned the bottom so he got the right length. I said, They'll probably take about an hour or so to alter. He said, No problem. So I gave it to the tailor in the backyard. I said, For whatever you do, don't you mess these up. All right.

Richard Young45:14

Went back in, I said, Sir, it'll be ready in about an hour. He said, Okay, do you want to come have a coffee with me? He says to me. I said, Yeah, that'd be great. So I went with him to a coffee bar along the Kings Road, and we sat down there and we were talking. And we were talking mainly about our mothers. And what I can gather, his relationship with his family, with his parents, wasn't as great as what mine was. We were talking for about an hour, and I finished up saying to him, You know, I got a thing. I went around all these bookshops looking for these books by this writer called Herman Hess. And nowhere I couldn't find him anywhere in London. And I was looking for one particular book, and I told him about it and everything. And he made a mental note of it.

Speaker 245:20

I said yellow.

Richard Young45:57

So we went back to the shop, I got his trousers, he he said, I don't need to try'em on, I'm sure they're fine, and they were, and he went off.

Richard Young46:06

About a month later this package comes to the shop and it's from New York addressed to me and um it's four titles of of Herman Hess books. One is a glass bead game, one is Damien, the other one is Steppenwolf and the other one is called Sidd Arthur. And in Siddhartha he wrote I wish you all good things which and I still have it.

Speaker 346:29

And well, well, where is my gypsy wife tonight?

Speaker 346:39

I've heard all the wild reports.

Speaker 346:44

They can't be right.

Speaker 346:48

But whose head is this she's dancing with on the threshing floor?

Presenter46:58

Leonard Cohen and the Gipsy's Wife. So, Richard Young, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'll give you the books to take with you, the Bible, the complete works of Shakspere, and one other book of your choice. What have you gone for?

Richard Young47:10

It's the book that Leonard sent me called Siddhartha by Herman Hess.

Presenter47:15

Perfect choice. And is is it a book that you've read and reread?

Richard Young47:18

I've known it for now for fifty odd years. I must have read it maybe four or five times when I've been at certain lows in my life and I felt like I needed that energy to kind of just put me back on track again. And that book will always put you back on track.

Presenter47:33

You can also have a luxury item to make life more bearable. What would you like?

Richard Young47:37

It's a real extravagance, this one.

Presenter47:39

Go on.

Richard Young47:39

A can of caviar

Presenter47:41

You like your caviar?

Richard Young47:42

I love my caviar, yeah, yeah. I love caviar. I was introduced to it when I went to a party many years ago at Cartier and they had these big urns and I couldn't figure out what everybody was fighting over. I held back for a while until I could find a space I could creep into and get hold of the spoon and put a big doll up on a plate and it was lovely. It was beautiful.

Presenter48:04

Finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first if you needed to?

Richard Young48:10

Point blank.

Presenter48:11

Why?

Richard Young48:11

Because that that song would be the one song that bring tears to my eyes.

Presenter48:18

Richard Young, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Richard Young48:21

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Presenter48:35

Hello, it was lovely chatting to Richard, and I hope he's very happy on his island. Tucking into his caviar. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to. We've cast away lots of other photographers, including David Bailey and Sally Mann. You'll also find one of Richard's favourite artists, Bruce Springsteen, in there too. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram. The executive production coordinator was Susie Roylance. The assistant producer was Tim Banno. The content editor was Mugabe Turia, and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my guest will be the journalist and Financial Times editor, Rula Calaf.

Speaker 249:39

I'm Elenie Jones.

Speaker 349:40

And I'm Mark Kermode and in Screenshot we guide you through the ever-changing landscape of the moving image. I really like any story about self-delusion. My intent is to allow the audience to see the shining through these people's eyes.

Speaker 249:55

meeting those on both sides of the camera.

Speaker 349:58

and uncovering fascinating insights into what we watch.

Speaker 250:01

How would you describe the difference between the doppelganger and the

Speaker 350:03

And the

Speaker 250:04

Fly with

Speaker 350:04

Why is it such a cinematic subject?

Speaker 250:06

What was your relationship like with your double?

Speaker 350:09

Uh

Speaker 250:09

Screenshot from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.