Ron Galella: A Ruthless Vision
Photographer Ron Galella is venerated and villainised in equal measure.
On the one hand, he captured some of the most iconic images of celebrities in the 20th century. The street shots have been transformed into prestigious prints hallowed in the halls of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and London’s Tate Modern.
However, Galella was also severely criticised for his guerrilla tactics, which veered alarmingly close to that of a stalker. Dubbed the “godfather of the US paparazzi culture” by TIME magazine, he would speed through red lights, hide in bushes, and don disguises in the relentless pursuit of his subjects, the most famous of which was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Galella’s objective was to catch celebrities “off-guard” – a justification or excuse for his controversial methods?
Here, we explore the photographer’s most revered images from the 70s – an era that inspired Cutler and Gross’s Hollywood Hideaway collection – and discuss his infamous legal battle with America’s First Lady.
A Jaw-Breaking Clash
After serving as an Air Force photographer during the Korean War, Ron Galella’s glittering career kicked off in the 60s when he would stake out Studio 64 and capture luminaries stumbling out of the door. He was a man determined to do things differently during a time when magazines were filled with staged studio shots. The streets were Galella’s hunting ground. Holding the camera near his chest, he would click fast to capture his subjects before they could protest.
"My aim is not to strip the celebrity of glamour by catching [them] unaware,” wrote Galella, “On the contrary, I want to reveal the real glamour that I believe is natural to every celebrity—the essence [that lies underneath].” Galella aimed to capture celebrities at their most human. However, this came at a price, evidenced by his infamous run-in with Marlon Brando.
“Don’t you ever get tired of taking the same
picture of me all the time?”
Marlon Brando to Ron Galella
Having chased the actor’s limousine through Chinatown in New York, Galella recalled Brando asking him, “Don’t you ever get tired of taking the same picture of me all the time?”. In response, Galella suggested the actor take off his sunglasses. An infuriated Brando wordlessly replied with a single jaw-braking punch that knocked out five of Galella’s teeth. Following a trip to hospital, the doggedly determined photographer ended the night back out on the streets with his camera. A year later, a photograph depicts Brando with Galella antagonistically stalking behind him, camera in hand, protecting his face with an American football helmet.
However, Galella was also beloved by many celebrities in Hollywood, who would happily respond to his lens with a knowing smile or outrageous expression. Andy Warhol described Ron Galella as his “favourite photographer” and Diane Keaton wrote, “[he] has given us the true landscape of celebrity in the faces of the eminently watchable, not so mysterious, victims of narcissus’s kiss.”
"I wanted to capture the celebrities as they really are.
I wanted genuine surprise and expressions,
not anger and sadness.”
Ron Galella
The Pursuit of Jackie O
Taken in 1971, ‘Windblown Jackie’ is considered “one of the most influential photos of all time” by TIME magazine. Jackie O is pictured striding across the street, oversized sunglasses in hand, locking eyes with the camera as a slight smile animates her lips. Galella described the image as his “Mona Lisa”.
The photographer took his first picture of Jackie O in 1967, having followed her back to her apartment. There began a ruthless quest to document Jackie’s every move; Galella hid behind coat racks in restaurants, attended her child’s nativity play, and strategically befriended her maid to gain access to the former First Lady. Galella was unabashedly obsessed, describing his photography as, “the pencil I write with—and all I was doing was writing a long love letter to a woman who set my heart on fire.” However, the feelings were not mutual.
American photographer Neil Leifer described Ron Galella as, “despicable, I think of him as a stalker, a legal stalker who takes the First Amendment to its furthest point.” This acerbic comment directly applies to Galella’s treatment of Jackie O and an incident in Central Park in 1972 was the tipping point. Once again, Onassis noticed Galella trailing her so asked one of her bodyguards to “smash his camera”. Agents came running after Galella and ordered him into a car, where they drove him to a police station and had him arrested.
A Battle in Court
In response, Galella filed a $1.3m lawsuit for harassment, which triggered Onassis to countersue, stating that Galella was terrifying her and her children. From there commenced a precedent-making case weighing up the freedom of the press versus privacy. Protected by the First Amendment, Galella had the right to take photographs of Onassis in public, but where do you draw the line – is a camera justification for harassment?
The court sided with Onassis and Galella was slapped with a 50-yard restraining order, which was subsequently reduced to 25ft. However, Galella consistently broke the terms. In an incident captured by photographer Brad Elterman, Galella is depicted mere feet away from Jackie O, stretching out towards her with a homemade measuring tape. Eventually, Galella was fined $10,000 and banned from photographing Jackie O and her children.
“I, like millions of others, often lived vicariously
through his pictures. Scandal, romance,
personality, and adventure always leapt
from the surface of his portraits”.
Tom Ford on Ron Galella
The Leveson Inquiry
The photographer’s ruthless tactics and uninhibited ethics set the bar for a new genre of photography. Author and journalist Michael Gross described Galella as the “first piranha. That stuff didn’t exist before”. A culture of invasion snowballed through Hollywood. Over the decades, the streets became claustrophobic as paparazzi numbers swelled. This frenzied harassment was epitomised in 2007 by a shaven-haired Britney Spears smashing a paparazzi’s car with an umbrella as light bulbs flashed around her.
The press’s aggressive, intrusive behaviour culminated in 2012 across the Atlantic with the ground-breaking Leveson Inquiry. It was a landmark event in the history of British media as the culture, ethics, and practices of the press were placed under scrutiny. During the 8-month-long investigation, the court heard from 650 witnesses including actors, politicians, and editors. Sienna Miller recounted how aged 21, she would be terrified as she ran down dark streets with packs of men – paparazzi –chasing behind her.
In a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, Galella was keen to separate himself from and criticise the paparazzi: “Have you seen it now? It’s like a scrum… They’re so antagonistic. They want the celebrities to fall or yell back at them. But for me, I wanted to capture the celebrities as they really are. I wanted genuine surprise and expressions, not anger and sadness.”
are captured in conversation at a boxing match.
Hollywood Hideaway
The dispute between Galella and Jackie O was eventually settled in 1982 after over a decade of legal feuding. Lasting up until he passed away in 2022, Galella faced a $120k fine and up to six years in prison if caught photographing Caroline Kennedy, Onassis’s only surviving child.
However, Galella stood his ground to the end, stating, “I never felt guilty photographing Jackie. It’s true that I pushed the First Amendment to the limits perhaps, but that’s what it takes… Jackie claimed that I invaded her privacy. I don’t believe that I did. Once you’re a celebrity you’re fair game. Jackie was fair game.”
The controversy surrounding Ron Galella arguably increased the iconicity of his images. His work is venerated in the annals of popular culture history, with tributes including Michael Kors’s Fall 2004 show ‘Galella Glamour’, the award-winning ‘Smash His Camera’ documentary, and Tom Ford’s publication ‘The Photographs of Ron Galella’. The fashion designer wrote, “I, like millions of others, often lived vicariously through his pictures. Scandal, romance, personality, and adventure always leapt from the surface of his portraits”.
Galella’s photographs from Los Angeles in the 70s helped lay the foundations for Cutler and Gross’s Autumn Winter collection: Hollywood Hideaway. The dynamic images capture the allure and excess of that bygone era, as seen with Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall swearing to the camera from inside a limousine and Cher and Sonny Bono slipping into CBS TV Studios.
The Cutler and Gross collection introduces seven maximalist silhouettes that explore the tension between public and private personas – a duality that obsessed Galella.
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