John Florea

John "Johnny" Florea (born in Alliance, Ohio on May 28, 1916 ; died in Las Vegas on August 25, 2000) was a television director and a photographer.

Career

Florea started as a photographer for the San Francisco Examiner, then was signed onto the staff of LIFE in 1941, living in Hollywood and specializing in celebrity portraits of actresses, such as Jane Russell.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbour which led to U.S. involvement in World War II he joined America’s first war correspondents for the Pacific war, where he covered the Marines and the Navy, especially during the Battle of Tarawa in December 1943, and from 1944 until the end of the war, he followed the American army in French and Belgian campaigns, documenting the bombing of German cities and liberation of inmates of Nordhausen Nazi concentration camp. A picture of his of an emaciated American POW was given exposure throughout the US, and his photograph “Read My Vote”, made in Japan in 1947, was included by Edward Steichen in his world-touring The Family of Man exhibition.

After the war, Florea returned to Hollywood to continue to photograph celebrities, leaving LIFE in 1949. Portraits of movie stars he made in colour in the 1950s were part of an exhibition “Masters of Starlight: Photographers in Hollywood” in 1988 at the LACMA, Los Angeles. He later became producer, director, and writer for more than 130 TV shows from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, known for his direction of episodes of Sea Hunt, The Virginian CHiPs, and the paranormal thriller Invisible Strangler.

Personal life

From 1955 to 1958 he was married to actress Marjie Millar. He also had a turbulent marriage to a woman named Shirley who sued him for violating her privacy and allegedly stabbed him. His last marriage was to Ruth Johnson and ended with his death.