282 - Richard Young

So yeah, as I say, Richard, not your kind of normal Small Voice guest in a way, as those of you who listen frequently will sort of be aware, but, um, nevertheless, I was very keen to talk to him.

Let me read the bio.

I nicked this off the BBC because Richard recently appeared on Desert Island Discs, the very famous radio show that most of you will know of.

Kind of a rite of passage for the great and the good, isn't it, to be on Desert Island Discs? Anyway, Richard was on recently, and so I nicked this bio off them.

Richard Young is a photographer who was once known as the King of the Paparazzi.

Let me just break off there for a minute.

I'm not entirely sure how Richard would feel about having that moniker placed upon him.

I don't know if he thinks of himself as a member of the paparazzi, and to some extent, uh, I understand why.

You'll probably hear him sort of push back against that, uh, to some extent, very gently and, uh, very politely, um, during our chat.

Anyway, back to the bio.

His portfolio is a who's who of some of the biggest stars in film, music, stage, and popular culture from the past 50 years, from gate-crashing Elizabeth Taylor's party, for Richard Burton's 50th at The Dorchester, to later being invited to photograph her damehood celebrations.

He can count the first photographs of Paul Getty Jr. after his kidnapping as just one of his many scoops.

Man, that is a vintage ref right there for those of you [laughs] ...

Anyone under about 40 probably hasn't got a clue who Paul Getty Jr. is, but you can Google him.

He was born in Hackney, not Paul Getty Jr., Richard, was born in Hackney to a Jewish family, and his father ran a hosiery stall in Berwick Street Market for more than 60 years.

Richard has dyslexia, and after being expelled from school at 14, he went to Soho and landed a job in a fashionable clothes shop frequented by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, David Hockney, and Francis Bacon.

By the way, if you do go and listen to Richard's episode of Desert Island Discs, there's a fantastic Leonard Cohen anecdote in there, which I highly recommend checking out.

Back to the bio.

A two-year stint in New York followed, working as a studio assistant at Electric Lady Studios before he returned to London and found himself in a bookshop, handed a camera, and told to get on with photographing authors.

For the past 50 years, he's lived a nocturnal, high-octane life of private jets, parties, and exclusive events, eventually becoming as much a fixture in the world of celebrity as the people he photographed.

Richard lives in London with his wife, Susan.

His photography gallery is in London and has visitors from around the world.

Okay, so that's Richard, and, uh, it was a lot of fun chatting with him.