Bedford County Memories

Ben Martin presents a photojournalist's view of Marcel Marceau in Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime, portraying the legendary mime artist behind the scenes, rehearsing, in performance and at home. Begun as a Life magazine pictorial in the mid-1970s, their artistic collaboration produced an intense, intimate portrait of the mime, whose stage creation, a white-faced clown in bell-bottom pants, sailor's pullover and crumpled flower opera hat, continued a century old tradition. In more than 350 photographs, 80 in exquisite color, Martin captures Marceau behind the scenes, rehearsing, applying makeup, and performing on stage, showing the artist expressing his miraculous emotional range as Bip, his onstage alter ego. Ben Martin (1930-2017), was mentored by W. Eugene Smith and hired by Wilson Hicks as a staff photographer at Time/Life upon graduation from Ohio University. He covered wars, fashion, politics, arts, business and sports for Time, Life, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated for thirty-three years. He covered Martin Luther King Jr.'s march from Selma to Montgomery, the first Nixon-Kennedy Presidential debate, Fidel Castro in Cuba and "Swinging London," capturing "evocative images that defined the 1960s," according to the New York Times. His books include A Different World and Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime. His archive is housed at the Briscoe Center, University of Texas, Austin.