American artist and illustrator Mitchell Hooks, who gave the
world their first look at a stylized Sean Connery as 007 on the
1962 'Dr. No' poster, died this week at the age of 89.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, USA in 1923, Hooks
served in the U.S. Military during the occupation of Germany
post World War
II before beginning his career as a freelance illustrator in
New York City.
His work included painted paperback covers for Avon, Bantam
Books, Dell Books, Fawcett Publications and others, and illustrations
for magazines including Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post,
The Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, and Woman's Day.
He also illustrated romance novels, science fiction and crime
fiction, such as the Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Peter Corris's
Cliff Hardy and B.B. Johnston's Superspade series.
Above: UK Quad poster and line
art by Mitchell Hooks.
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Perhaps his best known work worldwide are his
movie poster designs, especially his series of quad posters for
the first James Bond
film, 'Dr. No'. As well as creating a stylized illustrations
of Sean Connery as James Bond for the UK quad poster, which would
be used again for the later US theatrical
campaign,
he also drew the line-art illustrations that feature behind the
colourful character poses. A lot of his work would be repurposed
for the international posters.
Mitchell Hooks was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall
of Fame in 1999.
Above: US one sheet.
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