The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  We had a really good talk with the senator. Robert Redford’s his best friend. He’s keeping his romance secret because it’s only forty days left till his divorce. Bianca is all over him (dinner $120 with tip).

  Tuesday, September 7, 1982—New York

  Hired Benjamin “Ming Vauze” Liu to pick me up every morning and keep an eye out for me while I’m walking around the streets. He arrived late. Sat around waiting for him and got mad. Found out Richard Gere was on the new cover of Rolling Stone, complained to Interview that that was the reason he turned us down. Watched Mr. Goodbar and Richard Gere was in it and I hated him for turning us down. Actually he was so good in it, though. Couldn’t watch the ending because it was too crazy.

  Saturday, September 11, 1982

  Went around with Jon who’s looking for a co-op to buy. Because I’ve decided to do a real photo book of real apartments. Real Apartments. Not photograph houses the way Architectural Digest does, but do just what people really live like. Isn’t that a good idea? Bianca just got a ten-room apartment at the El Dorado, it just went co-op so they’re all up for sale and people are trying to make a killing. So cabbed to the El Dorado ($5). The lady showed us three apartments, and the first was two faggots who’d just bought a loft so they were selling, and then one that belonged to a lady I guess in her eighties, and she had doilies and things on the sofas. It looked like a Barbra Streisand kind of place.

  Oh, and on Page Six in the Post a few days ago there was a headline: “Warhol Man Does Mick Jagger’s Apartment,” and then the item said that Jed was the director of Bad and now he decorates apartments, and they said they asked him about it and he said, “No comment.” And there was an article on survivors in the Daily News last Sunday—they asked Lester Persky about me and he put me down, he said I was a has-been, it was funny.

  And I don’t think I told the Diary this, but Tom Baker, our star of I, a Man, died. He O.D.’d. Mickey Ruskin had a wake for him.

  Thursday, September 16, 1982— New York—Washington, D.C.

  I was nervous all day because I knew I was going to the White House that night for the state dinner for the Marcoses. Took Valiums. I can’t stand going to Washington, all those TV lights.

  Arrived at 4:00 (cab $10). Went to the Watergate (tips $2, $4, $2). Jerry Zipkin and Oscar de la Renta were there. Made calls, was very nervous, ordered lunch, had more Valium, ordered a limo, and went to the White House and got in easy.

  Bob and I went with our dates. My date was Frances Bergen, Charley McCarthy’s (laughs) mother. And she wasn’t interested in me at all, she got away as soon as she could.

  And the Marine introduced me on the line as “Mr. World,” and then the girl sergeant escorting me said that she was nervous, that it was her first time doing this. They asked me why I was invited and I said because Mrs. Marcos lived on my street.

  The Valiums weren’t really working, but then the dinner was outside in the garden and it was so beautiful and it was dark so it was fine. And they took a chance, no tent, and it was beautiful that way, but you get shoved and pushed so much from place to place. Only about eighty people. Then they turned on four billion lights. No TV cameras, though, so I wasn’t nervous.

  The president’s table was right behind me. The president of U.S. Steel was at my table, and I said, “Oh I’m from Pittsburgh and my poor brother is out of work from the steel mill”—I was lying like crazy—“and he’s lost his mill job and what you should do is put one of the unused buildings to use and make it into a Disney World and give tours and charge people $10 to get a little coal on their faces and see the hot lava being poured,” and he said, “Oh what a great idea, why didn’t I think of that?” The Vice-president Bushes were at our table, and she said that she knew somebody I knew but now I can’t remember who it was.

  Then the speeches came and the president made his quick and then Marcos was slow. I relaxed. And then the Fifth Dimension came on and sang “Up, Up and Away” and there’s more new members than old. I asked one of the marines if there was a pay phone and everyone laughed at me. Bob wanted to stay on and dance. I got the limo and went back to the hotel. Called Jon and then fell asleep at 12:00.

