Hollywood stars and iconic figures pictured in newly colorized mugshots

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A stunning series of iconic police mugshots involving some of the world’s biggest stars and influential figures have been released in a never-before-seen colorized form. 

The collection, including David Bowie‘s 1976 jail photo for marijuana possession and Jane Fonda’s act of defiance against trumped-up drug charges, have been brought to life in painstaking detail.

The images captured some of the world’s most well-known people during their ‘worst moments ever’ – including actress Patty Hearst when she was caught after a year on the run with a group of leftist kidnappers, and legendary talk show host Larry King being charged for grand larceny.

Originally all taken in black and white, the photos form various police departments have been digitally enhanced by adding colour to each pixel of the image and using intensive research to match their skin tones, hair and clothes.

Jason Baker, 40, used original images of high-profile names such as music legend David Bowie, gangster Al Capone and actress Jane Fonda, with each taking up to 10 hours to perfect.

Jason said: ‘I am a huge fan of celebrities, and was fascinated by these images of stars in their worst moments ever.

‘My goal was to make everything as clear as possible and really bring a whole new dimension to the images. 

‘I think by adding colour in a way the pictures tell the stories a bit better, and hopefully people will see new things in them.’

Jason’s work has been widely acclaimed on social media, with users commenting that the work gives a whole new dimension and historical significance to the previously seen images. 

Pablo Escobar, 1977

For a renowned drug trafficker and crime boss responsible for hundreds of murders, being behind bars would not be a happy ordeal.

But in this iconic mugshot from 1977, Pablo Escobar is seen smiling for his arresting officers at a regional Colombian National Police station in Medellín.

The circumstances of the picture, believed to be Escobar’s only ever mugshot, are unclear but it is assumed his display of happiness comes from know he won’t be in prison for long.

It has been reported that Escobar and several of his men were arrested after police allegedly found 40lbs of cocaine concealed in a spare tyre.

But when it came to handling the case, it was pushed between several different judges but none of them would touch it for fear of reprisals. Eventually it was dropped and Escobar walked out.

With dozens of guards and officers receiving payments from his cartel to turn a blind eye or other nefarious activities, Colombian government struggled to ever pin down the drug lord. 

Escobar, who was eventually shot and killed in December 1993, was at one stage responsible for supplying 80 percent of the world’s cocaine and had ambitions of running his home country. 

In 1991, he struck a deal with Colombia’s then-president Cesar Gaviria to prevent him from being extradited to the US.

David Bowie, 1976

Late rockstar David Bowie’s Station To Station tour had a very memorable moment when he was pictured looking every inch the icon while receiving a booking for marijuana possession.

Bowie had played a Saturday night show on March 20, 1976 at the Community War Memorial Arena in Rochester, New York before returning to his hotel.

Later that night however, Bowie and a few friends – including one James Osterberg Jr (Iggy Pop) – were arrested in his three-room suite on marijuana charges.

A police report at the time said they confiscated ‘about half a pound of marijuana’ from the group.

His mugshot from Rochester Police Department shows the Ziggy Stardust singer wearing a three-piece pinstripe suit and unbuttoned white shirt with his hair slicked by like his Thin White Duke character. 

But with a show in Springfield, Massachusetts later on that day, Bowie, then 28, paid the group’s bonds to make it back on the road in time for the gig.

He returned a few days later to plead innocent in Rochester City Court

In a short interview afterwards, Bowie complimented the city’s police officers: ‘They were very courteous and very gentle,’ Bowie said. ‘They’ve been just super.’

After completing shows at Madison Square Garden, Bowie returned to Europe at the end of March 1976.

In May 1976, the charges were effectively dismissed after a grand jury declined to indict the legendary artist. He never returned to Rochester.     

Patty Hearst, 1975 

Author and actress Patty Hearst’s mugshot was taken at the end of one of the strangest cases in FBI history.

In 1974 Hearst, the granddaughter of billionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst, had been kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California, by two men and a woman who tied her up and threw her into the trunk of a car. 

Three days later, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small US leftist group, announced they had taken Hearst as a ‘prisoner of war’, demanding the heiress’ family gave away money to feed the poor.

But as negotiations were made in an attempt to free her in 1975, Hearst dramatically declared she had joined the group of her own free will.

She later took part in a San Francisco bank robbery for the group, and was captured on a surveillance camera yelling at customers during the raid.

