In 1970, Andy Warhol's then business manager and movie director Paul Morrissey noticed a review of their latest feature film, "Trash". It was written by a young man named Bob Colacello, who now very suddenly found himself drawn into the ultra-creative vortex of Warhol & co. Between 1970 and 1983, Colacello worked as editor and writer of Interview Magazine. But he also took photos of many a night out, specifically for his magazine column, "OUT". In 2007, Steidl published a book containing many of these very funny, endearing (sometimes not), indiscrete photos. "Out" is a great book containing visual evidence that New York was once indeed a happening place and that Bob Colacello was indeed almost always in the right place at the right time. At the time of the book's release (2007), I called him up in New York to hear more about his adventures.
Are all the photos in the book from vintage prints, or were they scanned from negatives?
They’re from vintage prints.
Once the project as such had materialised, were you happy about it or reluctant?
It wasn’t like I was hiding the images. I left the Factory in 1983 and started writing for Vanity Fair in 1984. In 1990 I published my memoir of working with Andy Warhol, Holy Terror . At that point, Mary Boone Gallery organised a little show of these photographs. Maybe 24 of the images. We actually sold half of them, mostly to people who were in the images. Then I just forgot about them. The half I didn’t sell, Mary had framed beautifully. I put them in storage and that was that. When Sam proposed doing this book, which was actually four years ago, I said fine, but I didn’t really want it to appear before I published the first volume of the biography of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. I had been working seven years on this biography and I thought that perhaps people would then take me a bit more seriously, because it’s about a president and first lady instead of pop cultural figures. Although you could say that Ronald Reagan was our first pop president. Anyway, I wanted to put the photo book off until after Reagan volume one came out. That came out in the fall of 2004 and I got very good reviews. They said it was a very good book from an unexpected corner, from a former Interview editor and party reporter... I knew that in the mainstream press they still don’t get that you can both be interested in pop culture and be serious. They still don’t get the fact that Andy Warhol was serious. My association with him is something that I’ll always both cherish and regret at the same time. I have very mixed feelings about it. I think one always has mixed feelings about the past. We decided to look at the book again, after the Reagan book. I thought it was fun. Why not just go with it?
How has it been received so far?
It’s been very well received. They don’t really review coffee table books that much. I haven’t really seen any reviews yet. But in general, everywhere we’ve had book signings people seem to just love it. It’s selling really well. All the major newspapers in the UK have run photos and interviews. In France, too. We’ve sold serial rights too, even to the Greek version of Marie-Claire! It’s a time that has a glamourous aura about it. There has been a lot done about that time with several picture books. But I think this is the first one where the pictures were really taken by someone who was really in the middle of things. All the pictures are three feet away. I didn’t know how to focus the camera if I had to go too far away. I wasn’t taking these pictures like a professional photographer. I was just there. I was taking them as a friend. Like the editor of the school newspaper.
A very good school! Now that you’re surfing on this wave of attention, could you consider doing another volume? Is there more stuff among the negatives?
There are at least another 250 vintage prints, probably 3-400. We didn’t even look at the contact sheets yet. This is all like a sideline for me. I don’t have that much time to give it. But if the book does well and if Steidl wants it, I would be open to doing ”Bob Colacello’s 'Out 2'” or ”Out A gain” or ”Bob Colacello’s 'In'”.
When looking at the pictures, people seem to be very open and consenting. There seems to be an all around, funky party mood. Was that a general attitude or was it because it was you taking the pictures?
I think it was because it was me taking the pictures. People didn’t suddenly go into a pose or stop doing what they were doing. The attitude that the pictures capture is a kind of carefree, relaxed, open attitude. It was real. It was what the times were about. I think the introduction in the book captures some idea of that hope. First of all, we were all young. There were of course people like Diana Vreeland who were not so young, but they had a young attitude and who had lived, in the 50s and 60s, in the forefront of this new openness. The counter-cultural revolution, the sexual revolution and the whole hippie thing, the whole feminist thing, the whole gay thing... All of that was something that had been boiling for a while. In the 70s all of it boiled over. The pot exploded and we, who were then only in our 20s, had the benefit of enjoying the spoils of the battle that the previous generations had fought for us. We had it pretty easy. We were the first generation where you had almost universal affluence, universal college education and universal freedom. Women were liberated by the birth control pill, we were all liberated by penicillin and other drugs that made sexually transmitted diseases easy to cure. AIDS hadn’t come along yet. AIDS is what I think really put an end to this era.
