Samuel John Peffer (known as ''Peff''; 3 November 1921 – 14 March 2014) was a British
commercial artist
Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...
who designed
film poster
A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film primarily to persuade paying customers into a theater to see it. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. The ...
s, paperback book covers and the covers of
home video
Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...
s. His best known work was for the covers of the paperback
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
novels published by
Pan Books
Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany.
Pan Books began as an independent publisher, est ...
in the 1950s and 1960s, for which he created a consistent and distinctive style.
["Sam Peffer" in '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', 22 March 2014, pp. 60–61.
Early life and war service
Peffer was born in
Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...
, London, into a poor family, the son of an interior decorator. He left school at 13, working first as an errand boy for Leon Goodman Displays, a company that produced
front of house
In the performing arts, front of house (FOH) is the part of a performance venue that is open to the public. In theatres and live music venues, it consists of the auditorium and foyers, as opposed to the stage and backstage areas. In a theatre, t ...
displays for cinemas. Soon he moved to Weddell Brothers who produced film publicity materials and when their artist was called up for military service in 1940, Peffer replaced him, painting publicity images of Hollywood film stars.
[Branaghan, S. & Chibnall, S. (Ed.) (2006) ''British film posters: An illustrated history''. London: ]British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
, pp. 214–217.
In 1942 he was called up to serve in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He saw action in
Operation Pedestal
Operation Pedestal ( it, Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto, Battle of mid-August), known in Malta as (), was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. Malta was a base from which British ...
, the convoys to Malta which was besieged by the Germans. He wrote of an attack on one convoy just after sunset:
Then they came. Little shapes in the distance, growing bigger as they approached the convoy. Every gun was cocked and ready. All hell broke loose as they began to dive and the ships began their fire. The noise was deafening, the guns pounding, the roaring of the engines as the dive-bombers screamed down at us. Bombs exploded all around, torpedoes were dropped as the Heinkels and Stukas came out of their dives. It was over quite quickly.[ ]
No ships were sunk in that attack, but later, a ship on which Peffer was serving was sunk by enemy action.
[
]
1950s and 60s
On leaving the Navy in January 1946, Peffer considered becoming a professional boxer, a sport in which he had ability, but instead decided to become a commercial artist. He attended a few evening classes at Hornsey School of Art
Hornsey College of Art (a.k.a. Hornsey School of Art) was a college in Crouch End in the London Borough of Haringey, England. The HCA was "an iconic British art institution, renowned for its experimental and progressive approach to art and design ...
in 1946 immediately after demob
Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and militar ...
but otherwise learned his craft on the job.[Sam Peffer Biography]
MI6 The Home of James Bond 007, 20 October 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2014. He worked for various firms in the film publicity business until eventually joining Pearl and Dean
Pearl & Dean is a British cinema advertising company, founded in 1953.
Pearl & Dean is now owned by Willowbrook Investments Ltd, and controls advertising at many UK cinema sites including multiplex operators Empire, Showcase and AMC; the company ...
where he was in charge of the art department and knew John Vernon.[ He married Kitty (Kit) in 1949.][
In 1954 or 55 Peffer went freelance. He was noticed by the Pan Books art buyer, Tony Bowen-Davies, and in the 1950s and 1960s painted hundreds of book covers, including from 1957 the ]Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., a ...
novels ''Casino Royale'', ''Moonraker'', ''From Russia with Love'' and ''Dr. No'', all for Pan. He was paid about £40 for each one.[ The model for Bond was Dick Orme. Peffer also created covers for the publishers Arrow, Compact, Corgi, Digit and Panther, amongst others.][ The Pan paperbacks were selling up to one million copies annually at the time.
With the launch of the first Bond film, '' Dr. No'' in 1962, however, Pan chose to use film tie-in covers for future editions.][The Art Of Sam Peffer]
MI6 The Home of James Bond 007, 21 October 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2014. This was part of a growing trend by British paperback publishers in the 1960s to use more photographic covers or to buy in "second rights" painted images from abroad. Sometimes the same image might appear on more than one book. Together with increased competition in painted covers from younger Italian artists like Renato Fratini
Renato Fratini (October 1932, in Rome – 1973 in Mexico)Branaghan, S. & Chibnall, S. (Ed.) (2006) ''British film posters: An illustrated history''. London: British Film Institute, pp. 185-190. was an Italian commercial artist who specialised ...
, there was a general decline in cover work for artists like Peffer by the end of the 1960s.[
]
1970s and 80s
In the 1970s and 1980s, Peffer increasingly turned to quad film posters and home video sleeve design. His breakthrough into this area came when another artist who had too much work recommended Peffer for the poster of ''Creatures of Evil/Blood Devils'' in 1971. Peffer then began a busy period until his retirement in 1985 producing around 200 film posters and a similar number of video sleeves as home video became popular slightly later.[
Although his work was skilled, Peffer was not too fussy about which commissions he accepted, producing art for everything from ]Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that ...
