Cecil Beaton’s Diaries review

Photographer and designer Cecil Beaton is usually remembered either for his royal portraits or for designing the costumes for Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. Yet his work spanning much of the 20th century offers a fascinating insight into the gradual changes in class and popular culture, from the Bright Young Things of the 1930s to Mick Jagger getting stoned with Bedouins in the desert. Beaton was also a noted diarist and Richard Stirling has taken verbatim extracts of the diaries to create a fascinating portrait of the man and his motivation.  

Cecil Beaton’s Diaries has been thoughtfully curated to present the many different and not always complimentary aspects of Beaton’s life and work. A product of the wealthy middle classes, Beaton was terrified at the prospect of mediocrity but soon gained acclaim as a fashion photographer on both sides of the Atlantic. 

His diaries over the years offer frank opinions of his models, from those he evidently despised – such as Katherine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and the Burtons – to the ones he loved, chiefly Garbo. Beaton’s platonic relationship with the Swedish movie star was a major part of his life, while lasting gay relationships evaded him. 

Stirling’s portrayal gives us an honest, entertaining personal account of a life lived firmly behind the camera lens. Brittle and uncompromising, Stirling’s Beaton is also painfully aware of his shortcomings and regrets lost loves as age and ill-health bear down. Despite his glamorous clientele, he appeared to remain that nervous, softly spoken schoolboy, terrorised by Evelyn Waugh and destined to find the beauty in others.