Empire: World History - 317. Churchill's Photographer: From Escaping Genocide to MLK

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Who was Karsh and how did he become one of the most famous portrait photographers of the 20th century? How did Karsh escape from the Armenian Genocide as a child? What was the story behind some of the most famous photographs of Churchill, Einstein, Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, and Martin Luther King? Anita and William explore the fascinating life of one of the photographers of Empire, Yousuf Karsh. Make someone an Empire Club Member this Christmas – unlock the full Empire experience with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Just go to https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/gifts And of course, you can still join for yourself any time at empirepoduk.com or on apple podcasts. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Producer: Anouska Lewis Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. This episode of Empire contains detailed descriptions of violence which some listeners may find upsetting. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. and me, William, D' Rimple. So today we're going to talk about another photographer. We brought you the monstrous Heinrich Hoffman in the last episode.

This man, though, very much a goodie, I think, in comparison. He's so famous during his lifetime that he went by just the one name, K-A-R-S-H. And this is a man who produced, I mean, thousands of images, but by far the most famous, is the one that's dubbed the roaring lion portrait of Winston Churchill. Now, you're thinking I haven't seen anything by cash. You have. If you live in Great Britain, just take out a five-pound note and look at the picture on that note

because it is that roaring lion picture of Caches of Winston Churchill. And it was one that sort of came to symbolise the defiance of the British Isles in the face of the Nazi thread. But it's also half the pictures of you're not. ever seen from the 1950s and early 1960s. I had no idea until you sent me the kind of snapshots of many of the great stars of that era. How many are by him? And, you know, the famous image of Dali with his pencil mustache. I mean, it goes on, Audrey Hepburn, half the most famous images of that era are by this one photographer. Yeah. And, you know, a man who comes from such a

background to suddenly be taking pictures, like you say, of Hollywood film stars, but also sort of in politics, leaders of the world. I mean, he's the man who takes, you know, one of the last pictures of FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt on his feet. He takes pictures of Nairu. He takes King Faisal. He's David Ben-Gurian, Haile Selassie, Nikita Krushchev. I mean, he's got pictures of Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, you know, some of the really iconic. pictures of these people that you absolutely have seen, but you may not know that they're all by this one man. Edmund Hillary, you know, that really sort of famous picture of Hillary against a moody background with his cagool sort of pulled up. And the famous picture

of Hemingway with his beard in his woolly knit that's on the back of all his paperbacks today. That was a cosh. I had no idea half these images. Bogart with his hands extended. Castro sitting in the kind of a sofa and a heap. They're all this period. Absolutely. Some of the most iconic, most famous pictures, all by this one man. Yeah.

So how is it that this one man has access? You know, was he born into some sort of, you know, nobility? Was he, you know, where doors open to him? No, not at all. This man's background is every bit as fascinating as his portfolio. So let's talk about it. His name was Yusuf Karsh. That was his full name.

He was born on December the 23rd in 1908 in a place called Madan in the Ottoman Empire, now part of modern day Turkey. That's a place you're quite familiar with, Willie. It is a place. I've spent a lot of time, though a while ago when I was doing my book from the Holy Mountain, because it's an area, and this is obviously ties up directly with Kashi's childhood. It was an area scarred by terrible massacres in the First World War. This was a period when Russia came in from the East. The Ottoman Empire was defending itself. And the idea spread that the Christians of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the Armenians, were a fifth column.

The young Turk government decided to commit this terrible genocide of the Armenians from 1915. But which also affected the Suriani, who were the other Christian community, the Syriac Christians, of Mardin and Midiat. And in 1994, I spent a year in the Middle East getting the testimony of the Christians of the Middle East about their various troubles. But one of the most compelling stories was the story of the Armenian genocide, very much set around the area that Karsh had been brought up in Mardin. And it was a terrible, terrible tale because many, many were carried off and done to death in death marches to the Syrian desert. Others went into hiding. A few hid and defended themselves in mountain top villages. And I think this is the sort of

area specifically where Karsh was brought up. You had these little communities of Christians sitting on hilltop towers, literally being besieged by Ottoman troops. Kash tells this story and he tells it very well, although he dwells on his life much less than he does on the photographs of the people that he took in his lifetime. He does describe this sort of a little, at least a little bubble of happiness in his childhood. You know, his family didn't have very much, but it was a loving family. He talks about, you know, his father being basically illiterate, but having a love of beauty, especially his mother who sort of really appreciated aesthetics. And he remembers things like, you know, really wonderful things that, you know, you can imagine the way he describes it. It's sort of scraping sugar from green leaves, like a type of manner, as he describes it,

