Ronald Edward Galella (January 10, 1931 – April 30, 2022) was an American photographer, known as a pioneer paparazzo. Dubbed "Paparazzo Extraordinaire" by Newsweek and "the Godfather of the U.S. paparazzi culture" by Time magazine and Vanity Fair, he is regarded by Harper's Bazaar as "arguably the most controversial paparazzo of all time". He photographed many celebrities out of the public eye and gained notice for his feuds with some of them, including Jacqueline Onassis and Marlon Brando. Despite the numerous controversies and claims of stalking, Galella's work was praised and exhibited in art galleries worldwide.
During his career, Galella took more than three million photographs of public figures.
Early life
Galella was born in New York City on January 10, 1931, in a family of Italian heritage. His father, Vincenzo, was an immigrant from Muro Lucano, Basilicata, who manufactured pianos and coffins; his mother, Michelina (Marinaccio), was born in New Jersey to immigrants from Benevento, Campania, and worked as a crochet beader. After graduating high school, he won a two-year scholarship at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn but turned it down due to his deficiencies in mathematics.
Galella served as a United States Air Force photographer from 1951 to 1955, including during the Korean War. He later attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, graduating with a degree in photojournalism in 1958. In his free time, Galella took pictures of the stars arriving at film premieres, selling them to magazines like National Enquirer and Photoplay. He soon became known for his photographic approach, portraying famous people out of the spotlight, usually in spontaneous expressions.
Career
Galella's photographs have been featured in hundreds of publications including Time, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, People, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Life. In his in-home darkroom, Galella made his own prints which have been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world, including the MoMA in New York City, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern in London, and the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum of Photography in Berlin.
In 2009, his father's hometown of Muro Lucano made Galella an honorary citizen. He was the subject of a 2010 documentary film by Leon Gast entitled Smash His Camera. The film's title is a quote from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis directed to her security agent after Galella pursued her and her children through Central Park, New York. The documentary premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Award for Directing in the U.S. Documentary category. It also received positive reviews at the 54th BFI London Film Festival before it aired on the BBC.
Controversies
Galella was known for his obsessive picture taking of Jacqueline Onassis and the subsequent legal battles associated with it. The New York Post called it "the most co-dependent celeb-pap[arazzo] relationship ever". The 1972 free-speech trial Galella v. Onassis resulted in a restraining order to keep Galella 50 yards (later changed to 25 feet) away from Onassis. He was found guilty of breaking this order four times and faced seven years in jail and a $120,000 fine; later settling for a $10,000 fine and surrendering his rights to photograph Jackie and her children.
On June 12, 1973, actor Marlon Brando punched Galella in the face outside a restaurant in Chinatown in New York City, breaking the photographer's jaw and knocking out five of his teeth on the left side of his mouth. Galella had been following Brando, who was accompanied by Dick Cavett, to the restaurant after a taping of The Dick Cavett Show earlier that day. Galella hired lawyers Stuart Schlesinger and Alfred Julien to sue Brando and ultimately settled for US$40,000. Schlesinger reported in the 2010 documentary Smash His Camera that Galella received two-thirds, but only cared about getting the message out, "I don't want anyone to think they can go around punching me if I am taking their picture. Get that story out, not the money." The next time Galella chased Brando, he wore a football helmet.