I'm a celeb photographer and this 80s heart throb scared me

For a good part of the 1980s, the Limelight in London’s West End was the most fashionable nightclub in the nation. A regular late-night haunt for glittering pop stars of the day – George Michael from Wham!, Boy George from Culture Club, Mick Hucknall from Simply Red, Billy Idol, Kim Wilde, Nile Rodgers from Chic, Johnny Rotten from Sex Pistols and the Beastie Boys – it must have felt like the centre of the universe.

Capturing images of all these celebrities, often while they were tipsy and their guard was down, was the nightclub’s house photographer David Koppel, then in his mid-20s.

“I was very nervous. I didn’t like nightclubs, I didn’t drink and I wasn’t interested in celebrities,” Koppel remembers, admitting he was more than a little wide-eyed and innocent when he started out.

Until then he had been a junior assistant in a photographic studio, so snapping candid pictures of celebs placed him well outside of his comfort zone.

“It was something very new for me,” he tells the Daily Express. “I was always a bit nervous around famous people and worried about ­upsetting them.” He soon got into his stride, though. Initially, Koppel, now 63, had been worried about switching from serious photography to celebrity photos, so he agreed to just a single night’s work in 1986.

But he was instantly hooked. That one night lasted a year and later paved the way for a job as a successful paparazzo, with lucrative work in newspapers and magazines. Nowadays, he lives in North London and works as a photographer and painter.

This month, Koppel will publish all his best photos from the Limelight in a new book, with an accompanying exhibition in October. Housed in an abandoned Welsh Presbyterian church on Shaftesbury Avenue, dating back to the Victorian era, the Limelight first opened in 1985 and quickly established itself as the beating heart of London’s popular culture. Musicians, actors and models all rubbed shoulders with the capital’s coolest clubbers, to the backdrop of ­medieval-style arches, Romanesque columns and church windows.

“It was Thatcher’s Britain, a time of bankers and big hair,” the book’s publisher explains. “New Romantics and US rap legends shared the dancefloor with British TV stars, comedians, punk rockers, film stars and fashionistas.”

The club was operated by Peter Gatien, who had already opened venues under the same branding in New York City, Florida, Atlanta and Chicago. His London offshoot became so famous that even the future King Charles spent an evening there in the late 1990s. It eventually closed in 2003, switching to being an Australian sports bar. The Grade II-listed building is now up for auction with a guide price of £14.75million.

Koppel became well acquainted with many of the Limelight regulars. He was on friendly terms with TV presenter Jonathan Ross, Lemmy from Motorhead, Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot from Curiosity Killed The Cat, and Jon Moss and Boy George from Culture Club.

In fact, Boy George took quite an interest in him, once chatting him up rather vigorously. “He was really cheeky, very flirty, and great fun,” Koppel remembers of the ­flamboyant singer.

One regular who disliked being photographed was George Michael. “He was particularly difficult,” Koppel remembers. “I was nervous of him reacting to me.”

As Koppel was officially employed by the nightclub’s PR, he was supposed to ask permission before he took any of his photos.

“I had to toe the line, play the game and not upset anybody,” he remembers, although he would occasionally sneak in surreptitious shots before his subjects were aware he was there.

His pay was £25 a night plus expenses, and he could earn far more than that if his photos were published in the national press.

Hired to work three nights a week at the club, he remembers how dark it always was inside. There was a huge dance floor and a stage on the ground floor, overlooked by a balcony. Bands and DJs would regularly play sets, and fashion shows would take place. In the basement was a lounge area and a kitchen where they often prepared sushi – a style of food Koppel remembers being very novel at the time.

But it was upstairs, in the VIP room, that he took his most interesting photos. Here, with the only light coming from flickering candles, he would pass subtly amongst the celebrities as they chatted, drank, smoked and flirted on the banquettes.

He captured moments of excitement, drunkenness and intimacy, his photos a revealing window back into the 1980s, in all its hedonistic glory.

Among the many images in his book, you can see Billy Idol dancing with his girlfriend; George Michael appearing to sign a banknote; artist Leigh Bowery in typically outrageous costumes; Lemmy from Motorhead showing off his nipple; comedian Mel Smith snogging his wife; designer Jasper Conran kissing actress Patsy Kensit; singer Martin Fry with a girlfriend apparently nibbling his ear; Iggy Pop cosying up to Blondie drummer Clem Burke; Robbie Coltrane with Johnny Rotten; Julian Lennon in a Native American-style fringe jacket; Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde embracing Pogues singer Shane MacGowan; and a fair bit of naked flesh to boot.

Koppel’s job was rarely easy. “It was so dark, so dimly lit, that I couldn’t see to focus my camera,” he remembers. “So I used to get people to light a cigarette or a match and hold it up to their face so I could see them. And the extraordinary thing was that, in those days, everybody smoked. So there were matches everywhere.”

There was one area of the nightclub which was strictly off-limits to Koppel, and that was in the manager’s office, above the VIP room. “They used to have a bouncer on the stairs going up to the office and you didn’t get past there unless you were invited. I never was, so whatever happened in there, I never knew anything about,” he adds intriguingly.

Koppel says he would never succeed in capturing such intimate images in today’s nightclubs, as celebrities are now constantly on their guard for paparazzi. “Everybody’s got a mobile phone nowadays, and everybody’s filming everything,” he points out. “Everybody’s a photographer and everybody’s a model. Back then so few people had cameras.

“There’s something quite naive about my photos. There was a certain respect between the subject and the photographer which I think has gone now. In those days there was a level of privacy that is not available today.”

While Koppel is excited about his upcoming book and exhibition, he is sad that many of the celebrities he photographed are now dead and gone.

“Looking through this archive of works from so many years ago, I’ve been struck by how many of the famous faces are no longer with us,” he laments. “Robbie Coltrane, Lemmy, Shane MacGowan, Malcolm McLaren, Derek Jarman, Jeff Beck, David Soul and, most shocking of all, George Michael.

“This small collection of works is a celebration of the nightlife of a time gone by.”

● Limelight by David Koppel is published this month, £50. An accompanying exhibition runs at Zebra One Gallery, London, from October 9-21; davidkoppel.co.uk