Charlotte Rampling is one of arthouse cinema’s original it girls. The English actress began her career as a model in Swinging Sixties London before nabbing her first role: an uncredited nightclub dancer in The Beatles’ 1964 musical comedy A Hard Day’s Night. From there, the actress quickly became the English face of Italian arthouse. In 1969, she got her first big break playing a young woman who is sent to a Nazi concentration camp in Visconti’s provocative movie The Damned. Five years later, she would take on her most famous — and most controversial — role as a concentration camp survivor who enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with her former SS doctor in erotic drama The Night Porter.
Charlotte does not shy away from controversy, both in film and in fashion. Throughout the 60s and 70s, the actress was muse to Helmut Newton, the German fashion photographer known for his erotically-charged images. And in 1974 — the same year The Night Porter hit theatres — Charlotte posed for an iconic Playboy shoot lensed by Newton, himself. In terms of style, Charlotte’s look exudes the same strength and sex appeal as her Newton portraits. Think Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘le smoking’ tuxedos, leather jackets, slitted gowns, men’s shirting. Here, in honour of the icon’s 77th birthday, we look back at some of her most iconic looks of all time.
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At the British Film Festival in Italy, 1967
Before breaking into European cinema with The Damned, Charlotte made a name for herself back home in British comedies Georgy Girl and Rotten to the Core, and adventure flick The Long Duel. Here, she attends the 1967 British Film Festival held in Sorrento, Italy wearing a knitted minidress that epitomised the spirit of the Swinging Sixties.
In Arles, 1973
Charlotte first met long-time collaborator Helmut Newton in 1973, in Arles. Charlotte was there filming a new action flick and the photographer had been sent there to shoot her for Playboy. Of the encounter, the actress recounted to Harper’s Bazaar, “Playboy was just a nice picture of me, naked from the back and sitting on a chair. Then Helmut said, ‘Can we now do a nude – our nude?’ Could I come to this fantastic room, where the matadors dressed. ‘Could I take an hour of your life?’ So I threw all my what’s to the wind.” The resulting photo series, shot at Hotel Pinus-Nord Arles, remain some of Charlotte’s most iconic portraits. In them, (when she isn’t completely nude), the actresses wears nothing but a large leather jacket. Chic!
In Italy, 1973
For all her severity (sharp le smoking suits and a hooded-eye gaze that will stop you dead in your tracks), Charlotte was also kind of a jeans-and-a-T-shirt girl, too. Here, she’s snapped by Helmut Newton in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery wearing just a simple white T-shirt and a pair of light corduroys.
In Paris, 1974
Charlotte loves a tuxedo. A Yves Saint Laurent ‘le smoking’, to be precise. “I must’ve won [tuxedos] since Yves Saint Laurent’s first year,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “He was putting women into these wonderful men’s clothes and tuxedos, long pants, wide pants. He wasn’t the first, but he put it into the modern world.” Here, in Paris appropriately, the actress wears one of her infamous suits: this one in sumptuous velvet with an oversized bow tie.
In Paris, 1974
Another sexy, razor-sharp look from Charlotte. In lieu of tailored menswear, however, she’s wearing a high-necked maxi gown with a slit up to there.
In Paris, 1974
Charlotte loved Yves Saint Laurent’s strict suiting. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t also have a penchant for that famously floaty 70s fare. Here, the actress wears a caped jersey gown, the same one she would wear to fête the premiere of The Night Porter.
At Heathrow Airport, 1976
For all her cosmopolitan sensibilities (her early-70s stint in Italian cinema, her late-70s emigration to Paris, etc.), it’s easy to forget that Charlotte began her career in Swinging Sixties London. Here, at Heathrow Airport with her son Barnaby, the actress wears a strikingly English look: tartan blazer and jeans tucked into riding boots like a pair of jodhpurs. From British equestrian wear to Parisian tailoring, Charlotte looks an icon in pretty much everything.