The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Oh, the day before Julian Schnabel called and he was in the hospital where his wife just had a baby girl. And he was trying to sound excited. Because everybody really only wants a boy. He already has a girl (supplies $40).

  And oh, I love my Enquirer gift subscription that someone gave me for Christmas. Everything they say is true. But I have to hide them—I’m not allowed to have them in the house, Jon doesn’t like me to read them.

  Oh and I don’t think I’ve said yet how odd it was to see Nelson Lyon’s name in Time a couple of weeks ago. As if he were a real person! (laughs) Do you know what I mean? When they talk so importantly about someone you know, it always looks so fake. Géraldine and I were talking about it. She said, “Nelson won’t even talk to anybody now that he’s been in Time” He’s going to be a key witness in the Belushi death trial—he was with Belushi and De Niro the night Belushi O.D.’d.

  Wednesday, March 30, 1983

  Had a lunch for Susan Sarandon to interview her. She was so great. She’s a liberal, from a big family, an ex-hippie, and she talked her head off till 4:00. She’s like Viva, but she’s intelligent.

  Thursday, March 31, 1983

  Christopher called from the airport, he was on his way to his photography opening in Washington at the Govinda Gallery. He was hoping for cherry blossoms but I don’t think they’re there yet.

  People are on Easter vacation. Stopped at the new building and got Interviews to pass out. It was busy, worked at the office.

  I arm-wrestled with Jay Shriver and he’s really strong. We don’t know what from. He doesn’t work out. I could never beat him, I had to bite his fingers. And he can do one-hand pushups and I can’t.

  Friday, April 1,1983

  I had to meet Miguel Bose (cab $6). He came to be photographed and to work on the video thing. His mother’s a famous actress in Spain, and his father’s a bullfighter.

  He told me that his good friend was Joe MacDonald, so I guess maybe he was trying to tell me something. But when I told him that Joe had AIDS, I think I really told him something because he looked nervous and scared.

  I see that Veronica and Muhammad Ali have split up, and I bet it’s because of the big spending habits she learned from her best friend Ronnie Levin because she went shopping all the time with him in Beverly Hills for antiques and Muhammad would get all the bills.

  Tuesday, April 5, 1983

  Benjamin picked me up and we went over to Columbus Circle to the Coliseum for the Art Expo to do an appearance with the mayor for the signing of the Brooklyn Bridge posters for the city. And it’s such a different crowd of people at these things. The photographers they send are different, and the people from Time are different—it’s just a whole other league. I guess we’re just spoiled, more sophisticated, you don’t realize these other ways. And everything’s so organized, every last move. “Mayor walks in. Mayor sits down. Mayor presents award”—everything is planned out. Henry’s not working for the city now, but he was there. Bess Myerson took his place, she’s the new cultural affairs commissioner.

  I asked Jon if he wanted to see a screening and he said no, that he was going off to a class. I don’t know what kind of class. He starts them and he drops them. Writing, maybe.

  Thursday, April 7, 1983

  Jed called. It’s the first time in two years I’ve had a regular conversation with him. He said Keith Richards wants to buy Patti Hansen a ruby and wants to know where to get it appraised, but really, any place might switch a stone on you. The only one I was sure wouldn’t is John Reinhold. Because it happened to him in San Antonio—somebody switched a stone in what he’d sold them and then said that he’d done it and so there wouldn’t be trouble, he paid. Because you can never prove it. And even the reputable places I think do it. Where it really happens is at auctions. You take it over in a corner and look at it and you can switch it.

  Benjamin picked me up and we went over to meet Paige Powell at Dino De Laurentiis’s big store on Columbus (cab $3). I told the manager I knew Dino and he took us to the basement and through the kitchen area which is a block long. I asked them what they do with the leftovers and they said they have poorhouses who come and take them. But I would think the employees take most of it. Do you think at the poorhouses they’re eating pâté de foie gras? And there was a lady cutting pasta as if it were a dress, really big.