After crisscrossing the country with the group for more than a year, on September 18, 1975, Heart was finally captured and arrested for armed robbery.

In court she claimed she had been brainwashed by the SLA, but was convicted and spent seven years in jail before being released. She was eventually given a Presidential pardon by Bill Clinton. 

Steve McQueen, 1972

Film legend Steve McQueen is pictured giving a cheeky peace-sign hand gesture during his mugshot in Alaska.

Known for his high-speed driving performances in Bullitt and LeMans, McQueen was busted in the southern city of Anchorage for drunk driving in 1972.

According to witnesses, the movie star raced through town in a rented Oldsmobile Toronado. When Police finally managed to pull him over and perform a sobriety test, he failed by somersaulting down the white line, on which he was ordered to walk.

Posing for his mugshot McQueen, wearing a while polka dot shirt, smiled and raised two fingers for the camera.

The Anchorage Daily News wrote at the time of the photo: ‘Historical photographs tell many of the stories. They start the minute you walk in the door with the mug shot and arrest record of actor Steve McQueen, who got busted for doing “brodies” in an Oldsmobile Toronado in downtown Anchorage in 1972.

‘McQueen, with a ding on his nose, is looking mighty ragged after his night on the town here, a raggedness exceeded only by his seismographic signature.’

McQueen posted bail and left town, but not before signing autographs while still in handcuffs.

He was later convicted in absentia for reckless driving.  

Larry King, 1971 

Well before taking on hosting duties of his legendary CNN show, Larry King was being hauled in front of the camera for a more embarrassing purpose – his mugshot for grand larceny.

King, then 38, was charged with the crime because he was unable to pay back money to a financier Louis E. Wolfson who had apparently given him $5,000 to give to Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who was investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

Wolfson had suffered a dramatic fall from grace when he was convicted of 19 counts of conspiracy and illegal stock sales in 1967. 

On his release he filed a complaint against King, then a Miami radio host, accusing him of stealing the $5,000 from a $25,000 payment. 

It is claimed late TV personality used the money to pay his own back taxes but the grand larceny charge was dismissed anyway because the statute of limitations has expired.

He did plead no contest to one count of passing bad checks and the ensuing scandal cost him some broadcasting and newspaper gigs in Miami.

He spent the next few years reviving his career and by the late 1970’s, and went on to years of being a popular host of the Mutual Broadcasting System. 

King then moved to CNN, where form 1985 he hosted a nightly show for over two decades.

Jane Fonda, 1970

Striking a pose of rebellion, actress Jane Fonda is pictured in custody after being arrested for trumped-up drug charges in Cleveland, Ohio.

It was reported that the then 32-year-old had just finished working on Klute – hence her distinctive haircut – when she was arrested at an airport in Cleveland on November 3, 1970.

The customs officers wrongly accused Fonda of drug smuggling after finding vitamins labelled b, l and d (breakfast, lunch and dinner) in her bag.

Known for her prominent anti-Vietnam war activism, her arrest over something so innocent as vitamins was a sign of the paranoia of the time.

At the time, the actress was on her way back from speaking at an anti-Vietnam war fundraiser in Canada.

Later, an officer told her that orders for her arrest came straight from the Nixon White House. Displeased by her anti-Vietnam War activism, the FBI and CIA had been surveilling her for months. 

Writing about her false arrest on her blog earlier this year, she said: ‘They confiscated (my vitamins) as well as my address book (which was photocopied) and arrested me for drug smuggling.

‘I told them what they were but they said they were getting orders from the White House – that would be the Nixon White House.

‘I think they hoped this “scandal” would cause the college speeches to be cancelled and ruin my respectability. I was handcuffed and put in the Cleveland Jail, which is when the mugshot was taken.

‘I was released on bond and months later, after every pill had been tested in a lab (with taxpayers money!) the charges were dismissed and there were a few paragraphs hidden in the back of papers that they were vitamins, not drugs.’

Elvis Presley, 1970 

This mugshot of Elvis Presley may at first look like a disappointing fall from grace for The King – but all is not as it seems.

Still wearing his iconic sunglasses and huge pompadour hairdo, Elvis appears to goof around in what is a staged photo.

The rock ‘n’ roll icon was in the Denver, Colorado police station to accept an honorary police badge in 1970 when he was offered the chance to have his own mugshot.

As a born entertainer, Elvis was only too happy to agree. He also took another photo with the daughters of the Denver Police Chief.

