Nowadays, the number of paparazzi is enormous and is a highly competitive business, but back in the ’60s, there were only a few in this field. Ray Bellisario was considered to be one of the first paparazzi in England, popular for ‘tormenting’ the Royal Family with his persistent pursuit to capture their private moments.
Ray Bellisario was blacklisted from most British newspapers by the order of Prince Philip, who once made a joke comment, stating that he will send Bellisario to The London Tower while Princess Margaret was calling him as “that bloody Bellisario.”
Unlike the Royal Family, Brigitte Bardot was way more collaborative subject and by then she was already a massive star and used to the camera. Two years ago, Ray Bellisario began selling off his collection and previously unpublished photographs of Bardot are now being shown at Dadiani Fine Art gallery.
Ray Bellisario took this iconic collection of photos back in 1968 when Bridgitte Bardot was visiting London for filming Shalako, the movie which starred in alongside Sean Connery.
From the very rare and amazing photos below you can notice that Ray Bellisario had a sharp sense for composition and light, besides the fact that Brigitte Bardot is a perpetually stunning subject.
‘I’d just bought a new car,’ Bellisario, told Dadiani Fine Art, ‘It was a Ford Consul which I’d parked right behind us. So I grabbed her arm and I said, “Come with me”, and she did! And she said, “Oh, this is fun, I’ve been kidnapped!”‘
According to Huffington Post, Belisario said that after he spent the evening in the pub with Bridgitte Bardot they went to his hotel room, after that she kissed him goodbye and he never saw her again.
‘I thought, well, there was nothing in it, no substance to it. That’s probably the way she is with guys, that’s what I thought at the time,’ he said.
‘She was such an attraction, a sexual attraction, that it could happen each and every night for her, and that’s really what it boiled down to. I thought it’s Ray today and someone else tomorrow, all that business, you know,’ he added.