  Then we went to Salou florist. Gave an Interview to a cop. Went to Charivari across the street. I was dropped off by Benjamin and Jay ($5).

  Met Chris, Peter, and a friend of theirs who raises money for Democratic candidates, he makes a thousand a week doing that. His last candidate lost. He said the wife of the guy would put on her diamonds and her designer dresses to go into the poor neighborhoods because she wanted him to lose—she didn’t want to leave town and go to Washington. And she would say, “I know how it must hurt all you poor people to see us come down here in our rich clothes…” He said she was nuts. He told me that they have a machine that puts stamps on letters crooked because then you get a better response—more homey.

  Monday, April 11,1983

  Found out that Joe MacDonald died.

  Cornelia was going with her boyfriend Roberto to the Xenon Oscar thing we were hosting together—he’s the real estate developer that she goes with who’s sweet, the one she went with seven empty suitcases to Milan with and came back with eight filled ones, he bought her everything.

  At Xenon Cornelia’s brother Alexander came by and so I sat with him and he’s really dumb, I think. He’s in the jewelry department at Sotheby’s. I guess he got the job because they thought with his name he could bring in good estates. I asked him about what I was talking to Jed about the other day—how stones can get switched when people take them over in a corner to look at them, and he said that now they have a machine they put them under after you’re done looking and before you take them to make sure they’re the same stone.

  I hated the awards, Meryl Streep was so cornball, and I couldn’t stand Gandhi getting everything. I wish I hadn’t put my name as a host on this party, though—you just make enemies of people you forget to invite. I got away upstairs and sat with a kid from Germany I’d met.

  Tuesday, April 12, 1983

  Everyone was calling because the Village Voice ran a three-page putdown of my wig. It was a writeup of the Studio 54 party for our TV show.

  I was being picked up at 4:00 by Ron Feldman and his wife in a limo to go up to the Museum of Natural History for my Endangered Species opening. So they picked me up and she was wearing plastic jewelry, the kind I collected years ago.

  Rupert is getting tanner and tanner every day. Instead of working, he’s going to the tanning places.

  There was a crowd in front of the museum when we got there and I thought it was for me, but they were filming a Disney movie. And then later when we were coming out, the movie people were chasing a big rat that had gotten into one of the actors’ trailers.

  Originally they were going to have my show in the lobby, but then they put it way back, so you had to go through the rooms of dinosaurs and finally get to this little room where I was. But it looked great, really beautiful. White-framed.

  Thursday, April 14, 1983—New York—St. Martin

  And I started the Isabel Eberstadt novel and the names sounded phony so I only got ten pages into it and I stopped.

  Easy ride, arrived (cab $10) in St. Martin at the Hotel La Samanna.

  It’s the most beautiful place ever. Blue and white. So Jon, Chris, Peter, and I had a house, Villa “M,” and checked in and ordered pina coladas. I applied sun block and left it on the whole time. Dinner at the hotel was really grand overlooking the balcony. You feel like a tourist the first day, but then other people arrive after you and you feel like a veteran. Peter Martins the dancer was there, he said hi (dinner $214.45).

  Friday, April 15, 1983—St. Martin

  The most beautiful day in the world. Photographed all day.

  Saturday, April 16, 1983—St. Martin


  It was a raving day. Blue sky and blue sea. Chris and Peter and Jon went snorkeling. I walked to a wrecked ship and took pictures.

  I finished White Mischief, it was about Kenya in the forties and the English colonial swingers who were the Peter Beards of their day, living there and being rich and wife-swapping. The woman wasn’t beautiful, though—she was (laughs) a blonde who wore lipstick in Africa. You know?

  After dinner we went to a gambling casino and started with $10 and Jon won some money and I made him stop, I told him it was better to leave with a few pennies in your pocket.

  And I don’t know, I don’t know how I could be friends with Christopher. He’s just like this aunt I had in Pittsburgh who I never wanted to see who was always touching everything and had too much energy. The wife of my uncle, my father’s brother. She just drove me crazy. And Chris is like that, always touching everything. But he is there if you need him and he does organize things, which is so much work in itself.

  You know, I was thinking lately about my nice aunt, my mother’s sister, and something that happened to me at her house once—she always gave me pennies for candy and so I used to like to visit her, she was good to me, she lived in a house on the North Side. And one day I remember she had a lady over who had no teeth and the lady was eating a bowl of soup and she didn’t finish it, and my aunt gave it to me and made me finish it, I guess because she had no money and didn’t want to waste food …

  Oh, and something funny about La Samanna! Outside were all these beautiful red flowers on the bushes and then we looked close and saw that they were taped on! They were real flowers, but taped on.

  Sunday, April 17, 1983—St. Martin—New York

  There was a fight at the Villa M between Chris and Jon and then Jon screamed at Chris, “I could have your job!” meaning he could snap his fingers and turn me against Chris and it made everybody feel odd.

  Had to pay a tax to get off the island (4 x $5 = $20). St. Martin was half French and half Dutch and the French half was cleaner.

  Tuesday, April 19, 1983

  Nona Summers called inviting me again to the dinner she was giving at Regine’s that night. Maura met me there and she told me that Page Six had asked her if I was sick. And I was shocked. I said, “Well, tell them I’m not! You know I’m not! You can see I’m not!” And I know they meant AIDS and it was too scary, and she said, “Oh they just meant flu.” But I’m sure they didn’t. And then Marsia Trinder was there and she’s finally married to Lenny Holzer, and she said, “Oh don’t get near me, I just had a baby.” I said, “Marsia, you know, I mean …”

  Wednesday, April 20, 1983

  After asking Alexander Guest the other week how they make sure stones don’t get switched at the auction house, I pick up the Post and it’s a big front-page thing: “500G Diamond Stolen in Auction Switcheroo.” So I’m half expecting the police to come and question me about why I was pumping Alexander for information. And what happened was someone painted a regular diamond with clear pink nail polish and switched it for the expensive pink one.

  Oh, and I look so bad I need a facelift. Makeup doesn’t do it, you still see the sunken cheeks and the neck—you can’t hide the neck even with a turtleneck.

  The Debbie Harry wrestling play Teaneck Tanzi was at 6:45. I invited John O’Connor from Interview and then Gael Love called up and said that he could not go anywhere with me because he had to go to the Interview party at Reginette’s. She was really trying to push me around, she said, “And I want you there, too.” I said, “Oh fine, Gael, sure.” Gael is so pushy now, Bob must have really kept her down.

  Monday, April 25, 1983

  The new issue of Interview with Chris Atkins on the cover really is a great issue. Steve Aronson’s column is really good. We’re paying him a lot but it’s the best writing we’ve had yet.

  In the magazine section of the Sunday Times it was all the new young Italian painters and it looks like America is really out. I’m going to have a hard time now not getting put down.

  Thursday, April 28, 1983

  Cabbed to the Perry Ellis fashion show ($5.50) and right as we walked in we ran smack in to Bob Colacello. And he was very pleasant. So pleasant, and that was nice. He just got a job with Parade, that Sunday supplement for newspapers.

  Friday, April 29, 1983

  Went to Si Newhouse’s on 70th off Lexington, and everybody from the art past was there— Jasper and Roy and Leo—and it was so nutty, I couldn’t take it, I got nervous and depressed and left before eating.

  Sunday, May 1, 1983

  Edies on the sides of the buses. The ads for the paperback. Poor Edie—when she went out she’d never even take a cab, it had to be a limo, and now they’ve got her on the bus.

  Monday, May 2, 1983

  Fred’s going to California soon for when Mrs. Vreeland gets the Rodeo Drive award.

  And I forgot to say that at the Newhouses’ the other night before I got freaked out and left, Jasper and I talked and he was really nice, he said he had a house on St. Martin and when I said I’d just been there he said his house was right next to La Semana and that I could stay there anytime I wanted.

