The most famous moment in the era of radical chic was the party given by the conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein, in January 1970, for a group of Black Panthers at his luxurious apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The event was immortalised by Tom Wolfe in his 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Bernstein was a regular party-thrower for civil rights activists. He is said to have given his black butler and maid the night off, hiring South American temps for the evening.

Another stand-in was the “Native American Indian” sent by Marlon Brando to refuse his Oscar for The Godfather in 1972. The actor wanted to protest against the maltreatment of Native Americans, especially in Hollywood’s depictions of them. Brando’s surrogate, “Sacheen Littlefeather”, who mercifully did not get to read out on air the 15-page speech he had drawn up for her, turned out to be a Hispanic actress from Los Angeles called Maria Cruz.

That same year, Jane Fonda, a regular activist, took herself off to Hanoi to meet the other side in the Vietnam war. The trip produced an indelible image of Fonda in a helmet, sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (right), and landed her the nickname “Hanoi Jane”. It has stuck, despite her claims that she was set up to have the picture taken: “The most horrible thing I could have done... thoughtless.”

Vanessa Redgrave also used the global reach of the Oscars, while accepting her award for Julia in 1978, to launch a defence of her pro-Palestinian activities, which included narrating a documentary called, The Palestinian, for which she was being picketed that night by the Jewish Defence League. “Zionist hoodlums,” she called them; the Hollywood audience both booed and clapped.

Since the 1970s, radical chic has recurred regularly as a fashion accessory, from Katharine Hamnett’s T-shirts with political slogans — one was photographed on its designer at a No 10 party alongside Margaret Thatcher — and the early-1990s trend of using revolutionary symbols and militaristic styles known as Prada Meinhof, to Madonna’s self- styling as the ad-hoc revolutionary Patty Hearst, in her SLA beret, for the cover of her American Life album in 2003 (above). The iconic Che posters by Korda are still with us: expect more when Steven Soderbergh’s double biopic about the Cuban guerrilla opens this winter.

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• Trailers

• DVD

• London Film Festival

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010