David Bailey Mark Lawson Talks To...

This programme contains some strong language

In the days before everyone took photos with their phones,

it was common to say to an ambitious amateur snapper,

"Who do you think you are, David Bailey?"

From the 1960s onwards, the name of the east Londoner

became synonymous with celebrity and fashion photography.

Such was his personal fame that he was the model

for the glamorous camera swinger

in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film, Blow-Up.

Popstars, actors,

gangsters and models

were all caught in David Bailey's irreverently-posed black and white portraits,

which challenged the formality of most previous images

of the fashionable and famous.

Bailey's work over five decades has now earned him a 2014 retrospective

at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Because of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, you're invited to look back at your work.

Do you look back with pride

or are there things that you're disappointed by looking back?

I don't really get disappointed because it's the past

and the past doesn't exist any more so it doesn't really bother me much.

Looking back, I hate nostalgia so...

Not in everything. I like Cole Porter.

But looking back on things, no, I don't really care.

And, basically, what I do in the photography area

doesn't really change because I've taken the same picture since I was probably 16.

But looking back at your own work, do you feel,

wow, what a career?

No, I think, shit, what a lot of work.

I'm glad I don't have to do it again!

Next time I'll come back as something else, as a gardener maybe,

an ornithologist, haha!

And people often say that doctors make bad patients.

So for you as a photographer, being filmed or photographed yourself,

-are you uneasy with that?

-No. It depends.

I mean, I avoid photographers like the plague

because they take too long and I'm nearly 76,

I haven't got a lot of time left so I want to make the most of what I've got,

not muck around with somebody taking hundreds of pictures.

There are some amazing self-portraits of you.

I don't know if they're amazing.

-I've got a good face to work on, haven't I?

-That's what I mean, yeah.

I'm joking!

-No, they're like King Lear, some of those ones.

-Oh, I like you!

King Lear, maybe! I'm not sure!

Better than Macbeth, I guess.

But speed, speed's important to you in working?

No, no, it's people not getting bored.

I mean, taking a picture is a bit like having sex.

If it takes more than 20 minutes, someone's going to get bored

and nine times out of ten, it'll be the woman too!

When you came in, you had a camera around your neck,

which I can't see now but you're probably sitting on it, are you?

-Yeah.

-Do you always carry one?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, I suppose if you haven't got,

like I bet you always take your glasses everywhere you go?

-I do.

-So I...

-And a pen.

I always want a camera everywhere I go. I don't want to miss anything.

Maybe once a year, you get something.

But it's worth it just for that once a year.

And how often would you spring into action, not very often?

If someone rushed in here now and shot you in the head, I'd take a picture.

Good. That's reassuring to know.

Actually, these days, almost everyone has a phone

which has a camera on it.

-Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

-But... Is it?

Millions of photographs being taken all the time, millions of people

that think they're photographers, has that devalued the profession?

No, the opposite.

The same thing happened with Box Brownies in 1895

when they came out, 1899 or whenever it was.

They said this would be the end of art photography

because everyone could take a picture. Nothing changed.

It still went on, these stupid arguments.

So no, I think it's great.

It's better for me, because they can't do what I do.

That's what I mean, so you draw a clear distinction

-between professionals and amateurs?

-Of course. Yeah, yeah.

I always say they can take one great picture in their life.

I've managed to do two so I've always got the edge!

You know, if I get five great pictures a year, I'm really excited.

-So how much does the equipment matter?

-It doesn't matter at all.

People say, "What's the best camera?"

I say, "The one in my pocket or the one round my neck".

It's not the camera that takes a picture, it's the person.

It doesn't really matter.

It's best to have that because it's more convenient.

Especially if you're in Nagaland

or some of the mad places we sometimes end up in,

or Sudan or somewhere, or Afghanistan,

you don't want something you're going to have to muck around with,

you need something strong.

So professional cameras have their virtue.

It's a bit like, you wouldn't take a Ferrari to the desert, would you?

You'd take a Land Rover Defender or something.

So it's choosing the right job.

But if you always want to have a camera with you,

the phone's a very good idea.

Good girl, good girl.

That's lovely. Hang about, this is marvellous. Good.

Open your mouth slightly.

'The winsome David Bailey,

'who created the famous model, Jean Shrimpton,

'and married the famous mother, Catherine Deneuve,

'shows how to bring out the best in a woman

'with a combination of charm and authority.'

Good, lean forward slightly.

Did you set out to become famous? Was it important to you?

I don't know about fame.

It's sort of...

I mean, I've sort of been famous since I was about 24.

It's a strange thing that Mick, Jean,

Donovan, Duffy, Michael Caine, Terry Stamp,

me, we all knew each other

before any of us had really done anything, really.

We just kind of...

Mick was a bit more posh than we were and so was Jean,

in a way, because their parents, well, Mick's,

I think his father was a gymnast

and Jean's was a nouveau riche kind of builder in Buckinghamshire

or somewhere. Anyway, it was funny how that group of people

all went on to do something. It was kind of completely fortuitous

that they all happened to know each other.

I mean, they're all basically from London.

You know all that nonsense about the Beatles inventing swinging London?

It was well on its way before I'd even done that trip to New York

with Jean that helped change fashion.

I mean, I didn't know I was doing that at the time,

I just what it was a nice way to take pictures. And that's all a nonsense.

The Beatles didn't make the swinging '60s,

the swinging '60s made the Beatles.

So all of you, you've been famous for, yeah, 50, 60 years?

Yeah, God, yeah.

And at the time before, when you knew each other at the start,

were you ambitious, all of you?

I was ambitious at doing what I was doing.

And Mick was ambitious about Bo Diddley.

That's why I liked the Stones,

because they came out of the blues and the jazz,

and when I was 15, or 14 even,

I bought a trumpet because I wanted to play the trumpet like Chet Baker.

In fact, that's one of the reasons I started taking pictures.

I thought I'd take a picture of me looking like Chet Baker, haha!

The 1960s, was it an extra ordinary period

or is it overrated by people that weren't there?

It was great for a couple of, maybe five or 1,000 people in London,

but as somebody said, it wasn't great if you were a coal miner in Yorkshire

or whatever somewhere else,

or a shipbuilder in, where is it,

with all the bridges, Newcastle or somewhere.