and letting the sugar dissolve on his tongue. So that is his memory of his very early childhood. Martin is on the edge of a plateau, and you look down on the plane of Mesopotamia below you. The Euphrates and the Tigris, this credible floodplain stretches. out for hundreds of miles. And you can see right down, one direction to Syria and another direction towards Iraq. And Mardin is up on the first sort of range of the mountains above the plains of Mesopotamia. It's one of my favourite, favourite areas, but not a place you wanted to be in 1915. No, not in 1915. And Karsh is only eight years old at that time.

He's just a little boy. And this is the time that the Ottoman Empire is in World War I aligned with Germany and Austro-Hungary. The ruling committee of union and progress, the CUP or the Young Turks, as Williams already mentioned, were very suspicious of Christian minorities. And the spotlight falls on Armenians in particular. And the deportation and resettlement of Armenians takes place, which in reality was a campaign of just of mass killings.

And historians describe it as the Armenian genocide. And if you want to know more about that, did this in great detail in one of our previous episodes with Eugene Rogan. It has none of the industrial efficiency of the Nazi Holocaust. This is not an autobarne to the heart of darkness so much as a rutted cart track. The Armenians are not sent off to organise gas chambers. They're marched through the desert, left to die of starvation and thirst in many cases. Others are just cut up by cavalry or beaten and bludgeoned.

to death. And it was particularly the Armenian middle class who got targeted. Many of the Armenians were bankers or small shopkeepers, or as in the case of Karsh, they were photographers. Many of the great photographers of the Ottoman Empire, Abdullah Frias, there's a whole bunch of Armenians. And indeed, the greatest photographer of modern Turkey was Armenian. Gouloglera, originally Gullerian, Ara Goulaire, was the magnum photographer.

who produced many of the most famous images of modern Turkey. And anyway, and I think was his father a photographer? Was it a hereditary job? No, it was an uncle of his. But we'll come to one of his uncles who sort of escapes earlier than Cash manages to and sets up in Canada. But we'll come to that in a minute. There were other uncles there in this sort of this turmoil that William's describing hits his family directly and fully. His uncles are denounced for supposed crimes.

And they are taken in the middle of the night and they are put in prison. A little eight-year-old Yusuf Karsh is the one who has to take food to them in the prison. And it's because his mother says, you know, you're least likely to have stuff taken from you and to be, you know, bullied by the big Turkish soldiers. If, you know, you were any older, they would certainly take what you've got and maybe take you.

And so he does this. He goes to the jail every day to take two parcels. His mother says, take two parcels for your uncles, because one the guards will take, the other may reach my brother's mouths. It's a very moving thing. And then one day, you know, he's just told very bluntly by his family, you don't have to do the run anymore because word has come that both uncles are dead. And in his words, he says one had been suffocated in a cupboard in which he'd been forced to

sand for hours or even days without water and food and without air to breathe. and the other had been thrown alive into the well. And this sort of second section of childhood, you know, sort of the manner from heaven until the age of seven and then from eight, he descends into hell like many of the Armenian Christians who are living in this area. Attacks are increasing. There are raids. There are disappearances. And he describes what he sees himself. He says, I saw with my own eyes a dead baby hanging on a butcher's hook, which was used to suspend a sheep after slaughter.

cruelty for its own sake was everywhere. And so he takes, I just imagine this tiny little boy takes to traveling to and from school with stones in his pockets because he's always expecting to be stoned by the Turks. And he says, and occasionally I would throw a stone back in self-defense. And when I tell my mother that I'd retaliated, she would say, but don't you see, if only they knew what you were doing, they wouldn't do it. It's just ignorance. So even then, you know, sort of, you know, she's lost her brothers. There is all hell breaking loose.

There is this sort of voice of humanity coming from his own. I interviewed survivors from this. In Diabaca, there was one woman remaining who was a survivor. Not far from Mardin, where Karsch was brought up in a village called Einuardo. Many of the Suriani defended a fortified church. And for two years, they fended off the local constabulary who were besieging them. And I'm amazed that Karsh survived at all because most of the Armenians were led off in these great convoys and clubbed to death or starved and killed in the desert. And very few survived, whether it was because they were in a remote part of the town of Mardin or I don't know how.

