Korean War Vet Ron Galella Made a Career by Enraging the Rich and Famous

Ron Galella learned his trade in the U.S. Air Force, working as a military photographer in the Korean War during his service from 1951 to 1955. He later took those skills and revolutionized the business of celebrity photography, making a long career out of taking unauthorized and candid photos of the rich and famous.

Galella, who died on April 30, 2022, at age 91, was the son of an Italian immigrant who manufactured pianos and coffins in New York City. After his military service, he attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and earned a degree in photojournalism. He found part-time work taking photos at film premieres, and that work later became the basis of his outrageous career.

At a time when celebrities were still honored with carefully stage-managed photo shoots at organized public events, Galella was determined to get more natural and exciting shots, and he began stalking his famous prey as they shopped, dined and walked the streets of New York City and Beverly Hills, California. Most of the people he photographed just wanted to be left alone, but Galella was relentless in his pursuit of celebrities and their off-stage personalities.

His greatest fame came from his relentless pursuit of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which resulted in hundreds of famous images from the last decades of her life. There's little doubt that Jackie O. hated Galella's guts, but his photos are truly some of the greatest images we have of her.

Getty Images made a short film that allowed Galella to pay tribute to his favorite subject while also promoting those images for licensing. His "Windblown Jackie" photo is perhaps both his favorite and the most famous photography from his career.

Galella also captured famous images of Muhammad Ali, Henry Kissinger, Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Elizabeth Taylor and even Madonna. His work constitutes a rogue's gallery of 20th-century fame.

Galellla claimed that actor Marlon Brando once knocked out five of his teeth when Galella was trying to take a photo, so the photographer took to wearing a football helmet on days that he planned to shoot Brando.

In an interview quoted in the Hollywood Reporter, Galella said, "I just had a passion to photograph. Shoot, shoot, shoot. I just did it and loved it and did it and did it my way. You had the satisfaction of shooting the picture. You develop it, you have it in your hands, and it gives you another psychic reward. Then you see it published -- that's another reward. Then you get the check. That's the final reward!"

The photographer was the subject of a 2010 documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Leon Gast ("When We Were Kings"). "Smash His Camera" gots its name from a quote allegedly delivered by Jackie Onassis to her security guard when Galella was following her through New York's Central Park.

If you're looking for ways to take the skills you acquired during military service and apply them to civilian life, take Galella as an inspiration. With persistence and a little imagination, he took his own training and turned those skills into one of the most intense and exciting careers imaginable.

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