The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Got to New York, called Jon at the office. Gave Doria $20 for the cab after she dropped me. When I walked in the door the phone was ringing and it was Brigid asking me what kind of tea Mrs. Reagan served us and then I started thinking and I got madder. I mean, she could have put on the dog—she could have done it in a good room, she could have used the good china! I mean, this was for her daughter-in-law, she could have done something really great for this interview but she didn’t. I got madder and madder thinking about it.

  Friday, October 16, 1981

  I told Janet Sartin that Doria and I had just been down to Washington to interview the First Lady and she said she’s just dying to do Nancy and the president. She said she can stop his skin from sagging.

  Brigid got me upset, she was transcribing the interview with Nancy Reagan and she said it was awful, and so we went in and asked Doria wasn’t it peculiar that we weren’t offered tea or anything and that we were treated just like anybody, and Doria said she thought it was the secretary that was really the awful one, that Nancy probably was going to do it upstairs and then the secretary had her change it.

  Monday, October 19, 1981

  Had to go close on the building and we had to drink some champagne with the people.

  Thursday, October 29, 1981

  Christopher is having his photo show out in California and it’s going to highlight his photographs of me in drag, so just when we finally get Mrs. Reagan this is going to be publicized, Time and Newsweek will probably pick it up and my whole reputation will be ruined. Again. Talked to Jon in L.A., he’ll be coming back on Saturday night.

  Saturday, October 31, 1981

  We went to the Village to see the fourth annual Village Halloween parade and it was just great, so much fun. It started at 6:00 on the nose and it went from Westbeth to Washington Square, and it was the funniest group of people, one was dressed as a table and lamp.

  Picked up Jon (cab $7.50), he was cutting holes out of a hanky to make a mask. Went to Studio at 2:00 and it was the best party they’ve ever done. They had girls with live snakes, and a haunted house and I didn’t see Steve Rubell at all. Chris was a doctor and Peter was a nurse. Robin Williams was there.

  Sunday, November 1, 1981

  Slept late, till 12:00. Went to meet Jon. Went to the laundromat on Columbus with him to do his laundry.

  Tuesday, November 3, 1981

  It was Election Day so Jon had the day off but he’d lost his address book and couldn’t remember my number so he couldn’t call.

  Wednesday, November 4, 1981

  Chris woke me at 7:15 to turn on the TV to the space shuttle, so I did and they stopped it after thirty-one seconds. They had oil clogged in the valves and so they’re not going up for a week at least.

  Then we went to our new building on 33rd and Madison ($4). It was a beautiful sunny day and on the way up all the buildings looked great in the sunlight. Made two calls ($.20). We got to our building and it was just sensational, so beautiful, you just can’t believe it. And the neighborhood has everything, all coffee shops, all the homemade Puerto Rican kind of food that Ronnie and Robyn like, and Jean DeNoyer is opening a new restaurant, La Coupole, on 32nd Street, and the whole area is great. There’s a beautiful hotel across the street with whores that they’re trying to get out. We went into the building and the best thing is the roof terrace, it’s like a terrace for a beautiful, glamorous apartment.

  Monday, November 9, 1981

  Got into black tie for the queen of Thailand dinner for the Save the Children Fund. I didn’t wear a coat because I wanted to leave early so I could meet Jon. Cabbed to the Waldorf ($4). I missed Imelda Marcos who they said had been there, she’d crashed, she was staying at the hotel. And Paloma was there talking with Clare Boothe Luce and Clare didn’t recognize me at first but then she said, “You’re losing weight and why are you doing that?” so I went through my modeling lines. She looks very old, but it’s like a young person dressed in old drag, it’s a very strange look. The food was good, the best dinner I’ve had there. The queen of Thailand was on the dais. I could only think about her jewels.

