Vivien Leigh starred in the biopic, "That Hamilton Woman," in 1941. (released as "LADY HAMILTON” in the UK). She played Emma Hamilton, who was famously known for her beauty, talent and love affairs. Vivien played opposite her real-life husband - Laurence Olivier as Admiral Horatio Nelson. They became the Hollywood English darlings and were together for 20 years.

Her part as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) reflected Vivien Leigh's real-life mental problems as her bipolar symptoms became increasingly complexed and eventually led to her divorce from Laurence Olivier in 1960. A few years later at the age of 53, she died from tuberculosis.

Although I loved drawing this portrait from a forties film-still. I will always love her performance in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' - one of our all-time favourite movies with Marlon Brando wearing the greatest picture of a tough-guy T-shirt.. I would have preferred to draw her from that movie - maybe in the future.

When I was very young, my favourite paintings were Van Gogh's 'Crows over a Cornfield', Munch's 'Cry' and Magritte's "The False Mirror". My other 2 loves were my piano and the 8 inch refractor telescope at the Norfolk Astronomical Society. Later at Art School, I remember a brilliant tutorial with the late great Michael Andrews where we discussed my paintings of darkened doorways and black armchairs - images of symmetrical shapes which had evolved through the history of human passage. These shapes would always emanate an energy greater and more mysterious than shapes that were simply geometric - intensified by the negative space of the colour black. When I first encountered the works of Dadaism and Pop Art, all my classical references faded away and I soon became completely immersed in a concept of 'Art in action' - communication was the key. Painters Roger Cook, Ken Brazier and sculptor Colin Self, introduced me to the English Pop Art establishment which was flourishing in London at the time and helped me to find connections for my work. Since 1967 when Molly and I began to work on shared projects, photographs, montage and screenprint became central to the work . Drawing would be inspired by photographs. Collages would be made from photographs, Pin-up magazines and from cigarette-card collections. I was also using photographs by permission from the IPC library of copyrighted photographs. A library used by all IPC magazines and newspapers such as NOVA and The Daily Mirror. I made series of drawings mostly with the IPC magazines, including the Cinema Drawings.