Ron Galella’s assignations with movie stars were legion. For decades, Galella was the world’s leading paparazzo, a tireless stalker with an Elmer Fudd laugh, so it was only natural that, when he jumped from behind a post with his Nikon flashing, the stars would respond to him. Often, they’d beckon coyly with a middle finger, or send over a bodyguard to suggest a tension-relieving service that he could perform upon himself. Yet melancholy suffuses any brief rendezvous, and the titles on the Kodak boxes of photographs in the basement of Galella’s white brick villa in Montville, New Jersey, tell a tale of serial disenchantment: “The Gabors, No Zsa Zsa”; “Marlo & Danny Thomas, No Phil”; “Marilyn Monroe Look-A-Likes”; “Anthony Quinn Alone.”
Only one relationship truly satisfied: his liaison with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Last week, Galella, who is seventy-nine, sat in what he calls his great room, dressed in black, and reminisced. Above him was a framed “Windblown Jackie,” his favorite shot of Onassis, snapped from the back of a taxi. “I was a bachelor until I met my wife at the ‘Superman’ première at the Kennedy Center with Christopher Reeve, in 1978,” he explained. “So for a long time Jackie was my girlfriend—I lived in the Bronx, and it was a big adventure to go into the city to stake her out. She was soft-voiced and mysterious and a great subject, because she didn’t stop and pose; she kept on moving, jogging away, ducking into restaurants.”
He continued, “The only time Jackie touched me, she was at the 21 Club, and she came out and grabbed my wrist and said”—his foghorn voice whispered—“‘You’ve been hunting me for three months now.’ She loved being pursued.” Some of her other endearments included, “You stay away from me!” and “I thought you were in jail!” Galella mused, “I think I brought out her beauty from within, an emotion revealed, usually surprise. I really put her on a pedestal. The only way she disappointed me was with the court battles.” First, Onassis won a verdict that required Galella to maintain a distance of fifty yards, and later, in a settlement after he had repeatedly violated that order, he agreed to stop photographing her altogether.
In a documentary about Galella, “Smash His Camera,” which premières on HBO next month, several observers say that he had no distinctive style. But, as Galella sifted through his trophy shots, he pointed out the aesthetic hallmarks: “When there’s two people, you focus on one. Like, with a bride and groom, the bride should be looking at the camera, the groom at the bride.” By way of example, he held up a “Love Story”-era photo of Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, who wore a startled smile and, most noticeably, no bra. “Also her titties are showing, so that’s a good composition,” he added.
He pulled out a 1974 shot of Robert Redford striding away from his car. “Then there’s the bull’s-eye picture—a profile shot where you feature the better eye, the strong eye that holds your gaze, at the center. His is the right eye.” Redford was wearing mirrored shades, and his left eye was the centered one, but, still.
“My other technique is to shoot fast without permission,” he went on. “That way, I get the startled look. When I shot Farrah Fawcett’s baby, Edmond, or whatever the name was”—Redmond—“the baby was coöperative, the baby was into it, but Farrah got angry, so I honored her wishes and stopped. But I already had the shot.
