Yul Brynner Photographer

This collection of duotone and color photographs by the famed screen actor, who died in 1985, was put together by his daughter, herself a photographer and photography producer. Brynner took pictures of his family, the occupants of the refugee camps he visited as Special Consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and his friends and colleagues in the film world. His success as a photographer rested not so much on technical skill as on a gift for putting his subjects at ease, with the result that he could capture Cecil B. DeMille at a private mountain retreat in California where few photographers were allowed; Elizabeth Taylor, who never let anyone else photograph her off the set or without makeup, in a pool with her daughter; Ingrid Bergman and Deborah Kerr relaxing between takes; a radiant Mia Farrow cradling her enormous stomach a week before she gave birth to twins. In her brief introduction, Victoria Brynner writes of her close relationship with her father, from whom she gained her love of photography, and she includes brief comments by many of the famous friends who trusted and respected him enough to allow him to shoot these intriguing pictures. (Oct.)