Kung Fu films to low budget "exploitation
Exploitation may refer to:
*Exploitation of natural resources
*Exploitation of labour
** Forced labour
*Exploitation colonialism
*Slavery
** Sexual slavery and other forms
*Oppression
*Psychological manipulation
In arts and entertainment
*Exploi ...
" films like ''Desires of a Nymphomaniac''[ and posters for "]video nasties
Video nasty is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette that w ...
" such as ''Mountain of the Cannibal God
''The Mountain of the Cannibal God'' (Italian title: ''La montagna del dio cannibale'') is a 1978 Italian horror film starring Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach, with English dialogue, that was filmed in Sri Lanka. The film was also widely release ...
''. He often worked for Stanley Long
Stanley A. Long (26 November 1933 – 10 September 2012) was an English exploitation cinema and sexploitation filmmaker. He was also a driving force behind the VistaScreen stereoscopic (3D) photographic company. He was a writer, cinemato ...
, known for his cheap 1970s British sex comedies
Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such ...
, and Peffer described himself as the painter for "the raincoat brigade".[ Other commissions were for '']Flesh Gordon
''Flesh Gordon'' is a 1974 American sex comedy feature film serving as a spoof of Universal Pictures first (of three) ''Flash Gordon'' serial films from the 1930s. The film was produced by Walter R. Cichy, Bill Osco, and Howard Ziehm. It was co ...
'' (1974), ''SS Experiment Camp
''SS Experiment Camp'' (also known as ''SS Experiment Love Camp''; original release title: ''Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur'') is a 1976 Nazi exploitation film directed by Sergio Garrone. The plot concerns non-consensual sexual experimenting w ...
'' (1976) and '' Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions'' (1980).
In 1980 he produced the cinema poster for ''Hussy
''Hussy'' is a 1980 British film starring Helen Mirren, John Shea, and Paul Angelis, and directed by Matthew Chapman.
Plot
Beaty (Mirren) is a prostitute working at a London cabaret where Emory (John Shea) is a sound/lighting technician. Th ...
'', starring Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only performer to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. ...
and John Shea
John Victor Shea III ( ; born April 14, 1949) is an American actor, film producer and stage director. His career began on Broadway theatre, Broadway where he starred in ''Yentl (play), Yentl,'' subsequently winning his first major award, the 1975 ...
, and later presented the original artwork to Mirren. His original design is still in use on DVD releases of the film.
By the mid 1980s, film distributors and exhibitors were facing a crisis as audiences in the United Kingdom fell to the lowest level since the Second World War. Demand for traditional painted posters was declining as cinemas used different forms of promotion, printers were closing down and UK based executives of the old school were retiring. With low audiences, US distributors were reluctant to spend money on separate UK publicity campaigns. It was at this time, 1985, that Peffer retired. He described his last year in the business as "terrible – there was no work at all".
Method
Peffer often modelled for his own covers, as did his wife Kitty[ and his brother-in-law Jack Cooper. Peffer described Jack as "a top stuntman", standing in for Robert Shaw and Errol Flynn. Peffer said he always read the book he was working on to understand the scenario.][BLOOD, TOIL, SWEAT – AND GOUACHE!]
Transcript of a conversation between Sam Peffer, Pat Owen and Steve Chibnall reproduced from ''Paperback, Pulp and Comic Collector'', No. 8, 1991. PAN 217, 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014
/ref> He signed all of his Pan and Panther work with the nickname ''Peff'' that he picked up while in the Royal Navy but tended to only sign the better work for other publishers.[
]
Personal life and autobiography
Peffer wrote his biography under the title ''"Peff" a life story'', including details of his war service, but it remains unpublished. Extracts appear on the website sampeffer.com. He died on 14 March 2014 and was survived by Kitty.[
]
Collecting
The Pan paperback novels have become collectable and in 2005 ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' noted that first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...
Bond paperbacks with Peffer artwork were some of those in the highest demand.
See also
*Roger Hall (artist)
Roger Hall (26 December 1914 – after 2005) was a British artist who began his career painting publicity images for front of house displays in cinemas but later became a noted book illustrator and created the first depiction of James Bond on a bo ...
References
External links
Brief biography at The Art of Peff.
by manuelbouw.
''Peff''
Sam Peffer covers at pulpcovers.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peffer, Sam
2014 deaths
1921 births
People from Islington (district)
British poster artists
Film poster artists
British illustrators
Royal Navy personnel of World War II