From lankanewspapers.com (Tuesday, 16 January 2007): This iconic photograph melted the hearts of millions and was the last thing that teenage girls across the globe looked at before going to sleep at night.
The sepia-toned image called `L`Enfant` or `Man and Baby` became the biggest selling poster ever when launched in 1986.
It was an unprecedented hit for the former poster company Athena, made the photographer Spencer Rowell £1million and helped model Adam Perry sleep with more than 3,000 women.
Now it is to be sold at auction on Thursday at Bonhams in London as the first of a limited number of 50 hand-printed prints framed and signed by Rowell. They could fetch £3,000 each ? a small price for a piece of history.
The poster, produced for Athena, sold more than 5million copies ? not including millions of bootlegs.
It is even credited with launching the `New Man` ? someone who could show off his six-pack stomach but still be in touch with his feminine side.
Model Perry, 23 at the time of the shoot, was paid £100.
Voted `the world`s most promiscuous man` by GQ in 1997, he was last heard of renovating railway arches in South London.
The two-week-old baby, Stelios Havatsias, from Cyprus, was paid £32 for his part in the picture.
Athena went into receivership in 1994, closing its 150 shops.
Spencer Rowell, who lives in North London, said the photograph probably made him about £1million in today`s money.
He said: `I spent ten years trying to get it out of my life. It was a bit of an embarrassment, it being such a popular image, but over the last few years I`ve become quite proud of it.`
J has had this poster hanging in the wall of his room at Cebu Avenue for years. I personally love it. I think every female worth her 'X' chromosomes would wish for a hunk of a husband that would care for her baby with such tenderness and love. The theory behind this, of course, is that when Mr. Perfect puts the baby down, he's all hers.
(Surely at one point in time or another, the menfolk that have come across this poster have dreamed of having a body as muscled and toned like the model in the poster. And I am 120% sure the 'holding a baby part' was the farthest thing from these wanna-be hunk minds. "Baby? What baby? Oh, yeah. That is a baby, isn't it?")
Going back to dreaming about this hunk of a husband ... I say lucky the woman who finds the man with a body like Adonis that is willing to marry her but many times luckier is the woman who finds the man who will love her and care for her (and her children) for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health (till death do they part).
If that man comes in a single package, that woman has hit the jackpot!
However, let's face it, among other things, it takes time and money to get that kind of a body. Getting a wife can already wreak havoc on the 'time and money' part. What more having a child? Or two? Or more?
It's a tough call for some men. I suppose the lady would REALLY have to be worth it.
Yet many a man has asked a woman to be his wife. Many a couple have walked down the aisle. Many a husband and wife have upgraded their status to father and mother.
It is also true that many a size 30 have become size 36, many a medium have become extra large, and many a scale have been banned from the household.
In the long run, I believe it is the 'holding the baby' part that counts.
(But don't I wish I could have my cake and eat it, too?)
(Surely at one point in time or another, the menfolk that have come across this poster have dreamed of having a body as muscled and toned like the model in the poster. And I am 120% sure the 'holding a baby part' was the farthest thing from these wanna-be hunk minds. "Baby? What baby? Oh, yeah. That is a baby, isn't it?")
Going back to dreaming about this hunk of a husband ... I say lucky the woman who finds the man with a body like Adonis that is willing to marry her but many times luckier is the woman who finds the man who will love her and care for her (and her children) for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health (till death do they part).
If that man comes in a single package, that woman has hit the jackpot!
However, let's face it, among other things, it takes time and money to get that kind of a body. Getting a wife can already wreak havoc on the 'time and money' part. What more having a child? Or two? Or more?
It's a tough call for some men. I suppose the lady would REALLY have to be worth it.
Yet many a man has asked a woman to be his wife. Many a couple have walked down the aisle. Many a husband and wife have upgraded their status to father and mother.
It is also true that many a size 30 have become size 36, many a medium have become extra large, and many a scale have been banned from the household.
In the long run, I believe it is the 'holding the baby' part that counts.
(But don't I wish I could have my cake and eat it, too?)
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