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Gay Talese. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold. Photographs by Phil Stern

1250

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Edition: English
Gay Talese’s crystalline portrait of Frank Sinatra, first published in 1966, combined faithful fact with vivid storytelling in a triumph of New Journalism. In this Collector’s Edition, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold is published in letterpress alongside notes and correspondence from the author’s archives and photographs from Phil Stern, the only photographer granted access to Sinatra over an extraordinary four decade period.

Collector’s Edition of 5,000 numbered copies, each signed by Gay Talese.
Edition of 5,000Hardcover in a slipcase, letterpress-printed text, two different paper stocks, plus tip-ins and a fold-out9.4 x 13.4 in.5.18 lb244 pages
“One of the greatest celebrity portraits ever written.”
GQ
“…a lavish book, slipcased, the blue on its cover matching the ol’ eyes of you-know-who.”
Vogue.com
“A beautiful limited-edition version of Gay Talese's iconic 1966 Esquire story Frank Sinatra Has a Cold. Among the book's highlights are images of the writer's trademark outlines scratched onto shirt boards.”
Esquire.com
“Exquisite… a tome tailor-made for journalism junkies… with its never-before-seen photos of Sinatra, Talese-penned introduction, and marked-up manuscripts from the archive printed on old-fashioned letterpress and accented in the swoony blue of Sinatra’s eyes, the TASCHEN book is the glossiest journalism textbook imaginable.”
vanityfair.com
“…a canonical example of the New Journalism, and TASCHEN, will publish the piece in a swanky new print edition decked out with storyboards, correspondence, manuscript pages, and Phil Stern photographs.”
The Village Voice
Sold Out
Please check with your nearest TASCHEN store just in case
XL
XL books are at least 34 cm (13.4 in.) high, with the exception of landscape-format titles
Gay Talese. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold. Photographs by Phil Stern

Gay Talese. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold. Photographs by Phil Stern

1250

Gay Talese’s New Journalism Triumph Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

“The greatest celebrity portrait of all time,” printed in letterpress and limited to 5,000 signed copies

“Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel — only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence.” —Gay Talese

In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese set out for Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to write a major profile on Frank Sinatra. When he arrived, he found the singer and his vigilant entourage on the defensive: Sinatra was under the weather, not available, and not willing to be interviewed.

Undeterred, Talese stayed on in L.A., believing Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and used the meantime to observe the star from a careful distance and to interview his friends, associates, family members, and hangers-on. Sinatra never did grant the one-on-one he had hoped for, but Talese’s tenacity paid off: his profile Frank Sinatra Has a Cold went down in history as a tour de force of literary nonfiction and the advent of the New Journalism. Its incisive portrait of Sinatra in the recording studio, on location, out on the town, and with the eponymous cold, revealed as much about a singular star persona as it did about the Hollywood machine.

In this Collector’s Edition, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold is published in traditional letterpress, with an introduction by Gay Talese and facsimile reproductions of manuscript pages, correspondence, and original storyboard, revealing the making of this New Journalism marvel. To complete the Sinatra picture, the text and archival material is interwoven with photographs of Sinatra from the legendary lens of Phil Stern, the only photographer granted access to Sinatra over four decades, as well as from top photojournalists of the ’60s including John Bryson, John Dominis, and Terry O’Neill. Reproduced in rich duotone, the photographs compliment Talese’s character study by documenting the many complex facets of Sinatra: the voice, the showman, the doting father, the Hollywood magnet, and the man with, in his own words, an “over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.”
  • Collector’s Edition of 5,000 numbered copies, each signed by Gay Talese
  • Silkscreened hardcover with embossed paper case
  • Letterpress printed on natural uncoated paper
  • Facsimile reproductions of Gay Talese’s original storyboard and manuscript pages
The photographer

Phil Stern (1919–2014) was one of the preeminent photographers of Hollywood’s golden age, shooting for Look, Life, and Colliers, and working as a “special photographer” on the set of over 100 feature films, including Some Like It Hot, West Side Story, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

The author

Gay Talese joined the staff of The New York Times in 1955 and remained there for a decade. During the 1960s and 1970s he contributed many articles to magazines, principally Esquire. Talese is the best-selling author of eleven books including Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Honor Thy Father, and A Writer’s Life. He lives in New York City.

Gay Talese. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold. Photographs by Phil Stern
Edition of 5,000Hardcover in a slipcase, letterpress-printed text, two different paper stocks, plus tip-ins and a fold-out24 x 34 cm2.35 kg244 pages

ISBN 978-3-8365-4754-3

Edition: English
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