The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Then after ten minutes we could go in. Fran Lebowitz was there with Jed. The opera was boring. Good costumes, lots of tumbling. Drag queens.

  I saw Margaret Hamilton, the witch in The Wizard of Oz, and got so excited and went over to her and told her how wonderful she was. She does the Maxwell House commercials now. She’s really small.

  Bianca’s trying to get Halston to get a ticket for John Samuels to go on the China trip, too. I asked her why she went on the Tomorrow show if she didn’t have anything to say. And she said that she did, that she was in the new Burt Reynolds movie, Cannonball II. But big deal—she’s in one scene, she worked one week.

  Wednesday, August 13, 1980

  Sat around the house waiting for it to be time to go to Richard Weisman’s lunch for Miz Lillian. The rest of Truman’s time on Donahue was preempted by the convention. Jerry Zipkin was picking Bob up. So I met them at Bob’s and we went to U.N. Plaza. There were press people outside, they took some pictures, but there weren’t any really big stars. Suzie Frankfurt and Patti LuPone were there, and a 6’11” basketball player, I don’t know his name, he was white, really cute, he kept trying to be friendly. Miz Lillian was in the other room. There was so much press and not that many people.

  A girlfriend of Robyn’s who kept asking about him was there. She has a volunteer job with LeRoy Neiman, she carries his bag for him, I think. And LeRoy Neiman was there, he’s doing a drawing of Miz Lillian for the Daily News. Then we went and found Miz Lillian talking to Barbara Walters. Lillian keeps saying the portrait I did of her raised $65,000 but I never heard a thing about that. They brought out a cake and I taped the “Happy Birthday.” Then LeRoy said he had a car downstairs and we could ride in it, so we all left with Miz Lillian. And it was an actual car, not a limo. My tape jammed and I put in another one, and it jammed, too, so then I knew it wasn’t the tape, that the Secret Service guy had done it. He was cute. People were looking and waving at the car, they had Miz Lillian balloons. She said, “Every smile is a vote.”

  At the hotel there were sisters and brothers and cousins from Georgia. She said, “Sis!” to one but I don’t know if it was really her sister. We went up to the penthouse and then took another elevator to the next floor to her room, and she said when times were better she used to have a whole suite.

  LeRoy was drawing those terrible drawings of his, asking her questions, saying anything to her. It was great. He told dirty jokes, and she told them back. Like his was one about a bear using a rabbit after every crap to wipe himself, and she laughed. She’d left the liquor that Phyllis George sent at Richard’s and someone went back for it.

  Phyllis George is sending a lot of things, she wanted her husband to introduce Jimmy or something like that, but Miz Lillian said it was impossible, that it was protocol. Phyllis also sent two pictures of her baby. She also sent Miz Lillian a sequined jacket, and Miz Lillian said, “Now how could I wear that.” I gave her a Philosophy book. I ignored Ruth Stapleton Carter because I didn’t recognize her. There were a lot of Secret Service in the room because Carter was next door or a few doors down. I felt like a groupie.

  Miz Lillian was putting down Harvard people, she hates them, she was just on the point of calling some Harvard guy she was in the Peace Corps with a fairy, but she didn’t.

  I told Le Roy he was such a good interviewer that I wished he would work for Interview. He said he could talk so freely with Miz Lillian because she reminded him of his own mother. I left him and took a walk down the avenue. I was signing autographs and a girl came over and handed me an “I Love New York” button, and then she asked me for money, and actually I was about to give her something but then she was so horrible and aggressive that I handed the thing back to her and she grabbed my finger and slammed it in her book and squeezed it and I was going to hit her with my tape recorder.

  I passed out Interviews and then at 4:00 had an appointment with the H&R Blocks at the office (cab $3.60). The office was busy. They brought their daughter and I think a senator from Missouri. They’re from Kansas City. They were thrilled with the office. I gave them a Popism. Worked till 7:30, dropped Vincent (cab $5). Had a drink and got very tired, decided to stay home and watch the convention which was boring.

