DENNIS STOCK, 81

Photographed famous James Dean portrait

Dennis Stock, a photographer best known for his iconic Life magazine photo of film legend James Dean walking through a rainy Times Square in a dark overcoat, died Monday night of complications from pneumonia and cancer in Sarasota, Fla.

"His singular most iconic image would definitely be his James Dean walking down Times Square with a cigarette in his mouth, because James Dean became an icon of a generation and that image represented so much to that generation," said Mark Lubell, director of Magnum Photos, a photographic cooperative that Stock joined in 1951.

A native New Yorker and a Navy veteran who became an apprentice to Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili in 1947, Mr. Stock entered a Life magazine contest for young photographers in 1951 and won first prize.