No Pictures

“Didn’t somebody kill you yet?” says Cary Grant when Ron Galella appears at the premiere of Hide in Plain Sight in 1980. Galella, pioneer paparazzo, has endured quite a bit of resistance in his working days. Famous are two highly publicized court battles with Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis and the broken jaw at the hands of Marlon Brando. Galella is hated and loved. He certainly annoyed Jackie O., but compared to what is happening today, Ron Galella was a pussycat. Many celebrities wished he would follow them, an indication that they were in the “A” crowd. Eventually Galella brought his craft to galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in both New York and San Francisco, the Tate Modern in London, and the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum of Photography in Berlin. The combination of unwilling subjects and their quotes, makes No Pictures a very entertaining book.