He had flown in from his Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee specifically for the honour, and had had an incredible interaction with fellow passengers on the plane ride over.

One passenger, writing in the Little Rock Ski Club newsletter at the time said:  Perhaps the most exciting early trip was to Vail in 70. We flew on a direct Braniff flight from Little Rock to Denver.

‘The flight originated in Memphis and on board waiting for us was none other than the King himself – Elvis! The first thing he did was to get on the intercom and sing Love Me Tender to the passengers.

‘Then he made a trip through the cabin making a brief stop, talking to everyone, most of whom were ski club members. It was truly memorable and I have always admired him for his down to earth way of treating us on that day’.

Jimi Hendrix, 1969 

Jimi Hendrix is here pictured in glorious technicolour following his arrest at Toronto International Airport for drugs offences, the guitar hero was acquitted after a three-day trial.

Near the end of his US and Canada tour, the guitarist was scheduled to give an evening performance at Maple Leaf Gardens on Saturday, May 3, 1969. That morning, the band members flew into Toronto.

But mere moments after Hendrix stepped off the plane, a bottle containing three packets of heroin and a tube with hashish residue was found in his flight bag. 

Police detained Hendrix for four hours, while a police lab confirmed the suspicious substances were illegal drugs before he was then charged.

His photograph shows a solitary Hendrix staring down the lens and wearing his classic unbuttoned purple shirt and gold necklace.

Hendrix was arrested, charged, photographed and released on $10,000 bail and then given a police escort to Maple Leaf Gardens, where 10,000 fans were waiting for the 8pm concert to begin.

Shortly before Christmas, Hendrix was able to declare Canada had given him ‘the best Christmas present’ when a Toronto jury acquitted him of drug possession charges.

Sadly for local Hendrix fans, it would be his last visit to this country and indeed, his last Christmas. The Purple Haze songwriter died 10 months later in London.

Mick Jagger, 1967

The Rolling Stones frontman had a few brushes with the law earlier on his career, and the Redlands drug bust in 1967 is by far the most infamous.

Following a tip-off from the News of the World paper on Sunday February 12, a detective led a squad of 18 officers on a raid of guitarist Keith Richards’ West Sussex home.

Reports at the time say police arrived to find Jagger, Richards and singer Marianne Faithful apparently coming down from an all-day acid trip.

In his biography, Life, Richards remembers: ‘There’s a knock on the door, I look out the window, and there’s this whole lot of dwarves outside … I’d never been busted before, and I’m still on acid’

There were few signs of any illegal activity at the property, with press reports later focusing an rather famous incident involving a Mars Bar.

Jagger was accused of possessing four amphetamine tablets and sentenced to a £200 fine and to three months’ imprisonment.

In a photo believed to have been taken at Brixton prison, where he was being kept, Jagger gave a expressionless face while dressed in a grey suit and black tie. 

However on appeal the court gave Jagger a conditional discharge.

Johnny Cash, 1965  

Although never sentenced to any prison time,  the late Johnny Cash had more than a few experiences in a jail cell.

Throughout his life, Johnny was arrested 7 times, most for drunken misdemeanours , including his first for trespassing in a local resident’s garden after a show to pick some flowers.

But on October 5th, 1965, the Man In Black was released after being caught with over one thousand pills at the El Paso border on the way back into the United States.

It is claimed he had traveled down to the city of Juarez for the discounted pricing, but customs found the stash in his guitar case.

His mugshot shows the Man in Black wearing a dark suit jacket and trousers with a white shirt. 

He received a suspended sentence, perhaps inspiring him to perform for inmates at Folsom Prison just three years later. 

Al Pacino, 1961 

Not many people manage to look their best when posing for a police mugshot. 

But a 20-year-old Al Pacino has every inch of movie star quality in this glaring photo taken at a Rhode Island police station in 1961.

Just a young actor at the time, he and two friends were apparently on the way to an acting job when he was detained by several police officers.

The cops had allegedly become suspicious of the group circle the block in their car, and it is claimed the stopped the vehicle and found them wearing black masks and gloves. They also found what was claimed to be a loaded .38 caliber pistol.

All three were charged with possession of a concealed weapon and eventually taken to jail.

Unable to afford the $2,000 bail, the trio spent three days in jail.

Pacino was described as ‘very helpful’ during questioning by the officer and is believed to have explained that the group were actors and the gun was a prop. 

Criminal charges against them were eventually dropped.