Jesse Kornbluth, whose sly chronicles of cultural excess , celebrity and author profiles, personal essays, and investigative work enlivened magazines and newspapers, died on April 17 in Manhattan. He was 79.

He contributed to, among others, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and New Times, an alternative biweekly newsmagazine published in the 1970s. He also worked as a ghostwriter, wrote screenplays, and wrote or co-wrote a number of nonfiction books.

“Jesse was the expert on everything,” Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair said, “or could sound like one.”