  Thursday, August 14, 1980

  Got to the office and the Secret Service guys were everywhere, all over the block. I gave them Interviews. Then I remembered the Mondale kid, that I’d invited him. Liz Carpenter was there, a camp, she had her hair Bo Derek-style, just beads in it. She wanted me to give an art education lecture to the Secretary of Education.

  I forgot to say that I keep running into the Robb girl, the LBJ daughter, the tall one. Lynda Bird. She could be a raving beauty but she doesn’t want to be, I guess, because she wears glasses and a funny hairdo.

  Liz Carpenter brought about eight people. Nancy Dickerson was there. And Wilson Kidde brought his friend from Princeton, Matt Salinger, the son of J.D. Salinger, who we’ve been trying to get for Interview but he turned us down. He said it would just get too complicated to give an interview and it was just easier not to. He’s really good-looking.

  And William Blair called and couldn’t come to lunch and said that his father didn’t want him to be in Interview and we can’t understand it. Lunch was for Pat Ast, and we stuck her next to the Salinger boy so she had a good time. I gave a speech and I gave out Philosophy books. I told them I didn’t believe in art, that I believed in photography. Oatsie Charles was there and she gave me a Mondale scarf. And little William Mondale was cute, he stayed through the whole thing. I asked him about the Secret Service and he said they cramp his style. He’s so pretty.

  Painting with a sponge mop at 860 Broadway. (photo Christopher Makos)

  Andy never kept phone numbers organized. He scribbled them on scraps of paper, stuck them in his pockets, and used them until he either memorized or lost them. (photo Ralph Lewin copyright © 1989)

  The sunny front of the third-floor offices at 860 Broadway. Andy did most of his artwork in the back areas of the loft, but some art in transit was usually stacked out front, by the doorway to the elevator and to Interview magazine’s area. (photo Mark Sink)

  Victor Hugo, John Lennon, and Rupert Smith. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Vincent Fremont. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Top: Robyn Geddes and Brigid Berlin. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Bottom: Jade Jagger in Andy’s painting area at the back of the loft. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Henry Geldzahler posing on top of the radiator grillwork. (photo Andy Warhol)

  "860"

  Top Right: At twilight, just before leaving the offices. (photo Mark Sink)

  Middle Left: The view from 860 Broadway, looking down Union Square West. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Middle Right: Lou Reed and Ronnie Cutrone at the front of Andy’s offices. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Bottom: The “conference room” where lunches were served to guests. (photo Andy Warhol)

  At Halston’s Olympic Tower showroom. left to right: Benjamin Liu, Martha Graham, Jane Holzer, and Liza Minnelli. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Gigi and Ronnie Cutrone. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Suzie Frankfurt (photo Andy Warhol)

  André Leon Talley and Maxime de la Falaise McKendry. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Brigid Berlin at the height of her weight, in character as “Estelle,” on the set of Bad in 1976. With her are brother Richard E. Berlin, Jr., and co-star Susan Tyrrell. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Barbara Allen. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Halston at home on East 63rd Street with Diane de Beauvau and Bianca. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Richard Weisman with Catherine Oxenberg and her mother, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Top: Iranian ambassador to the U.N. Fereydoun Hoyeyda (left), Marisa Berenson, and Lester Persky. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Bottom: Bianca Jagger and Diane de Beauvau. (photo Bob Colacello)

  John McEnroe and Catherine Guinness. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Dinner wit
h Mick Jagger and William Burroughs. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Halston. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Pat Hackett with twin brothers Jay (left) and Jed Johnson, (photo Patrick McMullan)

  Martha Graham. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Baryshnikov. (photo Andy Warhol)

  Top Right: With John Samuels IV (a.k.a. actor John Stockwell) and Calvin Klein at Studio 54. (photo Patrick McMullan)

  Middle: With Jack Nicholson in New York, 1974. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Bottom Left: With Steve Rubell and Peter Allen. (photo Patrick McMullan)

  With Martin Scorsese, Catherine, Guinness, and Robbie Robertson in Scorsese’s suite at the Sherry Netherland on May 11,1978. (photo Christopher Makos)

  With James Curley. (photo Patrick McMullan)

  Kissing John Lennon, February 1978. (photo Christopher Makos)

  With Mick Jagger and Archie, 1975. (photo Pat Hackett)

  With Hollywood agent Sue Mengers. (photo Bob Colacello)

  With Diana Vreeland in 1975. (photo Bob Colacello)

  Left: When Andy’s Philosophy book was published in 1975, artist/window dresser Victor Hugo (on floor) “tiled” the floor of designer Halston’s (standing) showroom window at Madison and 68th Street with copies of it. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Right: At the White House in 1977 with his drawing of Jimmy Carter. (photo Bob Colacello)

  Right: With Mick Jagger in 1975 at 860 Broadway, co-signing Andy’s Mick Jagger portfolio prints. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Left: Walking in the Village with Jed Johnson (left) and Paul Morrissey in 1972. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Andy with his dachshund Archie in the entrance hallway of his house on East 66th Street, (photo Pat Hackett)

  Getting dressed at his house. (photo Pat Hackett)

  On one of his daily runs up and down Madison, stopping in stores both to shop and to encourage store owners to advertise in his magazine, Interview. (photo Pat Hackett)

  Top: Nico in 1966, singing with the Velvet Underground, (photo Billy Nome)

  Bottom: Andy at his 1971 retrospective at the Whitney Museum with (left to right) Geraldine Smith, Ultra Violet, Andrea Feldman, Jane Forth, and Donna Jordan. (photo Richord Bernstein)

  Top: Andy in the sixties with (fop to bottom) Mary Woronov, who appeared in his film Chelsea Girls;Nico, wno sang with the Velvet Underground, and International Velvet (Susan Bottomly), who was a Warhol Girl of the Year, (courtesy of Whitney Film Archives)

  Bottom: Warhol superstars Viva and Brigid Berlin (a.k.a. Brigid Polk) in Andy’s 1967 film Tub Girls, (photo Billy Name)

  Shots taken in 1968 on the set of Paul Morrissey’s Flesh, starring Jackie Curtis (with cigarette), Joe Dallesandro, and Geri Miller, (photo Jed Johnson)

  Body-painting a model in the sixties with Gerard Malanga and Ultra Violet.

  Andy talks on the sprayed-silver payphone at the original Factory on East 47th Street in 1964. (photo Billy Name)

  Top: Andy’s mother, Julia Zavacky, (top left corner), in Czechoslovakia before her marriage to Andy’s father, Andrew Warhola. With her are Zavacky family members and in-laws. (courtesy of Amy Possarelli)

  Bottom: Andy’s mother, Julia, with two of her three children, John (left) and Andy. (Her other son, Paul, is not shown.) (courtesy of Amy Passarelli)

  Andy on the lawn of Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, 1948. (photo Philip Peorlstein)

  Rupert came up and I did some drawings and paintings. Hans Mayer called from Germany and I have to do one of the portraits over.

  Bob picked up the phone and called California and to tell them I’d agreed to do a poster of Reagan just because of some offhand kidding comment I made and now I’m having nightmares that I’ll get pushed into really doing one. Those things get so tricky. Bob gets so crazy wanting to be an inside Republican.

  Friday, August 15, 1980

  Got up and passed out Interviews, now I carry a lot more with me. I leave them in cabs. And it’s so easy to get away from people in the street when they stop you if you give them an Interview. They think they’re getting something, a drawing or something. Vincent was saying the other day that I should start actually selling them instead of giving them away, that it would be more fun for me.

  Tuesday, August 19, 1980

  Bob was in a cranky mood all day. I told him we had to do Patti LuPone on the cover and he went into a tizzy screaming. He said it looked too similar to Paloma. They’re both Latins. But oh, Bob is so immature. He does a baby tantrum when he wants something and then he does his guilty thing. It’s just so predictable. Bob thinks he has too much to do. He thinks he has no personal life. He said he doesn’t like going around with these old ladies, that he just does it for me, but then he admitted that he didn’t mind the trips sometimes, that he doesn’t mind the old girls sometimes, but that he’d rather be with his own friends. Which friends? I don’t know. People he’s met from work! And then on these scenes Fred is always called in, and after his own night of binging then he has to act mature and be the know-it-all and straighten Bob out.

  And after weeks of Princess Holstein asking to help me I finally told her she could help me trace, and then she disappeared for an hour and I had to do it alone, and when she came back I asked her where she’d been and she said she had a phone call. She’s becoming Ronnie’s assistant—she sits and talks to Ronnie because he doesn’t have anything to do. And then Robyn spends his days calling up his friends to look up who the princess’s relatives are. So that’s the state of the office.

  Wednesday, August 20, 1980

  Bob was acting a little better, he apologized for being nutty the day before. I met him for dinner to discuss the Patti LuPone interview, and I invited Rupert, too, because we had to discuss the Florida trip with Ron Feldman. We met at Le Relais (dinner $130).

  When I got home I called Bob and we talked until 3:00 in the morning because I was waiting for Jed to get home. He was having dinner with Alan Wanzenberg the architect—he’s working with Jed now on the Brants’ house in Palm Beach.

  Thursday, August 21, 1980

  It was Suzie Frankfurt’s birthday so we were having a lunch for her. She invited everybody she wanted (party decorations $84). Lester Persky was the hit of the party. Suzie’s decorating his house in Beverly Hills. He was telling everyone what a great producer he is. Renny the flower person sent a birthday boy from his place wrapped in cellophane in a box who gave roses to Suzie. Lester tried to take the cellophane off. Tommy Pashun sent an orchid plant. The whole thing was over by about 3:00 and Suzie took everything from the table home—the chocolates and the flowers. Then Tommy Pashun had to get the orchid back from her, because they send you the orchids but you don’t get to keep them, they’re rare, and the florist picks them up after you’ve had them and takes them back to the solarium. Then the next day they go on to somebody else.

  Monday, August 25, 1980

  Bob said Ina called and that we were going to see the opening of 42nd Street. Went up to the Winter Garden (cab $4). The photographers and people were there and shoved us around. Mary Tyler Moore walked in right when it was starting. The show was great. Tammy Grimes was really funny as an old star. They had fifty tap dancers for the opening number. It was what shows should be, really big. The set changes. Gower Champion was in the hospital, they said.

  The show was really exciting, but the most amazing thing in the show was that Carol Cook was finally a star! I couldn’t believe it. Here’s someone I met twenty-five years ago from Nathan Gluck and she was saying every minute that she just had to be a star, had to be one. And here it is twenty-five years later and she’s finally made it. She had the Joan Blondell part. And it was the regular thing—“the show must go on” thing. And this Carol does what Brigid used to do—she looks in the mirror and she’s happy because she sees a pretty face, but she never looks below her neck because if she did she’d see 500 pounds of fat. Desilu signed her once and she was in some I Love Lucys. She’s not so fat now.

  When the show was over there was all the b
ravo-ing, really a lot. Eighty-five curtain calls. Then there was a hush. And David Merrick came out and put his hand to his forehead and said, “This is a tragic moment. Gower Champion just died.” And nobody knew what to do. The lead girl started crying. She had just moved in with Gower or something. It was like a movie, the lead guy was saying, “Pull the curtain, get the curtain down!”

  And outside Joshua and Nedda Logan were in tears, and it was lots of actors acting. Then we ran backstage and they let us in. The lead girl ran out and tears were coming down her face and she said something like, “Go get my dress” to somebody and “The show must go on, and I have to be a star.” So this was her big moment and she was so upset with Merrick for ruining it.

  Then we went to Carol Cook’s dressing room and Ina started to introduce me and Carol said, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Andy Warhol! I haven’t seen you in twenty-five years! Remember when you gave me a drawing and I gave you a cat? Oh my God!” It was such a camp. “Let’s get together.”