Cecil Beaton

SIR CECIL BEATON (1904–80) was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. His photographs first appeared in Vanity Fair and Vogue in the 1920s. During World War II he served in the British Ministry of Information, covering the fighting in Africa and East Asia. The foremost photographer of his day, he also designed the settings and costumes for numerous films and plays, and was a published and well-known diarist. Beaton was knighted in 1972.HUGO VICKERS is a biographer, lecturer and broadcaster. He was invited to become Cecil Beaton’s authorized biographer in 1979 and has since 1987 served as Beaton’s literary executor.