Catherine Leroy

Born in Sannois, near Paris, on August 27, 1944, Catherine Leroy moved to Saigon to cover the Viêt-nam War as a freelance photographer from 1966 to 1968. In 1972, she co-directed Operation Last Patrol, a documentary film about a group of Vietnam veterans opposed to the war. Catherine Leroy moved to Beirut in 1975, at the start of the civil war in Lebanon, then returned to Vietnam to see the end of the conflict. She was the first woman to receive the Robert Capa Award in 1976 for her coverage of the Lebanese civil war. The following year, she moved to Paris, from where she traveled the world for ten years covering the Middle East, Afghanistan, Libya, and Africa. In 1979, she traveled to Tehran during the Ayatollahs' revolution in Iran, then to Belfast during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. She returned to a reunified and peaceful Vietnam in 1980. Two years later, she documented the aftermath of the massacres of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila by Christian Phalangists in Lebanon. In 1987, she moved to Los Angeles and produced eclectic subjects on America. She published her book Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam in 2005. Catherine Leroy died of widespread cancer on July 8, 2006, in Santa Monica.