Bob Colacello

Bob Colacello’s importance in Andy Warhol’s world rested on an unusual combination of editorial judgment, social fluency, and commercial nerve. He helped turn Interview into a platform for celebrity and political life, brought portrait commissions and publishing opportunities to Warhol, and arranged occasions that crossed the boundary between business and sociability. The diaries record not a simple rise and fall, but a working partnership that could be affectionate, mutually useful, irritating, and finally difficult to sustain. Even after Colacello left the magazine, Warhol repeatedly measured new problems against the work Colacello had once done.

From writer to executive editor

Colacello came to the Factory after writing a review of Warhol’s film Trash for The Village Voice. He had graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and by the summer of 1974 he was working mainly for Interview. He wrote articles and the column OUT, which chronicled his own around-the-clock social life and brought a steady stream of names into the magazine. In 1974 he officially became its executive editor. The diary associates his appointment with an editorial identity that was politically conservative; the surviving account breaks off before completing its description of the magazine’s positioning, so it does not specify the full character of that policy.

The magazine’s institutional setting was changing at the same time. In the summer of 1974 the Factory moved from 33 Union Square West to the third floor of 860 Broadway, only half a block away. Warhol instructed the receptionists to stop answering the telephone with the word Factory, which had come to seem corny; the premises were simply called the office. Colacello’s work thus belonged to a more formal, business-facing operation, even as the diary continued to show the office as a porous social space, where visitors, phone calls, and interruptions could spill into working meetings.

Colacello’s responsibilities extended well beyond editing. By 1975, while Fred Hughes still had to clear the business deals, Colacello was initiating social occasions and helping secure work. From among the wealthy people he was getting to know, he brought Warhol portrait commissions and obtained publishing contracts. His ability to approach prospective clients was especially valuable: Warhol later remembered him as a forceful seller who would ask people to commission portraits and press them to pay outstanding bills. The diary contrasts that directness with Hughes’s relative reluctance to pursue payment, making Colacello’s assertiveness part of the practical infrastructure behind Warhol’s business.

Writing, publishing, and the magazine’s public face

The first major project Warhol and Colacello worked on together was The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). Colacello conducted eight separate interviews with Warhol and wrote chapters one through eight and chapter ten. He assembled the introductory chapter and chapters nine and eleven through fourteen from material drawn from conversations Warhol had taped with Colacello and Brigid Berlin. After the book appeared in 1975, Warhol asked him to co-author a second book. The account establishes that invitation but does not give its subsequent outcome.

Colacello also represented Interview in public. At an Overseas Press Corps lunch at the Biltmore Hotel, Warhol had expected Colacello to give the talk about the magazine while Warhol attended. The questions, however, were directed to Warhol, who was unprepared and answered briefly. He later regretted falling back on shyness and wished he could use such occasions to practice speaking. The episode reveals the division between Colacello’s role as a prepared public advocate and Warhol’s discomfort when an appearance unexpectedly made him the speaker.

His ability to present the magazine could also collide with the numbers behind it. At a lunch for Bloomingdale’s in the office, Colacello gave an impressive account of Interview’s circulation, citing 80,000 readers and saying 20 percent were subscriptions. When he asked the associate publisher to provide supporting statistics, she said subscriptions numbered 7,000. The discrepancy visibly unsettled those present. A Bloomingdale’s representative later reported that the subscription figure had been raised in the car after the meeting; the retailer still thought the magazine reached the right people, but the mistake may have jeopardized the opportunity. The scene places Colacello’s persuasive presentation beside the vulnerabilities of a publication whose ambitions and verified figures did not always match.

Editorial collaboration could be similarly strained. While working with Warhol and Berlin on a photo-book text, Colacello responded to Warhol’s suggestions with emphatic approval, as did Berlin. Warhol concluded that his input was not genuinely wanted and left them to the text, which he thought poor, although he liked the title, Social Disease, and thought the photographs looked good. The episode shows Colacello not merely as an editor who shaped projects, but as a collaborator whose confidence could leave Warhol feeling excluded from decisions made in his own name.

Social organizer and working companion

Colacello’s job often involved creating a social setting in which Warhol could meet prospective patrons, public figures, and people useful to the magazine. The arrangement could make business feel like an endless round of invitations. At one point, after accompanying Colacello to a dinner at the Iranian embassy in black tie, Warhol felt that the pair were being used by the Iranians. He understood Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi as seeking new political connections after losing favor with the Carter administration, and suspected that the invitations reflected a need for their help. The evening was one example of how Colacello’s access and Warhol’s fame could be drawn into the ambitions of people they encountered socially.

Colacello also accompanied Warhol to a meeting at the William Morris Agency, where an agent had repeatedly called to discuss representing him. The agency’s representatives outlined possible American Express television commercials, Broadway appearances, and starring film roles. Catherine Guinness was impressed; Warhol found the familiar promises tedious, having heard such pitches for years, though he enjoyed going to the meeting. The account records the excitement of the presentation, not any resulting representation or bookings.

The diaries repeatedly show Colacello moving between the office and a wider social world. He picked Warhol up for dinners, joined him at parties, and brought him into contact with people who might become patrons or sources of publicity. In one instance, Warhol invited Colacello to Jackie Onassis’s Christmas party, which made Colacello happy. The next day, Jackie called Warhol several times and then reached him at home to say she had invited Warhol, not Colacello, because she was concerned that Colacello wrote things down. Warhol noticed that the concern had also surfaced at the party, where journalists were present, but the diary does not disclose what Jackie feared might be published. The incident makes visible the cost of Colacello’s identity as a writer: his presence could bring a valued companion into a room, but could also make hosts wary of what might later appear in print.

