Rampling: I feared nude picture could ruin my career
IT IS an image that defined the Swinging Sixties and turned Charlotte Rampling into one of the era’s most sought-after starlets.
But the actress has disclosed that the famous picture of her naked was taken after she was plied with drink and coaxed into taking off her clothes.
It remains the one moment in her career she would like to forget, said Rampling, 71.
The image was published in Birds of Britain, a coffee-table book once dubbed “a Pirelli calendar for posh girls” and with a title that would be unthinkable today.
At the time, she was a “hopeful starlet”, scouted while walking in the King’s Road in Chelsea and was starting out as a model and actress.
Rampling was persuaded to sit naked on a chamberpot for the shoot. She told an audience at the Hay Festival: “They gave me a lot to drink. It was all nice and happy, and so in the end I was not going to say anything.
“The clothes were coming off and they said, ‘Why don’t you sit on this chamberpot?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s an arty idea’. And because I was quite high on alcohol, I did.
“And then for the first time and the last time ever in my life, I questioned what I’d done. Because I was very young and my mum and dad were still alive and went to the golf club with their friends, and this would come out in the Daily Mail that they read, and I didn’t know where this photograph was going to be going after the book. And I thought I could have ruined my career with that photograph.”
Rampling went on to an acclaimed acting career and was most recently nominated for an Oscar for her role in the
2016 film 45 Years.
‘They gave me a lot to drink. The clothes were coming off and they said ‘why don’t you sit on this chamberpot?’’