Bob Colacello is an American writer. Raised in Bensonhurst, New York, Colacello graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...

 at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 in 1969, and also has an MFA degree in film criticism from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 Graduate School of the Arts.

Early endeavors and Interview magazine

Colacello began his writing career around 1969, when he began publishing film reviews in the Village Voice weekly. As a graduate student in the Film department at Columbia University in New York, his first publications doubled as his class essays and homework assignments. In 1970, Colacello wrote a review of Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

's film Trash, which he hailed as a "great Roman Catholic masterpiece". This review garnered the attention of Warhol, and Paul Morrissey

Paul Morrissey

Paul Morrissey is an American film director, best-known for his association with Andy Warhol.Morrissey attended Ampleforth College, a private Roman Catholic boarding school and Fordham University, both Roman Catholic schools, and later served in the United States Army...

, the director of many of Warhol's films, who approached Colacello to write for Interview magazine

Interview (magazine)

Interview is an American magazine which has the nickname The Crystal Ball Of Pop. It was founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol. The magazine features intimate conversations between some of the world's biggest celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinkers...

, a new art/film/fashion magazine Warhol had recently began to publish. Colacello was made editor of Interview within six months and, for the next 12 years, remained directly involved in all aspects of life and business at The Factory

The Factory

The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was "only about one hundred dollars a year"...

, Warhol's infamous studio, as he developed the magazine into one of the best-known lifestyle magazines of the time. As Colacello himself writes in Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close up (1990), Warhol suggested Colacello change his name to Bob Cola, in order to sound more "pop."

Biographical writings

After his tenure with Interview, Colacello began writing for Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair (magazine)

Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...

magazine, and has been a regular contributor since, writing extended profiles on a wide range of public personalities, including Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, Balthus

Balthus

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....

, Rudolf Nureyev

Rudolf Nureyev

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...

, Liza Minnelli

Liza Minnelli

Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....

, Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder (person)

Estée Lauder was an American businesswoman who was the co-founder, along with her husband Joseph Lauder, of Estée Lauder Companies, a pioneering cosmetics company. Lauder was the only woman on TIME magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She was the...

, Doris Duke

Doris Duke

Doris Duke was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist.-Family and early life:...

, and Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell is a British model. Scouted at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognisable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion world...

. Colacello has also established himself as one of the most prolific biographical writers in the United States. He is the author of the highly praised Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House, 1911-1980, about the social and political rise of Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and his wife Nancy Reagan

Nancy Reagan

Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....

. His memoir of working with Andy Warhol in the 1970s and early 1980s, titled Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, was called the "best-written and the most killingly observed" book on the subject by the New York Times.