  Wednesday, November 18, 1981

  I bought three National Lampoons because they parodied Interview. ($6)

  Went to my modeling job for L’Uomo Vogue (cab $7) on West 21st Street. Way Bandy was there and a hairdresser named Harry, an English kid, just funny and cute, and Way was wonderful, we talked about health foods and he doesn’t wear too much makeup for day. He looks very good, he’s had a lot of facelifts and we talked about that. He goes to bed at 11:00 and gets up at 5:00 and spends two and a half hours doing his yoga and everything. Way and the hairdresser each get $1,000 a day so I’d like to hire him twenty-five times a year to make me up for special occasions, but he says he can only fit me in six times. And then they left and two other people came to do me up punk—a black guy and a hairdresser named Mary Lou Green. And they had a Blondie wig so I would look like a girl, and then they made me up like Ronald Reagan, too.

  Friday, November 20, 1981—New York—Toronto

  U.S. and Canadian Customs are the worst. Conrad Black had sent a limo for us, it took us to the Four Seasons Hotel and I had suite 2910 overlooking all of Canada. I got cleaned up and dressed and we went to Mr. Black’s office. It was a post-modern building, the kind with the big columns, and there was an old-fashioned lady with her hair up at an old-fashioned switchboard.

  Mr. Black had read Popism the night before, he’d done his homework, and he reminded me of Peter Brant, but nicer. He was about thirty-seven, and sort of heavy, very nice, and a nice fortune—they have mines and supermarkets and newspapers.

  Then I dressed for a dinner Mr. Black and his wife Lisa were giving for me, at the museum. And Gaetana Enders’s husband, Tom, who’s the Under-secretary of State for Latin American Affairs was going to be there with Gaetana—he used to be the ambassador to Canada, and he’s 6’6” and Gaetana’s 4’4”.

  I called the office in New York and I got mad because I was trying to get Jon invited to T.T. Wachtmeister’s party for the king of Sweden and they said there wasn’t any more room.

  We met Gaetana in the lobby at 7:00 and cabbed to the museum. They had a little TV crew there, and we were putting down publicity until we found out that Mr. Black owns the TV station. And they had a cardinal there, who’s just had a stroke so half of him was there, only, and Mr. Black had him saying grace. Bob was having a good time at this, finally. He’s been so grouchy lately but the room full of billionaires perked him up.

  So we’re at the dinner and they introduced me to the cardinal and he said, “I hear you have a nephew who’s a priest,” and I said, “Oh yes, but he just ran away with a Mexican nun.” And when I said that, Fred yanked me away and was screaming at me how could I do that to the cardinal when he was half-gone and there were only twenty cardinals in the world, and why couldn’t I have just said, “Fine,” and let it go, and the cardinal could hear Fred yelling at me and then they took him away and put him in a car, and he rolled down the window and said, “Andy Warhol is such an honest person, he could have lied to me and said his nephew was fine but instead he told me the truth and I love his art and I know he goes to church every Sunday.”

  And then I was given a tour of the Gauguin to Moore exhibition. Henry Moore gave this museum all these plastic things, nobody knows why he gave them so much. Really impressive. Like forty figures, gigantic. I mean, my work looks like nothing compared to that stuff. Oh, I’m getting to hate my—I must be—all I do is tour, everybody else works. I have to get back and do something. I might be well-known, but I’m sure not turning out good work. I’m not turning out anything.

  I didn’t have that much to drink. Drinking does put on weight and I’ve got to stop it.

  Saturday, November 21, 1981—Toronto—New York

  Customs was disgusting again. Cabbed into town ($20). We made it to the office by 1:00. Finally T.T. Wachtmeister said I could bring Jon to the dinner for the king of Sweden at Reg
inette’s. So then I called him and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go. I was getting nervous and drinking coffee—I had an opening at 4:00, a retrospective of prints, down at the Castelli Gallery. Leo called and asked when I was coming down, he wanted to show me a photograph of me by Hans Namuth, which did turn out to be beautiful.

