MONTAUK — Peter Beard had swum with crocodiles, been charged by rhinos and trampled by a herd of elephants. Writer Bob Colacello once aptly described him as “half Tarzan, half Byron.”
For decades, he’d led a larger-than-life existence, both in his work and his romances with some of the world’s most beautiful women — including Candice Bergen, Cheryl Tiegs, Lee Radziwill and “For Your Eyes Only” Bond girl Carole Bouquet. It’s hard to imagine him just fading away.
But on March 31, the 82-year-old wildlife photographer, and society bad boy — said to be suffering from dementia — wandered away from his luxuriously rustic home in Montauk, Long Island, and fell off a cliff to his death.
A denizen of Studio 54 in its disco-era heyday, he numbered among his friends the likes of Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Salvador Dalí, Mrs. Onassis, Grace Jones, the Rolling Stones and Francis Bacon, who painted his portrait more than once.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/arts/peter-beard-dead.htmlFascinating man. R.I.P.