Riviera Cocktail

1950s French Riviera: a haven for movie stars who came to the Cannes Film Festival and then stayed on. Away from agents and studio heads, they could relax with their families and spend their days by the pool at the famous Eden Roc, or exploring the tiny sunbaked villages along the coastline. In the evenings there was a glittering choice of events - gala nights, the Sporting d’Ete, or dinner and dancing at Les Ambassadeurs in Cannes. Irish photographer Edward Quinn stepped, by accident, into this international society when visiting a friend in Monte Carlo a few years after the war. He fell in love with the Côte d’Azur and realised he might make his living photographing the stars taking their ease, off the screen.

The stars he photographed are names that are a roll call of cinematic artistocracy: Garbo, Taylor, Brando, Grant, Peck, Bergman, Hayworth, Hepburn, Cooper, Welles, Loren, Lollobrigida, Dietrich…and of course Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier.

Many of these photographs have never been exhibited or published before. They are a record of an age when "star quality" came with a lifestyle to match, when tiaras, ballgowns and dinner jackets were de rigeur every evening: an age of elegance.