Neil Leifer’s ‘Relentless’ and the art behind some of sports’ most famous photographs

On a chilly December day in 1958, budding photographer Neil Leifer finagled his way into Yankee Stadium for the NFL championship game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. Without any credentials, he embedded himself 10 yards behind the goal line, a Yashica-Mat camera safely hidden in his jacket. In sudden death overtime, Leifer took one shot of Colts running back Alan Ameche tumbling into the end zone, the football firmly in his clutches. It would become one of the most famous sports pictures of all time. Leifer had just turned 16.

Over the next 50 years, his work would grace nearly 200 covers of Sports Illustrated and Time. He captured Olympic Games, Kentucky Derbies, Super Bowls, seemingly every important heavyweight title fight since 1959, not to mention the moment when Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale walks off the field with Jim Gilliam and John Roseboro after winning Game 3 of the 1963 World Series.

Muhammad Ali and photographer Neil Leifer, holding Leifer’s famous photo taken after Ali knocked out Sonny Liston. The image is taken from Leifer’s new book, “Relentless.” (Neil Leifer)

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Leifer's new book, “Relentless” (University of Texas Press), recounts the behind-the-scenes stories of 50 of the photographer's most memorable images. The baby-faced kid from New York’s Lower East Side may be best known for his 1965 ringside shot of Muhammad Ali looming over Sonny Liston, yet the only picture of his that hangs in his home is an overhead shot of the Muhammad Ali-Cleveland Williams fight from 1966. Using a remote camera placed above the ring in the Houston Astrodome, Leifer photographed Williams knocked out, flat on his back in one corner, without the distraction of logos.

“That’s the only picture I’ve taken that I wouldn’t change a thing,” Leifer said. “I never had that feeling with anything else I shot.”

He relied on tenacity, ingenuity and luck, whether photographing inside the prison housing Charles Manson or telling Sean Connery that his pose seemed a little too effeminate for the man most knew as James Bond.

“Spending a year photographing the Battleship New Jersey as it was prepped for service from mothballs to Vietnam was a real thrill,” said Leifer, who spent three weeks onboard during the war. But that, he said, wasn’t nearly as frightening as the time he attempted ice boating in Wisconsin. 

Among the images in photographer Neil Leifer’s new book: Carl Lewis setting a world record with his teammates in the 4X100 relay at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. (Neil Leifer)

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Photographer Leifer getting a light from Fidel Castro in an undated image from “Relentless.” (Neil Leifer)

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Olympic marathon runners Kipkoech Cheruiyot and Charles Cheruiyot photographed in Nanyuki, Kenya, before the 1984 Games. (Neil Leifer)

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