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The Elephant Man
I C O N O G R A P H Y

© Anton Corbijn/Rolling Stone (Bowie image)

Unfortunately, as far as I know this 1980 image by Anton Corbijn of David Bowie in the play, The Elephant Man has never been released as a print or poster. I just wanted to use this image as a background because it is so beautiful!

The production's Broadway debut was in 1979 and was produced by Richmond Crinkley and Nelle Nugent. It was directed by Jack Hofsiss. Prior to its Broadway production, the play was introduced at the Royal National Theatre in London and had an Off-Broadway production at the Theatre at Saint Peter's Church.

Obviously the story is based on the life of Joseph Merrick (it was never John Merrick; Joseph was his name and I don't really understand why it was ever ) who lived in the 1880s around Whitechapel, London and is known for the extreme deformity of his body. His skeleton remains in the pathology collection at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel. Although the skeleton has never been on public display, there is a small museum dedicated to his life, housing some of his personal effects.

Apart from Bowie in the lead role Philip Anglim, Bruce Davison and Star Wars' star Mark Hamill played it at various times.

The play was notable for the fact that no prosthetic makeup was used on the actor portraying Merrick. Did it work without it? Having not been fortunate enough to have seen the play in its entirety it's very hard to say but one thing is for sure: it's a very brave decision when it involves this subject matter.

The life of Joseph Merrick was, of course, a fascinating one and, consequently, there has been a plethora of books on Out of them I would recommend The True History of the Elephant Man which is available at amazon.co.uk.

The film by David Lynch is superb and the choice to film it in black & white only adds to the gloomy gaslit poverty-stricken streets of East London in those Victorian times. Again, the special edition is available at amazon.co.uk.

Non-Bowie-related but striking promotional poster imagery from The Elephant Man movie can be found here.

I've just found a great place for David Bowie posters from his whole career and including film release posters from around the world. Available through a US company called Pop Culture Classics via amazon.com, I haven't seen as many promotional posters on him in one place.

BUY: david bowie film posters

I have bought quite alot from this company in the past an have always been happy with both the product and the service so I have no hesitation in recommending them. They sell through Amazon.com and a direct link to their products on amazon can be found at the bottom of the page so you don't have to search about.

Their prices (as of August 2011) are also eye-catching as usually they are affordable and very reasonable. Also, these posters are not items you will find on every high street or any high street for that matter.

My main aim in creating these pages is to place bigger scans on these pages as soon as I have time of each poster as I think the film posters do look beautiful when they are shown as big as possible. Size does matter in this case. Plus I want to show them against a black background as I think they look far more striking than against a neutral background (the artist and architect Hundertwasser always advocated having his work shown against a black background).

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The posters are in various sizes. From 11 x 14 Inches to 27 x 40 Inches.

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CONDITION: new.

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