Because, I mean, there was something like 95% casualties. And when the young Turk's government decided to round up the population, they did it. with some thoroughness. So he was unusual to survive if he wasn't in one of these little fortified redouts which defended themselves. Yeah, I mean, it's almost a slow death that he describes because, you know,

it becomes harder and harder for his family to find food until 1922 where, you know, the father can't trade, his mother can't buy anything. And all he remembers is hunger. And he says, you know, for years during the worst period of the persecutions in Armenia, and we didn't see a piece of good bread, much less white bread. It was black bread.

Very rough, made from oats and barley. And I don't know what else. So coarse you could hardly swallow it. And he describes a sort of one day when he receives this piece of white bread with a golden crust. And he says it comes to symbolize to me everything that life was intended to be white bread was the ideal life to have this cake-like bread for the rest of eternity. That would have been heaven itself. And you know where there is hunger, their sickness.

and a typhoid epidemic sweeps through Marden at this time. It kills his little sister later that same year. And as heartbreaking as that loss is, there is something worse in this poor man's young life. And he writes about it later in his memoir. He says, you know, the epidemic was so severe that no burial service could be arranged for my sister. And at last, my aunt Lucia found two men who agreed to take the body away for burial. And I apologise to my readers for not sparing them, but I do remember to my horror, when Aunt Lucia later revealed to me, these men had not taken away my little sister's body to bury it, but for another purpose. All I can say is Madin was starving at the time. And those stories of cannibalisation during those massacres, they weren't unusual, they weren't unique. What he and his family were going through, it wasn't a singular experience. So, you know, With this sort of suggestion of cannibalism and these absolutely demonstrative horrors going on around him,

his family just decide they can't stay anymore, they have to get to Syria. And Karsh at this time, you know, they've stuck it out in their home, in their lands, until he's about 14 years old. So he packs a sketchbook in his bag, and he and his family are packed off with all they can carry. This is actually specifically 1922, which is a... a second wave of this. What happens in 2022 is that the Treaty of Serve has given the French chunk of the land just to the south of Mardin. And meanwhile, the Greeks have invaded Anatolia in 1922 and are then being driven back. So this is the same year as the episode we did

on the fire of Smyrna. And there's a second wave of Christians that leave at this time. I again interviewed refugees from these columns who are still alive in Aleppo. in the days, but when Aleppo was still up and running before the Civil War. And there are entire churches of survivors and their families from the second series of deportations and exodus. As in 1915, you get these pathetic caravans of refugees with no possessions streaming through the empty desert, starving and short of water. And many of those end up, as Kasha's family did, in Aleppo. Aleppo is later under the French. So for both those reasons, it becomes a refuge for the Christians and is today the biggest Christian town, I think, in the time at least.

But it wasn't, you know, it almost didn't happen. You know, he almost didn't survive. Like just like many of the people that you interviewed who would have lost countless family members to these death marches. Because at every single Hamlet or village, there are people extracting prices, permission to go through. So he describes it takes 29 days to complete this journey that should have just taken less than two days by train, but of course they have to do it by foot. And they are robbed and stripped of just not dignity, but every penny, every coin, every piece of jewelry along the way. And there is this one moment which is just on the road to Syria, which is so awful and graphic.

Just imagine this. So he's on the road and he says, I made a mistake that could have forfeited our freedom and actually much, much more. So they stopped before this village and the Turks are at this border between, you know, the village and their onward journey. So let's show you, we want to show you a river. Come and see this river. It's really, you've got to see this river. And they take this kid and a few others to see this river that is just full of decomposing bodies. He says, you know, from its surface, protruded everywhere the bones of human beings, skulls, femurs, ribs, there could be no mistake.

And so, Karsh being, you know, the boy with the sketchbook, foolishly tries to sketch this, what he calls the last bitter landmark of my journey. And he says, of course, I couldn't foresee the consequences. When the Turks saw I was scribbling something, they set up a cry that I was a spy. and hearing the commotion, I hastily crumpled up the piece of paper and I threw it into a creek. Needless to say, the paper was recovered and my father was confronted with it. In some manner, he managed to extricate us. What he said, why they listened, I don't know, but my mother told me it cost him a very last piece of silver coin. So, you know, they get to Syria, William, but almost didn't.

