Customer Reviews

Celebrity: The Photographs of Terry O'Neill

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This book is full of large scale photos filling the pages from top to bottom and side to side. There is very little written about the photos which is perfect because you don't buy a book of celebrity photographs to READ about them. My artsy friends like the composition of the photos. My movie buff friends like the pictures of big screen stars in their prime. It's the perfect coffee table book.

It may be a black and white image but at first blush you hear Lee Marvin's whiskey growl of a voice and your mind's eye pulls up Paul Newman's trantric blue ones. I would have bought Mr. O'Neill's book of celebrity photographs based on the strength and composition of the cover alone. Delve into the pages and the people and you will appreciate his incredible art of presenting these icons to readers and fans.

This is a book of beautiful photography featuring a wide range of really great celebrities. The photographs run from Queen Elizabeth II to Joan Rivers. You have the Beatles, Rod Stewart, Peter Sellers, supermodels of yesterday and today, Woody and Mia, Dame Edna, and even the great Diva herself, Miss Faye Dunaway. Terry O'Neill has photographed all the greats of the second half of the 20th century, and we find them here. Terry O'Neill tells a brief history behind some of the select photographs. Those are really interesting. Gill does the introduction. This is a beautiful book if you are interested in celebrity photography.

The Gill introduction is too long and too overdone. It also has some pretty glaring mistakes. William Holden was floating in the pool at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, not Joseph Cotten. When Gill is waxing on about what is means to be a celebrity for pages and pages, this is a really bad mistake. O'Neill messes up a few dates. The famous photograph of Faye Dunaway was Spring of 1977, not 1976. It was the night after her Oscar win, and O'Neill was married to her for several years after that, you'd think that would be an easy date to remember. It is one of his most famous photographs.

But this book is not about the introduction or exact dates, it is about the photographs. Each one is truly a pleasure to look at and study. The only "complaint" I have about this fabulous book is that it could have been physically larger. Some of the photographs spill across the spine because they are too large for one page. It's minor, but it made a few of the photographs slightly less enjoyable to look at. All in all, this is an A+ book and for a book of this nature, it is extremely low priced. Buy at once!