The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  We bought the papers but no reviews of the play were in it ($1). I don’t know about this new section that the News is putting in that Clay Felker’s editing. I don’t think it’s going to make it. It looks too much like that Long Island newspaper—Newsday—and I think people do like newspapers like the Post more.

  Wednesday, August 27, 1980

  Doc Cox called and said he was picking me up for the screening of Union City starring Debbie Harry. Closed up early. Dropped Robyn and Fred (cab $5.50). The Doc was a little late, he finally arrived in a limo. He told me that he’d broken up with his nineteen-year-old boyfriend because the kid got too jealous. The kid was a weirdo. Charles Rydell was in the movie, he was a cabdriver. He was good. Taylor Mead was in the movie for a minute as a drunk, doing a bit. I thought the movie was great, but Bianca, Ina, Bob, and Doc Cox all hated it. And they had doctor things in the movie, so the Doc was whispering things like, “That’s not right, that’s not the way you do it.” Then we were meeting Tammy Grimes at Elaine’s. Helen Frankenthaler came to our table and she was so drunk. I said, “Would you like to meet Bianca Jagger?” and she waved her hand and said, “I don’t care about that.” She said she wanted me to come to her table and meet Clement Greenberg and Kenneth Noland, she said she thought it would be fascinating, so I went there.

  Then Tammy came and we reminisced about the old days. I once drew her feet. She looked pretty good. I confronted her again and said, “I just know it is your voice on those TV commercials because nobody could imitate your voice, and you told me it wasn’t you and I just know it is.” And then she confessed that it was.

  Thursday, August 28, 1980

  Somebody’s been calling every morning about 7:00 and letting it ring three times and hanging up. And it’s on this line—the line that not too many people know about. I picked it up once, but I usually don’t. Isn’t that peculiar?

  Friday, August 29, 1980

  I went to look at a building to buy on 22nd Street, but it’s just too expensive—$1.3. It’s ten floors but it’s next to those fire escapes that they made them put on that are painted bright yellow. It would be a good building for the magazine, though. I walked around looking for other buildings in the neighborhood but they’ve all gotten eaten up by everybody in the last couple of years, everyone’s been buying.

  I called Donald Ambrose, Curley’s friend who lives in the Gramercy Park area, and invited him out to dinner because we need someone to replace David at Interview who quit. Sassy. You never knew what would come out of his mouth. He’d been painting the office, and he had a friend from Wisconsin, Jay Shriver, helping him. Jay had just come to New York and was staying with him. So I noticed that Jay was really neat, and a good, organized worker, and I thought that he would be a good person to have working at the office, to be like a janitor but we wouldn’t call it a janitor, and even help me with painting and stuff because Ronnie’s gotten too elegant, all he does is talk on the phone all day and he’s going over to Europe for a show that Lucio’s giving him. Anyway, so I said to David that we would like to ask his friend Jay to work for us and he got so upset and said how could I even ask that. And then he quit.

  Cabbed to Trader Vic’s ($2). Met Donald Ambrose at the bar (drinks $20). There were a couple of hookers next to us and as we were leaving to go into the dinner place one of them grabbed David. Then Ricky and Cathy Hilton were there and I asked them to sit down, but they said no. They were with a girl who was just in from L.A. and she said she knew a friend of mine, Ronnie Levin, and I told her she shouldn’t even know him, let alone admit it, that it would be trouble, and that made her nervous. She had all gold jewelry. She was a funny type, like the daughter of some old Hollywood person (dinner $100 plus $5 to headwaiter). The food was just awful.

  Sunday, August 31, 1980

  The presidential election is just too stupid to watch. I even hate John Anderson now, for one second once he seemed great. And you see Ronald Reagan in these neighborhoods with the poor people and you can just hear him saying, “Oh my God, what am I doing here?” But his hair looks really good. On my TV it really looks like good hair, not dyed.