Was it because it was such a mysterious thing at the time or because it hit so hard?
It was very mysterious. It was a disease that gay men in particular seemed to be getting. For years, people were referring to it as ”gay cancer”. By the mid 1980s, we knew what it was and it was very frightening. It hit the people who had been most promiscuous first. It took away the feeling that you didn’t have to worry. Anything goes... i t was really sad because so many creative people died so young. It hit the art-, fashion- and literary worlds the hardest. It hit the places hard where there are these kinds of creative worlds that I describe in my book.
The ambience at, say, Studio 54 seems to have been quite democratic. The high and the low got together and had a good time. Do you think that Interview was a trendsetting force in this sense?
Yes, Interview was a trendsetting force. Andy Warhol was a trendsetting force. One has to remember that New York is different from almost all other American cities. It’s not dominated by one business. It’s not dominated by film, like Los Angeles. It’s not a city where old society dominates, like Boston. New York has always been a city of many businesses and there’s always new money coming in. New York City is the capital of finance, art, theater, fashion. You also have the publishing industry. There are so many elements that make up New York. It was easier in New York for this kind of mix. I think that both Andy Warhol himself and Interview m agazine promoted the idea of mixing high and low, uptown and downtown, gay and straight, black and white. We believed in the blurring of those boundaries or borders or differences.
Did you ever run into trouble because of the photos or OUT as a column?
The photos only go so far. Noone is really seen taking cocaine or having sex. That wasn’t my thing. Where we ran into trouble with Interview and also at the Factory with some of the films, like ”Women I n R evolt”, which made fun of the feminist movement, was with the Left. The Left and the gay liberation movement and the femin ists felt that we weren’t identifying strongly enough with those movements. In San Francisco, the gay bars didn’t allow any women to come in. In New York, it was just the opposite. We thought it was great that women wanted to go to gay bars. In the art world, there was also a sense that artists shouldn’t spend so much time with the rich clients. Why was Interview m agazine giving so much space to what we called the ”Millionettes”, the heirs and heiresses, and not to young artists? That was maybe a legitimate criticism. But Andy and Interview were all about glamour. We were drawn to beautiful people and glamourous people. In that sense, it was very elitist and probably not so democratic. I’m a royalist at heart personally. My grandmother came from a middle class family in Naples. I don’t think anyone’s more royalist than middle class people from Naples.
That’s another interesting question. You’ve approached many elevated social stratospheres through your work. Is there one specific group or class or even nationality that’s been less friendly and benevolent to your work than the others?
Not really. It’s always been the Left. Putting Nancy Reagan on the cover of Interview Magazine in 1981 was a big controversy, almost a scandal within the art world. Someone did a parody of our interview with Nancy Reagan in the Village Voice, which had Andy and I interviewing Hitler in his bunker. I was accused of being some kind of agent because I arranged for Andy to do the portrait of the Shah. But he also made portraits of Golda Meir and Willy Brandt. It wasn’t like I was forcing Andy to turn R ight. Andy was a stalwart liberal democrat. He said to me, ”How can you be a Republican? Didn’t Franklin Roosevelt help your family during the depression?” I said, ”No, he didn’t. Italian-Americans don’t believe in taking welfare. Not like you Slovaks...” We would joke about it. Even today, the art world and the people at Vanity Fair can’t understand how I can be a Republican. I’m a Republican because you’re not allowed to be a Republican in this particular world. I think it takes more courage to be openly Republican than to be openly gay in New York today. Bush has completely destroyed the Republican P arty.
In "Holy Terror", you describe the incredibly intense lifestyle that you had during this era, with Stolichnaya and cocaine as the preferred fuel. What do you do to have fun today? Is your quota of excessive fun filled?
