Le Crime Ne Paie Pas - 'Bonnie et Clyde'.
William Francis Marshall was a British magazine and book illustrator. He was most notable for his work in the fashion magazine Vogue, desiging what became known as the "Marshall Girl". He was additionally the most prominent cover illustrator of Barbara Cartland's romance novels. Marshall also had a short stint as a newspaper comic artist, illustrating installments of the French true crime series 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' by Paul Gordeaux.
Early life and career
William Francis Marshall was born in 1901 and educated at the Slade College of Fine Art in London. His father was English and his mother Dutch. As a teenager, Marshall served in the British Navy during the First World War. After the war, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. From 1925 on, he was active as an advertising illustrator.
Vogue and the Daily Mail
In 1928, Marshall began a collaboration with the Condé Nast publishing house as an illustrator for their magazine Vogue, to which he contributed during a period of ten years. One of his most notable creations for Vogue was the elegant "Marshall Girl", whose looks were modeled after his own wife, Margaret. Apart from fashion articles, he also livened up articles about royal jubilees, weddings and crowning ceremonies. During World War II, Marshall was a naval camouflage officer, based in Bath. After World War II, he continued making advertising illustrations and was, until 1963, the main weekly societal and fashion illustrator of the newspaper The Daily Mail. For this job, Marshall often attended fashion shows in Paris and Milan, as well as ballet performances at the Covent Garden Opera House.
Barbara Cartland
Marshall was also notable as a book cover illustrator. He painted numerous covers for romantic fiction, especially the Barbara Cartland titles for PAN, Bantam, Corgi and NEL. Marshall met Cartland in 1966 during a lunch break, kicking off a long creative partnership lasting until his death in 1980. Cartland was very fond of his work, framing the original illustrations on the walls of her mansion. Critics who derided the best-selling author for her formulaic plots, often felt that Marshall's magnificent covers gave her work a classier public image. When Marshall passed away, Cartland actively searched for illustrators who could imitate his style.
Cover illustrations for Barbara Cartland's novels 'A Fugitive From Love' and 'Free From Fear'.
Solo literary career
In 1959, Marshall wrote his first book on drawing, entitled 'Magazine Illustration'. It was followed by more similar books, such as 'Fashion Drawing', 'Sketching the Ballet' and 'Drawing the Female Figure'. Marshall is known for his many drawings of London, especially the ballet in the Covent Garden Opera House. Several of these works were collected in the books 'London West' (1946) and 'The London Book' (1951), and also in the brochure 'Shopping in London' (1950), a post-war guide issued by the British Tourist association to lure overseas visitors back to the UK. He is also the author and illustrator of the book 'An Englishman in New York' (1949), made during a trip to the States.
Le Crime Ne Paie Pas
Apparently, Marshall's talent was also recognized on the European mainland. Since he was often in Paris to make sketches of local fashion shows, he was contacted in the 1960s to illustrate at least two installments of the French newspaper comics feature 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas'. This was a series of true crime cases, told in a text comics format, written by Paul Gordeaux. Marshall provided the illustrations for 'Le Rapt du Bébé Lindbergh', dealing with the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby son, and 'Bonnie et Clyde', about American crime couple Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. In 1963, when film director François Truffaut was approached to direct a film adaptation of the lives of the crime couple Bonnie & Clyde, Truffaut sent Marshall's 'Le Crime Ne Paie Pas' serial about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow to his scriptwriters for additional inspiration. Eventually the film was directed by Arthur Penn instead, and released in 1966.
Death
William Francis Marshall passed away in 1980.
Drawing by William Francis Marshall of Piccadilly Circus, lifted from 'An Englishman in New York'.