Respect The Shooter: Janette Beckman

Boy George

“I was in London working for Melody Maker, and Melody Maker was kind of a rock paper still. You know, they loved Led Zeppelin and all of this stuff. I knew Boy George because he was always hanging around Covent Garden where I had my studio, and he was always in my friend’s jewelry shop. We all kind of knew about him. He was just one of those boys that hung out looking kind of amazing. His first single had just come out, so I went to take a picture of him. He was totally dressed from head to toe in Vivienne Westwood and he’s just sitting on the sidewalk outside of Virgin I guess in Notting Hill Gate, outside of his record company. I really love this picture. It’s just kind of, I don’t know. Boy looks really beautiful. I was having some problems at the time with Melody Maker, because they didn’t really want to put him on the cover. They were like, “You know, he’s gay,” and it really wasn’t their style. And me and the writer, Ian Pye, were like, “This guy is amazing! We have to put him on the cover! He’s blowing up, you’ve got to trust us!” So we’re arguing with the people in the weekly Melody Maker meetings (because I was always the little article person that wanted to do wacky things), and in the end, we won! He went on the cover and that week, his first single went to number one on the charts, so we got props. We pretty much were ahead of all the other magazines, because there was a lot of competition in those days. It was a great moment for us, vindicated. And George, you know, everybody loves George. Grannies loved him, little grandmas up north would be singing, “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” Everybody loved George from the punks to the grannies so, he was like a great personality.”