Starstruck – over a decade’s worth of celebrity snapshots by an obsessive fan

I don’t know what is more fascinating, the images or the accompanying anecdotes included in this collection of amateur snapshots taken from 1966-1980. Photographed with a paparazzi’s determination and a fan’s adoration, these portraits are intimate, touching, hilarious, and sometimes out of focus.

Gary Lee Boas’ obsession with celebrities, which began at age 15, led him to wait for hours in front of stage doors, hotels and nightclubs to capture everyone from actors to musicians to astronauts to politicians, including the famous, the future-famous, and the once-famous. The juxtaposition of the photographs (sometimes absurd) adds to the pleasure of leafing through this colorful book: Henry Kissinger coupled with Lee Majors, John Wayne with Billy Barty, Marilyn Chambers with Nelson Rockefeller. The frequent inclusion of non-celebrity onlookers in the pics (proto-photobombers?) adds to the fun – especially in the photograph of Miss Universe.

Starstruck: Photographs From a Fan, by Gary Lee Boas

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