John Phillips was a photographer for Life magazine from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Background
Ethnicity:
John Phillips was born to a Welsh emigre father and an American mother.
John Phillips was born on November 13, 1914 in Bouira, Algeria. He spent his early childhood in an Arab world, before his family moved to France in 1925, first to Paris and then to Nice.
Career
He was hired by Life in 1936 and his first assignment was to cover Edward VIII's opening of Parliament. His pictures were included in the magazine's first issue and he went on to cover many events of the Second World War. He photographed Yugoslav guerrilla leader Draza Mihailovich in June 1946 during his Communist show trial in Belgrade. He shot the last images of Antoine de Saint Exupery in 1944. Saint Exupery, days before he disappeared, gave Phillips a manuscript, "Letter to an American" which Phillips eventually donated to France.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
...grand-godfather of photo-journalism, a master of lenses and multiple languages; elegant, exuberant and chrome-steel effectual, who has recorded in his own peripatetic way some of the freshest footprints of history.