Background
Leigh Austen Wiener was born on August 28, 1929, in New York, United States.
(On August 5, 1962, Life Magazine photojournalist Leigh Wi...)
On August 5, 1962, Life Magazine photojournalist Leigh Wiener was assigned to cover the sudden death of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated icons, Marilyn Monroe. This photo-essay of black and white images is an observance of the days surrounding the passing and funeral of a legend. In his words, illustrated with his images, Leigh Wiener recounts that mid-summer day from outside Marilyn’s Brentwood home, to inside the Westwood Mortuary where he gained entry, and finally scenes from her funeral at Westwood Village Cemetery. First published in 1990.
https://www.amazon.com/Marilyn-Hollywood-Farewell-Leigh-Wiener-ebook/dp/B008ONA5KA/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Leigh+Wiener&qid=1607940064&sr=8-2
(On April 8, 1949, in San Marino, California, three-year-o...)
On April 8, 1949, in San Marino, California, three-year-old Kathy Fiscus, while playing in a field with three other children, fell down an abandoned well, only fourteen inches wide, and became wedged ninety-seven feet below the ground. Arriving on the scene, Leigh Wiener came upon hundreds of other newspeople, photographers, and television crews. Believing there was little else at the scene that could be photographed, he left the field and walked to the Fiscus home. There in the rear yard, using his 4x5 Speed Graphic, he photographed the child's empty swing. Returning to the scene, Leigh Wiener waited along with everyone else. Despite the efforts of the rescue teams to reach her, Kathy's lifeless body was brought up two days later. Subsequently, Wiener's powerful photograph of the child's empty swing was used on the front page of over 150 newspapers nationwide.
1949
Leigh Austen Wiener was born on August 28, 1929, in New York, United States.
Leigh Wiener studied political science and geography at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1948 to 1952. While attending UCLA, where Leigh Wiener majored in Political Science, he also worked as a news photographer for The Los Angeles Times.
After college, Leigh Wiener joined the Times as a staff photographer, but his years there were interrupted by military service in Europe as an Army photographer for Stars and Stripes.
During his decades-long career as a photographer and photojournalist, Leigh Wiener consistently produced front-page pictures and photo essays for the world's most prestigious newspapers and news magazines such as Life, Paris-Match, Fortune, Time, The Saturday Evening Post, and Sports Illustrated.
Leigh Wiener formed his own company in 1958. He became noted for his innovative combination of cameras and lenses; setups he designed himself to achieve the images he desired. When photographing people, he had the keen ability to capture the context of the moment while focusing squarely on the subject, inherently isolating the essential from the non-essential; the emotional state of the subject at the precise moment of the shutter-click expressed. This was the hallmark of his work.
On assignment for Life during the 1960 presidential primaries, Leigh Wiener would capture iconic images of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He extensively documented Kennedy's bid for the presidency when the senator retained him to record his campaign. Leigh Wiener traveled with Kennedy on the campaign trail through the Pacific Northwest.
Leigh Wiener later expanded into the world of TV documentaries. The Eddy Award-winning "A Slice of Sunday" was his 1967 production on professional football shot with camera-optical systems of his own design. It would serve as the prototype for many of the sports programs on network television in the years to follow such as The NFL Today. In 1979, the Motion Picture Editors Guild recognized it as one of the three most innovative documentaries in the prior 25 years of broadcasting.
In 1975, Leigh Wiener created and produced the Emmy award-winning NBC-TV series "Talk About Pictures." He co-hosted the program with George Fenneman. The series featured an eclectic cross-section of photographers and photo enthusiasts exploring photographs and photography. Guests included professionals such as Ansel Adams, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Edmund Teske, and Mario Casilli and buffs such as Edgar Bergen, Betty White, Richard Chamberlain, David Cassidy, and Bob Crane.
In 1987 Leigh Wiener was selected by the Vatican to photograph Pope John Paul II's visit to Los Angeles during his trip to the United States.
Leigh Wiener produced nine books including Here Comes Me, Marilyn: A Hollywood Farewell; The Death and Funeral of Marilyn Monroe, How to Do You Photograph People?, and Tijuana Sunday.
Leigh Wiener taught classes in photography at UCLA, and held lectures and seminars in the U.S. and abroad.
Leigh Wiener died on May 11, 1993, in Los Angeles after suffering a long illness. His obituary published in The New York Times following his death described him as a photographer of the famous and historic. He died from complications of Sweet's syndrome, a skin disease. His doctors attributed the disease possibly to the radiation exposure he received while photographing atomic isotopes and atomic bomb tests in the Nevada-Utah desert and in the Pacific after World War II for Life magazine.
(On August 5, 1962, Life Magazine photojournalist Leigh Wi...)
Kathy Fiscus' Swing
(On April 8, 1949, in San Marino, California, three-year-o...)
1949The Judy Garland Show
1963Marilyn Monroe
1956Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney
1963Marlon Brando
1955Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Kennedy
1961Grace Kelly
1955Warren Beatty
1961Janis Joplin
1969Johnny Cash
1961A member of the Los Angeles Press Photographers Association.
Quotes from others about the person
Armand Labbe, Chief Curator, Bowers Museum: "For this reason, the photographs are not only significant records of celebrities and other important people, at critical moments in history, but more especially, they offer the interested student a glimpse into the human psyche. They tell us something about people and what it means to be alive."