Ron Galella, the pioneer of the paparazzi phenomenon, dies

• Ron Galella The paparazzo that Marlon Brando punched and Jackie Kennedy brought to trial

New York photographer Ron Galella, pioneer of the

phenomenon in the sixties, and author of some of the best-known snapshots of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger or Sophia Loren, has died at the age of 91 due to heart failure.

As reported today by US media, Galella (New York, 1931) died on Saturday

(United States) due to a heart problem.

A death that leaves a hole in celebrity photography.

Galella portrayed characters such as Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Sofía Loren or Marlon Brando, who in June 1973, after a chase through the Chinatown neighborhood in New York, hit him with a "right hand" that

, as he acknowledged to Efe when PhotoEspaña dedicated a retrospective to him in 2011.

This incident

, in which

appears again and behind, with a baseball player's helmet, Ron Galella, "just in case he missed another blow," said the photographer himself.

For moments like this, and for his way of working in general, Galella admitted that he could be considered an "aggressive paparazzi", because he "stole" photos that celebrities did not want, "but,

, sneaked into parties and forged invitations to attend events in which they participated.

Among his list of celebrities are also

,

or

, with whom he also managed to establish a

Regarding the so-called "stolen" photos, for Galella one of his favorites was the one he managed to

It was because she considered that she had the three basic qualities of the "paparazzi" style: improvisation, catching the portrayed off guard and spontaneity.

Among the Spaniards portrayed by this photographer are

, in June 2002 in New York, or

, also in the city of skyscrapers but in 1982, on the occasion of Valentine's Day.

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