Description

David Steen recalls: “Richard had just married Ann Turkel and I was sent to do some shots of the honeymooners at home. Richard had many homes, 16 in all at that time all over the world including one in Nassau where they were staying and I was visiting.
Like a few of the guys I have photographed, Richard was a heavy drinker and you had to keep up with him. If he asked, ‘Do you want a drink?’ you couldn’t ask for a lemonade, better you just had what he was having. I found him in one of his moods where he was adamant that he didn’t want to be photographed.  Well, when you’ve flown all that way to photograph and then the somebody says forget it, you’re not happy. The days passed and I was due to fly back to London in the evening and I still didn’t have any photographs and was starting to panic. At about three o’clock in the afternoon Richard eventually came around and said, ‘Come on then…’ and I got my session with him and Ann on the beach.
It was such a relief. That’s the sort of guy he was, unpredictable. He had a quirky sense of humour. Later on in life when he was living permanently in a suite at The Savoy Hotel, he was taken ill and needed to go into hospital. As they carried him on a stretcher through the foyer to the waiting ambulance, people were coming into the hotel for lunch. He couldn’t resist the opportunity, and raising himself up he told the astonished customers, ‘It’s the food, it’s the food!’
Location: Nassau, Bahamas
Year: 1976
Biography: Born in 1930 in Limerick, Ireland, Harris made his screen debut in the 1958 film Alive and Kicking. This was followed by solid supporting roles in films such as Shake Hands with the Devil (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). But he jumped to the top of Hollywood’s list of leading men in 1963 following his performance as young coal miner turned professional rugby player in This Sporting Life which earned him an Oscar nomination. Once a notorious drinker and hell-raiser to rival Oliver Reed, his work during the Seventies and Eighties isn’t widely revered, but in 1990 he once again earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in The Field. The roles he chose were never anything but varied and shortly before his death he played Professor Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), allegedly under the duress of his daughter.
Print Type: Fibre-based Harman Galerie FB Digital
Printed by: Metro Imaging, London
Limited Editions: All prints are limited editions, no further prints are produced once sold
Bespoke: All prints are bespoke and printed to order, stamped and numbered
Presentation: Prints are supplied to clients flat in an acid-free box or rolled in a tube
Watermark: Watermarks will not be present on an original print
Copyright: © David Steen / The David Steen Archive