The man who got under the stars' skin

3 July 2005
The Sunday Times
Anna Burnside

Robert McCann, who died last month, was the make-up artist who made movie stars feel at home. Anna Burnside spoke to his family and friends



There's a story about Robert McCann that even now makes his friends laugh. When McCann -Scotland's make-up artist par excellence -and Nicole Kidman flew for the first time on Tom Cruise's private jet, they were overwhelmed by the luxurious interior of the plane. Having climbed into the cabin, the two were surveying the leather fittings when McCann breathed: "Isn't this fabulous?" "Honey," laughed Kidman, "we'd better not get too used to it."

It is a story that says much about the man's life. Originally from Garnethill in Glasgow, McCann had become one of the most sought-after make-up artists in the world. In the extraordinarily intense environment of his work, he formed strong friendships wherever he went. Performers he worked with, whatever their reputations or fame, simply felt at home in his company.

When news came through of McCann's death last month, a shocked Kidman spoke of "the huge hole in my life" and many others shared her grief. Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald attended the funeral -they had worked with McCann on the film Trainspotting -and Cruise sent a bouquet. Others associated with the make-up artist's earlier days at the BBC also paid their respects: Jonathan Watson of Only an Excuse, the actress Elaine C Smith and the presenters Viv Lumsden and Dougie Vipond.

Such widespread respect was earned in the rarefied air of the make-up room. Here the make-up artist can spend several hours of every day working never more than four or five inches from an actor's face. Inevitably, it is a world in which intimacies are exchanged and lasting friendships form.

"He was always calm, never took anything too seriously, always knew he had a job to do," recalls Peter Lawson, McCann's boyfriend of 22 years. According to Lawson, McCann's sense of calm was most evident in the place he saw as a sanctuary, the make-up room itself.

"It was always a sane place in what could be a very intense environment," recalls Lawson. "He worked with Jan Harvey on Fell Tiger and she always said that you would arrive feeling terrible, Robert would be there to greet you, smelling divine, he would offer you tea or coffee and, after he'd done your make-up, he'd stand there talking, tweaking unnecessarily and then send you out saying, 'You look fabulous'. And they always did."

According to a friend of 25 years, Sandra Payne, McCann was never swayed by celebrity life.

"He didn't want to be his own cosmetics label or do ads on the telly," she recalls. "He was a whole person. He could do the red carpet one minute and the next he'd be sitting on my sofa, straightening my baby's hair."

In the celebrity circles in which he came to move, McCann was drawn to those who shared both his deep love of family and his raised-eyebrow take on the world. He and Kidman met on the set of the forgettable Britflick The Leading Man in 1995. She had a cameo role, he did her make-up and they hit it off.

At the time he and Lawson, a licensing lawyer with his own practice in Glasgow, were debating moving south. "I was telling him that he should be more ambitious, do something with all his fabulous contacts," says Lawson. "Then the phone went.

When he hung up, he said: 'That was Stanley Kubrick's office. Is that ambitious enough for you?'"

It turned out that Kidman had recommended him for Eyes Wide Shut. McCann said yes and, as filming dragged on from late 1996 to early 1998, the cast and crew had little choice but to get to know each other. For Kidman and McCann, it was the start of an enduring professional and personal relationship that would see them work together on The Others, Cold Mountain and The Stepford Wives among others.

"The people Robert was closest to had the same values as us," says Lawson. "Tom and Nicole are both very family-oriented. She is really grounded and centred. I think she liked his Scottish sense of humour."

At Glasgow School of Art in the 1970s, McCann studied textiles and managed to combine selling out his own degree show with doing the make-up for his fashion student pals. Friends who worked at the BBC then suggested he applied for the make-up training course. According to Payne, the job suited McCann's powerful work ethic and driving perfectionism. "He set himself very high standards. He worked at something until he knew it was perfect."

Lawson and McCann worked hard to keep their relationship alive as work took the make-up artist all over the world. They were both going out with women when they met as students, yet went on to have a life together that outlasted many marriages. McCann's son Roddy, 21, lived with his artist mother but spent time with his father and Lawson.

At home in Glasgow, McCann liked nothing better than to wander round the corner to visit Payne and her family, to have friends round for Sunday lunch, to take his mother into town and to play with his black labrador Teddy. Then there were the famous parties. Jonathan Watson has fond memories of the catering arrangements -a fish and chip van, parked in the highly desirable west end street where the couple lived, dispensing free suppers to soak up the champagne.

"He was the most stylish person I ever met and hugely talented," recalls Watson.

"I have never heard anybody say a bad word about him." Throughout McCann's career, one thing above all was constant. "Robert used to say, 'I'm swanning about and it sounds fabulous, but you've got the dog, you've got the dinner parties'," says Lawson. "He loved his work, but I know he came home as often as he could."