From Picasso to Pussy Galore, Brando to Brad Pitt, the Rolex GMT-Master became the cosmopolitan watch of legends; uniting art, cinema, politics, sport, and style.
Photo: AJ Pics
If the Pan Am pilots of the 1950s gave the Rolex GMT-Master its wings, the decades that followed gave it its legends. What began as a cockpit tool soon migrated into wider culture, finding favour with musicians, actors, artists, sportsmen, astronauts... and even revolutionaries. Few watches have traversed such diverse worlds, yet remained so faithful to its original spirit of adventure.
The Musicians
Music, like aviation, thrives on rhythm and timing. Dizzy Gillespie, whose trumpet redefined the sound of post-war jazz, often kept time with a Rolex GMT-Master as he toured across continents... a watch as attuned to the rhythms of international travel as to the syncopations of bebop.
Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet in hand, time kept by his Rolex GMT-Master.
Eric Clapton, too, has long been associated with the GMT-Master. A noted Rolex collector, Clapton owned several variations of the model, further cementing its status as a watch beloved by musicians whose careers were lived on global stages.
Eric Clapton’s understated Rolex GMT-Master echoes the cool ease of his music.
The Revolutionaries
In Cuba, the GMT-Master found itself on unlikely wrists: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Both men were photographed wearing the watch during the revolution’s heyday, its dual-time functionality serving men whose lives were lived across time zones and political fault lines.
Fidel Castro with his cigar and Rolex GMT-Master 6542.
Whatever one’s view of their politics, the images of Castro and Guevara with cigars, fatigues, and Rolex GMT-Masters is among the most striking juxtapositions of watchmaking and history.
Che Guevara with his ever-present cigar and a Rolex GMT-Master on his wrist.
The Astronauts
The GMT-Master was not only a companion of pilots; it went further still. Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert, who calmly radioed the immortal words “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” wore a Rolex GMT-Master during the mission. It was a reminder that the watch designed for commercial aviation proved equally at home in space.
“Houston, we’ve had a problem”. Jack Swigert, Apollo 13 astronaut, wearing his GMT-Master.
Photo: NASA
Another moonwalker, Apollo 14’s Edgar Mitchell, also wore a Rolex GMT-Master; his personal watch later achieving legendary status when it sold at auction for $2,163,199. For collectors, it remains one of the most significant space-flown Rolexes ever to appear on the market, proof that the GMT-Master’s legacy stretches beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell entrusted his GMT-Master with the measure of time beyond our world.
Photo: NASA
The Artist
The great Pablo Picasso, a man who redrew the boundaries of modern art, was photographed with a Rolex GMT-Master on his wrist. If a canvas could distort perspective, a watch could collapse geography; both belonged to the restless, boundary-breaking spirit of the twentieth century.
Pablo Picasso in ceremonial headdress, his Rolex GMT-Master as much a masterpiece as his canvases.
Photo: Rolex SA
The Bond Girl
In Goldfinger (1964), Honor Blackman - as Pussy Galore, the only woman to lead a flying circus - wore a Rolex GMT-Master. In an age when James Bond’s Submariner had already become an icon, the sight of Galore with a GMT-Master confirmed the watch’s place in the pantheon of style on screen.
Pussy Galore with GMT-Master, forever linking Bond and Rolex in cinematic legend.
Photo: Rolex SA
The Actors
Hollywood embraced the GMT-Master with gusto. Marlon Brando famously wore a bezel-less 1675 in Apocalypse Now - a starkly utilitarian take that reflected both the brutality of war and the stripped-down intensity of his performance.
Marlon Brando’s GMT-Master stripped of its bezel, as raw and uncompromising as his performance.
Photo: AJ Pics
After years off the radar, Brando’s watch resurfaced in 2019 when it was sold at auction for nearly $1,952,000. Its engraving - “M. Brando” carved into the caseback - only heightened its allure, making it one of the most storied Rolex GMT-Masters ever to change hands.
The caseback - engraved by Brando himself.
Photo: Phillips
Arnold Schwarzenegger chose a yellow-gold GMT-Master whose bold presence mirrored his own. Just as he sculpted his body into a seven-time Mr. Olympia and later forged a Hollywood career of unprecedented scale, his Rolex was a statement of ambition and achievement; a watch as unapologetically larger-than-life as the man who wore it.
A yellow-gold GMT-Master for a golden era: bold, ambitious, and unmistakably larger than life.
More recently Daniel Craig, Brad Pitt, and Sylvester Stallone have all been associated with the model. Each, in their way, underscored the GMT-Master’s role as a watch for stars who live between time zones.
Three modern icons, three GMT-Masters. Hollywood’s leading men united by a watch made for travel and adventure.
The Racer
On the circuit, Sir Jackie Stewart - the “Flying Scot” of Formula 1 - wore a Rolex GMT-Master, a fitting companion for a man whose career was measured in split seconds. Beyond his three World Championships, Stewart was as much an ambassador of style as of speed: sharp tailoring, aviator shades, and a Rolex at his wrist became part of his signature.
Jackie Stewart, three-time Formula One World Champion, wearing his trusted Rolex GMT-Master.
The image of Stewart, bare-chested in conversation with Paul Newman - another racer who blurred the lines between Hollywood and horsepower - captures the essence of the GMT-Master’s appeal. It was not merely a pilot’s instrument but the emblem of an international lifestyle, worn by men who lived as much in the air as on the ground.
A Common Thread
What unites these disparate names - from Picasso to Pussy Galore, from astronauts to athletes - is a single watch conceived in the 1950s for Pan Am pilots. The Rolex GMT-Master proved adaptable to every environment: cockpit, concert hall, film set, racetrack, battlefield, and gallery. Its red-and-blue bezel may have been devised to separate night from day, but in the hands of its masters, the GMT-Master blurred the boundary between tool and icon, utility and glamour.
The Rolex GMT-Master II - ready for the next generation.Photo: Rolex SA