Robert McGinnis (1926-2025)
4th April 2024
The painter and illustrator who created some of the most iconic James Bond movie posters, has died
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 - Painter and illustrator, Robert McGinnis, who created some of the most iconic James Bond movie posters, has died at the age of 99)
When interviewed by Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury in 2020, Robert McGinnis shared his thoughts on why he was chosen to paint the Bond campaigns, “I had become known for my ability to depict glamorous women. It probably was the large number of paperback book covers I had illustrated – with many of the paintings depicting seductive women, detectives, scenes of mystery and/or danger, and a wide range of other characters and scene elements – that got me the 'Thunderball' job.”
Born on 3 February 1926 in Cincinnati, Ohio, McGinnis was raised in rural farm country. As an adolescent, he was inspired by a sophisticated relative - Uncle Ralph, a socially well-connected writer, who glamorized rustic life in the pages of Farm Quarterly. Uncle Ralph frequented with fellow artisans, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis Bromfield, and served as a groomsman at Humphrey Bogart’s wedding to Lauren Bacall in in 1945. McGinnis told Vanity Fair, “He just made it sound like a wonderful way of life. As a young boy I wanted to follow in that.”
In the early 1940s despite having limited vision in one eye, McGinnis began his career working as a teenage apprentice at Walt Disney Studios. He served in the Merchant Marines at the tail end of WWII before returning to his art studies at Ohio State University and at a private art school in Cincinnati. He then relocated to New York where he found work as an illustrator. As well as advertising campaigns, McGinnis created many story illustrations for magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal,McCall’s, Guideposts, Cosmopolitan, and Cavalier [an early men’s magazine].
By the late 1950s McGinnis had found his artistic niche, painting cover art for pulp fiction paperbacks for $200 a piece. These books “were intended to be read at home or on the train and then thrown away. My illustration work went through the roof. I raised three kids on it. A lot of illustrators wouldn’t do them—they were considered cheap and low-grade. But I enjoyed doing them. I didn’t see anything demeaning about it.” He eventually painted the cover art of more than 1,400 paperbacks.
His first foray into film posters generated his most famous – ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961) in which he painted Audrey Hepburn looking the epitome of 60s cool, dressed in a Givenchy dress, with a cat perched on her shoulder while an over long cigarette holder protruded from her lips. The artwork emphasised his ability to depict what he described as “women drawn with a high fashion edge.”
As United Artists geared up for the global release of ‘Thunderball’ (1965), they prepared the perfect marketing campaign to fuel Bondmania, which by the mid-sixties, had taken the world by storm. Look Up! Look Down! Look Out, screamed the tag line, “Here Comes the Biggest Bond of All!” UA’s newly appointed advertising executive, Donald Smolen, hired both McGinnis and fellow American artist, Frank McCarthy, to illustrate a new vision for James Bond; one that accentuated spectacle. McGinnis created the “kiss kiss,” while McCarthy created the “bang bang”.
United Artists flew both artists to London where they visited ‘Thunderball’ in production at Pinewood Studios. McGinnis told Field and Chowdhury, “There, in the great hall of the studio’s manor house, lunch was being served. The room was filled with chatter, but suddenly a hush came over the crowded room. I looked up as the strikingly handsome and suave Sean Connery, in a tuxedo, entered, flanked by two lovely ladies. We were introduced to James Bond and he graciously nodded in our direction. We were shown scenes of the film in a projection room, and with unanimous enthusiasm about what we had seen, we exited wowed by ‘the Bond mystique.’”
McGinnis’ painted the striking British quad poster of James Bond kneeling in scuba gear as one of the four surrounding female companions unzips his wetsuit. However, his best work for ‘Thunderball’ appeared on the US and French campaigns, “My painting where James Bond is standing with one leg crossed over the other, wearing flippers, helped to allude to the scuba-diving and underwater fighting action in the movie. And with adoring ladies surrounding Bond and with the drink and the speargun in hand, the spy idol is complete.”
He created the artwork for Charles K. Feldman’s James Bond spoof ‘Casino Royale’ (1967) - a stunning, multi-coloured psychedelic image of a naked woman covered in 007 tattoos. “I was surprised about the intrigue it brought to the movie.” The successful partnership of McGinnis and McCarthy was once again assembled for 'You Only Live Twice' (1967) and later 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (1969).
