Marilyn Stafford - A Life in Photography

Model in Ready-to-Wear, with artist, La Ruche, Montparnasse, Paris, c1955. 51

52 Model in Dior Boutique suit, Ready-to-Wear, Paris, c1955.

Model in Ready-to-Wear and man in raincoat, Paris, c1955. 53

Model in Chanel lace dress, Haute Couture, Paris, c1955. The model is Dorian Leigh, one of the earliest
supermodels of the fashion industry, famous in Europe and the USA.

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Model in Givenchy dress, Haute Couture, Tour D’Argent, Paris, c1955. 55

Chapter Two

ALGERIAN
REFUGEES
IN TUNISIA

French action in imposing a belt of patrolled no-man’s-land along the Algerian frontier has blocked the stream of families fleeing

‘ into Tunisia. But already between 80,000 and 100,000 refugees - these children and a mother among them - have been settled in
’camps of tents. Marilyn Gerson took these pictures at a camp near the bombed village of Sakiet.

From the article ‘From Terror to a Sanctuary of Tents’ in The Observer, March 30, 1958.

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Stafford’s photographs of Algerian refugees from the Algerian War of Independence, in a camp near the bombed village of Sakiet in Tunisia,
made front page of The Observer UK on March 30, 1958.

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In 1958 I was still living in Paris, and I was acutely with a car and driver by the Algerian National
aware of the battle that was going on for Algerian Liberation Front. Despite my request to travel on
independence against the French. smooth roads, this proved to be impossible and the
The Algerian War of Independence was one of the bumpy roads, I later learned, threatened the early
longest and bloodiest of anti-colonial conflicts. The birth of my daughter and I had to take enforced bed
French employed a ‘scorched earth’ policy, which led rest on my return to Paris.
to many displaced Algerians fleeing over the border However, it was worth it – I photographed very
into Tunisia, following the systematic burning down important scenes of displaced people living in
and bombing of Algerian villages. tents, including a mother with her new-born baby,
Ultimately, the French made a serious error when a photograph which felt especially poignant at the
they bombed a Red Cross Hospital on the Algerian- time of my own pregnancy.
Tunisian border which created an international Back in Paris, I showed the photographs to Cartier-
outcry, and the world finally took notice of what Bresson who edited them and sent them on to The
was going on. However, to my mind, nobody Observer in London. They were published on their
seemed to be concerned about the refugee crisis that front page on 30 March 1958.
was unfolding. I am very proud of this achievement, not only
Although I was six months pregnant at the time, I because it was my first front page but because The
felt compelled to photograph the Algerian refugees Observer subsequently sent a journalist to Tunisia to
living in a refugee camp near the bombed hospital write a story on the refugees, which helped to draw
at Sakiet, across the border in Tunisia. I was provided further attention to their plight.

Marilyn, with members Algerian mother with
of The Algerian National children, refugees
Liberation Front,
Tunisia, 1958. from the Algerian War
of Independence, at
58 a refugee camp near

the bombed village of
Sakiet, Tunisia, 1958.

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‘Marilyn met my father, Elliott Roosevelt, quite by chance in
the early 1950s, when she was a singer in Paris. I first heard
this in 2010 from the famous American actress, Marsha Hunt,
who was traveling with my grandmother, Eleanor Roosevelt
and her son Elliott, when they wandered into Chez Carrère,
the dinner club where Marilyn was performing. Marilyn and
I have enjoyed a long-distance correspondence over the last
few years as a result of this historical connection.
Marilyn’s work in Tunisia in 1958 documenting the refugees
of the French-Algerian War reveal a photographer interested
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in
1948 a decade earlier, when Eleanor Roosevelt brought the
50 member states of the United Nations together to devise a
list of human rights everyone in the world should enjoy.
Marilyn tells me that her image of the Algerian refugee
mother was, in part, inspired by Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant
Mother’ depicting a woman and her children fleeing the dust
bowl drought of the 1930s, events Marilyn was aware of as
a child. This is pertinent for me as my grandparents, Eleanor
Roosevelt and President Franklin D Roosevelt, responded
to the disaster through their proposed ‘New Deal’, which
included providing emergency relief and resettling farmers
on more productive land.
Marilyn’s images are a window in time for the world to
appreciate and treasure. It is likely that they may have a
’transformative impact in the world over time. Like her,
I have hope for this.
Ford Roosevelt
Photographer and grandson of Eleanor Roosevelt
& Franklin D Roosevelt

Algerian mother and baby, refugees from the Algerian War of Independence, at a refugee camp near
the bombed village of Sakiet, Tunisia, 1958.
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62 Algerian child with donkeys, refugee camp near the bombed village of Sakiet, Tunisia, 1958.

