Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

thing in taking a photo is the beauty part. If they don’t
fulfill the first criteria I don’t go on any further. If you’re
a musician you’re creative, but I would never take a
picture of Elton John. And I’ve met Elton John.”
Lee came from a family of Chinese American
intellectuals from San Francisco. He studied at Yale
before accepting a grant to attend Chelsea College
in London. He arrived on May 30, 1963 (a Thursday;
he made me look it up). “They were filming a movie
around Manresa Road at the time. The Collector
with Samantha Eggar,” he tells me. Bored with his
fellow intellectuals (who embodied only the
intelligence part of his threefold criteria), he began
hanging out in the burgeoning pop scene, catching
early London sets by the Rolling Stones and the
Yardbirds (Lee is in the audience during the famous
nightclub scene in Blow Up). With his Minox camera,
he became something of a collector of his own,
taking photos of people as a means to connect with
those who met his standards. “Who are the most
beautiful, creative and intelligent people? They were
artists and musicians,” Lee would tell me.
Lee has a flair for suspense building in his
speech. He will say things like “There was this one
group of four people and they went by the name …
the Beatles.” Or “That band was a band with a threeletter
name, and that was W-H-O. The Who.”
Lee spent his days in London living on the Mercury
Records expense account, taking artists to
sumptuous Chinese meals at Mr. Chow’s in posh
Knightsbridge and basking in the glow of their