corman has taken portraits of a breadth of subjects, including bill clinton, robert de niro, paul newman, al pacino, martin scorsese, muhammad ali, kurt vonnegut, jean-michel basquiat, isamu noguchi, ralph lauren, james dewey watson and elie wiesel. in manhattan in the early 1980s, corman took portraits of musicians boy george and johnny rotten, and artists basquiat and keith haring, before they were famous. in 2001, while in cape town, corman photographed president nelson mandela visiting his old jail cell. he photographed philip seymour hoffman in character as truman capote for the 2005 film "capote", in the style that richard avedon shot capote in the 1960s, which became the image used for the film's poster.