The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

Ran into Sylvester Stallone who cut his beard and looks great, he just flew in from Budapest with his wife, and I told him I wanted to do his portrait over again without the beard because he looks so handsome. And so he was going to come up about 6:00 so I could rephotograph him.

  Then I ran into him again, on the beach, and all the people on the beach were taking pictures of him. He looked so great without clothes on, he’s pencil-thin, he looks like a muscle man, like Mr. America with small biceps, and I told him not to ever put any more weight on again. But he was saying he had to because he had to do Rocky III and so I told him to do a fat suit. And so we left to go back to the hotel to refresh ourselves and wait for him to come. Then I glued myself together because it was time to get ready to go down to the opening of the show in the lobby. I was ready before anyone else so I decided I might as well go down and work, so I got downstairs about five minutes after 7:00 and Pam Combemale and Freddy Woolworth were standing there greeting people and I was next in line and I shook hands with everybody coming in, like a receiving line. They would introduce me and there were all these old bags, I mean, the oldest people in the world. And then Jamie came down and he was next to me and we went down the line and in it was Raymond Loewy! The guy who designed the Lucky Strike cigarette package and everything else! I was just so thrilled to meet him that I just jumped up and down and asked him if I could take his picture. And he was great. And then the old bags, there were just so many of them I couldn’t believe it. I think we got some portraits to do so that’s great. Then Stallone came all in white, and he looked really beautiful, and then Iris Love and Liz Smith came, and Liz said it was the chic-est party opening they’d ever been to.

  Mary Richardson came and Kerry Kennedy and Mona Christiansen and a cute little girl Vicky, who’s the daughter of Frank Gifford. Mona told a story of how Garbo picked her up on Madison Avenue a couple of weeks ago and took her home for tea, but then, she said nothing happened, they just compared face jaw-lines. I don’t believe her but it was fun to hear. Mona was feeling up all the girls, really feeling them up.

  Sunday, July 13, 1980—Monte Carlo

  Fred picked me up and we went down to Stallone’s room to photograph him, he’d been switched from his big suite to a smaller room and he was complaining. He was in his blue bikini. We finished the pictures, we only took three rolls, and chit-chatted and then we got a little nervous and we left. We invited him to dinner but he said he was busy.

  Monday, July 14, 1980—Monte Carlo

  Murray Brant just called to say that Sandy Brant had triplets and the boy weighed five and a half pounds and the two girls weighed five pounds each.

  We were going to a cocktail party at Donina Cicogna’s and all the girls were downstairs and it was so much fun, you run into everybody in the lobby, and so we cabbed to her place (cabs $30). And when we got there it was too crowded and Lady Rothermere was there and we picked up a real cute old friend of Fred’s named David Rocksavage, he’s an earl, one of the richest kids in England. Then we went to Jimmy’z.

  Mona and I were bored so we decided to look for Prince Albert, we knew that he’d be around someplace, so we went searching and just couldn’t find him, so I said something like, “Oh shit, we just can’t find Prince Albert,” and he was standing right in back of me. So Mona got really aggressive with him and said we really loved him and wanted to get to know him, she pushed her way right in, and I said, “Do you want to meet all these great girls like Kerry Kennedy?” and he said no. Then Regine caught our eye and she ran and got drinks and shoved them all in our hands, and Prince Albert sat there and drank all of his drinks and just ignored us. Then Regine was smart enough to know what to do, she went down and got the kids like Kerry and Mary Richardson and brought them up and we introduced them, and Mona stepped on Prince Albert’s toe and he said, “Do it again.” And then he said he was not staying, he had to meet somebody and they were going over to Paradise. And Mona and I said we’d go over and see them there, so we were really excited because we’d worked so hard to get this far. And I didn’t bring my tape recorder because I was wearing Jed’s jacket and he wouldn’t let me put anything in it because it stretches the pockets. And so I couldn’t tape.

  Then we went over to Paradise and there was Prince Albert and Mona grabbed him and really tried to hustle him again but he said he had to play soccer the next day early, so he had to leave, and we were stuck.

  Tuesday, July 15, 1980—Monte Carlo

  São Schlumberger invited us and the girls and Rocksavage and Warren Adelson from the Coe Kerr Gallery and his wife LaTrelle and her little son to Cap Ferrat, to the little house she was renting. I was just starved, I hadn’t had anything since breakfast so I just began eating everything and photographing, the house was pretty and had a beautiful view. We were there till 5:00. And Mona was going to St. Tropez and the girls were going to Venice to stay at Gianni Volpi’s palace, but Kerry was having to wait for her brother and Vicky Gifford for her boyfriend. Which are the same person.

  Wednesday, July 16, 1980—Monte Carlo

  French TV came and asked me how did it feel to come “from the underground” to this glamorous place, and I told them they were full of baloney because I’d come here so many times and it wasn’t “from the underground.” And then I did a radio program and then I ran upstairs and found that Jed had gotten the copy of L’Uomo Vogue with me on the cover which makes me look so awful, and there were a lot of good-looking people inside wearing bluejeans.

  We divided up in cars and went out to have lunch with Hélène Rochas and Juliette Greco’s sister Charlotte and her architect husband. Everybody went swimming and we had bullshots and they were so great, and then we had lunch, the best fish I ever had, the best food, it was just so glamorous, breaded fish with anise, and then we had anise down by the swimming pool and we dished everybody. And then we left around 5:00 and Rocksavage dropped us off.

  There was a birthday dinner for Lynn Wyatt but I haven’t bought her anything yet. Johnny Carson was going to be there and I couldn’t wait to meet him. We ran into Maxime Mesinger in the lobby, she’s that wonderful gossip reporter from Houston, she came here just for Lynn’s birthday party.

  Got dressed, cabbed to Lynn’s in Cap Ferrat ($35). We thought we’d be early but we weren’t. We got there and Estée Lauder was there and Lynn took me around to introduce me to people. And the first person she introduced me to was Johnny Carson. That was really exciting. He’s not short. He’s tall. He has grey hair and he looks so healthy. I took lots of pictures of him. And his wife Joanna is beautiful, she used to be a model with Norell so we dished the dresses and fashion and junk like that and I didn’t take any pictures, I was just too—I thought it would be too much. Everybody was too scared to sit at the Johnny Carson table but David Niven sat with him and we sat with Liz Smith who was sitting at the last table by the swimming pool. And then the king or prince of Yugoslavia said he had a Mao painting of mine.

  Everybody sang “Happy Birthday” to Lynn and then they had great fireworks, all the way around. A lot of sparkles and pink smoke and really loud firecrackers.

  There’s so much in the papers about Ronald Reagan and it looks like he’s on his way to become president, it does look scary. I voted once. In the fifties, I don’t remember which election. I pulled the wrong lever because I was confused, I couldn’t figure out how to work the thing. There was no practice model outside, it was a church on 35th Street between Park and Lex. This was when I was living at 242 Lexington. And then I got called for jury duty and I wrote back: “Moved.” I’ve never voted again.

  Saturday, July 19, 1980—Paris

  Pierre Berge never called back.

  Went over to the Flore but it was closed. Deux Magots was open so we sat around there, hoping that Shirley Goldfarb would come by, but Shirley is I guess rehearsing for her big show that Pierre is giving Thursday night for her where she’ll sing the menu of every restaurant in Paris. She’s doing it in Pierre’s theater, and he wanted us to stay on and
see her. She’s going to sing, in addition to the menus, songs like “Merry Christmas” and “Auld Lang Syne,” and I think it’s going to be a big trauma because I think she’s really going to do it seriously and it’s going to be so horrible. I think it sounds funnier than it’s going to be, unless she can really do a lot of good menus.

