Off-guard, Beautiful People Unveiled Before the Camera Lens, Signed by Ron Galella
[Signed by Ron Galella] Galella, Ron. Off-guard, Beautiful People Unveiled Before the Camera Lens. Second Edition. 1983. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Book is inscribed on the flyleaf, “To Rae, Ron Galella, June 21, 00.” Introduction by Bruce Jay Friedman.
Ron Galella is to paparazzi what Jacqueline Kennedy is to first ladies—an analogy she might have disliked, since he and his camera became two of her great antagonists. Like Mrs. Onassis, however, Galella occupied a class all his own. He was a paparazzo, certainly, but also an artist, with an uncanny gift for making pursuit look glamorous. His subjects may have objected to being ambushed outside restaurants, trailed through airports, or chased by car, but the resulting photographs often granted them exactly what celebrities most desire: magnetism. This early monograph gathers the faces that gave the 1970s its distinctive charge, from politicians and jet-setters to athletes, musicians, and box-office stars.
“My aim is not to strip the celebrity of glamour by catching him unaware. On the contrary, I want to reveal the real glamour that I believe is natural to every celebrity—the essence that helped to make him a celebrity in the first place and that’s often masked once stardom is achieved.”
--Ron Galella