Stars Off The Record

Stars Off The Record (1955) by Rutherford Rau (Eldon Press). No ISBN, because in 1955 nobody had dreamt up such things, and besides, Rau probably wouldn’t have bothered. This is a curious little time capsule of celebrity detritus, gossip, half-truths, and entirely unverified anecdotes about the famous, the nearly-famous, and the sort of people who insisted they were famous but weren’t. Rau, with a typewriter that may or may not have had a working ribbon, cobbles together a patchwork quilt of insider snark, party chatter, and occasional outright character assassination, all wrapped in mid-century optimism and cigarette smoke.

Condition: Good, which at Crappy Old Books means it isn’t falling apart in your hands, though it may look like it has been left on a train seat during the Suez Crisis. The pages are intact, they turn, and you can read them without needing gloves, although the book does have that pleasantly fusty perfume that only Eldon Press paper stock can muster.

No glossy dust jacket here, but the binding still clings on bravely, like a has-been actor clinging to a single line on a panel show. Expect pencilled underlinings in places where some long-gone reader thought Rau had really nailed it, and possibly a tea-ring from the 1960s.

A wonderfully odd souvenir of an era when “celebrity tell-all” meant whisky-stained recollections rather than ghostwritten memoirs. If you like your star gossip with the names changed to avoid libel and your books with just the right amount of wear, this one’s for you.

Dust jacket mostly there but with slightly larger tear to back and missing a 1 by 2 in triangle, buts its still more than 90% complete. 

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