Mick Rock on Debbie Harry
Mick Rock is best known for his iconic shots of 1970s rock icons such as Queen, David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Ramones and Blondie. He’s partied with the best of them and lived – just – to tell the tale.
He is a huge influence in the world of photography, fashion and style, and recently released the photography book ‘Mick Rock: Exposed. Here he tells us about his first encounter photographing Debbie Harry.
“The session was set up in the Autumn of 1978 to accompany an interview that Debbie Harry had done as part of the promotion for the release of ‘Parallel Lines’ (which contained the single ‘Heart of Glass’; both the single and the album were worldwide smash hits that instantly established Blondie as a major pop force) for a short lived US fashion magazine called Viva, published by the owner of Penthouse Magazine, Bob Guccione.
I had lunch with Debbie and Chris Stein, her then boyfriend and band cohort, to discuss the upcoming shoot. This was the first time I would lens her, although subsequently I did several sessions with her as solo and with the band. They struck me as being very open about the possibilities and expressed respect for my work with David Bowie, Queen, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, etc.
I had recently acquired a modest studio loft space on East 21st St in Manhattan (I also still had my studio in London and was flitting between the two cities for the next few years, before I decided to make my permanent base in New York). They arrived around lunchtime with Debbie’s friend the now late Stephen Sprouse, the clothing designer (he died in 2004). The clothes she wore that day were designed by him. Stephen hung out for a while as she was being made up and dressed, but left before I started shooting. He said very little and was content just to offer a few words of praise to Debbie.
I first shot her against a pink/red background and was soon very pumped by the Polaroids I reviewed. Although the moniker ‘punk Marilyn’ had already been attached to her image, I saw very little ‘punk’ and lots of ‘Marilyn’! I was absolutely consumed for the next three hours by the beautiful apparition that flowed into my lens. She was an absolute gift to photographers. A timeless beauty who remains to this day the most photogenic subject the rock music scene has ever produced. And she had such a great sense of humour about herself. Very relaxed, nothing forced, she was totally at ease in front of the camera.
After a while I switched to the blue background which produced another slew of superb images, including the one echoed in my shoot with Danielle. And Debbie rocked through the entire session, taking direction, throwing in spontaneous moves, laughing, goofing around, and obviously enjoying herself to the very last frame. I knew this was a special session. Ironically the magazine folded just before publication of the issue that was to include the interview and the photos. So the images lay dormant for over a year. In the winter of 1979 the art director of Penthouse contacted me to say that they wanted to publish the ‘Blue Debbie’ image on the cover of the February 1980 issue of Penthouse Magazine. They had achieved great sales from a previous issue that featured Donna Summer and wanted to see if that would work again. By now Debbie was a superstar after the amazing commercial success of ‘Heart Of Glass’, so her name and image had achieved great media cachet. Debbie and I gave the go ahead. She found it hilarious that she was on the front of a high profile men’s magazine, clothed in black up to her neck!”
Mick Rock. New York City. December 15th
