Pictures to Die For

Journalism at its very best: Noel Young, Sunday Mail, Scotland

In search of the world’s greatest stories my hands have held Einstein’s brain and Hitler’s golden gun. My foot has stepped on the foot of the Queen of England. My body has survived an airliner crash, a submarine accident and beatings after being captured as a spy in Africa. I avoided execution in Syria, Turkey, the Congo and Paraguay. I was ambassador of a country in the South China Sea. In America I faced down the Mafia with a gun in Miami and in Texas convinced the Ku Klux Klan to take off their hoods for the first time. Then I helped change world travel by taking automatic weapons through airport security in many countries without getting caught or shot. (See cover picture) Here is my story.

When Laytner got the first and only photograph of the dread terrorist, Carlos the Jackal, Paris Match Picture Editor Michel Sola shouted, “We have James Bond working for us!”

“You are not just the James Bond of Journalism. You are also Jason Bourne, Phillip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes and Colombo.” John Wellington, Managing Editor The Mail on Sunday, London

Ron Laytner began his photojournalism career at the Toronto Telegram and became a globe-trotting journalist for such publications as England’s Mail on Sunday, Paris Match, and Germany’s Stern magazine.

His photograph ‘The Brownie’ won the Canadian National Newspaper award (Canada’s Pulitzer) and later ran in LIFE magazine, then The Best of LIFE. It was featured at the New York World’s Fair and was eventually noted in the London Sunday Times as one of the greatest photographs ever taken.

He currently resides with his wife, Linda, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.