Portrait Photographer To The Stars Dies

Cornel Lucas, who has died aged 92, made his name shooting studio portraits of film stars of the 1940s and 1950s and was said to have done more for the images of many of those he photographed than their performances on celluloid. He loved working with Katharine Hepburn, recalling that the star wore little make-up and washed her face in ice cubes to give it a glow: “She once told me that a top studio executive had called her an ugly duckling who lacked star quality. I couldn’t believe it.” By contrast, when Joan Collins arrived for a shoot in 1952, “fully made-up with hair as high as the sky”, she burst into tears when Lucas informed her that the director wanted her without make-up and with her hair down.

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