The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  But the wedding was called off there because the priest was upset because Jackie had called the newspapers and done press, so he wouldn’t do the wedding, and so it was moved to Mickey Ruskin’s place at One University so we went over there. Jackie’s relatives would come over and say things like, “I’m Jackie’s aunt from Toledo.” And then Jackie arrived, so late as usual, and it’s the strangest thing, she’s still telling everybody that we were roommates twelve years ago. I’m beginning to think maybe she really does believe that. Remember when he used to tell interviewers that we were roommates and it was a big joke? Well now I wonder did he believe it then, or did he start to believe it later, or did he just have a hallucination for a minute and it stuck? Anyway, for some reason he now really does believe it. There were a couple of people there who looked like Valerie Solanis who came over and said hello. Jackie was wearing a beaded cut-short dress and his teeth were so bad-looking. The groom was a good-looking Czechoslovakian boy, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and maybe mentally retarded, I don’t know. He didn’t open his mouth. So then we left there and went to the Village, and it was the Art Fair time and so many people stopped me for autographs.

  Sunday, May 27, 1984

  Went to church.

  John Reinhold picked me up and we walked from 66th Street to 96th Street and back, and by that time I was so tired that I couldn’t face going down to the Village or anywhere. My bones were aching so I decided to stay in and ate half a watermelon because Eizo told me watermelons are good for you, that they wash out your kidneys. And I still have the pain. Doc Cox thinks it might be a kidney stone, he doesn’t know. It’s like a muscle spasm. I think Lidija had me doing too many strenuous things—she kept making my routine harder and harder. But I think that a person my age instead of doing harder things should do repetitions of the same level more.

  Tuesday, May 29, 1984

  Benjamin and I wandered and went into a Japanese restaurant and called John Reinhold to meet us, but then they said they wouldn’t give us a table until he came. Then when he came they said they didn’t have a table and we got mad and left in a huff and we were going to go to Pearl’s but then we went to Raga, and we go in and there’s a “hostess” who thinks she’s so grand, and there’s absolutely nobody in the place—eighteen empty tables, and she’s putting on these grand airs, like a drag queen or something, floating around with these sleeves. And she takes a phone call and has us stand there waiting as if the phone call is more important. So we ate, and it was really expensive for just what was going to be a run-in-quick lunch ($125, and I didn’t tip much, either).

  “Yes, we may have a table for you….”I mean, what are these people thinking about? Left there, cabbed to meet Lidija ($6).

  Jean Michel was there, he’d gotten pizza but then didn’t want it. Then we painted an African masterpiece together. One hundred feet long. He’s better than I am, though. Worked till 6:30.

  Wednesday, May 30, 1984

  Tina Chow was having a lunch at Mr. Chow’s at 1:00. So we went over there (phone $.80, newspapers and magazines $4.50). And the best thing was Jerry Hall. She looked sort of voluptuous, and she had pictures of the baby who looks just like Mick. And Jerry said to me, “I’m so glad I’m sitting next to you because you know, to open my own beauty salon/dress place, it would only cost a million dollars and I could go to Europe and get all these dresses and do all kinds of beauty treatments—it would be like Giorgio’s—and Mick won’t give me the money, he said it would be too easy to get the money from him, that I should go out and do it on my own, so isn’t it wonderful that I’m next to you?” So that was the laugh of the day—for a mere million I could invest in her business that Mick won’t give her money for.

  Thursday, May 31, 1984

  Went over to see Victor’s new apartment at the Barbizon. This has a terrace and it’s beautiful. I guess about 20’ X 20’ but it costs $1,400 a week. You can get a room at the Barbizon, though, for $84 a night. Victor’s almost an artist, I don’t know why he doesn’t become one. He saved every photo of every window display for Halston that he ever did.

  I was in pain from the shiatsu treatment. Vincent was working on the contracts, we’re selling a painting to try to get money to pay all these new kinds of bills we have with the new building. I’m so sick and tired of it all.

  Went up to Dr. Linda Li’s and she did her stuff and the pain was still there but this morning it’s all gone. She saw some tea in my bag and said it was no good and she rejected me. She raises your hand and puts the vitamins on you and she says that from how hard your hand comes down she knows if the vitamins are any good or what you need. Stayed there till 8:00.