Algerian mother with child on back, refugee camp near the bombed village of Sakiet, Tunisia 1958. 63

64 Algerian men at prayer, refugee camp near the bombed village of Sakiet, Tunisia, 1958.

Algerian father and child, refugee camp near the bombed village of Sakiet, Tunisia, 1958. 65

Chapter Three

ACTIVISTS
& ARTISTS
OF ROME

‘ Nothing exists in her, nothing exists for her, except this trial over which she presides and which she carries through
all by herself, sitting on her chair beside the bed: the trial of the feudal system, of the servile state of the peasants,
the trial of the Mafia and of the government... That is what this woman has made of herself, in one day: tears are no
longer tears but words, and words are stones. She speaks with the hardness and precision of a judicial enquiry, with
’a profound and absolute assurance, like one who has suddenly reached a firm point on which to take a stand, a
certainty: and this certainty, which dries her tears and makes her ruthless, is justice itself.
Carlo Levi
From Words Are Stones: Impressions of Sicily.
1958 edition, New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, page 190.

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Francesca Serio (1903-1992), Rome, c1959. 67
Known as Italy’s Antigone, she was the first woman to bring the Mafia to trial.

In 1959 I moved to Rome with my young family when my husband, One evening Carlo Levi brought Francesca Serio to my apartment. She was
a foreign correspondent, was posted there. a small lady dressed in black with a traditional mourning shawl framing her
My Indian writer friend, Mulk Raj Anand, visited us there. He fine features. Her life had been hard; deserted by her husband with a small
introduced me to Carlo Levi, the Italian painter, writer, activist, anti- child, she was later to be widowed and was now bereft of her only son.
fascist and author of Christ Stopped at Eboli and Words are Stones. She had earned her living picking olives, almonds, peas, according to the
I photographed Carlo Levi at his large studio in Rome where he season. On her chest hung a pendant of her dead son, a spotlight within all
painted and wrote. In Words are Stones, Carlo Levi tells the true story the black attire.
of a tiny peasant woman from a small Sicilian village who was the Carlo Levi invited me to attend the Mafia trial in Palermo with him. At the
first woman to bring the Mafia to trial. first trial, the men in the courtroom’s ‘wire cage’ were found guilty. At a later
Francesca Serio was the mother of Salvatore Carnevale, a trade re-trial they were all acquitted for lack of evidence.
unionist who was murdered by the Mafia for organising the first Signora Francesa Serio lived for another fifty years and became a legend in
peasant movement on a feudal estate that had remained unchanged Italy, compared to Antigone through her fight for justice. The killer was later
for centuries. The symbols of his murder were typical – two bullet murdered but she was left untouched.
holes in the head and one in the mouth – the disfiguration being I am proudest of her portrait among all others I have taken for
markers of contempt. what it symbolises.
Carlo Levi supported Francesca’s fight for justice and wrote, ‘This is Through Carlo Levi I also met and photographed many other prominent
what this woman has made of herself in one day; tears are no longer Italian cultural figures in Rome, including writers Italo Calvino and Alberto
tears but words, and words are stones.’ Moravia, painter Renato Guttuso, and painter/sculptor Pericle Fazzini.

Francesca Serio sitting beside Marilyn at her apartment in Rome, 1959. Francesca Serio, Rome, c1959.
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‘I was humbled by Serio’s strength and courage;
it was a great privilege to photograph her.’

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70 Carlo Levi, being filmed at his studio for Italian Television, Rome, 1959.

Carlo Levi (1902-1975), Italian painter, writer, anti-fascist activist and doctor. Rome, 1959. 71

Alberto Moravia (1907-1990),
Italian novelist, and journalist,
at his desk, Rome, 1959. Well
known for his anti-fascist
novel Il Conformista, the basis
for the Bernardo Bertolucci
film The Conformist (1970).

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Writers Mulk Raj Anand (left), Alberto Moravia and Carlo Levi (right), on Marilyn’s terrace, Rome, 1959.
73

74 Italo Calvino, Rome, 1959.

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), Italian journalist and novelist, Rome, c1959.
Born in Cuba, his best-known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959) and his novel Invisible Cities (1972). 75

76 Renato Guttuso, Italian painter, in his studio, Rome, 1959.

Renato Guttuso (1911-1987), Italian painter, Rome, c1959. A strong anti-fascist, he was Pericle Fazzini (1913-1987), painter and sculptor, in his studio, Rome, 1959. Best known for
awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1972. his later works, including Monument to the Resistance.