So yeah, it was great because it was the first time, in a way,

you know, you had like Turner and Hogarth got through the class barrier

but it was the first time that kind of the working class had a voice,

a creative voice.

Yes, very tasty. Yes, I like it. Yes, yes!

Go on, yes! Yes! Yes!

When you saw Antonioni's Blow-Up in the '60s, did you,

because it's always said to have been based on you

-and they came to see you...

-Bits of it were because of Francis Wyndham.

He was drinking, as journalists do,

and he said,

"Bailey, I've got a confession."

I said, "I'm sure you've got a lot, Francis."

He says, "No, no, I wrote the 200-page synopsis for Antonioni."

I said, "Oh...

"That explains a lot,

"because how did they know I paid £8 for a propeller?"

And he knew because we were working together,

we were doing David Bailey's Box Of Pin-ups.

And he said, "Are you angry?"

I said, "No, you're a journalist, what can I expect?

-"I mean, a boy's got to eat!"

-Let's go to your childhood.

What's the earliest family photograph of you that exists?

Oh, when I was a thing, you know.

I don't know.

-I don't know, a baby.

-A toddler.

-Standing?

-Tinted. No, sitting.

It's quite a nice picture.

And your mum had taken you off to a studio to be photographed, presumably?

You know, it's always the women that want to get you out of the mess

and we lived in a two-up two-down,

or 2.5 up and 2.5 down.

And my mother's sister and her husband and kids

lived upstairs and we lived downstairs.

This is in East Ham after we were bombed,

because where we were living got bombed. The house next door got bombed

but we were all right because we were in the shelter

at the bottom of the backyard. But the, uh...

So my mother wanted to...be better.

I mean, my dad used cockney slang and he had a great big razor scar.

And my mother wanted things to be better.

My mother looked like a very strong, kind of beautiful in a way,

she looked like a gypsy. And they were always well-dressed.

because people would say, "I thought you were poor." We weren't that poor.

You know, I had cardboard in the holes in my shoes and things like that, but...

If you trod on a pebble or a bit of glass, it was awful!

The soundtrack to my childhood was broken glass, really,

because of playing on bomb sites.

If I hear broken glass now, I think of the war.

Everything was, "Crack, crack!"

And it was great fun breaking the windows on building sites.

Despite the cardboard in the shoes and everything else, you went to a private school.

If you call it a private school. It was, uh...

Probably worse than the school I already went to.

I think it was £7 a term. And, uh...

The richest people that went there owned tobacconist shops,

so you work it out for yourself. It was like, my mum...

-Trying to better herself.

-And, you know, because I was dyslexic

and they didn't know what dyslexic was, I didn't truly know what it was

until I was about 25. I used to get caned for it as well, by the way.

For dyslexia?

Well, they didn't call it dyslexia.

They just called you stupid, did they?

Stupid and arrogant.

Because they thought I could really do it but I didn't want to do it.

You were born in '38. Once you started to be aware of what was going on,

it was the Second World War. That just seemed normal, did it?

At what point did you become aware

that this huge emergency was going on?

I never thought it was. It was just normal.

I mean, it wasn't scary or anything. Uh...

It just was. I remember, you know,

they used to put brown tape on the windows

and I remember being alone with my sister

and all the windows came crashing in

and I remember dragging her under the table

because they always said, get under a table or under a doorway, you know?

And that was the first time I was a hero, haha!

Probably the last time I was a hero!

And I got so much praise. I thought, "Oh!"

And your childhood, you were being bombed quite a lot.

People would say that was traumatic for children.

Not for a kid, no, it's all nonsense, isn't it?

It's just a bit of fun, really.

-I used to like playing on the bomb sites.

-Were you ever frightened?

-No!

Course not, no. What's there to be frightened of?

-I mean, it's sort of...

-Well, there were people trying to kill you.

I didn't like Hitler. I was more annoyed with Hitler

because he killed Bambi and Mickey Mouse, you know?

He bombed the cinema?

He bombed the cinema at Upton Park,

which was one of those Egyptian Art Deco affairs.

You know, at six, you think, God, I can't see Bambi any more,

cos I associated Bambi and Mickey Mouse with that one cinema.

I suppose that's where I saw it. We went to the cinema a lot

cos it was cheaper than putting a shilling in the gas.

-So you saw many more films than most children would?

-Probably, yeah.

And on Saturday mornings after the war, you'd...

# Come along one Saturday morning

# Greeting everybody with a smile. #

I was quite odd for the East End, in a way,

because I vaguely stopped eating meat when I was about 12 or 13.

I remember arguing with my mum, saying, "By the end of the century,

"half the population of the world won't eat meat."

But anyway... And I used to do things that were,

I don't know where it came from.

Maybe my mother in a funny sort of way.

Definitely not my father because I never saw him.

So what made you a vegetarian, do you think?

I think not having meat as a kid,

you know, as a small kid during the war,

and then they suddenly put this meat in front of you and you think,

I'm not sure I want to eat this kind of flesh.

And because of the dyslexia, you weren't reading,

that was your entertainment, that was your education, really, cinema?

Completely. Hollywood cinema, not as art critics talk about, the New Wave.

And did you think of Hollywood as glamour, glamorous?

Yeah, I thought of people like Fred Astaire, who was a hero.

John Huston was a sort of hero.

People like James Dean and, you know, James Dean read Dostoevsky,

so I thought, I'd better try and read that.

And my Jewish mate called me a punk for not reading enough.

He said, "You punk, you'll never be smart unless you read."

So now I can read because I see the words.

I can't spell them but I can see them. I can tell you what they mean.

And then if you said, "Now write them down", I can't.

So it's kind of like almost wordblind, in a way.

And when you were going to the cinema, your eye for a face,

did you have that very early on?

Would you think about people's faces, how they looked?

No, the first time I thought about the way people looked was my mother.

Because once a year we used to go up west, as it was called,

and she used to go to Selfridge's. She couldn't afford the clothes.

I mean, her favourite song was,

# She may be weary girls they do get weary

# Wearing the same shabby dress...

# But when she's weary try a little tenderness... #

And, oh! Bing Crosby.