  Oh, and did I say that I got this really serious letter from George Plimpton? I couldn’t believe it. Because I’d given little Charlie Evans an interview for his high school paper and in it I said something about how George told me he didn’t have anything to do with all the bad things that were said about me in the Edie book. So (laughs) he writes me this totally serious letter about how it had been out of his hands and nothing to do with him. Oh, and I noticed this “quote” from me in Edie where they have me saying “perhaps,” and it looks so funny. I don’t say “perhaps”—George Plimpton says “perhaps.” I mean, if they’re going to fake quotes from me they should know I’d say “maybe.”

  Sunday, June 3, 1984

  Went to the eleven o’clock mass. I always cringe when it gets to the part of “Peace, peace be with you,” and you have to shake hands with the people next to you. I always leave before that. Or I pretend to be praying. I don’t know how long they’ve done it because I went to the Greek Catholic church when I was young. But there was a cute little boy dancing around, clapping his hands during the hymn.

  Watched the Tonys. It was really sort of shocking when Chita finally got her award and she didn’t thank Liza. I mean, The Rink wouldn’t have gotten done without Liza. And Chita didn’t mention her daughter, either. She thanked her mother who she said hadn’t seen it.

  Monday, June 4, 1984

  I worked around the office, it got busy. I had to ship off the Marilyn, so that was sort of upsetting. To the Saatchi guy in England. It’ll help with mortgage payments and stuff like that, but I don’t know if it was a good idea to sell it.

  Tuesday, June 5, 1984

  Went to meet Benjamin at the jewelry auction at Sotheby’s and the Seaman Schepps thing that we wanted to pay like $1,000 for went for $21,000.

  There’s a big fly in here and I’m going to open the window to let it out … there’s this black guy across the street with plastic bags going from door to door ringing. Could he really be a dry cleaner? One door just opened … I’ll wait to see if he comes out with more bags … but if I pull the shade so the fly will stay out, then I won’t be able to see out … oh, here he comes, yes, he’s got another bag, but … he’s going toward Park with it.

  Jon said there’s a big shakeup today at Paramount, they want to get rid of people.

  Poor Arthur Bell, the columnist for the Village Voice died, and he had two ages. The Voice gave forty-four and the Times said fifty-one.

  Wednesday, June 6, 1984

  Rupert said that Rosemary from Doc Cox called and told him he has a leaking heart.

  Oh and Keith Barish called and wanted me to do a walk-on in 9½ Weeks, which is with Mickey Rourke. So he said $250 and then he went to $500 and then he went up to $2,000 but in the end we said no. Should I do it? I don’t know, I was so exploited in Tootsie. They didn’t even pay me a cent. Oh it’s not worth it, you have to sit around all day. Or night. I think it’s a night scene.

  Thursday, June 7, 1984

  Diane Lane was coming to the office to be interviewed and so I had to meet Gael Love (phone $.50, cab $5). I asked Gael about Robert Hayes and she said don’t ask or she’d start to cry. She said, “After you’ve worked with somebody for eight and a half years …” And then I did ask and a tear started forming. So I guess he has what everybody thought he had. She said his
sister came to see her and said there’s “always a chance.”

  Diane Lane came and she’s beautiful and sweet, but she didn’t have much to say. She has a good philosophy about her movies, though—she feels that if she did a good job then it was a good movie. She has to do some more shots with Richard Gere when he gets back from King David and she doesn’t want to cut her hair again, so she’ll have to do the big love scenes with a wig. And she said that whenever she didn’t feel “in the mood” Coppola gave her a fatherly talk and said, “There are no moods.”

  Gael was being too analytical so I asked Diane, “How’s your sex life?” And she laughed and said I was just like Joan Rivers. I said, “Did you ever sleep with Warren Beatty?” And then she came out and said that she actually had gone out with him and that he’d sat her on his knee and told her not to be afraid of sex, gave her “fatherly advice” and everything. She said that she was chaperoned by her father.

  Yoko Ono’s having a sale at Sotheby’s but it’s all junk—Art Deco jewelry she’s had lying around and, you know (laughs), toilet paper that John touched.

  Friday, June 8, 1984

  Lunch at 860 was for the dean from Carnegie-Mellon whose suit smelled of mothballs. He wanted me to donate some print or something or give money and they’d give me a chair, and this whole other stuff about scholarships for young kids, I don’t know. It was (laughs) the most serious conversation I’ve had at the office in eight years. He wants me to do benefits and things. He said he went to the acting school but then didn’t make it as an actor and went back there and became a dean.

