GAYLETTER

My first job as an adult in New York City was working for this tiny PR agency but we had two big clients — Grace Jones and Peter Gatien who owned the Limelight. It was then back in 83′ at the tender age of twenty that I had my first experience of the mega paparazzo Ron Gallela. He came to everything we produced, invited or not, with camera in hand, pushing, shoving, maneuvering, and doing whatever he had to do to get the photo and he always delivered. I mean he even developed, edited, printed and serviced the images to the print media himself.

“In his nocturnal hunts Gallela captured New York as no one else had-from the melding of every strata of society into the disco demimonde on the same dance floor to the go go 80’s…” Ron photographed everyone everywhere! Marlon Brando, Liza, Halston, Naomi, Linda, Cindy, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, John Travolta, Al Pacino and most unforgettably his muse Jackie O. If my memory serves me correctly I think Jackie won a famous legal battle against Ron and she was awarded a restraining order against him whereby he could not come within 50 feet of her and 75 feet from her children. I mean christ, Time magazine and Vanity Fair dubbed him “The Godfather of the U.S. Paparazzi culture” AND Brando punched him in the face, (after some harassing I’m sure) breaking his jaw and knocking out five teeth!

I tell you all this because Damiani Press has just published a fantastic, concise overview of Ron’s New York celebrity centric work aptly titled ‘Ron Gallela New York‘, and it’s now available for purchase. The pages are brimming with energy as we get behind the “PR step and repeat photo ops” to see the celebrities, shall we say, with their guards down. Your coffee table is not complete this summer unless you have a copy of this book, trust.

The book is available on artbook, click here to buy it.