Photographic archivist Michael Ochs was born in Texas in 1943. He was a rock group manager and also ran the publicity departments of two major record labels.
Ochs began collecting photographs as a hobby. He would allow friends, including rock critics Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs, to use the images for free to illustrate their articles, but began to take a more professional approach after two incidents. First, the Los Angeles Free Press attributed one of his photos to the “Michael Ochs Archives”. Then, Dick Clark sent Ochs an unexpected check for $1,000 after Clark used some of Ochs’s pictures on a television special.
In 1987, 26 years after the death of photographer Ed Feingersh, Ochs discovered several rolls of negatives of Marilyn Monroe by Feingersh. They included a shoot commissioned by the magazine Redbook in March 1955 and included the iconic candid image of Marilyn getting ready and applying Chanel No 5.
According to a 2006 New York Times estimate, about half of the rock and roll books in circulation include photography prints from the Michael Ochs Archive.