I stopped drinking and taking drugs more than 13 years ago. For me, it’s just another phase. My idea of having fun now is filing and clipping. I read four newspapers at night and I clip about half of them. The next morning, I put them in files about all the people I might write about. I have my own personal little CIA operation... I have a lot of young friends and I just enjoy life. I don’t think you have to be drunk or high to enjoy life. I have very mixed feelings about having spent so much time taking drugs. Cocaine in particular. Marijuana makes you lazy and insecure. Cocaine certainly releases one’s sexual inhibitions. After a while, that becomes too much of a good thing.
If you hadn’t been given this original opportunity to jump on board at Interview, what do you think that you’d been doing today?
I was on my way to become a pretty successful film critic. The Village Voice’ Andrew Sarris had published at least a dozen of my reviews and the New York Times asked if I didn’t want to review for them. By then I was already too wrapped up in Interview. I think I would have gone in a more political direction. I would perhaps have ended up an ambassador. That’s what I started out studying. International Affairs.
Well, you certainly had a period when you were very active internationally and meeting a lot of diplomats...
I’m more fascinated by heads of state or cabinet ministers than I am by movie stars or rock stars. I’d much rather meet Juan Carlos of Spain or Angela Merkel than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
Do you think it has to do with the fact that those you mentioned first wield real, tangible power?
Yes. They have power and they affect our lives. Movie stars have a lot of power too and the media have a lot of power. But I think it’d be more interesting to have a conversation with people who are actually running governments and know what is going on than with Hollywood stars who think they know what’s going on. Popular culture is not what it used to be. It’s even a bit too popular for me. It’s become so low. Everything has been reduced to the lowest possible common denominator. That’s a trend that Warhol predicted and encouraged. I have mixed feelings about my involvement with that. The best interview he ever did was in Sweden in 1968, when he had the exhibition at Moderna Museet. He said, "in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes..." In the end, he also promoted this media takeover of the world, which has led to fame becoming the highest value rather than any kind of accomplishment. It’s about becoming famous any way you can. If you murder someone, you’re famous. If you make a porn movie, you’re famous. I think we’re in the final stages of the Roman Empire. I think Western civilisation is committing suicide. It’s just a matter of time before the barbarians come crashing through the gates. They believe in something and we don’t.
That’s a valid point. If you really believe in something, religion, philosophy or whatever, it makes you more focused. The culture that we live in today is completely fragmented.
You can blame the liberal media and liberal academics for that, because they have really destroyed our common beliefs in Greco-Roman civilisation. The classics aren’t really taught and if they are taught they’re deconstructed to make feminist and gay points. It’s ridiculous, absurd and nobody wants to say it. All common sense is gone.
The era of Interview Magazine was of course long and intense. Is it possible for you to answer what the best thing about working there was?
The best thing about working at Interview and for Andy was that he allowed me to learn on the job. To make things up as I went along. The incredible variety of people we met and covered. It was a great education. I was lucky I didn’t have to social climb. I arrived everywhere with Andy. You flew right to the top with Andy. In Paris you went to the Rothschilds, in Rome you went to the Agniellis. I had an education as a journalist when still very young. There was a time when I was more impressed by movie stars and rock stars. Having lunch and dinner with Mick Jagger or Jack Nicholson, with Deborah Harry, Bette Midler... The experiences were endless. And I edited Truman Capote! Hanging out with old movie stars, like Paulette Goddard. It was all too incredible. Going to Jimmy Carter’s White House and Ronald Reagan’s White House as a VIP guest. All of this before I was 35 years old. I have a lot to be grateful to Andy for. But I also know, as I say to my young friends today, that I can open the door for you but you have to enter the room yourself. I give him credit for opening the doors but I have to give myself credit for being invited back.
You said that you were learning on the job. Did you have any role models in terms of writing when you realised that you were going to be stuck at this great job?
