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 Galella (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.

This is the first Ron Galella book that focuses exclusively on New York City in the 70s and 80s. The book contains many unpublished images from Galella’s archives of iconic celebrities of the day from Bianca Jagger, Madonna, Grace Jones, Al Pacino, and Halston out and about on the streets of New York, at JFK, in hotel lobbies, and enjoying the nightlife and theater culture of a much grittier New York City. Journalist William Van Meter interviews Galella about specific images providing captions that reveal never before told stories about Galella’s most legendary photographs.