  Monday, July 21, 1980—Paris—New York

  The plane left right at 11 A.M. when it’s supposed to and when it does that, it’s just perfect. The food is getting sort of boring, though. And they serve it too fast. You’re finished in an hour and a half and you have all that time to sit around and get edgy. And I stole so much silverware and I was afraid about customs, I don’t know if you’re allowed to take them in or not. Got to customs, and although I didn’t beep coming through the thing this guy took me to a room and had me empty my pockets and I had my vitamins on me, I don’t like them to go through the beeper, and he was feeling them all up, and then he went through my shoes and pulled down my socks, and then he said, “What’s that?” when he saw my other drugs, my painkillers, and when I was trying to explain what they were, he got impatient and said, “Oh, go away.” I’m really going to be careful what I take with me because I can just see them going through all my wigs and asking me why I have so many.

  We went from the freezing cold of Paris to 101 degrees in New York and it was a shockeroo. That’s a Diana Vreeland word (cab $40).

  Tuesday, July 22, 1980

  I met someone on the street who said wasn’t it great that we’re going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it’s so American. But they never talk about Reagan’s divorce. I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to get elected president if you were divorced.

  Worked till 7:30, dropped Rupert off (cab $5). Whitney Tower called and said he wanted to talk about some movie ideas and he invited me for drinks. The rain had started. And then my bell rang and it was Whitney and Averil and Rachel Ward. I’d put the dogs to bed and that woke them up. I left the kids outside on the doorstep in the rain while I got myself together and then we walked to Le Relais. John Samuels was at the bar, he was going off to Suzie Frankfurt’s for dinner—she was giving a dinner for John’s father and his boyfriend.

  Whitney invited me to the Adirondacks. They were up there over the weekend and they said Mick was there diapering a baby and they said he was an expert at it, that Bianca never did it, and he said he’d done Jade all the time.

  Oh, and the best thing was the thank-you notes that Jerry Hall sent for her birthday presents. I got one and Jed got the exact same one and Averil got the exact same one. It’s in this little baby handwriting and on flowered notepaper and it says the exact same thing on all of them, line for line, space for space, word for word. (laughs) I should call up everybody who gave her a present and collect the notes from them and make a book out of it. That would be funny, wouldn’t it?

  Thursday, July 24, 1980

  Rupert brought the proofs for the prints by that he’d taken it upon himself to finish completely without ever showing them to me. He tried to be artistic and he sure was, he sure was. This is the Shoes with the diamond dust. He had them completely finished, with the diamond dust on and everything. I don’t know why he did that. I’m doing shoes because I’m going back to my roots. In fact, I think maybe I should do nothing but (laughs) shoes from now on.

  Saturday, July 26, 1980

  Up at 7:30, glued myself and was meeting Rupert at 11:15 at the office (cab $4.50). I went to the farmers’ market in Union Square to freshen supplies ($18). There were lots of new trucks, I can’t tell which are the real farmers and which are the people who buy the stuff someplace else and bring it there. I think the real farmers (laughs) are the ones where the vegetables just look ugly—like beat-up and deformed and wormy—things that look like they’re from your backyard. Worked at the office from 12:00 to 7:30.

  Sunday, July 27, 1980

  Up at 7:30, watched TV. Rupert called, I was supposed to go to work but the weather made me tired so I stayed home and went through magazines and books. Watched the death of the Shah on TV all day on the all-day cable news channel. I didn’t know that one of the Shah’s sisters had a house built by I.M. Pei in Tehran, they showed it and it was really beautiful with a dining room. I wonder who she gave dinners for. The palace that we were in was just a dump.

  Monday, July 28, 1980

  I’ve just been reading Gloria Swanson’s book about sugar and she has me in it as the prime example of evil because she read the Philosophy book and interviews with me talking about how much candy I eat. She said the reason we lost the war in Vietnam is sugar, and that everywhere Americans go they bring Coca-Cola and fake orange drinks and then take the good rice and de-rice it. And it did make sense, so I’m going to try not to eat so much sugar.

  The Donahue Show was on the flasher problem. This is a big important new problem, right? Men who flash. A wife and her husband who flashed were on, they were in the dark, and businessmen and lawyers who flashed.

  At the office Arma Andón from CBS called and invited me to dinner at the Russian Tea Room and then on to see Eddie Money at Trax. Then after I said yes, Vincent told me that I had an early dinner for the North American Watch thing at the Pierre. And they usually don’t take long, there’s speeches and it’s over quickly so I thought I could do both. Worked, then dropped Rupert (cab $5). Glued myself and walked to the Pierre. Walter Cronkite was going in with his wife, he was the head speaker, he’s on vacation from the news now. Gerry Grinberg met me and put me next to a girl who had to know who I was, I mean, my place card was there and everything, but she was saying things as if I were Truman Capote, like, “I still use your list from the Black and White Masked Ball for invitations.” So either she thought I was Truman or she thought the Black and White party was mine. And I always hate to make a person wrong, so I tried to change the subject but she kept going back to it.

  Then it was 9:30 and by this time I was supposed to be at the Russian Tea Room. But then Walter Cronkite started to talk and it was so interesting. He told a Rolex story about how the Rolex guy gave him a watch and he went to interview President Johnson, and all of a sudden Johnson was looking at his wrist and said, “That damn guy said that only presidents get that watch.” And then after that that’s all Johnson could think about and he couldn’t answer any questions.

  Finally at 11:00 I was able to slip away. Because the thing was I was right up front and I just couldn’t leave before that. Outside I couldn’t get a cab so I ran all the way to the Russian Tea Room and I almost had a heart attack and then when I got there, the man said they’d already left, but I was glad when I heard “they,” it meant Arma had somebody with him, probably Fred, who I’d sent because I thought I might be a little late. So cabbed to Trax ($3) which I couldn’t find and I walked all over and finally found it.

  Don Mahoney, Eddie Money’s brother, who’s a cop, came out and introduced Eddie, and the brother is so good-looking, I really liked him. Then Eddie Money sang, and he’s just great, like a singing John McEnroe. And he’s so familiar, like somebody from Max’s, that type, I just feel like we know him, I think. Vitas was there, and Richard Weisman. And I just know Vitas dyes his hair and sets it in rollers, he thinks he’s losing it, the look. Then we met Eddie Money and he was cute, he said he was rooting for me at Columbus Hospital in ‘68 when I was shot because he was a cop then at the precinct right around the corner. Then Fred was tired, he’d come in that morning on the Concorde.

  Tuesday, July 29, 1980

  It was Fred’s birthday and Richard Weisman was giving him a surprise party and the phone kept ringing all day and Robyn was having to invite people and not let Fred know, so the whole day was whispering.

  Dropped Vincent (cab $4.50). Suzie Frankfurt said that I had to be at her house there on time, at 8:00, because it was a surprise party. Got there at 8:55. Every kid from the office and their date was there.

 
Fred came in and he was really surprised, he was shocked. John Samuels was there and he was sweet, he invited me out to his father’s house on Long Island that used to belong to J.P. Morgan. John Scribner was there, and D.D. Ryan. And Eddie Money came with Vitas and Arma Andón. A girl came out of a cake for $500 and it was a big dud. A big nothing—Suzie was complaining about the price. Richard paid. Averil sent a singing telegram. She was there, though. She was drunk and tongue-kissing me and she got mad because I wouldn’t tongue-kiss her back. The two Frankfurt kids were here. I sat in the kitchen eating good kosher sandwiches.

  Curley was the real drunk of the party. Diana Vreeland didn’t come, she was too tired. Patti LuPone was there and her brother with his wife, he’s really good-looking. I tried to tape some of the birthday song but it was too noisy. Jay Johnson and Susan were there, and Tom Cashin who’s leaving The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas this week. He’s going to California to play the role out there. I got fat eating sandwiches.

  Wednesday, July 30, 1980

  They were having a costume auction at Sotheby’s at 1:00 and one of the things in the auction was a costume I’d done in the sixties for the Dalton twins—the “This Side Up” dress. Sotheby’s just had it thrown in with the other clothes, they didn’t realize I’d done it. If somebody had put it in a frame it could have sold for $10,000 but somebody’s probably going to get it for $25. It’s the last thing in the auction.

  Mr. Stern called and said he was coming down at 5:30 to look at his Flower paintings. They’re diamond-dust fluorescent.