Diana Vreeland became a role model. I didn’t even realise in the 60s that I’d be clipping pages out of Vogue. I wasn’t sure who Diana Vreeland was then. She always said to me, ”Bob, the job of a magazine editor is not to give people what they want but to give people what they don’t know they want yet.” Her philosophy was to constantly surprise the reader. That also beca me my philosophy. It still is. That’s why I thought it was great to put Nancy Reagan on the cover. It was a shock. I think that’s what you have to do with a monthly magazine. You can’t fall into a formula. Once it becomes a formula and people know exactly what they’re going to get every month, it’s bound to start going downhill. Even before I met Andy I felt that he was very much, especially in his films, in a line of decadent French, homosexual writers. Writers who I admired in my late high school years, starting with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Lautréamont, Gide, Cocteau, and certainly Proust and Genet. I said this in my review of Trash at Columbia University, that it was very much in the line of Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers . They quite consciously were playing up the Mary Magdalene-side of Catholicism. It’s an idea that we Catholics have, that everyone can be redeemed, no matter how bad the sin. You can still be redeemed. The Church says through penance and religion. But for someone like Genet it was through literature. For Andy it was through his art and through his films. Andy was redeeming these hustlers and junkies and transvestites through the act of turning them into superstars. Which is another way of saying ”s aints”. Andy’s work was always about creating icons, in the actual religious sense.
That’s very overt in the ”Screen Tests”.
Yes, they were an almost entirely iconographic form of cinema. Everything I’ve always done has been a form of portraiture. I consider my profiles for Vanity Fair miniature biographies. My goal is to make household names into human beings in a way, for better or worse. Fortunately, Vanity Fair gives me the time and money so I can travel and do a lot of research, and for that I’m grateful too.
Someone should really anthologise all the Vanity Fair pieces.
No American publisher has thought of that yet. I guess I’ll have to push my agent a bit. Dominick Dunne writes more about American things and my work is more international. Maybe that makes it a bit more obscure to Americans. I don’t know.
Is it possible for you to pick out one single, most outrageous memory that belongs in the OUT category? What was the most outrageous thing that happened?
Oh God... The most outrageous thing that ever happened to me actually happened a couple of years ago. Damien Hirst showed me his foreskin because he wanted to show that it was the longest foreskin.
Was that the case?
I don’t know, I haven’t compared that many! In America we believe in circumcision. But back in those days... It could have been almost any night... Betty Ford and Martha Graham sitting at Halston’s house while we all ran in and out of the bathroom, back and forth, taking cocaine. They were completely oblivious to what was going on. It all seemed kind of innocent at the time. The 70s was the innocent age of our decadent era. Or the innocent beginnings of our great decadence. The first time I saw Robert Mapplethorpe’s sadomasochistic photographs I was shocked. I thought they were outrageous. Cathy Guinness hung one of them on the wall next to her desk at the Interview office. But what I really think is outrageous is people taking Barbra Streisand seriously, politically. Unfortunately, we’ve almost become unshockable, and that’s what’s really sad. Paris Hilton’s parents attending CZ Guest’s funeral the same week as their daughter’s porn tape popped up. That was an outrageous moment of the early 21st century to me. I think I’m too conservative for our time.
Are you still taking pictures?
No. The other day, I tried to take a picture with a friend’s digital camera at a party. I hated it. You’re not really taking the image you think you’re taking. It’s four seconds later. There’s a delayed reaction and by that time, people have moved. You get a different picture than the one you wanted. I don’t think I really want to take digital pictures. I don’t have the patience to walk around with batteries and film. I like the idea of having been a part-time amateur photographer and getting paid for it 20 years later. I love writing and am so far behind in my Vanity Fair obligations and my second Reagan book. I would like to try writing a novel. I think photography would be too much of a distraction. Writing is my main mission.
Would you say that the book is filled with predominantly happy memories?
Definitely. But there’s an underlying sadness when I go through it because so many people are gone. Not only people who died at an old age. There are also many people who died way before they should have, including two of my closest friends ever in life, Thomas Ammann who died more than ten years ago, at age 44, and Claudia Cohen, to whom I dedicated the book. She died only two months before the book was published.
Thomas Ammann bought you the Minox you used to take these pictures.
That’s right. But that’s life. As you get older you realise that happiness is fleeting but sadness is too. You just keep going.
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