I mean, I love Bing Crosby.

But anyway, I remember her going to Selfridges

and it must've been around about '49

because New Look had got to Selfridges at that time

cos Dior did it in '48, I think.

And I remember twisting round with this skirt, like a derbish,

-what are they called?

-A whirling dervish.

Yes, and I thought, "My God, that's so beautiful.

And that was the first...

Woman I thought was beautiful, was my mother spinning around like that.

My first visual image is the sides of buildings bombed away,

because you used to have the wallpaper left and the doors left,

and sometimes a cooker left, sometimes even a bed, left, in fact.

My uncle,

he slept through it. He woke up and looked round and there was no floor!

He was sitting on the...

So, that kind of collage is my earliest visual thing,

that might have influenced my art, or whatever you want to call,

whatever bollocks you want to call it.

But then, also, the first beautiful woman you saw was your mother.

-Have you ever been to a shrink? They'd make a lot of that.

-No.

If I went to a shrink, he'd have to go to a shrink himself!

As you say, anyone can take photographs now,

but when you were growing up, it was, it was a complicated business.

Cameras were bulky, developing was messy and complicated.

When did you first have the opportunity to take photographs?

Well, my mother's Box Brownie.

When I was about 13.

She used to give me her cooking things.

And down the coal cellar, I used to, I didn't have a spiral,

but I used to do that with the film.

I used to love, nothing to do with anything,

other than the magic of being able to do that in the dark,

and you put the light on, and there was an image.

And that's really what interested me.

And it wasn't until much later, when I started seeing the jazz covers

by William Claxton, and then later, I saw a Cartier-Bresson picture,

I thought, "Oh, shit, there's more to this photography than I thought."

So what kind of things did you take pictures of when you started?

I was trying to photograph birds,

because I thought it would be great to be an ornithologist.

It would tell me about Latin.

And I couldn't understand why the birds were always this big in my picture,

because I didn't know there was such a thing as a telephoto lens!

Also, they move a lot, don't they?

Well, yeah, I used to set up a brick and oh! In the back yard.

What, so to try to attract them to come and sit?

Yeah, well, the seed,

and then take the picture when they went on a brick.

Right!

You left school in 1953. You went to newspapers and Fleet Street.

And in those days, journalists worked on typewriters

and they produced copy, which was run around the building,

and that's what you did, you were a copy boy.

Yes, copy boy, gofer, kind of thing. Same thing.

I'm minded to call it gopher.

-Yeah.

-The thing you see in films and documentaries where they shout

"copy" and you race across - it was like that, was it?

I remember them shouting a lot.

Not particularly knowing what they were shouting about.

The worst was running down to King's Cross from Fleet Street

with the blocks for the advertising.

So those were the printing blocks which would go to the train,

-would they, to go to the printers?

-Yeah.

Did you find that glamorous, newspapers?

No, I thought it was more interesting.

Because before that, I'd had lots of jobs.

In fact, I was a bad debt collector when I was 17. That wasn't funny.

I was really too young. I was only 17.

You were supposed to be 21 to collect bad debts in those days.

But my boss was called Mickey Fox, from Mile End. And...

That was kind of fun, in a way.

Was it scary, though?

You'd get... It wasn't scary to get a black eye in those days.

You know, you got thumped. That was it.

And, er...

There was more offers of sex than black eyes, I must say.

What, sex, rather than, in exchange for the debt?

Yeah, they'd say, "I can't pay you this week, but..." Yeah.

And I used to put in the tosheroon, as we'd call it,

two and six myself sometimes!

It wasn't a compliment! It wasn't something you'd want.

So, what, did you ever accept these?

No!

HE GIGGLES

They seemed like old women to me. They were probably 22.

Right, yeah, yeah. So you would pay the debt for them rather than have sex with them.

A couple of times, yeah.

-Two and six was called a tosheroon.

-Right.

It was never more than two bob a week or two and six a week.

And then, I forget what they were called, the people,

WE didn't even like them, people that dumped things in people's houses

and say, we'll pick them up next week.

And, by that time, they always dumped sheets and stockings

because they were the two things women can't resist opening.

So, once they open them, they would be put on the book.

They were the HP firms?

Yeah, yeah. Great Universal Stores.

It was called the never-never, because you never, never owned it.

And, er...

But that, it was all signs on the doors, you know?

If it said "DS",

it meant "don't serve" because it meant they never paid.

I forget most of them.

Used to put milk bottles up against the door

to see if they were in or not.

Oh, what, so if you put that there,

and if they came to collect the milk?

-No, no, because they'd knock the milk bottles over and break them.

-I see.

I used to get beat up, and there was gangs,

and the Barking boys and the Canning Town boys,

and later, the Krays, they were more Whitechapel way.

But, er, the gangs were accepted, you know?

And if you got beat up, I got really beat up.

There was this wonderful girl called Eileen Murnham.

She looked like Snow White. She had blue eyes and black hair.

Kind of rare.

And I was sort of mad about her, and so was Terry Stamp.

Although Stamp and I didn't know each other, we knew each other by sight.

He was what they called "a face".

And there was... HE COUGHS

Sorry, and going down into Bethnal Street Station, Bethnal Green,

I think it was Bethnal Green, no, it was Stepney Green Station.

And he had a suede jacket on. This must have been '56 or something.

And I thought, "Shit, that guy's cool!"

So what did "a face" mean?

It meant someone who was, who had a presence around town, you know?

Round the East End. So he was a face.

-Were you a face?

-I guess so. I didn't think I was at the time.

But, anyway, the outcome was, I danced with this girl.

It turns out she was going out with the second in command

of the Barking boys.

So three of them did me up.

And once you've been beaten up and you don't snitch on them,

you're protected by them.

After that, I was protected by them,

because you sort of come on the firm, then.

As they said, probably the worst words they ever said to me

was from Reg, "Dave, mate, Dave, you're on the Firm now, mate."

Oh, Christ!

Just want to do pictures!

And, er... So that was that.

And Eileen Murnham, she emigrated to Canada.

And married a bank clerk.

