About the Author

Ron Galella is widely regarded as the most famous and most controversial celebrity photographer in the world--he's been dubbed "Paparazzo Extraordinaire" by Newsweek, and "the Godfather of U.S. paparazzi culture" by Time and Vanity Fair. Galella has endured two highly publicized court battles with Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, a broken jaw at the hands of Marlon Brando, and a serious beating by Richard Burton's bodyguards before being jailed in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Galella's work has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world. The Museum of Modern Art New York and San Francisco, the Tate Modern in London, and the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum of Photography in Berlin, among many others, all maintain collections of Galella's iconic works. Popular Galella books include The Photographs of Ron Galalle (Greybull Press) and Disco Years (PowerHouse Books), which was honored as Best Photography Book of 2006 by The New York Times. Recently, Galella made the transition to moving film with Smash His Camera, a documentary of his life and career by Oscar-winning director Leon Gast (When We Were Kings, 1996). Premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Smash His Camera received the Grand Jury Award for Directing in the U.S. Documentary category. The film was also well-received at the 54th BFI London Film Festival prior to airing on the BBC throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. A native New Yorker now residing in Montville, New Jersey, Ron served as a United States Air Force photographer during the Korean conflict before attending the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where he earned a degree in Photojournalism.

Reviews

Galella spends his day poring over his vast archives searching for some picture he overlooked, some gem buried in his contacts. "Mining the gold in my files," as he says. Interest in all his pictures from back when he was still the undefeated don of the paparazzi -- of Jackie, Liz and Brando -- keeps him in circulation in fine art galleries around the world. An 8-by-10 print might easily fetch $2,500, and he distributes scores of them to galleries daily.Galella was speaking from the home he's shared with his wife Betty for more than two decades. It is covered top to bottom in pictures -- a Jackie over the fireplace, a Liz by the staircase, an Andy Warhol etched onto the back of a chair -- and fistfuls of porcelain rabbits -- his and Betty's favorite animal. Boxes of film are scattered all over the place -- "Mick Jagger Alone," "Elvis Presley with others." The negatives of his most famous pictures -- "Windblown Jackie" and a shot of Galella in a football helmet trailing Marlon Brando -- are also here, stored away in a safe. He's on a couch, with all his books displayed in front of him, flipping through the pages of "New York," the new book from Damiani and Row NYC that features images extending from 1968 to 1992, all the way from Warhol's prime to his memorial service luncheon.There's Warhol and Keith Haring at Tunnel in 1986. "Andy liked me a lot, I think, because we liked the same celebrities and because I had the chutzpah and he was shy and he didn't get the pictures I got," he says. "We had the same social disease. We want to be everywhere and we want to cover everything."--Erik Maza "Women's Wear Daily"