Andy Warhol—Bob Colacello partnership

Andy Warhol and Bob Colacello’s partnership at Interview helped make the magazine a central part of Warhol’s working life and public presence. Their collaboration was not simply a division between an artist and an editor: Warhol took an active interest in the magazine’s content, people, and commercial prospects, while Colacello handled editorial work and the practical demands of keeping its operation moving. The diary records that partnership through both its visible successes and the small, recurring strains of working closely together.

The magazine as a shared enterprise

Interview became especially important to Warhol after he bought out Peter Brant in 1975 and became the magazine’s sole owner and publisher. Fred Hughes became president. Warhol, previously relatively removed from its daily operation, began dropping in to examine art director Marc Balet’s layouts and arranging lunches to pitch the magazine to potential advertisers. As circulation rose, the magazine drew celebrities who wanted to appear in its pages, and it supplied the steady flow of new people Warhol valued. The invitation to be featured in Interview increasingly took the place of the possibility of appearing in one of his films.

That business also depended on a distinctive editorial identity. By 1976, Interview had become glamorous while retaining a quality of self-mocking silliness. Warhol often conducted cover interviews himself, usually with a staff member. The magazine’s pages introduced young, previously unpublished faces under headings such as “Interman,” “Viewgirl,” “Upfront,” and “First Impression.” Colacello’s work was part of this continuing production: the diary describes him reassuring a society matron about the magazine’s retouching of photographs. In this setting, their partnership linked Warhol’s appetite for personalities and images to the steady editorial work of turning them into a magazine.

Warhol’s involvement was not limited to approving an idea or lending his name. A 1978 interview with Shaun Cassidy shows him participating directly in the magazine’s encounter with celebrity. At the Plaza, he and the interviewer found Cassidy’s answers carefully restrained for his young fans; later, Warhol observed how Cassidy’s manner changed amid the screaming crowd and again during the photographic session. The episode illustrates the magazine’s interest in the difference between a public persona and the person performing it, and Warhol’s own presence in producing that encounter. It does not establish that Colacello took part in this particular interview, but it helps explain the content and activity around which their partnership was organized.

Editorial work and the daily operation

The diary’s account of a Patti LuPone cover decision makes the practical interdependence of the two men unusually clear. Warhol told Colacello that LuPone had to be on the cover. Colacello objected in an agitated way, worrying that the choice looked too similar to an earlier Paloma Picasso cover. Warhol interpreted the dispute as one of Colacello’s predictable tantrums and connected it to his feeling that he had too much work and too little personal life. He also recorded Colacello’s mixed account of their social outings: Colacello sometimes enjoyed the trips and company, but would rather spend time with his own friends.

The disagreement did not end their work together. The following day, Warhol described Colacello as behaving better and noted that he had apologized. They met for dinner to discuss the LuPone interview, with Rupert Smith joining them because they also needed to discuss a Florida trip with Ron Feldman. The sequence matters: conflict over an editorial decision was followed by an apology and a return to the magazine’s practical business. Their partnership appears as ongoing negotiation, not friction-free agreement, with shared projects drawing them back into conversation after a flare-up.

Colacello’s responsibilities also extended into the social arrangements through which Interview cultivated contributors and subjects. He hosted a lunch for Architectural Digest editor Paige Rense, attended by twenty-seven guests, including Lee Radziwill, whom Rense was interviewing for Interview. The gathering brought editorial work, photography, and a broad social circle together in one event. Warhol’s record presents Colacello not only as the person with whom he discussed covers, but as an organizer capable of assembling the people and occasions that kept the magazine connected to its world.

Public image, access, and shared occasions

A 1980 photo shoot for Ron Reagan Jr. shows how much coordination a seemingly simple magazine image could require. Photographers, a hairdresser, stylists, and art directors filled the office; Colacello moved among them as the number of arrivals grew, exasperated by the scale of the production. The diary recounts that Reagan had declined another interview request in favor of Interview, then reconsidered the shoot after hearing a disparaging characterization of the magazine. After reading an issue, he still wanted to appear in it and meet Warhol. His arrival with his girlfriend and a close friend turned the office production into a personal introduction as well as a photo session.

The partnership also reached beyond the office. Warhol later described dinner with Ron and Doria Reagan at Nippon, where Colacello was present. The Secret Service crowded the restaurant, and the owner brought the group novelty toys, including a bottle opener shaped like a gun. Colacello asked whether they could attend the January inauguration and was told that invitations would be arranged. Warhol’s account emphasizes Colacello’s happiness at the encounter. The episode shows how Interview’s editorial access could become shared social access, with Colacello helping to sustain the relationships surrounding a subject after the office work was done.

In January 1981, Warhol again recorded a dinner arranged by Colacello, this time with Jill Fuller at Le Cirque. Warhol brought David Laughlin, describing it as part of a promise to introduce Fuller to a series of young, wealthy, attractive men. The detail is distinct from their magazine work, but it belongs to the wider pattern of shared arrangements and social exchanges that the diary associates with Colacello. Their partnership operated across editorial decisions, production, travel planning, and the social life that gathered around Interview.

A working relationship sustained by activity

The evidence portrays Colacello and Warhol’s bond less through declarations than through recurrent tasks: choosing a cover, discussing an interview over dinner, gathering guests, coordinating a complicated shoot, and making plans connected to the magazine’s contacts. Their roles were not identical. Warhol owned and published Interview, personally pursued advertisers, and frequently took part in cover interviews; Colacello’s editorial and organizational work placed him among the people responsible for turning that interest into issues, events, and encounters.

The diary also preserves the costs of that closeness. Warhol could describe Colacello’s outbursts dismissively and notice his complaints about work and social obligations, yet the next entry might record an apology, a dinner, or a large successful lunch. That alternation gives the partnership its texture: it was neither an idealized friendship nor merely an impersonal business arrangement. Its continuity is demonstrated by work resumed after disagreement and by the accumulation of shared responsibilities. Interview remained a source of fresh faces and activity for Warhol, and Colacello was among the people who made that source function day after day.