Loomis Dean

Who was Loomis Dean?

Loomis Dean was a veteran Life Magazine photographer who shot pictures of circus clowns, crown princes, Hollywood stars, Madagascar lemurs and SS Andrea Doria survivors in a five-decade long career. His low-key manner disarmed his subjects and put them at ease, enabling Dean capture such images as the Prince of Liechtenstein in his long johns and Noël Coward in a tuxedo in the desert.

Loomis was the son of a grocer and a schoolteacher, and originally from Monticello, Florida. He became fascinated with photography while watching a friend print a photograph in a darkroom, and later chose to study photography at the Eastman School of Photography in Rochester, New York.

His first photography job in 1938 was advance man and photographer for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was an Army Air Forces photographer in the Pacific during World War II, and he later got his first job as a press agent for the Ringling Brothers circus. He rode the circus train across the country, shooting clowns, acrobats and lion tamers and processing his pictures in hotel bathtubs.

In 1947, he joined the staff of Life, photographing such stars as Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, Noël Coward and Liberace. He also shot pictures of royal weddings, Popes, Ernest Hemingway, fashion shows, riots and Mideast wars. In 1956, while sailing to Paris to take a job in the magazine's bureau there, Dean photographed the sinking and the rescue of passengers from the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria.