The common noun, therefore, is from the name of the character Paparazzo (played by Walter Santesso – 1931-2008) in La Dolce Vita (1960) by the Italian film director Federico Fellini (1920-93).īut the choice of this name has been variously explained. “Paparazzo,” says Fellini, “suggests to me a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging.” * A name coined by Movie Director Federico Fellini for a freelance photographer in La Dolce Vita, his gamy study of Roman café society. “I couldn’t live anywhere else but here,” he said. Displaced Russian Kroscenko would not consider moving his base of operations. But most are content to bay on the Via Veneto. Now and then, a paparazzo goes on to loftier things-Tazio Secchiaroli has his own agency, employs five photographers. With paparazzi lurking just off the premises, cash customers mass to watch for fireworks. Via Veneto cafés have found they are good for business. But like streetwalkers, they cling to their place in society. Legitimate news photographers scorn the paparazzi as streetwalkers of Roman journalism.

The practice has a sound commercial basis: Italian newspapers and magazines pay as little as $5 for paparazzo portraits of quiescent celebrities pictures of celebrities rampant bring as much as $500. Like a King. In slack moments, the paparazzi manufacture incidents: one of their number taunts a show business idol into arm-flailing rage, and bulbs flash. Because Ava Gardner once called him a dirty name, Paparazzo Tazio Secchiaroli vengefully hid for hours in a cardboard box on a Cinecittà movie lot, finally got what he came for: an unflattering shot of Ava in an old bath towel, hair wet and stringy as a mop. When Katharine Hepburn passed through town recently, the paparazzi mounted Vespa scooters, putt-putted out to waylay her at Fiumicino Airport. They caught Actor Cornel Wilde struggling with a local heckler, froze Anita Ekberg’s bosom as it heaved in a wild dance at a private Roman orgy. Actor Ernest Borgnine and his estranged wife, Katy Jurado, wrangled in the street, cameras popped. No one is safe, not even royalty (see cut). Easter is past, celebrities are drifting down the peninsula, and hot times are ahead. These days they find more and more targets. “Come esce lo faccio secco ,” they snarl, while waiting for their quarry to open a nightclub door. They lounge beneath lampposts, lips leaking cigarettes, cameras drawn like automatics. Shot from a Box. The paparazzi are a small crew-a couple of dozen at most-and they are more bullyboys than news photographers. He is a paparazzo, * one of a ravenous wolf pack of freelance photographers who stalk big names for a living and fire with flash guns at point-blank range.

Here, in the glittering array of hotels, smart shops and open-air cafés, throng Kroscenko’s picturesque prey. A three-block stretch of the Via Veneto, cascading from the Aurelian Wall to the U.S. Trouble that can be shot with a camera is Kroscenko’s business. They make trouble.” Kroscenko rose, slung the strap of his Rolleicord camera over a shoulder, and went prowling for trouble. “Linda Christian, Ava Gardner, Anita Ekberg, Jayne Mansfield,” he rolled the names lovingly across his tongue. “So who cares?” He was after bigger game. A bearded giant strode past: Cinemactor Steve (“Hercules”) Reeves. At a sidewalk café, Ivan Kroscenko, 31, a man in a black leather jacket, sipped espresso and cased the pedestrian traffic with a predatory eye. On Rome’s Via Veneto, the night was gay with lights and pink azaleas in curbside tubs. ROMAN PHOTOGRAPHERS BLOCKADING SORAYA’S CAR The common noun paparazzo and its plural form paparazzi were first used in English in the American magazine Time of 14 th April 1961:

Walter Santesso (center) as Paparazzo in La Dolce Vita

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