  I hated the show. And Ethel Scull said, “Do you remember me?” (laughs)

  And Lester Persky invited me to his cocktail party before the king of Sweden party, but I couldn’t go because the only way I could get Jon to come to the king of Sweden dinner was by first taking him to Giorgio Sant’Angelo’s surprise party for Marina Schiano.

  Oh, and I’m forgetting the most glamorous thing of my opening. Warren Beatty walked in with Diane Keaton and I made a faux pas by saying, “I just read that article about you in Playgirl,” and they said, “Oh my God!” and ran out. I don’t know if they were interested in buying art or if Diane Keaton wanted to take pictures, but anyway they made quite an effort to come to this crowded thing, so that was nice.

  So later at Reginette’s I really liked dinner, it was fun. The cute girl next to Jon was an Argentinian, a Ford model, and she was cute because she ate the bread that I’d autographed. And (laughs) the king of Sweden was there. Bob said that a few months ago Diana Ross’s P.R. guy wouldn’t say if she would come or not to this dinner, that he (laughs) asked Bob, “Well who else is going to be there besides you, Andy, and the king of Sweden?”

  I got home and went to bed and the alarm went off at 3:30 and I was scared and Aurora was there and we went around the house together holding hands and it was a false alarm, we didn’t find the bogeyman.

  Sunday, November 22, 1981

  Decided to go up to see the Roy Lichtenstein show at the Whitney, and I called Jon and asked him if he wanted to go. Walked up Madison (tickets $4). Saw the show and it was great, I was so jealous.

  Tuesday, November 24, 1981

  Got to my exercise appointment at Lady Sharon’s by 9:50 and had a good time, did a whole hour. The trainer, Lidija, was wearing Revlon Moondrops lipstick, pink, and Chris had been telling me that my lips are too pale, so I went to Bloomingdale’s right after paying her ($30) and got some lipstick ($3.75).

  I worked, painted for a while, and then after Vincent had had time to set up, went over to Larry Rivers’s where Vincent was videotaping (cab $5). And Larry gave a good interview. It was weird, he said he had his eyes lifted and that he’d had a scar removed, and I just couldn’t believe it, I said, “Well then why didn’t you get your nose done?” And he said because it would have changed his character! And Larry was talking about getting old and I told him to just not think that way. He said he had to sleep with John Bernard Myers to get shown in his gallery, and gee, he’s done so much, he was Frank O’Hara’s boyfriend, too. Larry gave us a good video interview, but now I have to do one for him in return. Larry’s strange, he’s sort of a good artist but such a nutty person.

  Then decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at home two days early because all my friends are leaving town on Thanksgiving day. I told Jon and Christopher and Peter to come at 8:00. Peter makes the best pies. And we played Christmas tapes, and we overate. And then we went upstairs and Chris pushed the furniture around and we played Charades.

  And then around 10:30 we decided to go to Studio 54 for Bob’s party for Sao, and we found a parking space and got there before Bob and Sao, and I went on the dance floor and danced every dance and the reason I’ve now just begun to dance is because I finally realized that nobody really notices you. I mean, I watched Jon go out there and jump and bounce and I thought, Well, I can do that, too. It’s one thing I’ve picked up from him, I might as well get something out of it. So now I’ll be dancing. And then I heard that Jed was there so I guess he saw me dancing. He could have gotten me dancing, all those years, that’s something he could have done for me. And I wasn’t drunk at all, either. I was just miserable because things don’t turn out like you expect them to, I was in sort of a horrible mood. I had a sip of champagne, that’s all. And then I danced with Gaetana and with Sao and with PH, and I just never knew I could do it before.

  Thursday, November 26, 1981

  Well, got up, depressed, had a lonely day. No calls from Jon. Ate some Bill Blass chocolates. Ate leftover turkey. I called Halston but got the wrong number. Finally at a quarter to 6:00 I walked to Liza’s. It was really homey. It was Liza and Mark Gero and his mother and father and uncle and three brothers and a Polish girl and Halston and Victor Hugo.

