False Idols

BEFORE I FULLY KNEW WHO DAVID ESSEX WAS OR EVEN WHAT HE LOOKED LIKE, his name alone made me cringe. It conjured a musty, long-forgotten teen idol of the ’70s, a cut-rate David Cassidy with British teeth, a target for esoteric pub jokes. Essex was indeed a sensation in Britain in that decade, a number-one pop vocalist and teenybopper pin-up with songs like “Rock On” and “Gonna Make You a Star.” But in 1967, he also began a career as an actor, going on to star in popular rock ’n’ roll fables That’ll Be the Day (1973) and Stardust (1974). is a typical rise-and-fall tale of fame and hedonism, but its precursor, , set in 1958, proves to be piercingly insightful and unpredictable.