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From pre-fame Matt Damon to Danny DeVito in Jordan Marsh and Yoko Ono in Boston, this Newton native has seen it all. We asked him about his decades-long career as a Boston culture photog.

I called Jamaica Plain photographer Roger Farrington ostensibly to talk about his photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

It speaks volumes about his decades-long career as a Boston-area photographer that those photos — the last ever taken of Lennon in a studio— were the tip of the iceberg.

Soon the Newton native is telling me about the time he’d photographed Matt Damon before “Good Will Hunting.” Danny DeVito riding the escalator in Jordan Marsh. Now-King Charles talking to shoppers on Newbury Street.

“It was ridiculous! It was a circus! I mean — oh, I had Elizabeth Taylor!” he says, jumping into a tale of Liz’s Hasty Pudding parade that ends with locals chasing her entourage “all the way through Harvard Square to the Lampoon Building, shouting ‘Liz, Liz, Liz!’”

Oh! And that time Andy Warhol was on Newbury Street. Farrington photographed the Queen of Thailand’s royal visit to Boston. Vanna White. Richard Pryor. Oh, and Alec Baldwin!  Stories spill out, each more colorful than the last. 

Farrington, 74, doesn’t speak about past gigs— he exclaims! There is a palpable wonder in his voice that he was there. That he captured these moments! He vividly remembers each assignment, and his enthusiasm oozes in each tale.

After graduating from Connecticut College in 1975, Farrington worked five years as a publicity photographer for the Charles Playhouse before going freelance in 1980.

And that summer, he got one helluva gig in New York. 

Ono needed a press release photo for a major announcement: Lennon and Ono were returning to the recording studio after a half-decade absence. 

On August 7, 1980, a then 27-year-old Farrington snapped a series of John and Yoko at The Hit Factory recording studio in New York.

Months later, Lennon would be killed not far from that studio.

The New Englander’s photos were the last the world would see of Lennon at work.

Now, that series is a book: “Starting Over With John and Yoko: The Photographs,” by Roger Farrington and Kenneth Womack.  

Farrington, 74, will talk all things John & Yoko with longtime Boston radio host Larry “Cha-Chi” Loprete and former WBCN creative director David Bieber of The David Bieber Archives at the Boch Center Wang Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 28. at 7 p.m. The event is free. (Suggested donation $20.) Books will be available for purchase and signing. 

“We even have a magician coming with some Beatles-related magic tricks!” Farrington tells me with a laugh.  “I’m waiting to see what that’s about.”

Ahead of the magic, I called to talk all things John & Yoko– and the Boston magic he’s captured over the years.

Tell me how the John and Yoko assignment happened. You got a call shortly after going freelance.

Right. I’d done publicity photography with a press agent at the Charles Playhouse named Charles Cohen. One day, I received a phone call from Cohen. He said, “Have you ever heard of John Lennon and Yoko Ono?”

[laughs]

[laughs] I said, “Of course.” He said, “Well, I might have an assignment for you.” I almost dropped the phone.

He said, “Total secrecy. You cannot tell anybody anything — but Yoko is going into the recording studio with John soon. We’re not sure when, but we want to put you on call. There’s no guarantee, total secrecy. She’s looking at other photographers.”

It was all cloak-and-dagger. I didn’t know if it would happen for weeks. Finally, I got the job. 

The assignment was to get one good photo for a press release announcing John and Yoko’s return to the studio after five years away. This would be “Double Fantasy.”

In the Beatles /John Lennon world, this was a huge announcement. The challenge would be to get the right image. So there was a lot of back-and-forth: What’s the shot? How are we going to do this? The assignment was very specific that it be John and Yoko together.

So it was a little complicated, and certainly very tense on the first day when secrecy was still the number one thing. 

Afterward, they selected one photo that went out with the official press release. The photo of them walking into the Hit Factory ran around the world.

Tell me the stories behind these shots. What was it like being there? 

There was a fair amount of tension. I was to meet them at The Dakota. When I arrived, I was told to wait, they weren’t quite ready. So I’m sitting in their Lenono Music Office [at the Dakota.] No one was coming to my aid. I’m going, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen here?” Thinking I might get kicked out at any moment. 

Then Yoko came out, we had a nice little greeting. She said, “John will be down in a few minutes.” She went back into her office. Then Fred Seaman, John’s assistant, came in like a breath of fresh air and broke the tension. He brought around a lime green Mercedes to get me to the studio.

Then, I hear John Lennon himself, singing, coming down the stairs. It was spine-tingling to hear the voice I’d heard thousands of times on records.

He burst into the room, full of energy, dressed head-to-toe in black with this enormous black hat. He seemed seven feet tall. He put his hand out: “I’m John Lennon.” I said, “I know!” [laughs] 

His energy was real. He was looking forward to the day. He looked great— tan, his hair was long and sun-lightened because he’d been in Bermuda to work on songs. 

I can sense this energy in the photos—  he seems so happy and excited. But I’m looking at this cover shot–Yoko has a steely gaze. 

[laughs] Yeah, they’re in two different worlds. I didn’t understand that at the time. She was nervous and tense. Yoko was in charge of everything — the publicity, the photographer, getting the studio, musicians, creating this environment of total secrecy. That was critical: to keep the media at bay. I think in Yoko’s mind that was the utmost way for everything to work.

Charles Cohen told me: “Yoko wants you to pretend you’re not with them. You’re not an official photographer. You are a photographer who just happened to be near the Hit Factory, and you saw John and Yoko.”

