RICHARD
MERYMAN

Richard (Dick) Merryman was a little bit of everything, a quintessential mid-20th-century Renaissance man. Born in Washington, D.C., he was raised in Dublin, New Hampshire, and spent summers on his mother’s family ranch in Carpinteria, California.

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Meryman’s early exploits were the stuff of boyhood legend: camping, skiing Tuckerman’s Ravine, and trekking through Labrador. At Phillips Academy Andover and later Williams, Tufts and Amherst Colleges, he earned a reputation as a formidable All-American lacrosse attackman. He served as an ensign in the U.S. Navy during World War II and pursued graduate work at Harvard.

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In 1949, driven by what he described as “a love of adventure undiminished by caution,” Meryman and future U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan bought a 1935 Packard hearse, outfitted it with a mattress, and headed for Alaska. When a broken axle depleted their funds, they detoured to Montana to work at the Hungry Horse Dam—only to be fired within days for assorted mishaps. Undeterred, hopping freight trains and dodging yard police Meryman and Moynihan made it back to the East Coast.

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Meryman soon landed a job at LIFE magazine. He always believed it was that tale of travel, improvisation, artistic upbringing and resilience that convinced the editor to take a chance on him.  Starting as a photo screener, he rose to become a sportswriter, covering boxing, baseball, and Mickey Mantle’s debut with the Yankees. He gravitated to the “Human Affairs” section, where his deep curiosity about people found its best outlet.

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Meryman pioneered the monologue-style interview, beginning with what would become his most famous profile: Marilyn Monroe. After earning her trust, Monroe agreed to a taped conversation, resulting in several hours of recording and what Meryman called “a bravura performance”—a torrent of self-analysis, laughter, defense mechanisms, and confessions. The resulting article appeared in LIFE on August 3, 1962—two days before her death. His tapes later became the foundation for the HBO film Marilyn: The Last Interview.

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Meryman interviewed many of the 20th century’s most compelling personalities: Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, Mae West, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Carol Burnett, Burt Reynolds, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Paul McCartney, Neil Simon, Joan Rivers, and Louis Armstrong. Many interviews became books, including Louis Armstrong: A Self-Portrait (1971), Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir (1964), two autobiographies with Joan Rivers, and four deeply personal volumes on the artist Andrew Wyeth, with whom Meryman developed a lifelong friendship.

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In 1970, he became head of LIFE’s entertainment department. When the original magazine ceased publication in 1972, he launched a long freelance career, contributing to Vanity Fair, People, Smithsonian, McCall’s, Lear’s, National Geographic, and The New York Times Magazine, among others, while also writing a dozen books.

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Throughout his life, Meryman never lost his adventurous spirit or his belief in the power of stories. He chronicled the people and moments that shaped his century—and in doing so, left behind a legacy of deep humanity and fearless curiosity.