Where the books were found by… Blammo!
My old mucker BowieNetter Paul Kinder, who just so happens to have his own Bowie fansite, (the very special
You’re all familiar with the shot above which was used as the basis for a painting by Guy Peellaert that was finally used for a promotional poster.
Well, Paul has unearthed a contact sheet (see below) that contains another eleven different shots from the session. It’s likely that O’Neil would have taken many more than this at the session but the contact sheet is a great discovery anyway.
Paul (aka Rednik) also asks to be put out of his misery regarding the identity of the author of the book at David’s feet in these shots. The enigmatically entitled The Immortal is hard to make out in most of the published versions of the shot, but I have been in possession of a large format print for some time (see enhanced detail from print above) and I can exclusively reveal that the author is a certain Walter Ross.
The Immortal was a pulp fiction novel published in 1959 about a wild young actor called Johnny Preston loosely based on a famous actor of the time, cast from the same mould. There were many versions of the cover printed for different editions, of which I have a few. The hardback in the O’Neil shot was originally a colour illustration and even Andy Warhol designed one edition complete with illustrations inside.
The paperback edition, above, left no doubt as to who Johnny Preston was based on, sporting, as he does, one of the more famous James Dean outfits… an outfit that so impressed David he borrowed it for his cool-as-fuck appearance in Christiane F.
There ya go Paul… one less thing to worry about while you relax in the sun.