  Cabbed ($3) to Mr. Chow’s and had drinks with Diane Von Furstenberg, Barry Diller, and Mrs. Chow, and next to my place was a place card that said “Joan” and I asked, “Joan who?” and I couldn’t believe it when they said Joan Collins. And she arrived and was wearing a fake white Halston. She said she’s known Halston for years. And she did not have a line or blemish on her face. She said she didn’t give interviews or do Carson or anything, but that she would do one for Interview. But then later Robert Hayes told me she’s been on the cover of everything. (laughs) I should start telling people who invite me to things that I never go out but that I will go out for them.

  Wednesday, May 4, 1983

  Did the routines with Benjamin. It started out warm but then got colder (phone $.20). Had lunch at John’s Pizzeria and at the end they did something great, they said, “This is on the house,” and I couldn’t believe it, that never happens in regular places (tip to waiter $5)! This is the place where Ara Gallant had us take Mary Tyler Moore to be interviewed.

  Bought the New York Native because there’s a review of my Endangered Species show in it ($1.25). Bought a copy of Steve Aronson’s book, Hype (book $15.95, cab $4). Worked on art things. Then decided to go to Steve Aronson’s party at Kathy Johnson’s house. She’s the one who’s so rich but it’s not from Johnson & Johnson (cab $4). Everyone was there and it was jammed. Lily Auchincloss. And Tom Wolfe, and Farley Granger, Jean Vanderbilt, Terry Southern, the Hearsts, Dorothy Schiff. And just everybody. And lots of young beauties. Had Steve autograph the book I bought and I mean, why didn’t they send me a free copy? Baird Jones was there and he said he’d read his father’s copy two weeks ago, so that’s when I got mad. And Steve looked sort of scared. And there are other parties for him coming up.

  Saturday, May 7, 1983

  Benjamin picked me up and then picked up John Reinhold and we went to 78th and Madison to that expensive Italian place, Sant Ambroeus. And because they’re so expensive they do everything slllowwwly. They wrap everything chicly ten times and you pay for their chic slowness.

  And oh, my sister-in-law is in town and she calls and says she’s going to come over some evening, but I keep saying I’m out of town. Her son James doesn’t call anymore—he’s been in New York for about two years. He got a place right across the 59th Street Bridge in Long Island City. So he’s sticking it out. He does art freelance, he draws sort of Conan the Barbarian-looking things.

  Sunday, May 8, 1983

  Decided to work at home on boxes. When you flatten out product boxes they’re so beautiful.

  I’ve noticed that People is putting people with problems on the cover. Like the David Soul wife-beating cover, and now Kristy McNichol with her breakdown. And I can see we’re going to be having problems getting people for Interview covers from now on, because I think Rolling Stone is putting the pressure on, tellin
g people that if they want the Rolling Stone cover, they can’t do Interview. But you know, our Interview with Sting on the cover was the biggest seller yet, and all the music covers sell well, like Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. And the reason I’m thinking that Rolling Stone is starting to play tough is because we can’t get Travolta and we couldn’t get Sean Penn. So we need to think of people to put on the cover, young people, new kids. It’s got to be at the exact right time, not too early or late.

  Monday, May 9, 1983

  Karen Burke called and I didn’t want to take the call, she was that girl who used to come down with Hoveyda, and she likes older men or something. But then she told Brigid she was almost a doctor and that she was a collagen and hair-transplant expert so I took the call, and she said she wanted to become my personal doctor for all this stuff. She said she’ll be getting her license to practice in three months. She came down with about 4,000 free samples. She said she worked with Orentreich. She’s the one that Rupert got the human heart from when I was doing the Hearts. She took it from a cadaver, I guess. Those Hearts of mine weren’t a hit because I didn’t figure out how to do them right. I was beginning to use my abstract look. Worked all afternoon.