Britain's first celebrities in fabulous Technicolor

The invention of photography alongside the explosion of newspapers and magazines in the 19th century gave us modern celebrity. Some stars were instantly recognisable as their pictures were reproduced all over the world.

Today there are internet celebrities with millions of followers who most of us have never heard of, but all the stars in these pictures were known to nearly everyone in Britain.

The colour brings out the twinkle in their eyes and strips away the years so they burst with life. Laurel and Hardy look completely different in colour. Audrey Hepburn is captured outdoors, in a natural setting, so different to her usual poses, and Joan Collins has far more va-va-voom in her yellow swimsuit.

Sir John Gielgud appears effortlessly elegant, while Edwardian actress Lillie Langtry displays the beauty that made a prince swoon.

There was no internet and no explosion of different television channels, but our obsession with fame has endured. Photography brought distant celebrities into our daily lives and they have never left.

CLOSE UP AND CONFIDENT A teenage Joan Collins poses for the camera in a revealing swimsuit for a 1951 glamour shot. Joan signed to the J Arthur Rank Film Company aged 17 and made her big-screen debut as a beauty contest entrant in Lady Godiva Rides...

JUMP FOR JOY Actress Audrey Hepburn leaps over a log with her dog in Richmond Park on 13 May 1950, after appearing with Norman Wisdom in the London revue Sauce Piquante

FEATHERED FRIENDS Actor Sir John Gielgud in St Mark’s Square, Venice, 1959. Along with his chums Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, Gielgud is considered one of the greatest British actors of the 20th century

ROYAL MISTRESS Born in Jersey, actress and courtesan Lillie Langtry was a huge star of the stage, and also the lover of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. When this picture was taken in the 1900s, Lillie was wed to her second husband, Sir Hugo...