This Photographer Was Famous for Snapping Celebrities Like Marilyn Monroe, But His Images of Vietnam War Victims and Coal Miners Revealed the Surprising Power of Portraits

A new documentary about photographer Richard Avedon, directed by Ron Howard and debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, uses archival footage and contemporary interviews to weave the story of just how far his influence extends

Michele Debczak | Correspondent

May 18, 2026 2:46 p.m.

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Even if you haven’t heard the name Richard Avedon, you may recognize his work. The photographer produced some of the most emblematic images of 20th-century America, capturing Hollywood icons and Vietnam War survivors alike. His life and legacy are the subject of a new documentary titled Avedon, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this month.

As Ron Howard tells Mia Galuppo of the Hollywood Reporter, this project was years in the making. The director wove together archival footage and images with new interviews to tell the story of a photographer whose impact on American culture often outweighs his personal fame.

“I had nothing but respect for the name Richard Avedon and the handful of images that I could ascribe to him, but no sense of the depth and reach of what he had done,” Howard says. “I could see that he wasn’t just taking photos of human beings as symbols or reflections. He was actually drawing out their inner self and finding ways to let that inform the photo, even if it was his commercial, glossy magazine work or advertising.”

Born in New York City in 1923, Avedon fell in love with photography after joining his local Young Men’s Hebrew Association’s camera club at age 12. Less than a decade later, his first fashion photograph appeared in Harper’s Bazaar.

Sean Fennessey, film writer and cohost of the “Big Picture” podcast, shares his impression of the portion of the documentary covering Avedon’s early career via his Projections newsletter, writing, “In recounting his own origin story, Avedon explained how he developed his photographic style during his initial trip to Paris as a man in his 20s seeking purpose. The active, high-toned, hyper-elegant compositions he conjured with models in the city are now seen as form-setting, but at the time, he carefully choreographed each image to redefine glamour and style in one fell swoop. Looking back on it, he marveled at the sheer invention—he just made it all up and somehow it became the standard.”

His career as a fashion and portrait photographer led him to some monumental moments and figures in American pop culture. He traveled to Kansas with Truman Capote to photograph the two accused killers the author was researching for In Cold Blood. In 1980, he photographed Brooke Shields’ iconic Calvin Klein ad campaign. Other famous celebrity photographs in his credits include a portrait of Marilyn Monroe looking uncharacteristically candid and one of Charlie Chaplin miming devil horns.

Avedon took a unique approach to fashion photography by aiming to uncover the sides of his subjects that were often hidden from the camera. While this style has been emulated countless times since, it was groundbreaking for the time.

“In the early days, [my subjects] had an expectation of me that came out of fashion magazines. Now it’s like people delight in not being seen artificially,” he told art critic Kenneth Baker for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999. “I’ve simply used the camera to express what I see, and I don’t see retouched pictures and soft Stieglitz lighting. We live in neon and harsh light.”

His subjects weren’t limited to A-list movie stars in comfortable studios. He documented the ugly aftermath of war, from the ruins in Paris following World War II to the napalm victims of Vietnam. His work also spotlighted the faces of the civil rights movement, state psychiatric hospital patients, and American coal miners. His photographs of the latter will soon be on display as part of an exhibit titled “Beneath the Surface” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

“I had no idea how much of his life he committed to social observation, to civil rights, to exploring the lesser-known corners in service of photo journalism,” Howard tells the Hollywood Reporter. “He’s using his cachet and stature to actually say something else and do more. I found that incredibly inspiring.”

Avedon died of a brain hemorrhage in 2004 while on assignment in Texas for the New Yorker. He was 81 years old.

Following its premiere at Cannes, Avedon is currently seeking distribution in the U.S.

Michele Debczak | Read More

Michele Debczak is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She appears in seasons four through six of History Channel’s “The Food That Built America,” and her work has been featured in Mental Floss, IndieWire, Eater and Vice.