And just imagine being that little boy thinking you're the reason. I sat in a circle in 1994 in the Barron Hotel, the Maslumians were another Armenian family who set up this extraordinary hotel which Agatha Christie and T. Lawrence, all sorts of people, stayed in. And they gathered the survivors for me from this march. And I interviewed them in 1994. Every one of them will now be dead. But they all told these terrifying stories.

And one or other thing had saved them. One was a cobbler that the Ottomans needed because they needed boots. One was a friend of the governor, had done him a favor in early life, and so on and so forth. And most of them were led out beyond this into what was like a sort of very primitive death camp in the desert outside Aleppo, where they were ridden down by cavalry. but handfuls of survivors continued in Aleppo until 1920 when the French came and they were safe. And this is Kashi's story. You can imagine the kind of pressure on this family that has already been living in absolutely unthinkable dire peril,

that they reach Syria and they start trying to scrape together some kind of a life that, you know, they've left everything and many of the Armenian refugees in Aleppo. are doing the same thing. But because Karsh has come so close to death, because they've seen a little girl from their family, his own sister, sort of die and taken away then and the unthinkable happening to that poor little body, they decide that the best thing that you can do

is send Karsh away, somewhere safer, somewhere he might be able to earn money, maybe send something back home to help the family. And one of his uncles, who'd left in 1890 for Canada, had set up a little photo studio in Ottawa, and he was doing fairly well. It was all right. He was making a living. He was sending a little bit of cash home. And it was decided that cash should go and join him. So they really push hard for months and scrape together the funds that would need to send little teenage cash to go and live with him. Now, just imagine this is a traumatized boy,

who has seen the worst that humanity can do to other human beings, who is being sent to a country where he neither has language. He has one connection. He has no society. He has no family apart from this one uncle. And he sort of washes up in Canada with not one word of English just the clothes on his back in a tiny bag. But the resilience of this guy, because he's still, you know, there's not one word in his memoirs of any kind of feel sorry for me. I kind of, you know, what's that word? Self-pity. None at all. Because he sees this new one. world is going to be better, even if it's bad, than the horror that he's left behind. He feels reborn and as he says in his memoirs, he will never go back to Turkey again. Join us after the break

where we find out what this new life promises the young Karsh. Welcome back. So Kars has finally escaped that hellscape of the Armenian genocide and is working in Canada with his uncle, a man called Nakash. And Nakash's story is also. so tragic. I mean, he has lost every single member of his family in the violence that Karsh has just left behind. So he has no one, and Karsh only has him. And this man is really kind. He sort of realizes very quickly that this is a boy who has a huge talent and an eye for art. So he teaches him how to use a camera. And this is the first time that this kid who had a sketchbook until now and used to sort of do compositions in quick drawings has this

novel new machine and he's a really quick study and he begs his uncle teach me everything you know he's particularly obsessed with lighting subjects because he wants them to look like paintings and that will become a hallmark of his work from for the rest of his life and his uncle is yeah okay you know I'll teach you about lighting but gosh with God's sake we've got to make money okay so it's all very well me teaching you how to light things and taking an hour over the lighting but you you know, for God's sake, we just need to get them in and get them out and get them in and get them out. And the main income at that time for, you know, Nakasha's studio is photographing soldiers and sailors. And so, you know, Karsh is sort of reluctantly, but, you know, he owes his uncle everything.

He falls into line and he does these rather boring things that he's forced to do. But he's still, you know, in his own time, just imagine it's a man who's got freedom, but all he does is work. Either he works in the studio or he takes himself off. to learn more about his craft and he loves nature. So instead of sketching, he takes his camera out to all these sort of romantic, misty landscapes around Ottawa and he takes countless, I mean, if I may say, are the boring pictures of trees and, you know, this is all that he cares about. Morning, noon and night, he lives and breathes his camera and his lighting.

And his uncle, actually, you know, because he loves this kid so much, you know, really respects this kid, enters one of his pictures, even though he can't. doesn't know it into a competition and cash wins. And it becomes very clear. I think you might be rather underplaying his nice pictures of trees if they win all these prizes. I've never seen a bad cash photograph. I think he's a bit of a genius. Have you seen the pictures of trees?