So she could have had me or Stamp, Terry Stamp!

I think probably she did the right thing!

And you're part of that generation

-that got called up for National Service.

-Yeah, just missed it.

I tried to get out. I tried to pretend I was gay

and all the usual sort of tricks.

They said, "What sport do you like?" "Oh, ping-pong!" It didn't work!

So what, you went in front of this committee, did you?

Yeah, in Wanstead. In Wanstead. I remember having to go away to Wanstead and being asked.

And somebody told me if you, not walnuts,

there's a nut that, you scrape it and put it in things,

really hard nut, they said, if you take that for three days,

it will make your heart go quick. So I took that for three days.

Stayed up for three nights,

and went and passed A1!

LAUGHTER

-So, you had to go, and then you ended up in?

-Oh, I had a great time.

I mean, you make the most of situations, don't you?

I've always taken that existential view that,

if something goes wrong, use it.

It's not existential, it's really Zen in a way.

So, you twist it around, and I had it solved.

I was in Singapore and Malaya.

In fact, in Singapore, I had my own hut.

I had six guys working for me.

I mean you can't, they were called coolies in those days, but six.

And my own three-tonne lorry and I wangled a job called AOG clerk.

Which means Aircraft On the Ground.

So you had top priority, because to get your plane landed,

I had to go and make sure that it was serviced properly.

No qualifications at all, just a bit of bluff and talk.

And then I realised, if I was on the jungle rescue team, I'd even do less.

Less station duties! You know, station duty was boring

because you had to polish your shoes, and wear a proper uniform, you know.

And, er, I had a great time.

And then I got the best looking WAAF-er in the Far East,

so I really had it organised.

And, on National Service, photography, you did some there.

Oh, yeah. You know, but they wanted me to sign on for five years.

No, thank you.

So I didn't.

But there was lots of photography groups, people taking pictures,

and I took lots of pictures in Singapore.

I've still got my Chinese pawn ticket, where I used to pawn it

every two weeks, my cameras, to pay for the film to get processed.

You know, out of my 24 shillings a week.

And then you came back to London,

and that's when your academic record, with the dyslexia,

let you down, and you couldn't go to photography.

Yes, no, I thought, it wasn't my suggestion.

Because I didn't know there was,

I didn't think too much about art schools, or...

You know, something you did.

And the Army said, "You should go to

"the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts."

So, I went up to see them and they said "No", because...

they've claimed in the past, that I was there, but I didn't.

I'd burn the place down, if I had my way!

They said, you couldn't, you couldn't

because you didn't have GCE's or something,

I don't know what GCE's were, in English and mathematics,

what that has got to do with taking pictures, is beyond my imagination.

And photographers had lots of assistants

-and that's how you got into it, that was the apprenticeship?

-Yeah, yeah.

John French.

Nice man.

But to be the main guy, were you thinking, I want to get to being...

No. It seemed something beyond imagination.

Even John French, who was a really nice gay guy,

but he was hardly a great photographer,

he was kind of a people's photographer.

He never went to Vogue

or Vogue Heaven, wherever they all go!

I'm sure he's at the Daily Express Heaven!

He was kind of a Daily Express...

Lots of photographers, just because they're in the '60s,

people think they were great, they weren't.

They were kind of glorified press photographers.

And we talked about it mainly being instinct

and not being able to be trained, really,

but as an assistant, did you learn things?

Not from him! I had to unlearn things!

I mean, technically, yes.

You know, about processing, but not the way he took pictures.

I had to try and get rid of it, because he was so staid

and he never touched the camera, he used to look in the camera

and when he said, "Still", you pressed the tip.

And, in the end,

you think, "That's good," and press it before him and he'd get very angry

and sometimes I used to look at the clothes and think, "Oh!"

It was mostly black-and-white, in those days, if it was colour,

it was always on 10x8 cameras, and I used to think, "Oh,

"they're white, he'll want a grey background."

So, I'd put up a grey background. Then he'd say,

"Who put the grey background up?"

"I thought you'd want it..." "No.

"Change it to black."

He was only changing it, because I'd set it up before he did!

And then I had notches on the tripod,

so I knew what height for different things he wanted.

So, they were always very formal posed portraits?

Yeah, he always had a cigarette, he looked like Fred Astaire.

Very elegant man.

Quite a good painter, much better painter than a photographer.

And, er,

he smoked very much like that.

He never lost his cool.

I remember, in the darkroom,

there was a curtain and I was loading up all the day shoot,

and there was 18 of them sitting and I thought, "Shit! I can see them."

"Oh, the curtain's not quite closed..."

I pulled it across and, of course, there's a bloody light switch there.

They were all there!

I thought, "Oh, fuck me, I have lost the job!"

So, I went to see him,

I said, "Mr French,

"something terrible has happened." He said, "What?"

He said, "Oh, dear,

"David, I'm shocked."

He said, "Let's go and have a look." I showed him it and he said, "Well,

"I can see why it happened, this isn't your fault,

"this is whoever built the darkroom."

I mean, because I pulled the curtain back over,

I thought it was letting light in.

So, I kept the job.

What is it for you that a photograph should ideally do?

If I like the way it is,

it's not a question of what other people think,

I couldn't care less what you think or what the editor of Vogue thinks,

if she didn't like it, don't use it.

And, er,

I just think, I don't know.

I am not interested in composition, all that silly nonsense.

All that crap they teach you.

It's the emotion in the picture that counts,

it's trying to find something in somebody...

People say...

"Is he interesting?", EVERYONE is interesting.

There was a film called The Naked City,

Weegee, based on an Ouija board, called The Naked City

and the voiceover said,

"Everyone's got a story."

I thought, "Shit! This guy's got it right!"

So, whenever I do somebody,

whether it's a builder, or a nuclear scientist or a poet,

or...whoever, everyone has got a story,

even the most boring people, or you think they're boring,

have got a story, so I always try and look for the story in them.

And there was a phrase you used once,

which was about evaluating the character of the person

you were photographing and that...

It's a silent interview in a way,

you're supposed to get something of them...

Well, you do, you know,

like you're sitting there with your toes pointing inwards,

which I find quite strange, it's a bit like The Longest Day,

when Richard Burton was smoking a fag

and the American comes in and says, "Look at that German!"