  Tuesday, September 2, 1980

  Went to Halston’s. NBC was doing a magazine show. David Brinkley was filming Halston’s rehearsals of his people to take them to the Far East, and then the crew is going to follow Halston to China. It looked so rich at Halston’s, so many orchids, so cool, the girls running around with their brand-new luggage. Halston made 500 new pieces of clothes for the trip, and some of the girls are taking the clothes for pay and some are (laughs) just taking money. The clothes were beautiful.

  Afterwards I decided to walk to 42nd Street and ohhh, it was like a crazy play. Black guys mingling around, waiting to tear the next gold chain off. The jewelry shop guys with guns strapped to their ankles. And the black guys hanging around the stores with all the diamonds in them as if it’s the neighborhood corner-grocery store. It was like a make-believe movie. Had an appointment at the office at 3:00.

  Brigid lost three pounds. She’s eating three meals, but all dietetic. She calls her O.A. friends—Overeaters Anonymous—the night before and they plan out exactly what they’ll eat the next day and then once you plan it, you can’t change it, you have to have a hamburger patty if you’ve said so, you can’t change it to fish. They watch each other. She’s down to 166.

  Wednesday, September 3, 1980

  Got up and the big news is that Johanna Lawrenson, Viva’s old friend, Helen Lawrenson’s daughter, is living with Abbie Hoffman, who just announced he’s going to surrender. I doubt if Viva could have known because she would have blabbed.

  The Princess Holstein in Interview was upset because I was doing a poster for Joseph Beuys’s Green Party, she said it was a tragedy that somebody like me would do it, that it was a Socialist party, and I didn’t know what to do. She told Bob she didn’t know if she could continue working for a person who would make a political statement without even knowing what it meant. Fred told her it was none of her business.

  Thursday, September 4, 1980

  Hermann-the-German Wunsche was just in off the Concorde. He’s doing a catalogue of all the prints since the beginning. Lunch for Hermann.

  Brigid was trying to call Viva to find out if she’d known that Johanna Lawrenson had been living with Abbie Hoffman. Brigid was thrilled, it was the return of the sixties. Abbie Hoffman looks horrible, he doesn’t look any different even though they say he had plastic surgery. And his wife just slapped him with alimony and child-support charges.

  Ron Feldman called and said the Miami trip was going to be so exciting, that I was going to get three keys to the city. It sounds scary.

  Friday, September 5, 1980—New York—Miami

  New York to Miami is the worst line to go on, everybody’s so ugly and Puerto Rican and Cuban and South American, it’s just sort of disgusting. Florida’s really changed, it’s so different down there, it’s a new world (magazines and newspapers $12).

  We were picked up by a limousine and taken to Turnberry Isle, and traffic was so bad it took us an hour and a half and I had to glue myself for a cocktail party downstairs and I had three portraits to take photos for during cocktail time. They had a big buffet with all the great food and I couldn’t eat anything because I had to talk to all these people who wanted me to sign autographs and I talked to this lady and she wanted her portrait done right then and there so we had to leave and go upstairs and oh she had pearls on that were a knockout, really like down to her belly and so beautiful. I just don’t remember her name but she’s a good friend of Liza’s. She asked me if I wanted a blow and I said no, she was one of those crazy ladies. So I did her portrait, and then the lady who owned the hotel was giving a dinner downstairs, very classy. I sat between the hostess and another portrait and had a really great time.

  After dinner I had to go to the room and do the two other ladies and we had Rupert as a makeup man. The first girl was all pale because she was too elegant to go into the s
un and get wrinkles and the other girls were dark and suntanned so it was very hard, we had to really redo them without a real makeup person. And so we used a lot of white makeup. And so finally we got them all over by 2:00 A.M. and we all went to bed and I was so exhausted I couldn’t sleep.

  Saturday, September 6, 1980—Miami

  Art Deco bus tour thing with five TV stations and a hundred cameramen. We had this girl who gave a lecture on all the Art Deco hotels. Jed couldn’t make the tour, he was still working in Palm Beach, he said he would come around 6:30.