I haven't seen the pictures of trees, really. I've taken many pictures of trees myself. They're trees. So anyway, it does become very clear to Uncle Nakash when he sees that, you know, his nephew's won this prize that he can't teach him anymore. there is something bursting to get out of this boy. So good on him, good on Uncle Nakash, who does need him in the studio. You know, could really do with his help to make some money.

But he says, okay, I'm going to send you away. There is this expat community in Canada and America who have managed to get out. So he manages to persuade this notable photographer in Boston to take him under his wing. And that man is John H. Garrow, who has also lost his entire. family in the Ottoman Empire. Also Armenian, yeah? Also Armenian, yeah. And Garrow is a name.

Garrow is, you know, a man people recognize. And he does the kind of thing that Garsh is just desperate to learn, which is taking a photograph and looking beyond what the person wants to show you. And Garrow as well is sort of like, you know, almost his spirit animal. Because, I mean, he's sort of this gorgeously avuncular character. if you imagine if you watch the Wombles ever, Uncle Bulgaria. Yeah, he's cuddly and he's, you know, sort of ostentatiously dressed and he has these cravats and, you know, a very actually deeply kind face. And he also thinks like a painter, which is so good for Karsh.

He thinks like a painter. He had been a painter before becoming a photographer. And he totally understands his young Ward's obsession with light. So he teaches him everything that he knows about lighting, about positioning a subject, about getting an insight into who they are as you take the picture. And the one, you know, the best thing that he teaches, Kash, is that chat. And yet is everything, is everything to a photographer. That's what you want to do. There's a lovely quote in Kashi's memoir.

He says, one of Gary's great gifts was his ability to fasten. to enchant the subject, to such an extent that the latter was really unaware of the act of photography. It was not a question of having him hold an artificial pose, which is fatiguing, and can be deceitful. When Garrow held the bulb behind his back, the subject's interest centred on whatever Garrow focused it upon, some abstract topic, perhaps, or something in the studio, but something meaningful, a floral arrangement, a piece of tapestry. And when he raised his finger, he said, hold. But not in an attention-creating way, just suspending time for a few instances. It was like cooking certain dishes slowly.

Perfection in cooking is not always achieved with a high burner. It's a lovely quote. Is that lovely? Yeah, I love that. Is that such a great, great thing? But too soon, you know, he's living his absolute best life. You know, he's never been as happy, not since, you know, sort of eating the crystallized sugar and the green leaves back in Marden. And he's so happy.

But it's time to go back to Ottawa because, as he says, there was no quota for Armenians in America. So he doesn't have permission to stay. So he takes all the learning and he goes back to his uncle's studio, poor Nakash. He's sort of like, oh, okay, when you're coming back, I really need to, I could do with some help. You know, we've got floors to sweep and, you know, sort of sailors and soldiers to photograph you're coming back. It is a really, again, amazing thing about cash because he sees gold in what many people see as trash. So, I mean, I don't know, when I worked as a local reporter, the last thing you wanted to be sent on. You knew you'd annoyed the editor if you were sent to do something to do with the local council.

You know, God. Really? Oh, okay. There's a sort of a, I don't know, some motion to be passed on bin collection. Oh, you can go, Anita. You're the youngest and disposable. So, you know, he actually volunteers to go to these ostensibly really boring political conferences. that take place in Ottawa, Ottawa, it was a major city.

And he does this thing that sort of, you know, poor Nakash is just looking at, and going, what are you doing? Just take the bloody camera. But no, he's got to take his lights. He goes sort of hulking all of this stuff to these really very long, dull, boring events. But it pays off because there is this imperial economic conference that takes place in 1932. and Cash manages to get this amazing, lovely photograph of Neville Chamberlain and Sean O'Casey, the playwright, who's come in with the Irish delegation.

And it's through just sort of the charm that he's learned from, you know, his uncle and also, you know, from his mentor that he has the courage, even though English is faltering. You know, he's just learnt English. And he, it pulls in love at this time with a tall and glamorous actress called Solange Gordier. And through this girl, who is an actress, he gains entry to the world of theatre and begins taking pictures of visiting theatre companies. And this again is more into the sort of story tearing as well as the portraiture for which he will become famous later in life. I mean, it's almost like, you know, everything in his life now is pointing him into a certain

direction. And this sort of crossover between art and politics is eventually going to lead to the photograph that's going to launch him as cash that we know today. And it is because there is a man who straddles those two worlds. You know him because we've done a bonus episode on him. John Buckin, yes, aka Lord Tweedsmoor, is a very important man in Canada in Ottawa at this time. And if you want to hear that one, by the way, yeah. Yeah, he is. He is the governor general. But if you want to hear the whole episode that we did on Bucken, become a member of the Empire. Club, EmpirePodUK.com is where you can join EmpirePodUK.com. It is an absolutely Murray was just an amazing guest. Murray Pittick, fabulous, fabulous episode of Murray Pitick on