And the man says, "Yeah",

"He's got his boots on the wrong foot!"

You'd wouldn't have to tell me that,

I would notice that immediately. I noticed you sit

with your toes pointing inwards, which not many people do.

It's because I got very long legs.

I do not why you do it, I'm not a doctor, I just notice things.

-No, it's true it's because of having long legs.

-Is it, yeah?

And I'm trying not to bump knees with you.

In the portrait photographs, the image you end up with...

So, for example, Andy Warhol leaning towards the camera,

Michael Caine, cigarette in his mouth,

John Lennon with his arms draped over Paul McCartney's shoulders,

Jack Nicholson laughing in that amazing way into our faces.

Would you go in with an idea of what you wanted to do?

No, never. Never. I don't want to know.

If I know what I'm going to do, then I'll get someone else to do it.

There's no point.

I mean, what I do is against a white piece of paper, mostly.

I can do your other shit if you want and...

So, I depend on the person to take the picture, in a way.

I sort of charm you, be rude to you,

seduce you,

fall in love with you. I always...

For that, whatever it is, 20 minutes, or half hour,

depending how much fun you're having,

it's not like going to the dentist, it's sort of...

-And do you direct the sitter a lot?

-Yeah.

With dialogue.

-I don't say, "Put your elbow there."

-No, no.

-I let them do that.

And we're talking a long time ago, but that Lennon and McCartney image

which is so often shown, still, do you remember what you did?

Did they just start...playing around or what?

I don't remember, really. I got on really well with John.

I had more in common with John than Paul, really.

Paul's a nicer guy, but I prefer arseholes

and John was a bit like me, he was a bit of an arsehole.

So, that image of Jack Nicholson,

the way he's laughing which is something,

that's how we think of him, that's something about him.

-That's just an instinct?

-Yeah, you can feel it.

When I saw Easy Rider, I saw Jack like that, I turned to...

I forget who I was with. I think...

Catherine Deneuve, I think. I don't remember.

I remember saying, "Shit. Jack's a star."

That was the moment he became a star, when he went...

HE SQUEAKS Easy Rider, terrible movie.

But that moment Jack did that is that moment he became a star.

Did you get on with Andy Warhol?

Yeah. I mean...

one of my achievements in life is getting Andy to talk

in that documentary. Getting him to say hello,

you'd feel like you'd achieved something.

So, this is true, he was silent most of the time?

He chatted to me a lot though.

He used to say extraordinary things like...

Kind of childish, in a way, but interesting, almost surreal,

in the real sense of surreal,

not in the fucking newsreader's idea of surreal.

He used to say things like... I remember we were driving along once,

going up to Baby Jane's house, Baby Jane Holzer,

and I'm driving and he said...

"Hey, do you ever wonder what happened to the people

"that make buttons?"

I thought, "Shit. That's a good one, Andy."

THEY LAUGH

I said, "Not really." But I liked the way he was thinking

cos it made you think, "Yeah, what did happen to all those people

"that made buttons?" What he was saying really is

-everybody's interesting, in a way.

-Matters.

Everyone has a story, as you say.

And you say everyone has a story, but have you ever had someone

in front of you where you thought, "I can't do anything with this face?"

No, sometimes the face is enough.

The famous Indian director, what's he called?

-Shakespeare Wallah and all those films.

-Ivory.

-No, Satyajit Ray.

-Oh, Satyajit Ray, yeah.

-No, Ivory, he was a producer, wasn't he?

-Yeah.

No, Satyajit Ray, really interesting man.

He had a face like an Egyptian Mummy, a bit like Miles Davis.

It looked like it was made of leather.

I think I was using 5x4. I quite like plate cameras

cos I can touch you when I'm taking the picture,

whereas if you're looking down at my bald head, you think,

fucking Friar Tuck's taking your picture.

Whereas, that, I can talk to you and touch you.

I couldn't get anything,

so I went like that.

I got the picture.

I mean, it was kind of a rude thing to do to someone who's

bordering on genius, I guess.

It's sort of worth it.

As you know, the Kray brothers,

there was a certain amount of controversy,

including from your fellow film-maker Lord Snowdon.

Did you ever have qualms about...?

-As you say, you'd been around them growing up.

-No. No, why?

Because they killed people.

So do politicians. So did Churchill.

So did Roosevelt. So did Stalin. So did Mao.

I mean, all people that are really famous are all arseholes

through history. There's not many Gandhis out there.

Everyone who's famous...

You know, if you were a Martian and you came to earth, you'd think,

"These are very strange people cos half of them are killing

"each other and the other half are watching football on television."

You can see how confusing it would be.

No. No, I think...

I hate journalists or...

Yes, if you're passionate about something, I can understand it.

But I try to be observant, rather than emotional.

-So, you're not morally judging the people?

-No, no. I can't.

Why would I?

I tried to photograph Gaddafi for Harper's Bazaar

and Graydon was all for it and he said,

"It's good cos you're not Jewish, so you'll be all right there."

Most of the photographers are Jewish like that in that area.

Then he said, "Oh, no, I don't think so. It's a bit dangerous."

Anyway, little things like that.

But I wouldn't judge him.

I mean, he's obviously a scumbag.

But Reg and Ron were scumbags but...

..they were a bit like the Cossacks. Have you read Tolstoy's Cossacks?

They kind of keep themselves apart. They kind of...

They wouldn't deal with prostitution or drugs

cos they thought it was immoral. It's all right to chop off someone's head.

It's a bit like being an insurance company, in a way.

At least they're more honest than most insurance companies

cos you knew where you stood with them.

You didn't have to read the small print.

-Were you ever frightened of the Krays?

-No, not really. No.

They came from my background.

You know, probably, you were just as scared of the police

as you were the gangsters. Gangsters were a normal part of life.

When I used to go up to my dad's club in Hackney,

on Fridays, I used to see him with these two guys talking in corners.

One day, I said, "Who are those guys?" He said, "They're CID.

"I'm paying them off."

Cos it was either pay the gangs or pay the police. It was normal.

Nobody judged anybody. That's the way it was.

