Angus McBean; Photographer of Entertainers

Angus McBean, whose photographs of British entertainers ranged from a young Laurence Olivier to the even younger Beatles, has died at age 86, it was reported Monday.

The Associated Press said McBean died Saturday at a hospital in eastern England.

David Ball, his assistant, said McBean had taken ill in February at his winter home in Marrakech, Morocco. “He had assignments there for Harper’s & Queen and Vogue. Despite his age, he was very much in demand.”

From the early 1930s to the mid-1960s, McBean’s portraits graced nearly every theater in England. When he gave up stage photography in 1963 he noted “I had photographed all of Shakespeare’s plays in major productions: ‘Hamlet’ 14 times and ‘Macbeth’ 16 times.”

He became the official photographer for the Old Vic, Sadler’s Wells and the Shakespeare Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon.

One of the first young actors to attract his attention was Olivier, whom he found in a stage corner during a rehearsal at the Old Vic. Other stage legends he photographed included Ralph Richardson, Ivor Novello and Vivien Leigh. As his reputation grew, many of England’s most accomplished performers refused to be photographed by anyone else.

For more than 30 years, McBean photographed Leigh. It was his portrait of her that was sent to Hollywood for studio talent scouts looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.”

McBean saw Audrey Hepburn in a chorus line and after he used her in a beauty advertisement she was invited to Hollywood. He took the picture of the Beatles leaning over a stair rail for the 1963 cover of their “Please Please Me” album.

McBean, a cheerful, bearded man, whose surrealistic Christmas cards were eagerly awaited each year by his friends, began by emulating the avant-garde artists of the 1930s with photographs showing actresses in extraordinary poses. Flora Robson, for instance, was shown as a classical bust in a desert.

Collecting photographs was such an unappreciated pursuit that in 1974, when McBean wanted to divest himself of his glass-plate negatives, no British institution was interested. So he sold 4.5 tons of them, covering 700 stage productions over 30 years, to the Harvard Theater Collection.

McBean was born in Newport, Wales, and discovered his gift with the camera at age 12.

He got his break as a photographer when he was discovered by Novello, the actor, dramatist and composer, while working as a maker of stage masks and props.

McBean maintained that “anyone can be a photographer. It is the subject matter which makes a great photographer.”