John Buckin, author of the 39 steps. Anyway, so between 35 and 40, John Buckin, aka First Baron Tweedsmeall, serves as Governor General of Canada, as Willie says. And he's actually been to a number of these arts and drama festivals, sort of, you know, he loves the arts. And he notices, Karsh has been taking photographs of the actors and the dances. And he notices his work, you know, for its beauty. And so he sort of says, who's this dude? Who's this guy? And the name comes back, oh, it's Karsh. He's going out with one of the actresses, Solange. We'll get his details from Solange. And he asks Kash to come and take his photograph. And it is, it's nerve-wracking at first, isn't it, Willie?

I mean, this is a really important man, Governor General, asking to see you and for you to come and take a photograph. One of the great photographs ever, which is the famous photograph of John Bucken in full Native Canadian feather headdress. When we were doing the Buckin episode, and I was Google imaging images to tweet the episode out,

this, of course, was the first one that we all fell on because it's by far the most striking picture. ever taken of Bucken. And it turns out it's not just you and me, Anita, who liked this image. It was a favourite of the Queen. And the young Queen Elizabeth saw this and asked for a copy, which is there apparently in Buckingham Palace. So this is Karsher's first entry into this whole wider world. It gets taken, it gets snapped in 1936, Chief Buckin portrait.

But that year, of course, was going to ring all sorts of bells, because it is that year that the world is heading towards war. And you get this sort of, you know, as a build-up towards World War II is occurring, suddenly world leaders are on the move. And there are intense meetings taking place, you know, trying, you know, sort of horse trading. Will you come in? If we do this, will you do this? And all eyes are on America and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, if you heard our Yalta conference episodes,

you know, was really reluctant to get involved in the war, completely reluctant. But that doesn't stop others lobbying him. So in 1936, FDR makes a trip to Canada. He's the first American president in office to do it. The press call, of course, is out in force. This is major. President to visit Canada. Indeed.

And, well, they're just next door, aren't he? I thought they'll pop over up there. The press, of course, you know, you get penned back, if you're a member of the press at these things with great dignitaries. But gosh, because he's done the graft, and he's done all these sort of local politics and, you know, sort of the state politics things, he knows people. And he also, because John Buckin loves him, has become quite friendly with the staff who wait on Bucking. And so, you know, he's sort of looking at them with these puppy dog eyes, like, what the hell am I meant to do? I haven't even got my lights.

I really need my lights. What am I meant to do in the press pen? And so one of them sort of says, come over here, come here, I'll take you to a side room. and I just need you to be patient, okay? Just wait for a couple of hours. It'll be worth it. So Cash is a completely patient man. He has no idea if he's going to get anything at all.

But he sets up all his lights and he's waiting. And finally, you have Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada and his mate, Lord Tweedsmill, John Buckin, and Roosevelt walk in. And they're sort of ushered towards the photographer. But it's a dreadful photo because FDR, we know we know lived a lot of his life in horrible undisclosed pain. You know, he didn't tell anyone about it. He's stiff and he's sort of grumpy and people hate having their photographs taken where they're important things to talk about.

But Karsh has learned from his Garrow, you know, his great inspiration, you just wait until they're not thinking about the photograph. So he pretends to be packing up. He tells this story so beautifully starts packing up, making a lot of noise about packing up and just leaving them to talk as if he's not there. And Buckin, who is this great storyteller, he loves telling sort of these long, tall stories, is going into something. Yes.

Yeah. And he starts sort of launching into a particularly long and interesting one that's making people laugh and stuff. And he takes these pictures of the three powers together, Roosevelt on his feet, Mackenzie King, and these very important talks at a pivotal moment. And the background of the sky is, it's not the sky. I think it's one of it. It's his background, but it looks like a moody sky.

It's one of these things that Karsh has left up. And the lighting is perfect. And it is such a dramatic picture. It looks like a still from a movie. And that photo goes around the world. You know, it's a big photo for Karsh. And it is all leading up to the picture. The famous picture.