  Friday, September 17, 1982—Washington, D.C.—New York

  Got back to New York. Went to the office, worked with Benjamin all afternoon. Went out with Chris who’d just gotten his clean “negative” results back on his gay cancer tests. I was invited to Marisa Berenson’s birthday party at Mortimer’s for her husband, Richard Golub, who’s the man who made Brooke Shields cry. On the witness stand. The lawyer. Karen Black came and that was fun. Took pictures. Left at 12:00 (cab $5).

  Saturday, September 18, 1982

  Got up early, it was a beautiful day. I couldn’t work with Jon because he had to go to a gay cancer funeral at Paramount, it was a secretary there—a male secretary. And I mean, I get so nervous, I don’t even do anything and I could get it.

  I made a mistake and blurted to Maura about Bianca seeing that Connecticut senator, Dodd, who’s not divorced yet, and then I realized Maura worked for Page Six, but she’s a good Democrat so she said, “Don’t worry, I know when something would ruin somebody’s political career.”

  Sunday, September 19, 1982

  I’d seen Robert Hayes’s boyfriend Cisco going down the street with someone else the other day, and I saw Robert crying, and so I thought they’d broken up, and I asked Marc Balet and he told me that Cisco had just found out he had gay cancer but that it was a secret. But then later that day Robert told me anyway. They told him he got it three years ago and it takes three years for it to show up, but I don’t know how they would know that, since they don’t know anything about it or even what it is. Robert says he’s been checked and he doesn’t have it. But he’d been going to Janet Sartin and he was there at the same time I was, and I just know she used the same needle on me, and I don’t know if she sterilizes it. I only like it when you use the needle once and throw it away. And I’m not going to go to her anymore, anyway, because I’m just covered with pimples, I don’t know what good it’s done.

  Monday, September 20, 1982

  It was a busy day but I left early to catch Lana Turner at Bloomingdale’s ($8). Bought one of her books ($16). Then went up to her and she said, “I don’t think I want to talk to you, I’ve taken you out of my prayers, you said I was better when I hadn’t found God, so now I pray for you— badly.” So I think it was something I said in the Faye Dunaway interview in Interview, I guess she read it. And I didn’t know what to do, I was a nervous wreck, I said, “Oh no, Lana, you’ve got to pray for me, please put me back in your prayers!” And I said, “Oh won’t you please autograph your book to me?” And so she finally did and wrote “To a Friend” with a question mark and then “God Bless You” with another question mark. And Lana and her fairy hairdresser and I were all there with the same hair.

  Tuesday, September 21, 1982

  Ran into Lynn Wyatt who was just back from Grace Kelly’s funeral. She said Prince Rainier was crying and Prince Albert couldn’t talk.

  Went to Diane Von Furstenberg’s (cab $4). Barry Diller was there and Valentino. But out of the corner of my eye I saw George Plimpton and his wife Freddy, and when she saw me she began running around me and acting just nuts. She felt guilty because George helped Jean Stein with the Edie book. She was like a headless chicken running around, just making all these noises. And I told her, “Look, I don’t know what you’re carrying on about. I don’t care about the stupid book.” I should have said that if she wanted to make it up to me, just send a check. And I could see Jon talking to George and later he told me he told George how could he put those things in the book about me when he knew me personally and he knew they weren’t true and that Edie was away from the Factory for years before she died.

  Monday, October 4, 1982

  Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50). He brought Jean Michel Basquiat with him. He’s the kid who used the name “Samo” when he used to sit on the sidewalk i
n Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts, and I’d give him $10 here and there and send him up to Serendipity to try to sell the T-shirts there. He was just one of those kids who drove me crazy. He’s black but some people say he’s Puerto Rican so I don’t know. And then Bruno discovered him and now he’s on Easy Street. He’s got a great loft on Christie Street. He was a middle-class Brooklyn kid—I mean, he went to college and things—and he was trying to be like that, painting in the Greenwich Village.

  And so had lunch for them and then I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together. And I mean, just getting to Christie Street must have taken an hour. He told me his assistant painted it.

  And by the way, Ronnie Cutrone’s art is selling like crazy, too—Steve Rubell’s brother just bought a Cutrone.

