RICHARD HARRIS Venice CA 1990

I preferred Richard Harris, the brilliant character actor of “The Field” to his ‘other’ Richard Harris—the leading man with blue eye shadow. His face was always chiseled, but as he aged, it became majestically craggy and I loved photographing him. He saw himself as a Pirandello creation: a face that lied; a fake smile that hid grief, a frown that lingered in laughter. For one pose, he went to great lengths painting half his face white, drawing an ugly grin that was false, and basically giving me a road map of hell. He wanted me to capture that, and I did. I also managed to get a portrait that looked dauntingly like the face of the Matterhorn.