Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was a British photographer, diarist, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar-winning stage and costume designer.
Born in 1904, Beaton took an interest in photography as a child, and took portraits of his family. As a young man, he attended Cambridge University but left without a degree. After cycling through several conventional jobs, Beaton tried his luck as a photographer to great success.
He became known for his fashion and society portraits, working for Vogue and Vanity Fair. During War War II, he worked for the British Ministry of Intelligence (MoI), where he produced famous photographs of the damage caused by the Blitz.
Beaton’s photography has been featured in exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Imperial War Museum, London, among others. He was also a prolific diarist who published six volumes of his diaries covering 50 years of his life from 1922–1974.
After the war, he designed sets and costumes for stage and screen. He won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Gigi (1958), as well as two more Oscars for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction for My Fair Lady (1964).
Beaton had relationships with both men and women, from the actresses Greto Garbo and Coral Brown, to socialites Lilia Ralli and Doris Castlerosse, to the former Olympic fencer Kinmont Hoitsma.