June Newton (née Browne, 3 June 1923 – 9 April 2021) was an Australian model, actress, and photographer. As an actress she was known professionally as June Brunell and won the
Erik Kuttner Award for Best Actress in 1956.
From 1970 onward she worked as a photographer under the pseudonym Alice Springs.
Her photographs have appeared in publications such as ''
Vanity Fair'', ''
Interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
'', ''
Elle
''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the w ...
'' and ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''.
She was the wife of fashion photographer
Helmut Newton.
Biography
Modelling and acting
June Browne was born in Melbourne, Australia on 3 June 1923 to Alice Maude Browne and Thomas Francis Browne, a vaudvillian.
Her parents divorced when she was five years old.
She first met Berlin-born photographer Helmut Newton in 1947 at his studio in Melbourne.
At the time, June was working as an actress under the surname Brunell (to avoid confusion with a local actress named June Brown)
and had answered an ad for some modelling work at Helmut's studio.
The couple were married the following year.
While still acting under the surname Brunell, she won the Erik Kuttner Award for Best Actress in 1956,
an award given for excellence in theatre in Melbourne. Although she was finding success in Australia as an actress, Helmut was offered a year-long contract with ''British Vogue''
and the couple moved to London in 1957.
While there, June found acting work with the BBC.
Helmut did not enjoy his time there and the couple left England.
In the following years, Helmut found work with such publications as ''Jardin des Modes'' and ''Australian Vogue''.
By 1960, the couple settled in Paris, and Helmut's photographic career flourished.
Photography
June's work as a photographer began in 1970 when she stepped in for her husband who had fallen ill.
Helmut was scheduled to photograph a model for an ad for
Gitanes
Gitanes (, " Gypsy women") is a French brand of cigarettes, owned and manufactured by Imperial Tobacco following their acquisition of Altadis in January 2008, having been owned by SEITA before that.
History
Gitanes was launched in 1910 in fo ...
cigarettes when he came down with the flu.
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.
In a 1987 interview with June and her husband for ''
Orange 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..."
June chose the pseudonym Alice Springs from the
Australian town of the same name.
She selected the name by blindly stabbing a pin into a map of Australia.
Alice Springs did however find success; by 1974, one of her photographs had appeared on the cover of ''Elle''.
Over her career, Alice Springs' photographs appeared in magazines such as ''Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Marie Claire'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''Interview'', and ''Stern''.
Working first as a fashion photographer and later as a portraitist, she photographed such famous figures as
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
,
Anthony Burgess
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer.
Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire ''A Clockwork ...
,
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (, , ), is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recogni ...
,
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
,
Roy Lichtenstein,
Robert Mapplethorpe,
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, best known for playing the title character in the film '' Superman'' (1978) and three sequels.
Born in New York City and raised in Princeton, New Jersey ...
,
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland (September 29, 1903 – August 22, 1989) was a French-American fashion columnist and editor. She worked for the fashion magazine ''Harper's Bazaar'' and as editor-in-chief at ''Vogue'', later becoming a special consultant to the ...
,
Yves Saint Laurent,
Brigitte Nielsen
Brigitte Nielsen (; born Gitte Nielsen; 15 July 1963) is a Danish actress, model, and singer. She began her career modelling for Greg Gorman and Helmut Newton. She subsequently acted in the 1985 films ''Red Sonja'' and ''Rocky IV'', later retu ...
and
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman (born 20 June 1967) is an American and Australian actress and producer. Known for her work across various film and television productions from several genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid act ...
.
Throughout her photographic career, Newton continued to work as her husband's art-director, acting both as editor and curator of Helmut's work.
She also appeared in some of her husband's photos.
''Helmut by June''
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.
Their lives were documented in the 1995 telefilm ''Helmut by June'', co-produced by the French pay-TV channel
Canal+
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...
.
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.
June's footage was edited to a one-hour film that was shown in France.
This footage was seen by film director
Brett Ratner
Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American film director and producer. He directed the ''Rush Hour'' film series, '' The Family Man'', '' Red Dragon'', '' X-Men: The Last Stand'', and ''Tower Heist''. He is also a producer of several film ...
, who decided that he wanted to bring it to a U.S. audience.
He shot two additional minutes of June talking about Helmut, which he added as an introduction to the film;
Ratner's version premiered on Cinemax on 30 April 2007.
Helmut Newton Foundation
On 23 January 2004, Helmut Newton lost control of his vehicle as he exited the driveway of the Chateau 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.
The Helmut Newton Foundation opened in Berlin in June of that same year.
Permanently located in the
Museum 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.
The Newtons had been planning the foundation's opening just before Helmut's death.
The opening of the foundation featured June and Helmut's portraits from their joint 1999 publication ''Us and Them''.
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.
Personal life and death
Newton was a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
and recalled mistreatment in her childhood in Australia due to her Irish heritage.
She died at the age of 97 in a hospital in
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
, Monaco on 9 April 2021.
Publications
* ''Alice Springs: Portraits'' (Twelvetrees Press, 1986)
* ''Us and them'' (Scalo, 1999)
* ''Mrs. Newton'' (
Taschen
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
History
The company began as Taschen Comics, ...
, 2004)
Filmography
* ''Helmut Newton: Frames from the Edge'' (1989), as herself
* ''Helmut by June'' (1995), as herself
References
External links
*
Official website of the Helmut Newton Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, June
1923 births
2021 deaths
Actresses from Melbourne
Australian emigrants to France
Australian people of Irish descent
Australian photographers
Australian stage actresses
Australian women photographers