  The dinner was in the hallway with all my portraits of Liza. It looked really beautiful. And I said to Mark, “I think I’ve seen this apartment in some magazines,” and he said, “Yeah, Batman Comics.” He was funny. And he’s the best-looking of the brothers. Liza got the cream. And I figured out that the mother is, I think, Polish, so that’s why they have that big Polish-Italian look. One of the brothers is a teacher at Harvard.

  And I was really crazy, I was nutty, plus I was drinking good red wine from the Napa Valley. I said, “So now that we’ve got the whole family here, which one is the fairy?” And the Harvard one did a fairy voice and said, “Mommy, which one’s the fairy?” It was funny. The mother is beautiful.

  Martha Graham was there with her boyfriend Ron Protas and his boyfriend.

  Saturday, November 28, 1981

  Worked all afternoon. The Du Pont twins called and invited me to Cornelia Guest’s eighteenth birthday party that Nikki Haskell was giving for her at Le Club. I said that I had a date with Peter and Christopher and they said to bring them.

  Then they talked me into going to the Underground, the disco on the first floor of 860, which I never wanted to do. I went with Cornelia because she wanted to be photographed with me, and Peter and Chris went separately. We got there and I met the Mafia-looking guys and they were so scary. Ethel Scull was there and she couldn’t believe I was dancing and making a fool of myself, and so she invited me to her birthday party the next night so I could make a fool of myself there, too, and I said yes but I knew I wouldn’t go. The people who run the place brought out the Dom Perignon for us. And Cornelia’s friends were so cute, so many cute girls in jewelry, all eighteen. A juggler was juggling for Cornelia and he gave me one of his juggles.

  The Underground was doing very well when Studio 54 was closed but now Studio’s open again….

  Sunday, November 29, 1981

  Fred was supposed to go to Jackie O.’s party for John-John but sixty-five people arrived at his house and he couldn’t leave, and then it was Xenon, the Underground, and Paul Garcia’s new place that he opened on 12th Avenue and 25th Street. Oh, and there’s a new place downtown called AM/PM. I saw in the paper that Caroline and her new boyfriend Edwin Schlossberg went there the other night. And I remember our old friend Roberta from the sixties who was the Supremes groupie who taught art at Columbia saying, “Oh you’ve got to meet this absolutely brilliant boy, Edwin Schlossberg, he’s so brilliant brilliant brilliant.” Caroline likes funny people. He probably was babbling intellectually and she got fascinated, he was probably saying strange peculiar quotations or something.

  Monday, November 30, 1981

  Earl McGrath was having a fiftieth birthday party at Trax and he was nervous. John Belushi gave a speech, he said that Earl had given him a helping hand—“not like that fucking Laurence Olivier who never did a thing for me.” He was funny. I talked to Isabel Eberstadt who’s just finished her novel, and it’s going to be hot hot hot, it really will be, I just know it.

  Wednesday, December 2, 1981

  Laura de Coppet called and I don’t know, she was telling me this song and dance that one of my portraits of her that Leo commissioned had been destroyed by a lover—cut into strips. And I said, “Well why are you telling me this?” And she said, “Because it’s yours.” I said, “No, it’s yours.” And she said, “Well, do you want me to send it up to you?” and I said, “No. You figure it out with Leo and tell me.”

  Sunday, December 6, 1981


  I lost my contact lens and then found it an hour later on a piece of soap, it looked like a bubble. And so I had one lifetime lens in and one overnight lens in and, actually, I saw very well.

  I picked up Jon and went to the Rainbow Room to get an award from The Best magazine (cab $7). It was jammed with TVs and cameras. Lost Jon in one second. Massimo Gargia, the man who started The Best, said that since I was so late to accept, mine was the only blank award, it didn’t have my name on it, and I said that was perfect. The award was crystal and penis-shaped with a chain around it that looked like it was gold, and I asked Ralph Destino the president of Cartier if it was gold—because it said “Cartier” on it—and he (laughs) said, “Think of it as gold.”