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Chapter Four

VISIONS OF
A LOST

LEBANON

Marilyn in Lebanon, 1960.
78

Ancient town of Bsharri, Kadisha Valley, 1960. Birthplace of Khalil Gibran, author of The Prophet. 79

In early 1960, my husband’s work as a foreign correspondent took
us to Lebanon, which, at the time, was experiencing a period of
peace. A Lebanese publisher, hoping that the country was opening
up to tourism, invited me to make a book of photographs, which
would be used to publicise the country. I travelled extensively over
a year, journeying to remote mountain villages while also recording
scenes of everyday life in the cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon.
I found the people to be kind and generous and, at that time,
I was warmly welcomed as a documentary photographer into their
lives. Lebanon has always been considered a land of contrasts,
with an intricate blend of East and West; tradition and modernity.
In the 1960s, I witnessed some women leading traditional
lives, under the gaze or guardianship of men but I also met and
photographed women who were liberated in outlook, studying at
The American University of Beirut or confidently forging their own
paths and careers.

The country has the most religiously diverse society of all states
within the Middle East, including Muslims, Christians and a
smaller population of Druze, who at the time were living relatively
peacefully side by side and I was able to capture some of these
different communities.
Sadly, the country would be ravaged by civil war a decade later,
which lasted from 1975 to 1990, causing an exodus of almost one
million people from the country and from which there are still
thousands of people who have remained displaced within Lebanon.
Since that time, many of the places I photographed have been
damaged or destroyed. Older Lebanese people looking at my Beirut
photographs have said, ‘That is the street where I grew up, it is no
longer there.’
Unfortunately, the publisher did not approve of my photographs
back in the 1960s, because they did not show Lebanon in a Western
enough light. I thought I had captured a raw and authentic Lebanon,
and evidently that was the issue.
It took almost 30 years until 1988 before a book of my photographs
was published by the Lebanese Publisher, Saqi Books, entitled Silent
Stories: A Photographic Journey through Lebanon in the Sixties.

(Left) Narghile smoker, traditional café, Tripoli, 1960.
(Top) Domino players, traditional café, Tripoli, 1960.
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Narghile smokers, traditional
café, with Marilyn in mirror,
Tripoli, 1960.
‘I was able to take this

photograph of men smoking
their pipes only because I was
accompanied by a well-known
male doctor of the community.’

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82 Shoeshine, Tripoli, 1960.

Market fountain, Tripoli, 1960.
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Girl selling toffee apples,
Tripoli market, 1960.

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Tinsmith and fruit stall, Tripoli market, 1960.
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Beirut waterfront, 1960. Sporting Club, Beirut, 1960.

Playing backgammon, St George’s Bay, Seaside café, end of summer, Beirut, 1960.
Beirut, 1960.

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Aerial view of Pigeon Rock and the Corniche, Western Beirut Seafront,1960.
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88 Rivoli cinema, Place des Canons, Beirut, 1960.

Aerial view of Place des Canons, Beirut, 1960.
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Stalls and shaft of light, Tripoli market, 1960.
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Market street seller, Beirut, 1960. 91

Livres d’occasion (second-hand bookshop), Beirut, 1960.
92

‘Land of Contrasts’, Beirut, 1960.
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Miss Lebanon Beauty Pageant with judges, Beirut, 1960.
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Miss Lebanon Beauty Pageant, Beirut, 1960.
95

Students at Beirut
College for Women,
American University
of Beirut, 1960.

Modern art exhibition,
Beirut, 1960.
96

Khalil Zgheib (1911-1975), barber and award-winning self-taught painter, Beirut, 1960. 97

Sidon Port, 1960.
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Ship-building in the Phoenician style, Café, Sidon, 1960.
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Fisherman repairing nets, Sidon waterfront, 1960.

‘‘Weightlifter’ in Sidon is a beautiful, elegiac photograph and the formal composition is delightful. The bold height of the portrait, the
incredible blacks creating a stage, the swoopy, hanging canvas, the weightlifter’s heroics as he performs against himself for the
appreciative boys, the uplifting tramlines of the telephone cable, the frozen-in-time wetness of the concrete, the lazy carpentry of the
shack. The slightly out-of-place open window rises from the scene unintentionally, reminiscent of Barthes’ punctum. What delights me
most about the photograph is that it’s taken by a woman. So tarnished is the image of masculinity that somehow an image of male
’strength, in all its centre stage straining musculature, when taken by a woman, is more permissible.
Dr Andy Conio
Artist and Writer

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