Artist and illustrator Robert McGinnis is known for his illustrations on over 1,200 paperback book covers and art for more than 50 movie posters. McGinnis’ first poster assignment was for Breakfast at Tiffanys in which he broke from the style trends of the day with a minimalist style that focused on Audrey Hepburn as the central image with a small romantic scene off to the side. He is also known for his poster of Barbarella in which Jane Fonda is portrayed as both a sexy bombshell and powerful woman with muscular tone and a gun. His paintings of the feminine form have a signature look that fills much of his work, including in James Bond and Matt Helm films that feature male protagonists.

McGinnis was born in Cincinnati, OH and raised in Wyoming, OH. He worked as an apprentice at Walt Disney, studied fine art at Ohio State University, and served in the Merchant Marine. In 1958 while he was working in advertising McGinnis had a chance meeting with artist and illustrator Mitchell Hooks which led him to work with Dell Publishing. He started by drawing paperback covers for authors such as Donald Westlake, Edward S. Aarons, Richard S. Prather, Carter Brown, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Michael Shayne. He also provided artwork on Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Time, Guideposts, Women’s Home Companion, TIME, Argosy, and The Saturday Evening Post as well as working as the main title designer for The Hallelujah Trail in 1965.

McGinnis’ heyday for poster art was in the ‘60s and ‘70s. When he worked on the poster for the 1966 thriller Arabesque he requested that Sophia Loren’s tiger stripe dress be sent to him so that he could have a model wear it to give him an accurate appearance of the dress. This keen attention to detail can be seen in his posters that include Jack of Diamonds, You Only Live Twice, The Odd Couple, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (with Frank McCarthy), Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Casino Royale, Gator, Optimists, Scorpio, Thunderball, and another Hepburn hit How to Steal a Million.

In 1985 McGinnis was recognized for his work on romance novel paperback covers by being awarded with the title of “Romantic Artist of the Year” by Romantic Times magazine. Since 2004 he has created cover illustrations for the Hard Case Crime paperback series. He is a member of the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame and was the subject of the documentary Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer by Paul Jilbert.

To learn more about movie posters and their artists, order a copy of The Overstreet Guide to Collecting Movie Posters on gemstonepub.com.