Which is coming up. So give us some background to what's going. on in the world at this time. We're talking now December 1914. 941. This is the week after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Winston Churchill, who has been trying for the whole of the previous year to get America

involved in the war, suddenly realizes this is the moment to push because after Pearl Harbor, America is furious and wanting revenge. And Winston Churchill is on a whistle stop tour

of America and Canada. And Karsh phones the Canadian Prime Minister's office and asks if there's any chance that he might take a portrait of Churchill while he was in Ottawa. Churchill famously mercurial when it came to posing photographs, but a plan was hatched. Anita. Yeah, so again, this is, you know, just who you know and who you've been nice to on your way up. So everybody listening to this, especially you young ones, just learn something from this, you know, just never be grand, always talk to everybody because now he knows everyone and he's done the groundwork. So he sets up in the Speaker's Chamber the day before because, you know, who knows how

the talks are going to go, how long Churchill's going to stay, is anyone going to be in the mood to have a photo taken if these talks don't go well, everything depends on this, the world is at war. So he sets up, he puts his lights, lights, lights, lights, he puts his lights in place. And he sort of talks to the steward of the House of Commons and he says, can you just be Churchill for a minute, sort of sits in there? lights it all. So all he needs is literally two seconds for Churchill to sit in this spot and done, done, done, done. And it's Mackenzie King himself who, you know, loves what Cash did with the FDR picture, kind of cons Churchill into coming into the chamber. He's sort of saying, let me,

let me show you around our beautiful speaker's chamber. Oh, gosh. Here is my friend's photographer. It's my friend of photographer. It's sort of, you know, there's like a massive floodline. that Cash flicks on because he's overdone it a bit with the lights even he thinks so. Churchill hasn't been in on this at all and says what's this? Brief at all.

Yeah. He's furious and nobody wants to tell him that this is, you know, basically this is all been glad and he's been Shanghaied in for a photo for Cash. So Cash steps forward because everyone's looking a bit horrified and says, Sir, I hope I'll be fortunate enough to make a portrait of you worthy of this historic occasion. And Churchill is not in the mood at all, is he?

He sort of blustered. So Churchill is not in the mood for this at all and says, why was I not told and throws away his old cigar and lets another one, muttering, you may take one, making it clear that he was neither amused nor had the time. And, well, we only have Kashi's version of this, but very grudgeonly, he walks up and he says, will you, motioning to the ashtray, in other words, trying to get Churchill to throw the glassy cigar away. Take it out of his mouth. But Churchill won't do it. He will not do it. So, you know, he sort of does this. He takes one out and sort of stabbily stabs it and then puts another one in his mouth.

It's like, oh, God, Karsh is like, oh, I've got sec. This is, he's going to go. He's going to leave. It's every photographer's worst nightmare that your subject just storms out and you're left with nothing. So he goes back to his camera. He says, okay, fine. Not a problem, sir. You know, it's just always deferential.

Goes back, starts tinkering away. When he's absolutely sure everything is fine, he walks up to him very swiftly and pulls a cigar out of his mouth. And then he says, forgive me. And then he takes that photo and the photo you see on your five-pound note. Glowering Churchill. What the hell happened to my cigar? It's basically the photo. What?

Who is this impertinent young man that sees by? How do you? Yeah. Where's my cigar? But it is that image of like sort of ferocity and defiance. And like Churchill sort of rearing himself up, that becomes the image of churchill. of Churchill that people will go to whenever they want to talk about. It's rallying morale among the Brits or showing the power of Britain almost standing alone

against the Nazi threat. And actually Churchill calms down pretty good. I think he's sort of quite amused because he says, you may take a second. It's just smiling. And that photo never used. It's the one where the thing is plucked out of his mouth. That's the one that's the actual. Is there a smiling one?

I haven't seen the other shots. No, Karchus talks about it. He just says, you know, he's sort of so, he's so sort of amuse that he does a smiley one, but I haven't seen it. And then the judge actually says the words, you can make even a roaring lion stand still to be photographed. And that is why it's called the Rory Lion photograph. Google it now, anyone in photos, this?

