Bob Colacello

Bob Colacello — who edited Interview magazine for a dozen years, was a star at Vanity Fairand wrote several books — doesn’t put himself in the same category as Andy Warhol. “I never doubted for a minute that Andy was a genius,” Colacello told a capacity crowd of a couple hundred fans at the Society of the Four Arts.

Bob Colacello at Studio 54, 1983. (Photo by Patrick McMullan)

Colacello was a Columbia grad student writing movie reviews for the Village Voice in 1970 when his rave for Warhol’s “Trash” landed him a job at Interview. Six months later he was editor. “I never plotted and planned anything,” Colacello said. “I did follow my mother’s advice, ‘When opportunity knocks, open the door.’” 

It was a dream job. In the presidential election of 1968, Colacello had made a write-in vote for Andy Warhol. Soon, Robert Mapplethorpe was taking photos for the magazine, and Fran Lebowitz, who had been driving a taxi cab, was writing. 

After putting Jerry Hall on the cover, angering Mick Jagger’s ex Bianca Jagger, Colacello was banned from Studio 54. “I fixed that by putting Steve Rubell on the cover,” said Colacello. The choice of who deserved the cover was controversial. “I put Nancy Reagan on the cover of Interview in 1981 and half the media in New York was outraged,” Colacello recalled. 

Bob Colacello and Andy Warhol in New York, 1979.
(Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)

As for Warhol’s politics. “Andy was a Democrat who hated taxes.” Colacello thinks fondly of the Prince of Pop for giving him such a head-start in life. “I never had to social-climb. I landed on Mt. Everest.” 

The crowd included former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, Chief of CBS News‘ Washington Bureau Chris Islam, Warhol confidante Sam Bolton, “Mortimer’s” author Robin Baker Leacock, and p.r. potentate Paul Wilmot and photographer Bruce Webber, who had driven up from Miami.