  Tuesday, October 5, 1982

  There was a lunch and Gaetana Enders brought a politician from Venezuela and his wife. He’s really good-looking, he has a cane, and his wife’s beautiful. I’d met him at Halston’s years ago. They got away again, though—he said that “maybe someday” he’d “surprise her with a portrait.”

  And then Governor Carey’s wife—the Greek lady, Evangeline—came and she came prepared for a free portrait. She wasn’t wearing a hat like she always does, and so I said, “Where’s your hat?” and she said, “None of your girls wear hats in their portraits.” So I took pictures of her and then I didn’t know what to do so I called Bob in, and he talked to her, and then he told her how much the portraits cost, and I think she must have fainted because after she left, she had her guy call and say that a governor’s wife couldn’t spend that much on a portrait while he was in office. But before, she’d been saying that she wanted to have it done while he was in office because then it would have “more prestige.” So she was trying to do all these maneuvers.

  And I forgot to add that with Jean Michel Basquiat the day before, he reached into his pocket and said he’d pay back the $40 he owed me from the days when he painted T-shirts and used to borrow money from me, and I said oh no, that’s okay, and I was embarrassed—I was surprised that’s all I’d given him, I thought it was more.

  So we were busy all afternoon. And miniskirts are really back, Cornelia was wearing one at Xenon later.

  Wednesday, October 6, 1982

  Went to Sotheby’s and ran into Mr. Dannenberg who has a shop in Paris now and he said, “I’ll have to watch you, because whatever you buy is going to be the next big thing.” So there was all this really beautiful David Webb stuff, but after he said that I just looked at it and turned up my nose and made sure he saw. (laughs)

  Sunday, October 10, 1982

  I think I got up with a cold. Went to church. Jay Shriver called and said he wasn’t going to come in to work. He was making “a statement.” So I told him he didn’t have to, that I could do it myself. Benjamin Liu called and he said he wanted the next day off to go buy makeup.

  Monday, October 11, 1982

  Took aspirin, still trying to get rid of the cold that’s beginning. Carried about thirty Interviews with me. Walked by Fiorucci on 58th Street and a guy was giving a lecture to a group of schoolkids in the front, so I handed out all the Interviews. It was a “field trip” to Fiorucci’s, that’s what school’s come to. And then from there I went to Crazy Eddie’s and looked at computers, got the Atari game to figure out what all that’s about, and that was exciting. There was a Columbus Day parade (cab $7).

  Worked out with Lidija and Chris Makos. I’d made a date to see Doc Cox in the evening, so I had to get people together to entertain him. Worked on a Piss painting.

  Then at 9:00 Doc Cox picked me up in his Rolls, I don’t know why he decided to take it, and we Rollsed off to Mr. Chow’s.

  Wednesday, October 13, 1982

  Cabbed to meet Rupert ($5). Iolas was just leaving, he wasn’t staying for lunch because he was upset because in Paris in a cab he’d just lost a million dollars’ worth of jewelry. He hadn’t wanted to leave it in the hotel room so he had it with him and he just forgot and left it in the cab. And that can happen to anybody. It’s so scary. He said he could never replace them, that it was all sentimental value, his whole life mementos. So lunch was just for Linda Christian’s son.

  Tuesday, October 19, 1982

  This Retin-A stuff that’s for curing acne is working, but just on half my face. Half of my face is perfect and the other half is broken out, all eruptions. It peels away your face. I went to a new beauty doctor and he gave me licorice root to take. I think maybe he just gives out things he wants to get rid of. And he’s such a camp, too. These quacks. The first time he took his fingers and touched my face he said, “Doesn’t this feel tense?” and the second time he took his fingers and touched my face the same way and in the same place and he said, “Doesn’t this feel relaxed?”

  Cab ($6) to B. Altman’s dinner for the highfalutins. Ran into Sid and Anne Bass, and into Ashton Hawkins. Got drunk and said terr—said funny—I was outrageous, I guess. When I get drunk I get—outrageous. Then left at 11:00. Wanted to go see the Go-Go’s but I was just so drunk.