With photographing women, was it relevant

-whether or not you found them attractive?

-Oh, yeah, I think so.

It helps.

Yeah, that was early on, you know, up until I was about...

Men started to appear much more in my pictures in the late '60s,

but, obviously, working for Conde Naste, for Vogue -

for American Vogue as well, not just English Vogue, or British Vogue...

I say English Vogue cos it annoys them. And...

Yeah, so it was mostly women.

And then... Cos I didn't start...

My early pictures were portraits for the Daily Express.

That's where they saw my pictures.

And there was a picture editor called Harold Kebald,

who was a very nice man. He used to give me half a page...

Well, it was a big paper in those days.

He used to give me a half page on Thursdays.

And on Mondays, it used to announce,

"David Bailey's exciting new picture."

And I hadn't even taken it, and that gave me a few sleepless nights.

I was only 20 or something. I thought, "Ooh!"

It says "great picture," and I haven't taken it!

-Were they portraits?

-Yeah, portraits, and things.

Then I did a picture of a girl talking to a squirrel

on the floor, you know. It's now become a sort of...

..one of those iconic pictures, which... It's a bit silly.

A girl on her knees talking to a stuffed squirrel with a few

autumn leaves. But it somehow caught everyone's imagination.

Then, my mate Donovan phoned me up.

He said, "Oi, Dave,

"was that an accident, or did you do it on purpose?"

I said, "No, of course I did it on purpose!"

He said, "You've just changed photography."

Which was great, coming from Donovan, cos he was a big critic as well.

# I'm a steam roller, baby

# I'm going to roll all over you... #

And then another way in which you changed photography was

-when you went with Shrimpton to New York.

-Oh, that was something else.

Cos now there was cameras that they didn't want me to use, Vogue.

They used to cheat.

They used to blower the contacts up on an enlarger

so that they thought I was using a bigger camera.

But by the time they'd published them, I could get away with it.

I used to try to explain, it's not a loss of quality,

it's a change of quality.

You always find a word to get around things.

And, no, I wanted the girls to be more free.

I mean, they wanted me to do...

I mean, she was a nightmare, the woman.

She wanted me to do girls leaning against lions

outside the New York library. And I said, we've got better...

old doo-dahs... Not very good either,

but we've got Landseer's lions in Trafalgar Square.

And that was a struggle

cos they didn't want the kind of New York I wanted. I wanted Harlem.

In fact, I did lots of pictures down in Harlem on that shoot,

and people were shocked that I went down there alone.

But I think if you just go to places

and don't think it's going to be awful...it's OK.

And, in those days,

did male photographers hope or expect to sleep with the models?

I don't think they expected to.

-But it was a perk.

-Most of them were gay anyway, in those days,

most of the fashion photographers. So, they were fairly safe.

You were more in danger than the models!

Even an assistant.

But, no, I think that's all a myth.

I mean, if you're an airline pilot,

you're probably going to sleep with a few air hostesses.

And if you're a doctor, I bet you're going to sleep with some nurses.

And if you're a film director, you're going to sleep with

the script girl, or, you know, so it's normal, I mean,

it's who you're in...who you're with, it just happens to be

models who are more beautiful than most people.

I don't know how much feminist writing you read,

but they talk about the male gaze

and the objectification of women in fashion photography.

Oh, yeah, I got slagged off by all those people in the '70s.

-Those silly women.

-Did you...

They weren't feminists Fay Weldon's a feminist,

and she's a good mate, and she wrote one of my books.

I thought she should do the book on my wife

cos she's a feminist, and I thought that'd take the sting

out of all the feminists that then attacked me.

And they even attacked on that.

They said, "How can you call a book The Lady Is A Tramp?"

I think it's Rodgers and Hart who wrote the music, didn't they?

If they took the trouble to read the words of The Lady Is A Tramp,

they'd realise it's probably the biggest compliment you could

pay a woman. So, do a bit of research before you judge it.

And, then, I did another book of, kind of, exotic nudes,

and Germaine Greer said, "Oh, it's bondage."

I mean, it shows her intellect's a bit limited cos it wasn't.

It was based on a Mexican, Bravo, photographer,

who I think's probably one of the most important surrealists

that ever lived, much more important than Dali, or somebody like that,

who did, sort of, Disney surrealism.

But Bravo is interesting,

and the book was based on a Bravo picture that he did in 1935, I think.

Weren't you ever affected by, particularly with the nudes,

-the suggestion you were exploiting women?

-Of course!

Yeah, like, Titian did.

I didn't mind exploiting nudes like Titian did.

-But you had the power, though, didn't you?

-So did Titian!

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily excuse it.

It's an unequal relationship, isn't it?

No, it's not! They can say no!

And if they say, "I don't like that picture," I wouldn't use it.

I'd say, "Oh, you don't like it? Oh."

Usually they don't like it not cos...

And I'll tell you something about women often in that age,

I think it's a bit silly,

at a certain age still doing nudes, it's becomes a bit silly.

But, for young people, it's normal. And...

It depends on how good their body was.

If they had a good body and felt confidence, they'd do nudes.

It's nothing to do with morality.

It was to do with, "How am I going to look in this?"

And lots of them now I meet them and they say,

"Thanks for taking those nudes because I wish I still looked like that."

The photographs you took of your wife naked, also giving birth...

-All my wives.

-Well, yeah.

But was that difficult to negotiate, or were they always up for that?

-They were up for it.

-Did you have to persuade them, though?

-No!

No. No.

In no way.

If you knew all my wives,

you'd realise how strong... And my girlfriends, as well,

they're all very strong,

they've all got a tremendous sense of humour.

And most men wouldn't want to be with them cos they're too independent.

-But I love that.

-You've been married four times.

-Do you regard the first three as failures or successes?

-No!

They were all great. All.... No, no. I mean, I loved...

Some, I wasn't married to, like Penelope, I was with for eight years.

She's great. I mean, I love her, I loved her then, and I love her now.

And Deneuve, I sort of loved her.

There's some people you can love but can't live with. It's normal.

Just because you love somebody,

doesn't mean to say you'd live with them. And...

