Gillian Lynne by Al Hirschfeld

1987

Al Hirschfeld was an American artist and caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. During his eight-decade career, he gained fame by illustrating the actors, singers, and dancers of various Broadway plays and shows, which would often then appear in The New York Times to herald the show's opening.

Al met Gillian in a studio in New York in 1987 where Cats rehearsals were taking place - the show had opened on Broadway in 1982. Al had some photos taken for reference and subsequently produced the caricature of Gillian shown here, superbly encapsulating the lines and grace of Gillian as she choreographed the cast with her vision of how the Cats dancers should move.

Gillian was extremely fond and proud of Hirschfeld’s drawing and it became her unofficial logo. When Cameron Mackintosh created the Gillian Lynne corridor within the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in 2016, the image appears overlaid on a beautiful mirror.

One of the actual photographic images taken that day in New York in 1987 is shown below.