June Newton | |
|---|---|
 June Newton photographed byOliver Mark, Berlin 2008 | |
| Born | June Browne (1923-06-03)3 June 1923 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 9 April 2021(2021-04-09) (aged 97) Monte Carlo, Monaco |
| Other names | June Brunell, Alice Springs |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, photographer, model |
| Spouse | |
June Newton (néeBrowne, 3 June 1923 – 9 April 2021) was an Australian model, actress, and photographer. As an actress she was known professionally asJune Brunel orBrunell[a] and won theErik Award for Best Actress in 1956.[9][10] From 1970 onward she worked as a photographer under the pseudonymAlice Springs.[9][11] Her photographs have appeared in publications such asVanity Fair,Interview,Elle andVogue.[12][13]
She was the wife of fashion photographerHelmut Newton.[11][13]
June Browne was born in Melbourne, Australia on 3 June 1923 to Alice Maude Browne and Thomas Francis Browne, a vaudevillian.[9][12][14][15] Her parents divorced when she was five years old.[15]
She first met Berlin-born photographer Helmut Newton in 1947 at his studio in Melbourne.[13][16] At the time, June was working as an actress under the surname Brunell (to avoid confusion with a local actress named June Brown)[9] and had answered an ad for some modelling work at Helmut's studio.[13][16] The couple were married the following year.[9][13]
While still acting under the surname Brunell, she won theErik Kuttner Award for Best Actress in 1956,[10] an award given for excellence in theatre in Melbourne.[17] Although she was finding success in Australia as an actress, Helmut was offered a year-long contract withBritish Vogue[13] and the couple moved to London in 1957.[16] While there, June found acting work with the BBC.[13] Helmut did not enjoy his time there and the couple left England.[13]
In the following years, Helmut found work with such publications asJardin des Modes andAustralian Vogue.[16] By 1960, the couple settled in Paris, and Helmut's photographic career flourished.[13][18]
June's work as a photographer began in 1970 when she stepped in for her husband who had fallen ill.[9][13][19] Helmut was scheduled to photograph a model for an ad forGitanes cigarettes when he came down with the flu.[13] Unable to contact the model to cancel their appointment, Helmut gave his wife a quick lesson in photography and she photographed the model later that same day.[19]
In a 1987 interview with June and her husband forOrange Coast magazine, June said Helmut decided that she should use a different name professionally as a photographer "because he thought one Newton in the family was enough. And if I didn't succeed..."[19] June chose the pseudonym Alice Springs from theAustralian town of the same name.[20] She selected the name by blindly stabbing a pin into a map of Australia.[13][20] Alice Springs did however find success; by 1974, one of her photographs had appeared on the cover ofElle.[21]
Over her career, Alice Springs' photographs appeared in magazines such asVogue,Elle,Marie Claire,Vanity Fair,Interview, andStern.[12][13] Working first as a fashion photographer and later as a portraitist, she photographed such famous figures asWilliam S. Burroughs,Anthony Burgess,Catherine Deneuve,Graham Greene,Roy Lichtenstein,Robert Mapplethorpe,Christopher Reeve,Diana Vreeland,Yves Saint Laurent,Brigitte Nielsen andNicole Kidman.[13][19][22][23]
Throughout her photographic career, Newton continued to work as her husband's art-director, acting both as editor and curator of Helmut's work.[13][22] She also appeared in some of her husband's photos.[24]
The Newtons lived in Paris for 27 years and then moved to Monte Carlo — spending winters in Los Angeles for three months of the year.[11][19] Their lives were documented in the 1995 telefilmHelmut by June, co-produced by the French pay-TV channelCanal+.[25] The majority of the footage for the documentary was shot by June in the 1990s using a video camera that she had purchased for her husband as a Christmas present.[26][27] June's footage was edited to a one-hour film that was shown in France.[26] This footage was seen by film directorBrett Ratner, who decided that he wanted to bring it to a U.S. audience.[26] He shot two additional minutes of June talking about Helmut, which he added as an introduction to the film;[26] Ratner's version premiered on Cinemax on 30 April 2007.[26][27]
On 23 January 2004, Helmut Newton lost control of his vehicle as he exited the driveway of theChateau Marmont hotel and crashed into a retaining wall across the street from the hotel; he died shortly after being taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.[24][28] The Helmut Newton Foundation opened in Berlin in June of that same year.[29]
Permanently located in theMuseum of Photography in Berlin, The Helmut Newton Foundation is in a building that stands next to the train station from which Helmut left Berlin to escape the Nazis in 1938.[13][22] The Newtons had been planning the foundation's opening just before Helmut's death.[13] The opening of the foundation featured June and Helmut's portraits from their joint 1999 publicationUs and Them.[13] The book features portraits that June and Helmut had taken of one another as well as photographs that they had both taken of certain celebrities.[13]
Newton was aRoman Catholic and recalled mistreatment in her childhood in Australia due to her Irish heritage.[14] She died at the age of 97 in a hospital inMonte Carlo, Monaco on 9 April 2021.[30]