So, I'm lucky. I was lucky to find Catherine, my current wife because

she's probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd probably be

dead without her cos I don't really take care of myself much.

Did you try to end them well, the earlier relationships?

Well, we're mates. All my best mates are my ex-wives.

I never see the first one. That was a kid marriage, really.

It was, kind of, for her to get out of where she was,

and me to get out of the East End, in a way. But the...

No, we're all friends. In fact, Catherine was funny.

I didn't know we'd divorced even.

I was in Paris doing a shoot, and she phoned me and she said, "Bailey,

"we got divorced today." "Oh, did we?" She said, "Isn't it great?"

I said, "Yeah, if you like."

She said, "It's great cos we can be lovers now."

It's... Most journalists would say that in recent years, celebrities

and especially film stars, they've become much more

protective of their images, layers of management, PRs.

So, for example, by the time you take Johnny Depp, 1995,

I think it was, that photograph, did you become aware of that?

Did it become harder to photograph stars?

No, he's great, Johnny Depp.

I mean, in fact, I did him first in the dumpster, the skip,

outside the studio.

I watched him cos I got a little balcony, and I heard someone

coming down the road and I thought, "First of all, it's a good sign,

"he's by himself, he's not with ten lawyers, ten agents, and ten PRs."

Cos then it's difficult. Then I probably won't do it. And...

I open the door to him. He said, "I'm Johnny." I said, "I know, you look like a piece of shit.

"Jump in the skip."

And from that moment on, I had an affinity with him.

You mention people turning up with ten lawyers and all that.

I mean, has it become harder to photograph?

No, cos I wouldn't stand for it. I'm sure it has...

You have to push your weight around a bit.

But you have to have some weight before you start pushing them around.

And I just say, "I won't do it. Go away."

I won't do somebody who wants approval or...

I wonder about that - you would never allow image approval?

No. Don't do it.

I mean, I've turned down people cos they want the negatives

-and things like that.

-Go on, tell us. Who?

-No, it doesn't matter.

It's really interesting, go on.

I think lots of those sports people want to own the image

-and things like that.

-Beckham types?

-Yeah.

-Have you ever photographed Beckham?

-No.

-I think he's great, by the way.

-That's an amazing face, isn't it?

Well, it's a good-looking face. I'm not sure it's an amazing face.

More Greek than Roman. But, yeah, it's all right. It's all right.

Celebrity is something that has also spread because of talent show,

TV, the internet.

There are many, many more celebrities than there used to be.

Some of them don't last very long.

Is the idea devalued now, of celebrity?

I think it always was, in a way. It just gets more publicity now.

It's a kind of... It's got its negative and positive, in a way.

Somebody who's... I don't know.

I mean, Marshall McLuhan more than Andy Warhol summed it up all.

If you read Marshall McLuhan,

you can see where Andy got some of his ideas from. And...

In a way, would you rather be 15 minutes of fame, or no fame at all?

So, it's debatable, isn't it? It doesn't interest me one bit.

Although, in a way,

my box of pinups was sort of partly responsible for that.

But I did the people cos they were talented,

not because they were celebrities.

And I think there's always been that mixture of celebrities

and talent, and, you know, hangers on.

And if people want to watch some silly people wearing silly clothes,

playing silly football, they can.

But talent show TV really is saying, isn't it, you can

have it for 15 minutes, and that's it, really.

I'm not even sure it's 15 minutes any more.

You'd be lucky if you got 15 seconds.

But it gives everybody...

I'm not against it, you know.

Years ago...

Not years ago, about five or six years ago, Anna Wintour phoned me

and said, "Bailey, can you make Jordan look like a lady?"

And I said, "Well, I don't know who Jordan is."

-You thought it was a country!

-I thought it was a river.

And I said to the boys in the studio,

"Who's Jordan?" They said, "Let's do her!" So we did her.

And, actually, made her look like a lady.

And, on one side of it, you think, "Ooh..."

And then you think, "Why not? What's her alternative?"

It's a bit like coming from the East End, you know, people say,

he's a gangster, he's a car thief, he's this, he's dysfunctional,

he stands on corners with hoodies,

and all the normal things that people did in the East End.

There wasn't too much choice.

So, you got to look at Jordan and say, "What was her choice?"

If you were in her position, would you choose to, I don't know,

to melt into...

Or to malt into pink? I mean, I don't know.

So, when Anna Wintour said, "Make her look like a lady,"

-she meant posh her up, did she?

-Well, I never thought.

I just knew what she meant. It kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

And, actually, we did. We got her into...

I thought we'd have problems with those...

big breasts and...

You know, cos couture clothes are very, very small.

But she got into everything. She looked great.

And I thought it was kind of...

In a way, she wasn't sweet, but I felt...

She said, "It's great to be able to wear these dresses

"because couture houses won't lend me clothes." I thought, "Oh, dear."

That's sad, you know.

But you've got to look at it from their side as well.

Post-production work, how much is acceptable?

And what used to be called touching up and is now Photoshopping.

Do you have a policy on that?

Well, I don't like Raphael's paintings that much.

But he used Photoshop more than anyone in history!

HE LAUGHS

It depends who I'm doing it for, what the job is.

But, men, I hardly ever retouch.

It depends on the job. People go on about it, it's normal.

It's been normal since the Renaissance.

So, even, in a way, you could say the Greeks. Cos they idealised...

I mean, you can tell the difference immediately between a Roman

sculpture and a Greek sculpture cos the Greeks idealised everything.

They were, like, advertising in a way,

cos it was always aspirational,

whereas the Romans, I always thought the Romans were the first portrait...

You know, those bronzes, they're the first portraits ever taken,

in a funny sort of way.

When someone new comes on the scene, Barack Obama, Adele, Lewis Hamilton,

do you ever think, I want to photograph that person?

No. Not really, no.

Obama, I'd like to photograph him from when he started

to the way he looks now.

Now he's beginning to look like a very thin Mickey Mouse.

He's sort of... His shirt's down here, his jacket's too big.

-And who'd want that job?

-What about politicians?

You said all politicians are arseholes.

Have you been approached by them?

No, no, there's some good ones.

-I like George what's-his-name, the one in number 11.

-Osborne?