But things had already started to leak out. Ken Womack [reports in the book] one of the session musicians accidentally went to another studio and said, “I’m here for the John Lennon sessions.” And the studio said, “Oh that’s over at the Hit Factory.”  

So Yoko’s nervousness was really genuine. To a certain degree you couldn’t keep this a secret for very long.

I interviewed Lennon’s former girlfriend May Pang on her photos of Lennon during “The Lost Weekend.” It’s interesting —she also made it very much sound that Yoko was the decision-maker, the head honcho, had everything planned.

Absolutely. She was totally in charge. She had a couple of office assistants. My impression was that she didn’t trust them to do everything. She was handling every phone call.

You told me you took 31 photos.  What’s your favorite?

My favorite shot now is John smiling. John said to one of the engineers, “Yeah, this photographer, he’s my wife’s idea.” He thought that was funny. As he was smiling, I wheeled around and I grabbed that shot.

Then, of course, the shot of John with his arms in the air, guitar slung around his shoulders, so exuberant. He’s welcoming [session musician] Earl Slick: “Hey, Slick!”

Where were you when you found out John died? It was only four months later. 

I was watching the football game when Howard Cosell announced it. I was floored. I turned on WBCN, and when I heard them playing “Imagine,” I knew it was true. I was devastated.

You must have seen those photos in a new light.

I found out years later, when John looked at my photos, he said “I look like Ichabod Crane.” [laughs] His hair was long and stringy.  It was the ’80s—Yoko decided that long hair wasn’t the right look for a new record. They sent him to have his new coif.

So [after that first press release] my images were relegated to the dustbin of history. I then felt they were historical and registered the copyright. I released some with one wire service. He was murdered on Dec. 8, and they went out on Dec. 9 as some of the last images of John Lennon.

You said you photographed Matt Damon. What was that like?

Damon’s father Kent married a Boston Channel 4 news reporter, Jeanne Blake. The marriage didn’t last long. But she was a celebrity in Boston at the time. She told me, “Matt is going to be famous someday in Hollywood.” I said, “Come on, Jeanne, gimme a break.” 

[laughs]

I did a column in the Boston Ledger, which was a great newspaper in the Back Bay. Jeanne and Kent went to a charitable event. She said “Matt is going to be there, he’s got this thing being optioned by Hollywood.”

I got a shot of this guy Matt Damon, who nobody knew, with a golf putter at the Links Club in Boston. My impression— he was a great looking kid, very smart. When I saw “Good Will Hunting” I knew Jeanne Blake was right from day one!

[laughs] I love that. You need to do a Boston celebrity book.

That’s my next project.  

Prince Charles — now, of course, he’s King Charles—  came to Boston around 1986 for a royal visit– the British Consul on Beacon Hill hired me. 

I got a fun photo of Prince Charles– laughing, very candid– greeting employees and hanging out in Burberry’s on Newbury Street! That’s one for this Boston project.

You told me you got Andy Warhol when he had an exhibit on Newbury Street. Jodie Foster getting an award at the Boston Film Festival. Pavarotti. Michael Douglas — what was he here for?

The story is fantastic! He came to Boston with the cast of “Romancing the Stone” [1984.]  Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, his wife Rhea Perlman. They all came to Jordan Marsh. 

No way. 

[laughs] The CEO of Jordan Marsh was Elliot Stone. His PR staff thought: “Let’s raise money for a charity in Boston, and see if we can get the cast of “Romancing the Stone.” We’ll call the event “Romancing Elliot Stone!”[laughs] And it worked! They all came! 

I love this.

This event was amongst the racks of clothing! I have photos of  Danny DeVito on the Jordan Marsh escalator!

[laughs] This is gold. This needs to be in your book. 

In the meantime, my wife and I were drinking champagne with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas! It was electrifying. 

Oh, when Yoko Ono came to Boston! After John passed, she was working on an exhibit of John Lennon’s artwork— this was 1986 on Newbury Street at the Marlborough Street Gallery. They had to block off two blocks — thousands of people trying to get in. Yoko was staying at the Ritz. She had a press conference, and remembered me!  She introduced me to Sean, and she said, “I want you to meet Roger. He was in the studio with your father.” Sean looked up at me, probably eight years old, and said, “Oh, that’s so cool!” I’ll never forget it.

Getting back to the Beatles book: How did it come together now, 46 years after that studio session?

I didn’t think a one-day session could be a book until this author, Ken Sharp, came to me. He was doing a book on the 25th anniversary of “Double Fantasy.” He wanted to include my images. I thought, “Gee, why didn’t I think of doing a book about the making of the record?” That was the first seed.

Then I was invited to The Fest for Beatles Fans. I showed some images there, gave some talks. I was on stage with people who grew up with the Beatles, and knew them as teenagers. 

Billy Kinsley, a founder of the Merseybeats, knew John Lennon. He looked at my photo and he said, “You got him. That’s the John Lennon I remember.”  Nobody had ever said that.  I realized,  “Wait a minute— I do have something.”

I met Ken Womack at that Fest. Several years later, he came to speak at Harvard, and called to have lunch. He wanted me to help with his book. [“John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life.”]

I told him about my photos. I said, “Do you think I have a book?” He said, “Absolutely.”  

Interview has been edited and condensed. Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1 and Instagrams at @laurendaley1.

Lauren Daley

Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist who covers music, books, comedy, TV, and New England life.

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