COLACELLO, Bob 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born May 8, 1947, in Brooklyn, NY,; son of John (a coffee taster) and Liberina (in sales; maiden name, Alberina) Colacello. Education: Attended University of Mexico, 1967, and University of Madrid, 1967-68; Georgetown University, B.S.F.S., 1969; Columbia University, M.F.A., 1971. Politics: Republican. Religion: "Old Roman Catholic."

ADDRESSES:

Office—Vanity Fair, 350 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017-3703. Agent—Morton Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit Associates, 598 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

Village Voice, New York, NY, film critic, 1970-72; Interview (magazine), New York, NY, editor, 1972-74, executive editor, 1974-83; Parade (magazine), New York, NY, contributing editor, 1983—; Vanity Fair (magazine), New York, NY, contributing editor, 1984-86, 1988—, senior editor, 1986-87.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild.

WRITINGS:

(With Andy Warhol, Pat Hackett, and Brigid Berlin) The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1975.

(With Francesco Scavullo and Sean Byrnes) Scavullo on Men, Random House (New York, NY), 1977.

(With Andy Warhol) Andy Warhol's Exposures, photography by Andy Warhol, Grosset & Dunlop (New York, NY), 1979.

Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1990.

Andy Warhol, Universe/Vendome Publishers (New York, NY), 1997.

Studios by the Sea: Artists of Long Island's East End, photographs by Jonathan Becker, Abrams (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of essay to Warhol's Andy Warhol: Headshots, Jablonka Galerie. Also author of Butlers Who Hustle: A Book of Manners, in press.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Research for Le Tout Paris: A Sexual Survey.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bob Colacello has long been interested in the world of modern art. He spent thirteen years as a confidant to Andy Warhol, an American artist and founder of pop art who died in 1987. During most of those years, he headed one of Warhol's enterprises, Interview magazine, before moving on to contribute to Vanity Fair. In Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, Colacello chronicles his "Warhol period," especially the escapades of Warhol and the celebrities with whom the artist associated. Holy Terror is based on a diary Colacello kept by telephoning Warhol's assistant, Pat Hackett, who used transcripts from similar phone calls—contacts between Warhol and herself—to prepare the 1989 Andy Warhol Diaries. Assessing the wealth of books on the artist appearing in recent years, Grace Glueck wrote in the New York Times that "of the reminiscences that have appeared to date—including Warhol's own interminable taped diaries… Colacello's Holy Terror is certainly the best-written and most killingly observed."

Colacello also details his years at the artist's side, concentrating more on Warhol's personal and private life than on his artistic career. "The wry affection in this portrait," observed Nancy Wigston in the Globe and Mail, "underlines the exasperation and love [Warhol] elicited from his confidants, while pushing them to extremes." Holy Terror documents the sometimes frustrating editorial policies at Interview, as well as methods Warhol used for soliciting commissioned portraits. Wigston described the chapters involving some high-profile personalities as "pure theatre of the absurd." Noting that Colacello was portrayed negatively by the artist in The Andy Warhol Diaries, Time critic Margaret Carlson called " Holy Terror … something of a get-even book." However, she noted that "Colacello can be funny." In the New York Times Book Review, Paul Taylor commented that the author "gives scant credit to Warhol's uncanny artistic gifts," but conceded that the book "will titillate everyone who is fascinated by Warhol trivia and the chinks in his armor—the thousands who care about what Andy ordered for dinner… and when, if ever, he was seen to cry."

Colacello presents the summer hideouts of fifty modern artists in Studio by the Sea: Artists on Long Island's East End, which began as an article for Vanity Fair. As he recalled to New York Times writer Michelle Falkenstein, "I had just gotten New York magazine's annual 'Hate the Hamptons' issue. There seemed to be a life out here that New York magazine didn't know about." So Colacello decided to set the New York editors straight about the Hamptons, a string of fashionable summer resorts on the South Fork of Long Island, which many artists have made and continue to make their summer (and sometimes year-round) homes. After writing the magazine article, Colacello expanded it into a full-length photographically illustrated book, whose appeal he explained to Falkenstein "is that not many people get to see artists' studios and where they live." Indeed, Library Journal contributor Rachel Collins praised both Colacello's "short yet telling descriptions" of the artists and Jonathan Becker's photographs.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Conde Nast Traveler, July, 2002, Ondine Cohane, "Easels on the Shore," review of Studios by the Sea: Artists of Long Island's East End, p. 33.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), September 8, 1990, Nancy Wigston, review of Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up.

Library Journal, July, 2002, Rachel Collins, review of Studios by the Sea, p. 72.

New Yorker, May 27, 2002, Mark Rozzo, "Book Currents: Beached," review of Studios by the Sea, p. 21.

New York Times, August 9, 1990, Grace Glueck, review of Holy Terror; June 2, 2002, Michelle Falkenstein, "Two Portraits of a Legacy," review of Studios by the Sea, p. 23.

New York Times Book Review, August 26, 1990, review of Holy Terror, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, June 15, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Holy Terror, p. 62; June 3, 2002, "Art by Air, Land, Sea & Eye," review of Studios by the Sea, pp. 83-84.

Time, August 13, 1990, review of Holy Terror, p. 71.

Times (London, England), June 8, 2002, Bob Colacello, "Artists in Residence," p. 38.

Washington Post, September 19, 1990, review of Holy Terror.*