Victor Bockris is an English-born, U.S.-based author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, primarily of biographies of artists, writers, and musicians.

He has written about Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

 (and The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...

), 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...

, Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Terry Southern

Terry Southern

Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...

, Blondie

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

, Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

, and Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...

. He also helped write the autobiographies of John Cale

John Cale

John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....

 and Bebe Buell

Bebe Buell

Beverle Lorence "Bebe" Buell is an American fashion model and singer, and Playboy magazine's November 1974 Playmate of the Month. She is also known for dating rock musicians. She is actress Liv Tyler's mother from a brief relationship with Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler...

.

Bockris was born in Sussex, England in 1949; his family moved to Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 when he was four years old. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, where both his parents worked, in 1971. While still in Philadelphia, he founded Telegraph Books.

He moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1973 and became an associate of Warhol and Burroughs. He worked for Warhol at the Factory and published many pieces in Warhol's magazine Interview

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...

, often in collaboration with Andrew Wylie

Andrew Wylie (literary agent)

-Early life:Wylie is the son of Craig Wylie, one time editor-in-chief at Houghton Mifflin. He grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, from which he was dismissed in 1965: an interview with his university alumni magazine stated that this was for...

, now best known as a literary agent. As well as Interview, Bockris also published work in High Times, Gadfly and Drummer.

Bockris' book Beat Punks explores the relationship between artistic bohemias of the 1950s (the Beats

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

) and the 1970s (the Punks).

Quotes

"Andy taught us how to interview: Never have any questions ready. Treat it like a cocktail party." http://www.citypaper.net/articles/102695/article033.shtml

External links

• interview
• The Ali-Warhol tapes by Victor Bockris
• The magic world of William Burroughs by Victor Bockris
• Visions of the Seventies by Victor Bockris
• Victor Bockris Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  University of Texas at Austin
  The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...