Andy Warhol and Interview editor Bob's collaboration

Andy Warhol and Bob Colacello’s collaboration was rooted in Interview, the magazine that became both a major focus of Warhol’s work and a continuing source of people, ideas, and public attention. Its importance went beyond publishing: as Warhol’s filmmaking opportunities narrowed, the magazine gave him a new way to bring fresh faces into his world. The surviving glimpses of his dealings with Bob show an editorial partnership conducted amid routine business, celebrity access, money, and occasional tension.

Interview as a shared center

From 1975, Interview became an increasingly active part of Warhol’s working life. He bought out Peter Brant to become its full owner and publisher, while Fred Hughes became president. Warhol had previously kept his distance from the magazine’s day-to-day operation; after the change, he began checking art director Marc Balet’s layouts and arranging lunches in the conference room to pitch the publication to prospective advertisers. The magazine’s operation brought Warhol into closer contact with the practical work of publishing and with the people who sustained it, including its editor, Bob Colacello.

The magazine also answered a problem created by the changing economics of Warhol’s films. In the mid-1960s, people came to The Factory in part because they might appear in his inexpensive underground movies. By the 1970s, commercially exhibitable films had become too costly to make readily, and a proposed role no longer promised that a film would actually be produced. Interview filled that gap. Its circulation grew, and by 1976 it had acquired a sophisticated, self-mocking style that made celebrities eager to appear in it. Warhol’s recurring offer shifted from “We’ll put you in a movie” to “We’ll put you in the magazine.”

That promise rested on a steady supply of new faces. Interview’s pages gave young, previously unpublished beauties headings such as “Interman,” “Viewgirl,” “Upfront,” and “First Impression,” while Warhol often conducted cover interviews himself, sometimes with a staff member. The publication became known as the most glamorous magazine around. Colacello’s part in that world is captured in a joke he used to reassure a society matron worried about her photograph: “Don’t worry about your photograph—we retouch anyone over twenty.” The line compresses the magazine’s blend of social reassurance, celebrity image-making, and playful irreverence.

Editorial exchanges and workplace decisions

The relationship appears not only in Interview’s public identity but in the small decisions and confidences of its office. In February 1980, Truman Capote told Warhol he would no longer contribute articles, saying he intended to give Interview Answered Prayers when it was finished. Warhol relayed the news to Bob and said he thought Capote was lying; he felt Capote had dropped the magazine and could not understand why. The exchange shows Warhol using Bob as a recipient for his immediate editorial judgment, even when the underlying promise remained uncertain.

A more awkward office encounter followed when a former prison roommate of Steve Rubell arrived claiming that Rubell wanted an Italian dinner. Warhol had initially refused to meet him, but Fred Hughes urged that he do so. Colacello asked the visitor what he wanted, and the request became clear: money for the meal. Colacello gave him $20, Henry Geldzahler added another $20, and Warhol later repaid both men. Warhol concluded that the visitor had been shaking them down and angrily blamed Fred for letting the encounter proceed. Colacello’s role was practical and direct: he asked the question that exposed the request and contributed money, while the episode also shows how the office’s social connections could turn into improvised financial obligations.

Their workplace overlapped with political and social life as well. Warhol noted that Ted Kennedy had called the office and that he could not get off the phone because he did not know what to discuss. Fred explained Kennedy’s continued presidential campaign as an effort to raise money for the Democratic Party. The moment places the magazine’s staff within a wider network of political callers and social obligations, with Bob’s editorial partnership embedded in a workplace that was also a busy point of contact.

Shared social world and signs of friction

At a 1980 dinner during the Democratic convention, Bob became upset when Ina criticized Ronald Reagan, then caught himself and apologized. The episode offers a brief but revealing view of his temperament in Warhol’s company: political disagreement could provoke a sharp reaction, but it did not have to become a lasting rupture. Warhol’s account preserves both the flare of anger and the apology, rather than smoothing the scene into a simple portrait of agreement.

The surviving episodes do not describe a final break between Warhol and Colacello. Instead, they show a relationship sustained through Interview’s ongoing work and the daily business surrounding it: judgments about contributors, encounters with people seeking access or money, and evenings where professional associates became part of the same social scene. The collaboration’s significance lies in that overlap. Interview offered Warhol a means of keeping creative and social connections in motion, while Colacello appears in the record as an editor and colleague with whom those connections could be discussed, negotiated, and sometimes disputed.