---
product_id: 31275156
title: "The Idolmaker [VHS]"
brand: "ray sharkeytovah feldshuhtaylor hackford"
price: "KSh6938"
currency: KES
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/31275156-the-idolmaker-vhs
store_origin: KE
region: Kenya
---

# The Idolmaker [VHS]

**Brand:** ray sharkeytovah feldshuhtaylor hackford
**Price:** KSh6938
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Idolmaker [VHS] by ray sharkeytovah feldshuhtaylor hackford
- **How much does it cost?** KSh6938 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.ke](https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/31275156-the-idolmaker-vhs)

## Best For

- ray sharkeytovah feldshuhtaylor hackford enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted ray sharkeytovah feldshuhtaylor hackford brand quality
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## Description

Product description          Vincent Vaccardi (Ray Sharkey) has talent and drive, but in the singing world of 1959, he knows he has to have looks too. Determined to find success for his songs, he latches on to a local performer and shapes his image into Tommy Dee (Paul Land), who's suddenly an overnight sensation. As his own power and income increase, Vinnie doesn't realize he's lost his focus on the work and is becoming a feral, driven taskmaster. When Tommy starts to agitate for bigger things, Vinnie realizes he'd better have more than one trick up his sleeve. He finds another fresh face (an unbelievably young Peter Gallagher), whom he transforms from Guido the busboy into Caesare--a reclusive, mysterious singing sensation. Vinnie's formula is on the money, and Caesare is catapulted to fame as well, but Vinnie finally begins to see that he may have left something important behind, and that he's not the only one who might have to pay for it. Director Taylor Hackford's THE IDOLMAKER is a brutal exploration of the creation, manipulation, and destruction of teen idols and their audience in the late 1950s and early 1960s.             .com          The same year Neil Diamond made a ballyhooed (through lackluster) remake of The Jazz Singer, first-time director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman) created a musical biography packed with energy, verve, and style. Golden Globe winner Ray Sharkey is Vincent Vacarri, a tough, charismatic music fan who turns producer, creating stars in the halcyon days of rock and roll. Loosely based on the life of Bob Marucci, who created the Fabian and Frankie Avalon juggernauts, the story is part character study, part musical. The outstanding concert sequences are the payoff with newcomer Peter Gallagher as the Fabian-like Caesare--a great bit of casting. Brill Building songwriter Jeff Barry's song score, including a cagey final number, is a highlight, as is Joe Pantoliano (in another debut) as Vacarri's abused but loyal songwriter partner. --Doug Thomas

## Images

![The Idolmaker [VHS] - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/415ASMTMG5L.jpg)
![The Idolmaker [VHS] - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61b6YHTzvSL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Awesome movie and DVD.
  

*by A***R on Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2023*

Fast delivery and great packaging,  thank you.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    The Idolmaker and the incandescent beauty of Peter Gallagher and Jeff Barry
  

*by D***E on Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016*

It's a bit disheartening how hard I had to search to be able to watch The Idolmaker. I'm not sure what twigged the desire but it was a film that made a big impression on the young aspiring rock star me. I saw it several times in an actual theatre and am pretty sure I saw it on TV as well. Filmed in the 1980 but set at the tail end of the '50s it is now double retro but holds up remarkably well.Not only is The Idolmaker engrossing as a film but it also now seems eerily prescient. In the era of punk and new wave, it was humorous, and tragic, to look back at the pop idols who manufactured because of their looks rather than their talent. In hindsight, after boy bands and Spice Girls and Kardashians, it all seems rather innocent. At least they bothered to work to find, dig out or hammer in some talent to back the looks up.Ray Sharkey plays an aspiring songwriter/producer who tells his mother, the luminous Olympia Dukakis in a drab role, that despite the voice she has just complimented, he doesn't have the looks to be a singer. So he sets out to find a face and body to svengali. His buddy played by Paul Land pressures Sharkey to come see his band because,We got a great new singer, blond hair, blue eyes.to which Sharkey states emphatically,Women don't want blond singing idols. They want dark hair like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley.Sharkey sees the band as they rock the club. Land is the saxophone player and, clad in a red suit with a conspicuous bulging crotch, he drives the crowd wild with chants and thrusts. The singer, similar coloured suit but buttoned over a Ken doll crotch, appeals to no-one and Sharkey convinces Land to become the front man. And then not only trains him to be a star but also connives, begs, borrows, bribes and steals to make him one.The breakout role, and the one I most remembered, was Peter Gallagher as Guido transformed into Caesare. It is impossible to express just how stunning Gallagher looks in the film. And he sings and dances impressively. So much so that when he comes into his own with "Baby" the film is effectively over. Plotwise we still need to see him emulate Elvis and to follow Sharkey's trajectory in becoming a singer himself (a tragic footnote where instead of a pop idol he becomes an embarrassing soft-rock crooner). Caesare has found and expressed his sexuality and the film climaxes and loses all momentum.(full review at [...])

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    An unfairly forgotten classic for you to rediscover
  

*by M***T on Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2000*

"I've been up, I've been down, I've been playing women all around  ..." It amazes me that this great movie seemed to have bypassed modern  audiences to the extent that no-one even remembers it anymore. I remember  when it was released in South Africa in 1981, my best friend and I went to  see it four times in the same week. At that time, we were uncritically into  movies about music, rock 'n roll and disco (Grease; Saturday Night Fever;  Thank God it's Friday; I Wanna Hold your Hand etc)and this movie delivered  big time in terms of our low expectations. As I've matured, movies like  these have either dated rather badly (Saturday Night Fever) or gradually  revealed their mediocrity (Thank God it's Friday). The Idolmaker has only  become better! This is truly a movie that succeeds in being all things to  all people. As kids, it delivered the most basic kind of entertainment that  made going to the movies a weekly pleasure. As adults, it delivers an  intelligent, bittersweet and admirably unsentimental look at the  unforgiving dynamics of an industry and culture prizing image and  packaging over substance and content. Featuring a remarkably confident  career best performance by Ray Sharkey ably supported by the always  reliable Joe Pantoliano and a suitably weeny Peter Gallagher, The Idolmaker  is the forgotten classic of the musical drama genre. In a funny way, given  the setting, the neighbourhood, the wiseguy attitude - I've always kind of  considered The Idolmaker as a kind of sub-Scorsese movie - an upmarket,  glamorous companion piece to Mean Streets, Raging Bull and other such  Italian American neighbourhood tales. But that would be unfair to director  Taylor Hackford, who has fashioned a remarkably original stand-alone homage  to the hardworking, entrepreneurial, fame-hungry neighbourhood kids who  were the real, unseen backbone of the rock 'n roll industry. Breezy and  pacy, yet tinged with profound pathos, The Idolmaker is the best of its  kind. The fact that it has a terrific soundtrack that'll have you humming  all day doesn't hurt either. This is the best, most insightful and  intellectually stimulating movie about rock 'n roll ever made. Add The  Idolmaker to This is Spinal Tap and A Hard Day's Night in your collection  and you'll own the only movies you need to about the music industry and the  stupidities -and undeniable attraction - of its attendant celebrity. Oh yes  - and I guarantee that after watching this movie, you'll never be able to  take groups like the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync seriously again.

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*Product available on Desertcart Kenya*
*Store origin: KE*
*Last updated: 2026-02-20*