Joan Collins and More Stars’ Secret to Flattering Passport Photos: She ‘Knew Exactly’ How to Pose

If you are Joan Collins or Mick Jagger, you do not get an ordinary passport photo like everybody else.

In London, all the stars went to David Sharkey‘s unassuming photography studio, which was conveniently close to the American Embassy, for surprisingly flattering shots for their official paperwork — in just 10 minutes.

The results of Sharkey’s work have been compiled by his son, Philip Sharkey, for a new book, Passport Photo Service: An Unexpected Archive of Celebrity Portraits, according to a New York Times report published on Monday, April 12.

Featuring over 300 never-before-published photos, the book shows how Sharkey’s studio, which was open from 1953 to 2019, was so successful with his work that his celebrity customers — including Ava Gardner and Sean Connery — came back whenever they had to renew their passport.

Son Phillip says in the book that Collins, now 92, came in three times between 1971 and 1988.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, she knew exactly how she wanted to be posed: on a very slight angle to the left,” he writes.

Madonna, Bill Murray and Sting are among the other celebrities included in the book. Kate Winslet came to pose as her character from the 1988 movie Hideous Kinky, which was set in 1972.

Muhammad Ali, who arrived on his way to fight George Foreman in Zaire in 1974, signed copies for other customers.

“On seeing the framed pictures of past celebrity customers hanging on our wall, he exclaimed loudly, ‘Take that down and just have one big photo of me…I AM THE GREATEST,’ ” Philip writes.

Passport Photo Service: An Unexpected Archive of Celebrity Portraits, is available now.