For 'Diamonds Are Forever' (1971) McGinnis worked solo and painted the image of Connery sitting in the moon buggy claw – flanked by women and a glittering satellite dish above him, surrounded by explosive action. He revealed to Field and Chowdhury, “The initial painting had James Bond placed even in height with the two women. But then Sean Connery’s agent insisted that Connery’s image be raised in height above the women. So, to save time and meet the deadline, Don cut and peeled the Bond image, raised it up above the women, glued it down, and painted in a midriff, so you will note that Bond appears a bit long- waisted.”
McGinnis painted his third James Bond, Roger Moore, with the campaign for 'Live And Let Die' (1973), which Don Smolen considered McGinnis’ best 007 work. He often changed the look of the female Bond characters on the posters. He told Saga, “I stretched them out for one thing and made them look more fluid. Some of the Bond girls in the films were rather ordinary, I thought I tried to glamorise them as much as I could, but at the same time I tried not to stray too far away from real people.” ‘Live And Let Die’s’ Jane Seymour was disappointed to discover her likeness had been shelved in favour of a red head in a bikini telling Vanity Fair, “A great movie poster will get everyone’s attention—and [McGinnis] certainly did that with the beautiful woman they now claim is me. I think it’s a great poster. But at the time I saw it, I thought, It’s a shame I’m not on it. I thought I was in this movie.”
McGinnis’ last James Bond campaign was 'The Man With The Golden Gun' (1974). In 1989 he gave Cinefantastique an insight into how he approached each new Bond gig, “Most of the movies were not that far along in the filming…So I did the artwork from stills or my imagination. Don [Smolen] would give us rough sketches and say, 'Here we want Bond, and there, the women.' I'd submit drawings for approval, then do a finished painting in tempera with casein white.”
Among his other notable film posters were ‘The Pink Panther’ (1963), ‘The Odd Couple,’ (1968) ‘The Wrecking Crew,’ (1968)) ‘Barbarella,’ (1968) and ‘Sleeper’ (1973). In the late '70s, McGinnis abandoned the world of film to paint Western canvases. In 1993, he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. This was a tremendous honour for him. McGinnis said he had to have three drinks before walking up to the podium to deliver his acceptance speech.
While original movie poster art gave way to computer generated campaigns in the 1980s, McGinnis’ aesthetic would remain in vogue among advertising executives and moviemakers. Brad Bird hired him to create a poster for his animated superhero movie 'The Incredibles' (2004). Although it was later discarded, Bird said, “If you look at his book covers, they’re very much trying to convey and entice: ‘This is going to be fun.’ It doesn’t have pretention of being deep art.” Production Designer Aaron Osborne said he turned to the work of McGinnis when looking for inspiration for the 2005 comedic-noir homage ‘Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’, “I walked into a very big white room and threw up about 40 covers from his paperbacks—all kinds. And we would refer to them as we location scouted. They were kind of like a template for the entire movie.” In recent years author Neil Gaiman hired him to create new cover art for his back catalogue reissues of such novels as 'American Gods', 'Anansi Boys', 'Stardust', 'Neverwhere', 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane', 'Smoke and Mirrors' and 'Trigger Warning'. McGinnis’ love for art never faded and he worked every day in his studio well into his late nineties.
Robert McGinnis returned sporadically to the world of 007. In 1979 he painted the cover art for the US paperback edition of Christopher Wood’s novelization ‘James Bond and Moonraker’. In 1999, he was commissioned to paint the cover to the Sunday Times Magazine Bond tribute issue. Reflecting on his work with James Bond, McGinnis mused, “It was rewarding for me to work on all the 007 images I created. It was a treat to enter into that fantasy realm of espionage, super-villains, danger, exotic places, beautiful women, and romance…with good triumphing over evil in the end. But if I had to pick one of my James Bond projects as a favourite, I think my favourite Bond creation was my ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ artwork.”
Robert McGinnis died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on March 10, 2025. He was predeceased by his wife Ferne of 75 years and is survived by his three children, Melinda, Laurie and Kyle.
Special thanks to Ajay Chowdhury and Thomas Nixdorf.
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