  Then we went to the Famous Restaurant, and each reporter came up to talk to me and there were a hundred of them, and I signed a lot of autographs and talked a lot and I had to be photographed eating everything, like gefilte fish. I’d never had it before. It was okay. That was real hard work and afterwards we were exhausted so they took us back to the hotel where we rested up for the opening. Jed arrived with Alan the architect, and we all got into limousines and went to the opening. I had to sign, do interviews, mob scene, Popisnts, Exposures, posters.

  Sunday, September 7, 1980—Miami

  It was really hot. Got up, we had to have breakfast downstairs with the owner, Mr. Sopher and his wife—Donald and Carol. I’d done her portrait two days before, and I was a little late and when I came they were all there, two tables full of all these chic and exciting people. You had to walk the line, the buffet, but it was really really good food—salmon, you could have scrambled eggs with anything, they had roast beef and bagels and cream cheese and lox. I don’t know why they spent so much money doing the food, but it was really good. Ron Feldman was there. Talked to the owner and he reminded me he was from Pittsburgh or McKeesport. He owned this whole empire, 800 acres of swamp that he made into this great place. Signed a lot of autographs and did interviews. It was just exhausting.

  Went back to the hotel and watched Stage Door with Ann Miller and Katharine Hepburn, and that was better than watching the tennis matches because I can’t stand watching anyone who might lose.

  Monday, September 8, 1980—Miami—New York

  The lady’s Rolex that Thomas Ammann gave me as a birthday present doesn’t run right, it’s two hours slow. Waited around the airport lobby. Bought magazines ($8). There was a story in one of the newspapers that in Dade County where we were staying there’s a murder every minute. It’s the most murderous place in the world. Somebody checked into a hotel and they didn’t look under the bed and the next day they did and there was an eighty-one-year-old woman strangled to death. So you can imagine what that place is like. Well, it’s so hot there, I think in hot places people get nuts. It fries your brain. Finally we went up and I went to the bathroom in the airport, I was really scared to go there alone thinking of all these murders there, and there were a couple of people in back of me, and I thought it was going to be a mugging but as I turned around—I hadn’t even washed my hand—the guy just wanted my autograph and to shake my hand. He was one of the workers there. White.

  On the plane the girl in the seat in front of me wanted an autograph so I signed a sick bag for her.

  Had a date with Sharon Hammond for dinner and we picked up Ann Barish to go to Elaine’s (cab $4). And Elaine’s that night had Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and the girl that’s doing Saturday Night Live, Jean Doumanian. She’s an old buddy of Woody Allen’s, I thought she was his girlfriend but she’s just an old buddy. Sharon said she couldn’t drink after 12:00 because she was getting her eyes lifted in the morning by Dr. Rees and we kept telling her that she was stupid, that she didn’t need it, but she said she wanted to get the fat out and it was a good time to begin. And then she’s going to get silicone in her cheeks to fill up the line marks around her mouth, so she’s starting early.

  Dustin Hoffman was there with his girlfriend and he walked by and didn’t say anything to me. David Merrick was the big hero there, everybody came up to shake his hand. And I kept telling Sharon that I was finished, that nobody would say hello to me. But then the Secret Service all came in and what’s-his-name came over to say hello to me. Jack Carter. So it was a really good night there.

  Wednesday, September 10, 1980

  It was the Jewish holiday so things started clearing out at 3:00. Worked with Rupert until 7:30 or 7:45 on the Debbie Harry portrait (cab $5). Picked up Barbara Allen and John Samuels who are now an item. We got to Diane Von Furstenberg’s and it was absolutely nobody we knew and Diane was nowhere around to introduce us, so we just sat and giggled. Then Richard Gere and Silvinha came. They were just back from Fire Island. Marina Schiano and Thomas Ammann were after Richard. They were putting down Fire Island and I said it was the greatest place in the world. I told Richard I bet nobody asked for his autograph because you know how cool those fairies are out there and Marina had to make a comment, “Well they didn’t ask for yours but you can be sure they asked for his.” You know Marina. And Richard told Bob (laughs), “No pictures please.” Food was fried chicken that could have been from the Colonel’s, and chocolate cake. Diane’s kids are beautiful. As we were leaving she came over and said, “Oh my dear, didn’t you meet the prince of Thailand?” And she pointed out this kid that we thought was a waiter. I mean, he could have worked at the vegetable stand on the corner. But she never even introduced us! And we’d been dying to meet him. He’s tinier than Rupert. Dark hair.