Yeah, I like him. He's got a sense of humour.

I mean, Boris has got a sense of humour,

but I'm not sure he should be a politician.

-Boris Johnson! Have you shot him?

-Yeah, I've shot them all.

I've shot them all.

And I like Boris cos you can't help liking him,

but I really like George cos I think there are a few things...

I've done him a few times, and the few things he said

made so much sense.

As we've seen in this interview, you laugh a lot, you talk

about making the best of situations, have you ever been depressed?

Not really, no. I've got nothing to be depressed about.

I mean, I'm quite lucky. I've got the most beautiful wife, who I adore.

Kids that I now quite like.

I taught them all chess, and they can all beat me now.

That's interesting. "Now I quite like." So, you didn't like them

-when they were younger?

-Well, I had nothing to talk to them about.

You know, I can't talk to somebody about football, or....

Bzz-zz games.

But once I could play chess with them and...

It's the nearest I am ever going to get to sport!

It's awful they can beat me now. And I'm not very good at concentrating.

You've probably noticed cos I forget what we're talking about.

If I'm watching a movie on television and a commercial comes on, I go

off somewhere else and then I wonder what I was watching on television!

-Do you still have ambitions?

-To stay alive as long as possible

so I can finish all the stuff I want to do.

And, so, what are the things you want to do?

Well, there's a load of books I'm churning.

I wouldn't mind making...

I used to make lots of movies, and documentaries, and stuff.

I wouldn't mind... I might...

..chat up Harvey Weinstein to try and do a film of my childhood,

that would be interesting.

But whether I've got the energy at my age, cos it's tiring.

It's the most tiring thing in the world, directing a film.

-So, it would be...

-And sculptures, I like doing sculptures.

I'm not through with painting yet, you know.

You spend so long looking at faces,

are you particularly aware of ageing?

Have you looked at your own face very closely?

Unfortunately, I look at my own face every morning when I clean my teeth.

It's not a very pleasant sight.

Ageing, yeah, ageing's... I don't mind dying.

It's just ageing slows you down.

I didn't really feel tired till I was 73.

When I was 73, I thought, "Why am I tired?"

I thought, "I know why I'm tired. I don't smoke, don't drink.

"I do everything else. Don't eat that much." It's just... It's...

It's annoying, more than anything. Annoying.

Because roundabout four o'clock... I never eat during the day

cos once you eat, it makes you sleepy, so I never eat.

When I used to shoot commercials, I never had lunch cos,

you know, you shoot a commercial, break at one,

you don't really start turning over till four.

Did you never drink, or did you give up?

No, I gave up cos I realised I couldn't work at the pace

I was working, especially commercials, you know,

being there six in the mornings.

I've probably made about 1,500 commercials in my life.

So, you know, it's a different way of thinking to what

I do in photography, or what I do in painting.

Painting and photography's closer than making commercials.

Making commercials is really...

..extreme common sense.

Like everything in life, probably, is common sense.

The National Portrait Gallery,

-it's a big deal having an exhibition of that kind.

-For them?

-Well, and for you, then.

-Not so much!

-Really?

-Sandy, I try and wind him up...

-Sandy Nairne.

-For about five years, he's asked me to have a show.

I've said, "No, I don't want a show in that backroom."

You're sort of marginalised in photography.

And, finally, he said, "All right, you can have the whole ground floor, like Freud."

The key to it was Freud.

Lucien Freud, so you're being put on the same footing as Lucien Freud?

Probably by some people, yeah. Not by a lot of other people.

-No, but give me...

-It doesn't matter, really, does it?

-No.

Nobody knows anyway. Nobody knows what you do.

There was a French poet,

and very few people understand my type of photography anyway.

They have to accept it because I'm everywhere.

But it's not that they understand what I do.

They know I do something, but they don't understand what it is.

The average person wouldn't know

the difference between my pictures and a passport picture.

But then they wouldn't know the difference between a Picasso and...

..probably a very good child's drawing. So, people don't understand.

People say, everyone can take a picture now.

Everyone can paint now cos I've never met a parent who didn't

say their children couldn't paint like Picasso!

In their dreams!

The National Portrait Gallery exhibition, it puts you

-into history. Do you think about that?

-I've done one before.

I've only been asked twice by the art establishment in this country...

I've had more shows in America and France

and Germany than I have here.

But the...the only other show I've ever done

was National Portrait Gallery.

I did it with David Hockney and Gerald Scarfe in 1970, or '71,

or something. So, there's that gap, cos I've never been in the Tate,

or any of those places.

But do you think about history, the fact that in 34 years' time,

the biography of Jack Nicholson is published, it'll probably have your pictures in.

Probably, yeah, at I'll be dead, so I won't care.

Do you like the idea, though, that the pictures will carry on?

No, I don't care. I don't care.

Funny, going back to where we started with everyone

being a photographer these days,

has your kind of photography had its best days?

No, cos there'll be something else.

I mean, it's not your kind of photography, it's just...

It's got nothing to do with photography, really.

It's like saying is a stiff paintbrush finished?

You know, it's just a different tool for producing your emotions

or your idea of the way the world works.

I mean, you wouldn't have had the Impressionists

if you hadn't had got a stiff paint brush instead of a soft paintbrush.

And, I mean, Leonardo, I think he only did one painting on canvas.

Most of it was on wood.

I mean, there's only about 12 of them anyway. So, things change.

Leonardo wrote an open letter to the poets

cos they said what he did was mechanical.

They said you have to use a paintbrush, pigments...

and wooden frames.

And they said the only true art is poetry

cos you don't need any tools to do it.

And he wrote an open letter to them saying that painting was art

and that they were wrong.

Well, you could say the same thing about photography.

Normally at the end when I say thank you to the guest, I use both names.

But do I call you Bailey or David Bailey?

Call me shithead, if you like, I don't mind.

It won't change my life one iota.

HE LAUGHS

You can call me Bailey.

-What do I call you, sir?

-You can call me Mark.

-Bailey, thank you very much.

-Thank you very much, Mark. Is that it?

-That was great.

-Good, you were nice. I like you.

-Good. Thank you.

I thought you were going to be a bit of an arsehole.