Yes, dude, it's been on a Canadian postage stamp. like I say the five-pound note since 2016 and it is the absolute opening of the world to cash who then sort of takes some of the really iconic pictures we've talked about but just do Google his name other search engines are available

but do just have a look and he writes these tiny little vignettes about people like lovely conversations he does a very very young Elizabeth Taylor who's just a child and he knows, he just sort of sees that she's going to be this huge actress before anybody else does. And they get on so well and he chats on her level. And, you know, when she does become famous, she sort of comes rebounding up to him.

Gosh, gosh, how lovely to see you. I've named my little puppy dog after you. You know, he has conversations about, you know, religion and science and the clash between the two with Einstein. I mean, this is a man who's just. How's that? Because that's again one of the most famous images. The famous picture of Einstein. It is the famous picture of Einstein.

Not the one with the tongue out. It's not that one. It's another one. The more serious. The other one, the other Einstein picture. Well, again, he sort of sets up. And Einstein, again, is not sort of a man who even thinks about his image particularly. You know, he's got his hands clasped in front of him.

It's in a woolly knit again. He likes a woolly knit. Same as the Hemingway photograph with hair all over the place. big bushy mustache. But again, this lighting is always so good with Karsh and these silvery tones. I don't know what he gets, what the process he's using

to get it, but they are just absolutely perfect photographs, perfect portraits. Yeah, they're gorgeous, and you just sort of look at this sort of rather soulful expression, but natural, this softness about Einstein, you know, not posed. And it's because they're having this conversation about but what about God, Albert?

But what about, you know, sort of the bad things people, well, what about, It's like they're having this really long and interesting conversation. He also, you know, sort of gives a few things away about some of his subjects. He hated George Bernard Shaw, who sounds like a pretty monstrous man, sort of making light of things like, you know, the Armenian genocide and stuff. You know, it's a really distasteful jokes. But Cash, again, is just such a professional.

He takes a fabulous photo of the man who he didn't like, which is very depressing to hear about George Bernard Shaw talking like that. don't think of him that way at all. Now tell us the story about the reaction of the Republic Armenian to his death. Well, let me tell you about his death. He dies in 2002 and he's in Boston when he dies. He has complications after surgery. And the papers, of course, mark his passing as an end of an epoch.

The economist, I think, puts it really well, saying, you know, for half a century, perhaps the greatest portrait photographer in the monumental manner is how they put it. I mean, you were asking about the modern Republic of Armenia, which is only established in 1991. But in memory of one of their greatest sons and the debt that he and they owe Canada in taking cash and so many others in. They present a bust of cash. And it stands in front of Le Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. It's a huge Gothic building. It's Tiffany Glass or.

windows. It's, you know, it's really, it's beautiful and it's big and it's sort of statuess like all of his photographs were, really. But it's sort of also a reminder that he never forgot his Armenian roots, so it's a gift from Armenian. I never knew who's Armenian. I never knew that beginning part of his story. Absolutely fascinating. I've long admired and I absolutely love his work, but I had no idea he was from the Armenian background and was a survivor of the genocide. Extraordinary. Yeah. And, and And like I say, not a man who asked for any self-pity about it. And probably the reason you didn't know is he didn't talk about it.

He wrote about it very briefly in his memoirs. And you have to do a lot of digging around to find out what happened to his family and what was going on in, you know, Mardom and the surrounding areas at the time. And this horror of a story pops out. Speaking of horrors of stories, next on Empire, we're going to look at a very different type of photographer. Oh, God, I love this woman. If you love a strong woman, you're going to love this one as much as I do. Alice Sigley Harris is her name.

She bore witness to the horrors in the Congo. That's a subject we've discussed a lot in our Writers of Empire series of Maya Jasanoff. And she used her camera to bring down a king. One last story, slightly more optimistic note to end on after all these horrors. I went back to Diabaca, the province that Karsh was from last year. and in 1994 when I was writing about the genocide, I had met one of the last descendants and thought that it was all over for the Armenians of Diabaca. Last year, I went back and the church has reopened.

It's been restored, beautifully restored, with wonderful new icons and beautiful guilt woodwork. And the Armenian community, there's 50 left in Diabaca. And they now make their own wine and they sell it. They have a very nice little cafe. And the community has just managed to re-establish itself since my time there covering the genocide. So it's not a complete story of destruction and despair. The Armenian community have survived in that area.

Well, I'm glad. I'm glad it's a more optimistic note than we ended the Hoffman episode on. Thank you for that. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Durunport.