  Left Barbara and Silvinha and Thomas Ammann staring at Richard Gere. John Samuels they dropped—he was looking around nervously wanting to go to the Ritz to see some group like “The Coconuts” or something. Had a sleepless night.

  Thursday, September 11, 1980

  Watched Mrs. Allison the psychic on Donahue talking about her “angels” that she finds—the bodies of children that are missing. It was fascinating but I don’t know if I really could believe it. She would be great if she could tell you in the hour after a child was missing where he was—that would really do something. She should sit by her phone.

  Glued myself together and picked up Bob and Diana Vreeland to go to the Winships’ for dinner. Diana was wearing a beautiful Valentino (cab $2). Got there and it was really cozy, a dinner party for Zandra Rhodes. The Carimatis were there, and Ralph Destino and André Gregory. Ralph told me he was in love and that he was going to get married and for the third day in a row I gave somebody the lecture not to get married, which I really have to stop. And then I made a big bet with him and I’m scared to find out who’s right. A portrait-sized bet. It’s whether Rita Hayworth was born in Brooklyn. I said she wasn’t. I asked him for a 40 percent discount at his store, Cartier. With 40 percent they still make a 10 percent profit.

  Zandra Rhodes had an upsweep of purple and pink hair. The Winship lady had on a plain Zandra dress. Zandra’s fiancé Couri Hay came after dinner. He’s trying to play it heavy with Zandra so I brought up his wife. Oh, you know, his “wife,” that boy. And he tells Zandra to be freakier and I told her she should play down the freak stuff now, that the colored hair was sort of old-fashioned. In front of Zandra he said, when I asked him why he didn’t put her in his columns, he said because nobody knew who she was.

  Friday, September 12, 1980

  Still a Jewish holiday. It was a nice warm day and it was still pretty empty, just cabs around. Fred came in and said he’d just been over watching Milos direct Ragtime on Irving Place. And that it was fun with the horseshit and everything.

  Saturday, September 13, 1980

  Decided to go over to the Kennedy bash to celebrate that Michael was getting married to Vicky Gifford. I didn’t want to go alone so I waited on the corner for Fred and Mary Richardson to pick me up and we cabbed to 55th and Sutton Place to Le Club. The paparazzis were all there, Ron Galella and everybody. Caroline and John-John were there and Eunice Shriver—I think it was her—and Ethel. The only grownups missing were Jackie and Ted. And Jean Kennedy Smith.

  Fred and I were at the old folks’ table. Eunice told me that she likes madonnas and I told her that I was doing Modern Madonnas and I’m going to call her to come
down to the office. Michael gave a speech about how he loved Frank Gifford and it was like having a new father. And the little ten-year-old gave a speech about how when Michael was in a car and had to go to the bathroom he pissed in a beer bottle and they were all telling him to shut up but he wouldn’t. And Robert Jr. gave the best speech, he’ll probably be better than Teddy, he’ll probably be the one. But the funniest Kennedy was the one who was dancing with his girlfriend’s purse and being like a fairy. They all dance pretty good. Kerry wrote some songs and they all sang them. Mary kissed all the boys, she knew them all.

  I was then invited to a boat party that Calvin Klein and Elton John were giving down at that boat called the Peking where Yves St. Laurent had the Opium party that I’d missed so I wanted to go. Elton John had given a concert for 400,000 kids in the park. Fred wanted to take Mary and Kerry and a bunch of boys, so we got a limo outside to go downtown. It was a beautiful night. And I saw some interesting people there like Joe Dallesandro. And Archie and Amos’s vet, who’s so good-looking, Dr. Kritsick, was there. And John Samuels. Every model in town. Lester Persky was running around after every model there.

  Sunday, September 14, 1980

  Brigid said that she talked to Viva finally and that the reason, Viva said, that Abbie turned himself in was that he found out that Viva found out about it and he knew she would blab.