Harry Benson
If you look closely at the newsreels showing the Beatles’ 1964 arrival at New York’s JFK airport, a "fifth Beatle" follows the Fab Four out of the airplane. He is distinguished not by the mop top of his colleagues but by a ’50s teddy boy haircut and a camera around his neck. Photographer Harry Benson pauses at the top of the stairs surveying the scene. Every time I see this clip I imagine he’s looking for the Time & Life Building.
Life magazine had been in Harry Benson’s sights for all the years he fought his way to the front of London’s Fleet Street rat pack. For that Beatles tour, he was on assignment for the London Daily Express, but when the rock group returned to England, he stayed in the United States.