The work extended to extended trips. Warhol later described being exhausted after three weeks on the road with Colacello and Hughes to promote Exposures. The tour began at the Kennedy Center, where Warhol sat in Jimmy Carter’s box, and ended at a B. Dalton’s bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard. During a signing there, a woman entered with a knife wound in her stomach and loudly questioned whether the person signing books was really Warhol. The diary presents the encounter as an abrupt and disturbing break from the tour’s more polished opening. At a Neiman Marcus event in Dallas, by contrast, the hosts held a party in the store’s boiler room, and local guests welcomed the visitors graciously. Colacello was present through both the glamorous and awkward ends of a promotional itinerary.

In another professional setting, a portrait session for Ron Reagan Jr. drew roughly twenty-five photographers, hairdressers, stylists, art directors, and assistants into the office. Colacello complained about the swarm around what was meant to be a simple photograph; after the group was reduced to a few people, the session could proceed with less commotion. His impatience here was directed not at the subject but at the machinery that had accumulated around the image.

The partnership could also be visibly tense. During a dispute over whether Patti LuPone should appear on a cover, Colacello objected that the image resembled Paloma Picasso, making an offensive generalization about their backgrounds. Warhol considered Colacello’s reaction immature and described his temper as a predictable cycle of tantrum followed by guilt. In the same conversation, Colacello said that he felt he had too much to do and no personal life, and that he accompanied Warhol on trips partly for Warhol’s sake, although he admitted that he sometimes enjoyed them and the company. Warhol wondered who Colacello’s own friends were, noting that they seemed to come from work. Hughes was sometimes called in to settle such disputes, even after a night of his own excesses. Colacello apologized the following day. At a later dinner, he and Warhol discussed the LuPone interview and a Florida trip with Rupert Smith, showing how quickly a quarrel could give way to the practical business of arranging the next project.

Leaving Interview

By the time Colacello left, the separation had been developing for a while. Warhol heard from Nelson Lyon that Colacello had told Paul Morrissey during the summer that he was considering quitting, partly because Warhol still did not know how to spell his name. Warhol resented the spelling change Colacello had made by dropping the i from Colaciello, and felt that the change had not made the name easier to remember. This reported explanation sits beside Warhol’s later insistence that the departure was not really about money or a single dispute over the Hammer and Sickle project. He suspected that Colacello had been moving toward leaving for some time, perhaps with an opportunity involving Thomas Ammann, but he did not claim to know the full reason.

The resignation arrived by letter. Colacello told only a small group at the office, including Gael, Robert Hayes, and Hughes. Warhol heard that he had retained the literary lawyer Janklow and wondered whether Jann Wenner might offer him a job, though he doubted the two would get along. Warhol said he was happy for Colacello, but angry that he had left without notice instead of staying until a replacement could be found. Hughes spoke with him, but did not change his mind. The diaries preserve both reactions at once: genuine goodwill toward a colleague’s next step and a sharp sense of professional abandonment.

Warhol’s explanations for the break also reveal the value he attached to Colacello’s particular skills. He considered Colacello unusually good at selling art and collecting payment, and wondered whether he might go into business with Ammann. The office discussed the resignation in the newspapers and internally. Warhol recognized that losing Colacello would save payroll, while Hughes argued against rushing to hire another editor and preferred to see what Robert Hayes could do. The departure was therefore an immediate staffing problem as well as a personal change in Warhol’s daily life.

Colacello soon took a job with Parade, the Sunday newspaper supplement. When Warhol encountered him at a Perry Ellis fashion show, Colacello was pleasant, and Warhol noted the encounter with relief. They had not yet fully repaired their relationship, but the meeting showed that professional separation did not require open hostility. Later, at an event where Warhol had been drinking, he praised Colacello’s article about Larry Flynt in Vanity Fair. Colacello was delighted, and the two finally made up. The reconciliation came through recognition of Colacello’s work as a writer, not through a return to the old editorial arrangement.

The work that remained missing

After Colacello’s departure, Warhol repeatedly felt the absence of someone who could turn social access into portrait business. At an art fundraiser, he noted that the works had raised $160,000 and that one prospective buyer had bid as much as $25,000 on a portrait. Warhol thought the result might help persuade Hollywood figures that a portrait was worth pursuing, but lamented that there was no one in Los Angeles to follow up; Colacello would have been good at it. Later, while planning whom to bring to a dinner at the Metropolitan Club, Warhol again observed that nobody was available to seek portrait commissions and that the office was still missing a Bob Colacello. These are not merely recollections of a former editor. They identify a recurring practical gap in Warhol’s operation.

Colacello nevertheless remained part of Warhol’s social and editorial landscape. At a dinner arranged for São Schlumberger, Colacello was the host, and Warhol arrived after the meal had begun. Elsewhere, he appeared at a gathering with Steve Rubell, Ryan O’Neal, and Farah Pahlavi, where Warhol found him looking well and restored to his familiar storytelling manner. The diary gives no indication that these appearances renewed their old business partnership; instead, they show Colacello continuing to occupy rooms and relationships that overlapped with Warhol’s world.

His editorial connection also persisted in small, concrete obligations. Fran Lebowitz came to collect art Colacello had promised her when she was writing for Interview. The promise outlasted his employment, and Warhol’s account records the transfer without turning it into a dispute. Together with the recurring lament over missed portrait opportunities, the incident shows two sides of Colacello’s legacy: the obligations and friendships he had built continued beyond his resignation, while the particular combination of editorial authority, social initiative, and salesmanship he had supplied was difficult to replace. In the diaries, his absence becomes most legible when a task arises that someone else cannot perform as he did.