Lee Van Cleef The Good, the Bad and the Ugly collage 1966-2008 Metal Print

"Being born with a pair of beady eyes was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Bad guys have always been my bag . . . I look mean without even trying."


"Audiences just naturally hate me on screen. I could play a role in a tuxedo and people would think I was rotten. You can do much more with a villain part."

"Movies are full of leading men, most of whom aren't working. It's much harder to find a good villain."...Lee Van Cleef, 1925-1989

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...