Who are The Smiths' album and single cover stars?

22 May 2025, 19:00

Morrissey was famous for picking his heroes to appear on the sleeves of the classic Manchester band's albums. But who are these mystery celebrities that grace your record collection?

1. The Smiths - The Smiths (release date 20th February 1984)

   

   Morrissey's love of 60s culture led him to feature one of the "stars" of Andy Warhol's Factory group of artists and scenesters on the cover of the Manchester band's debut album. Joe Dallesandro was a model, actor and would-be superstar and featured in the controversial 1968 film Andy Warhol's Flesh, which was directed by Paul Morrissey (no relation) and tells the story of New York hustlers. The un-cropped photo also features actor Louis Waldon, who plays a gymnast in the movie.

   Dallesandro later became famous among gorehounds for his starring appearance in two Warhol-sponsored, Morrissey-directed 1970s horrors: Flesh For Frankenstein and Blood For Dracula.

2. The Smiths - Hatful Of Hollow (release date 12th November 1984)

   

   This much-loved compilation album features a photo snipped out of the July 1983 issue of the French culture magazine Liberation. Included in a feature on the French author Jean Cocteau was this photo of a fan called Fabrice Collette who bears a tattoo based on one of Cocteau's drawings.

3. The Smiths - Meat Is Murder (release date 11th February 1985)

   The young soldier on the cover is Marine Corporal Michael Wynn and is pictured on 21 September 1967 in Da Nang, South Vietnam, in the middle of what was termed “Operation Ballistic Charge”. The shot was used as a publicity still for the film In The Year Of The Pig by American director Emile de Antonio, which was one of the first documentaries that was critical of the US involvement in the Vietnam war.

   

   Morrissey and designer Caryn Gough changed the slogan on the soldier's helmet to reflect the album's title and repeated the image four times, like an Andy Warhol silkscreen. You can read more about Michael Wynn and his reaction to being the star of Meat Is Murder here.

4. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (release date 16th June 1986)

   

   The third Smiths album features a shot of the French-Swiss actor Alain Delon, taken from the 1964 film L'Insoumis (aka The Unvanquished). Delon plays a deserter from the French Foreign Legion and was also a producer on the picture. It's taken from the final scene, where Alain's character lies dying on the floor.

   

5. The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs (release date 16th March 1987)

   

   A month after The World Won't Listen appeared, this American double-album found its way into UK record shops. The cover features the author Shelagh Delaney, who penned Morrissey favourite A Taste Of Honey, taken from the Saturday Evening Post of 21 October 1961. She also appeared on the cover of Girlfriend In A Coma.

   

6. The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come (release date 28th September 1987)

   The final Smiths album bears a photo of the actor Richard Davalos, while filming the 1955 film East Of Eden, which also starred one of Morrissey's heroes, James Dean. The image is heavily cropped so you can only see the blurry image of Davalos's face. When interviewed years later about the cover, Davalos wondered why Morrissey hadn't used a better picture.

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7. The Smiths - This Charming Man (release date 31st October 1983)

   The band's second single featured a still from Jean Cocteau's 1950 film Orphée, featuring Jean Marais as the titular hero, gazing into a mirror that features heavily in the fantasy based on the Greek myth.

   

8. The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make? (release date 16th January 1984)

   Here's a tale. The original sleeve for The Smiths' first single of 1984 featured a shot of actor Terence Stamp as featured in the film The Collector, directed by William Wyler in 1965. Stamp plays the crazed butterfly collector who's decided to abduct a female student; he's pictured with the pad of chloroform that he's used to subdue his prey.

   

   Stamp apparently wasn't happy about appearing on the cover of a Smiths sleeve, so the photo was re-shot with Morrissey in Stamp's place, holding a glass of milk. Stamp later relented, so the original sleeve was put back into circulation, meaning the Morrissey version remains harder to find.

   

9. The Smiths - How Soon Is Now? (release date 28th January 1985)

   Originally issued as a b-side, then a track on the Hatful Of Hollow album, Johnny Marr's finest musical moment with The Smiths was finally issued as a single in January 1985, with a cover featuring a shot of actor Sean Barrett in the film Dunkirk (1958), where he played the apprentice of Richard Attenborough's character. Barrett has had many roles in film and television - including a career as a much-in-demand voice over actor - and one of his best-known appearances was as the priest with the extremely boring voice on the Father Ted Christmas special.

   

10. The Smiths - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (release date 21st May 1984)

    The sleeve for The Smith's biggest UK hit (Number 10 in June 1984) features a shot of the beehived Viv Nicholson, who achieved notoriety in 1961 when she won the equivalent of £3 million, and spent the lot in less than three years.

    

11. The Smiths - Shakespeare's Sister (release date: 18th March 1985)

    Pat Phoenix - aka the original Coronation Street character Elsie Tanner - adorns the cover of The Smiths' 1985 single. She'd left the soap the year before and would die of lung cancer in September 1986, aged 62.

    

12. The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (release date 16th September 1985)

    The ebullient figure on the cover of The Smith's 1985 single is none other than writer Truman Capote, best known for the novels Breakfast At Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. He's photographed by Cecil Beaton in Morocco in 1949, not long after the publication of his first book, Other Voices, Other Rooms.

    

13. The Smiths - Ask (release date 25th October 1986)

    Yootha Joyce, who became a household name as the star of the TV sitcoms Man About The House and George & Mildred in the 70s, is the star of this single cover. She's pictured in the 1965 film Catch Us If You Can, a vehicle for The Dave Clark Five. Joyce died in 1980 at the tragically young age of 53.

    

14. The Smiths - Sheila Take A Bow (release date 13th April 1987)

    The star of this late period Smiths sleeve is Candy Darling, a transgender actress and member of Andy Warhol's Factory group. After appearing the film Flesh (see the sleeve of The Smiths, above), Candy starred in Paul Morrissey's 1971 satire Women In Revolt, alongside Holly Woodlawn of Take A Walk On The Wild Side fame, and it's a shot from this film that appears on Sheila Take A Bow. She died in 1974 aged 29.

    

15. The Smiths - I Started Something I Couldn't Finish (release date 2nd November 1987)

    The final Smiths single to be released before the band announced their split in 1987 featured a photograph of Avril Angers in the 1967 comedy The Family Way, which starred Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett. The film was also famous for providing Paul McCartney with his first solo project outside of The Beatles - he composed the soundtrack, which was arranged by George Martin.