Glenn O’Brien, the New York cultural figure who was an author, musician, magazine editor, style guru, TV host and key figure at Andy Warhol’s Factory, has died aged 70.

Described by Rolling Stone, one of the publications he edited along with Warhol’s Interview, as a “renaissance man”, O’Brien was perhaps best known as the host of TV Party – the public access show on which he interviewed guests, such as Debbie Harry and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

O’Brien had been ill for some time and his wife, Gina Nanni, told ArtNews that he died due to complications related to pneumonia.

His name was synonymous with downtown New York of the late 70s and early 80s, where he worked alongside Andy Warhol at the infamous Factory.

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and went on to study at Georgetown University before making his way to New York where, while studying film-making at Columbia, he became a regular fixture at the Factory.

Writing about his relationship to the work of the photographer Billy Name, a key figure in Warhol’s circle, in the Observer in 2014, he said: “I guess I found my future through Billy Name’s eye. I saw his pictures of the Warhol Factory when I was in college and thought, ‘Oh, that’s the place to get to. Everyone is so beautiful and it looks brilliant and complicated – art, music, film, but most of all a kind of wild life.’” It looked like the future as I imagined it.”

He was an editor at Warhol’s Interview magazine in the early 70s before becoming GQ’s Style Guy. In the role, he wrote about sartorial developments and gave advice in a column.

He also dabbled in punk, writing a long-running and influential column on the New York scene and playing in the group Konelrad, who were regulars at CBGB. He wrote many books, including 2011’s How to Be a Man: A Guide to Style and Behavior for the Modern Gentleman.