  Wednesday, October 20, 1982

  The guy who’s doing a TV show on our trip to Hong Kong was at work. We’re going for the opening of the “I” Club that this young cute kid is organizing with Citibank. That’s what we’re going to Hong Kong for—the opening of a discotheque.

  Thursday, October 21, 1982

  I have a pain from exercises. Maybe I’m doing them too much. I think Lidija’s working me out too hard.

  The jewelry auction the other day went well, so that means the economy is picking up.

  And Pontus Hulten called and wants a free thing, so I cabbed down to meet him (cab $6.50, supplies $7, $6.62, $2.79, $3.19). It’s always the same thing—a free print for a free museum for a free benefit and he does these things that are great and then they fire him. Like at the Beaubourg, they fired him because he’s not French after he did that big thing there. And now he’s opening a museum in California. But I mean, he wants things for free, he thinks he’s living in a Socialist country. It’s like Jonas Mekas, that same type of thing.

  And I forgot to say that the other day Governor Jerry Brown called and said, “Hi Andy, it’s nice talking to you. We know each other and you know how I feel about art, and if you could do some art for me, then along with the other artists I could put your art up as collateral and get a loan from the bank and fund my run for the senate…"I told him to talk to Fred. I mean, he could have had me do his portrait while he was governor and the city or the state could have paid for it, they were having to do his portrait anyway. Well I mean, Marcia Weisman or somebody would have paid for it.

  The pain is increasing in my lower abdomen. I’m going to have to cut down the exercise classes.

  Friday, October 22, 1982

  Wandered down Fifth Avenue. Passed out Interviews. Tried to give them to a bunch of construction workers and they laughed me off and I got embarrassed, but then another group of construction workers in the next block asked for some, so that balanced it out.

  Later, after work, I went to pick up Chris (cab $5) to go to Calvin Klein’s big birthday bash at Studio 54. Mark Fleishman had said that the best time to come was really early, at 10:00 or so. Maura came to meet us and she was dressed neatly but we all laugh because she’s—kind of messy. There’s always a spot or a stain someplace (cab $5).

  In the entrance of 54 there were balloons and white grand pianos and stick-on bows on the floor. I felt slighted because Calvin was at a table with Bianca and some of his family people like mothers and grandmothers. I would have liked to meet them (cab $8).

  Wednesday, October 27, 1982—New York—Hong Kong

  Arrived in Hong Kong, evening. It was hot and muggy, Florida-type weather. Twelve hours’ difference in time, so you didn’t have to change your watch, which was kind of great.

  Alfred Siu, our host, met us. Rolls Royce and limousines. Jeffrey Deitch of Citibank was at
the airport to meet us, too, and he’s adorable, such a sweet guy. He’s the one who got us involved with the whole project. Mandarin Hotel. We were all on different floors—I was in 1801, Chris in 1020, Fred in 820, and his girlfriend Natasha Grenfell in 722. I had a suite overlooking the harbor, it was very beautiful, but everyone said Hong Kong was having a recession.

  And then after we got straightened up Alfred wanted us to go to the I Club to look at it, it was just a block away in the Bank of America on the first floor and it still wasn’t finished, they had three days to finish it. And we met the designer of it, Joe D’Urso. He said he’d decorated all of Calvin’s apartments. Alfred is so pretty—a spoiled, cute kid, just adorable. And Joe D’Urso is this fat little slob but really talented. Went back to the hotel, called New York.

  Thursday, October 28, 1982—Hong Kong

  Up early to do the two sides of Hong Kong looking for tailors. All the kids were getting clothes except me, I’m just not a clotheshorse (cabs $4.50, $5, $6). Lunch at the I Club with Alfred Siu and about eight girls that he thought were going to have portraits done. One was an American married to a Chinese, the others were Miss America types—Miss Taiwan, Miss This and That, and they’d married rich guys from the construction business and they all hate each other and they’re all beautiful. Burmese and Chinese and all gorgeous dolls dressed to kill. And after lunch Alfred’s beautiful wife took us to a place where they do fortune telling and it was like 8,000 fortune tellers and you had to pick the one you wanted, so I picked this lady and I asked how my love life was and (laughs) she said I’m married to a younger lady and I’m having problems.