American Cancer Society 40th Anniversary of Harry Benson’s photography of the Beatles
Wednesday, December 17th, 2003
Christies Auction House, New York, NY
In 1964, when the Beatles were on a plane coming to America for their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, Harry Benson came along for the ride. Forty years later, on Wednesday, December 17th, 2003, this history-changing event celebrated its fortieth anniversary—-truly a milestone in the history of rock and roll. The celebration was in the form of a benefit sponsored by the American Cancer Society, and exhibited one hundred of world renowned photographer Harry Benson’s Beatle’s photographs. All of this took place at the world famous Christie’s auction house at Rockefeller Plaza, NY. Proceeds from the event that evening will go to benefit the American Cancer Society’s various patient support ventures. The American Cancer Society is dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by offering education on cancer prevention. It was founded in 1913, and has offices based in over three thousand different communities, having millions of volunteers devoting their time and energies for this cause.
It was indeed a pleasure to meet Mr. Benson and interview him (until people started crowding him with compliments on his great photography work.) Mr. Benson told me that his primary reason for becoming a photographer was because it is a lot of fun. When asked how long a time span over which Mr. Benson had taken the Beatle’s photographs that were on exhibit that evening, he told me that 80% or more were taken in only two months. Mr. Benson is also a great boxing fan, as he indicated to us when he got well engrossed in a conversation with Liberty New Online Magazine’s Chief Editor, Abbey Muneer. When I asked Mr. Benson which of his many beautiful photos was his favorite, he replied that he liked a photo of one the Beatles’ first pillow fights which ever took place. Mr. Benson, we will certainly be penciling in a more in-depth interview with you at a later date and time.
We also spoke Mr. Charles Wittingham, one of the guests on hand who enjoyed his work immensely. Mr. Whittingham is the former publisher for Life Magazine—he came all the way from upstate New York to see the work of one of his true favorite photographers, the world renowned Harry Benson.
We spoke with Mr. Kenneth Troianno, President of ModernAge Photography, who did a wonderful job in not only printing Mr. Benson’s photographs, but also in beautifully enlarging and mounting them. “The work was done on our custom digital imaging labs, each print was carefully enlarged and mounted, as specified by Mr. Benson.” said Troianno.
We also had the pleasure of speaking with Denise M. Andersen, Senior Director of Special Events for the American Cancer Society eastern division. And we would like to than Stefanie L. Diamond, Media Relations Coordinator for the American Cancer Society, for introducing us to the key people which we could interview, thus making this article a success. Other individuals on hand were Brad Zeifman, from the Howard Rubenstein public relations firm, who told us he truly enjoyed the photographs by Harry Benson, as well as the networking/cocktail reception. There were many more business heads and dignitaries who came to give their support, many who donate monetary funds. This fundraising event, which started off with a networking reception during which people would have the opportunity to enjoy Harry Benson’s many photographs of the Beatles, and ended up with a wonderful dinner (which we could not attend because we had another event scheduled that evening) raised a grand total of 80,000 for cancer research.
Anyone who would like more information about sponsoring, contributing or volunteering for the American Cancer Society, may feel free to visit their website www.cancer.org
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The African American and Caribbean Section is headed by assistant editor Annette Johnson, and Liberty News Online Staff Writers contributing articles. It will cover articles about the African American and Caribbean communities throughout the U.S.A. For more information, feel free to email us at lncarib@hadofnyc.org. If you are interested in having us cover one of your events, feel free to notify us one week in advance, so we can add you to our master calendar, and have our Liberty News Staff come and write an article about your event. Feel free to email us at lnevents@hadofnyc.org, or telephone us at (718) 507-7616 between the hours of 8:00am and 8:00pm, and ask to speak to Annette or Steve