Bob Colacello

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Bob Colacello is an American writer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. Colacello graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1969, and also has a MFA degree in film criticism from Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts.

[edit] Early endeavors and Interview magazine

Colacello began his writing career in 1969, when he began publishing film reviews in the Village Voice weekly. As a graduate student in the Film department at Columbia University in New York, his first publications doubled as his class essays and homework assignments. In 1970, Colacello wrote a review of Andy Warhol's film Trash, which he hailed as a "great Roman Catholic masterpiece". This review garnished the attention of Warhol, and Paul Morrissey, the director of many of Warhol's films, who approached Colacello to write for Interview magazine, a new art/film/fashion magazine Warhol had recently began to publish. Colacello was made editor of Interview within six months, and for the next 12 years, Colacello remained directly involved in all aspects of life and business at The Factory, Warhol's infamous studio, as he developed the magazine into one of the best-known lifestyle magazines of the time. At one point, Warhol suggested Colacello change his name to Bob Cola, in order to sound more "pop." Throughout his time working for Warhol, Colacello also ghostwrote The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, and helped Warhol secure dozens of portrait commissions from the rich and famous.

[edit] Biographical writings

After his tenure with Interview, Colacello began writing for Vanity Fair magazine, and has been a regular contributor since, writing extended profiles on a wide range of public personalties, including Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, Balthus, Rudolf Nureyev, Liza Minnelli, Estee Lauder, Doris Duke, and Naomi Campbell. Colacello has also established himself as one of the most prolific biographical writers in the United States. He is the author of the highly praised Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House, 1911-1980, about the social and political rise of Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan. His memoir of working with Andy Warhol in the 1970s and early 1980s, titled Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, was called the best book on the subject by the New York Times.