蜜芽传媒

Mary Greenwell is a makeup artist who has worked with some of the most famous faces in the world including Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, David Bowie and Cate Blanchett. Her less-is-more approach has won her plaudits in the beauty industry and she became Princess Diana鈥檚 makeup artist of choice.

Mary was born in Sussex and left school at 16. By the mid-1970s she was living in Los Angeles where she started out on the door at the legendary Joe Allen restaurant, escorting the likes of Paul Newman and Jack Lemmon to their tables. She received her one and only makeup lesson from the award-winning Ilana Harkavi and shortly afterwards created a look for 12-year-old actor Brooke Shields.

Mary鈥檚 big break came when she moved to Paris in 1984 and began working with the original supermodels; Christy Turlingon, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Tatiana Patitz. In 1990 she met Princess Diana on a Vogue photo shoot and became her go-to makeup artist and friend.

In 2025 Mary was appointed an MBE for services to the beauty and fashion industries and her charity work.

Mary lives in London.

DISC ONE: Lay Lady Lay - Bob Dylan
DISC TWO: I Am Enough - Tallulah Rendall
DISC THREE: Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
DISC FOUR: Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
DISC FIVE: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
DISC SIX: Cold Little Heart - Michael Kiwanuka
DISC SEVEN: Diamonds - Rihanna
DISC EIGHT: Heroes - David Bowie

BOOK CHOICE: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
LUXURY ITEM: A bed
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: I Am Enough - Tallulah Rendall

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley

There are more than 2000 programmes in our archive available for you to listen to. We鈥檝e cast away other hair and beauty experts including the makeup artist Pat McGrath, and hairdressers Vidal Sassoon and Trevor Sorbie. Cate Blanchett, one of Mary鈥檚 clients, is in our archive too. You can find their episodes on 蜜芽传媒 Sounds or on our Desert Island Discs website.