  Monday, June 11, 1984

  The air conditioning at home was broken and the plumbing and the TV all at the same time. And we found out why the house is so hot—the heat’s been coming up all during this heat wave!

  I talked to Rupert and he went to another doctor who said his heart isn’t leaking, that there was nothing wrong with it.

  And I just can’t face calling Robert Hayes. I just can’t…. Look, I called Henry Post and we talked and then he was dead and I don’t know what it means, it’s too abstract. I just can’t do it. And I was never really friends too much with him anyway. I mean, it would be different if it were Christopher or something.

  PH called in the afternoon and said it looks like we’ll be doing our book on parties for Crown, half pictures, half text.

  Sunday, June 17, 1984

  Was going to go to 860 but they were moving a lot of stuff to 33rd Street, so went there instead. And it was fun. I didn’t realize that our part is a lot bigger than Interview’s part. Interview is actually only a small area. Ours is really big with a lot of places I didn’t even know about.

  Went home and watched the thing they did on me on MTV. They showed Heat and a little of Kiss. Don Munroe talked and they had clips of the “Hello Again” video we did for the Cars. And I talked and I was okay.

  I tried sleeping without a Valium but the wine I’d drunk at dinner drove me insane. Valium’s the perfect drug for me.

  Saturday, June 23, 1984

  It was a sad day at 860 because the furniture was being packed up and shipped out. We have the company called Nice Jewish Boys moving us and they really all are Jewish boys. One blond one was so cute but he’s going back to Israel. They all wanted books, so I gave them some of the Philosophy books. I went through one old box from ‘68 and a picture inside was so strange. We were at a college and we were the only freaks there. It was Viva and twenty of us. Before I was shot. We really were the only freaks there. These kids didn’t have long hair, and yet they didn’t have normal-looking clean-cut short hair like now, either. Today everybody goes down to Astor Place and gets a great haircut, but these kids didn’t even have any fashion. It must have been in a strange place because by ‘68 practically everybody did have long hair. And they were pudgy. Maybe we were at this Catholic college, St. Paul’s. Maybe that was it, but it was so sad to see—and seeing these pictures of myself!

  I ran into Bob Colacello on Friday. He’s like a dapper rich person now.

  Sunday, June 24, 1984

  Well Fred is on hold at the doctor’s for multiple sclerosis and I’m on hold for lympho … lymphosomething. I don’t know why they scare us like this. They told Rupert he had a leaking heart and then he didn’t, and Fred fell off a horse and went and had a brain scan because he has numbing of the hand and tingling of the legs and now they’re doing all these checks on him.

  Bought makeup at Patricia Field’s (makeup $28.70, cab $7.50). Got Japanese red. But I like that stuff at Fiorucci that just is a stain that gives your lips like a natural brown. Because my lips used to be so full and now they’re not, they’ve just disappeared and where did they go?

  We went and watched the Gay Day parade. The Gay Cops and me got the biggest clap and (laughs) I took photos. Got film (film $6.90, lunch $60). And they had the contingents of Gay Docs and Dykes, the groups from Oklahoma City and Virginia. And the Men & Youth organization. So sick. The float that got the most attention was the S&M float where the big guys were in leather with the keys and everything. All the beauties must’ve been shopping in Soho or out on Fire Island, ‘cause they sure weren’t in this parade. And there were guys in wheelchairs being pushed by their lovers. I’m serious! It looked like Halloween but without the costumes. And they had a Kate Smith record playing.

  Monday, June 25, 1984

  Dr. Linda Li was back in town and I had an 11:00 appointment with her. So I went over there and she’d been away at a seminar or a conference, so she had some new tricks. She put a lot of ball bearings on me and she hit me with hammers and it was fun.

  Oh and the office was so sad, all empty. They even moved the coffeepot uptown to the new place, and so Brigid wanted to buy another one for the transition period and I told her to go to hell.

  Grace Jones had called and invited me to a screening of Conan the Destroyer at 6:00, so I went (cab $4), but Grace was late so it didn’t start on time. Richard Bernstein was there and he made me feel terrible—he said he went to see Robert Hayes in the hospital and they all had to wear masks. And he’s also been to see Peter Lester and Peter’s got the kind of AIDS with spots. Richard said Robert looked terrible but that Peter Lester looked great except that he had a shirt on to cover the spots.

  Oh and I had to call Doc Cox’s office to find out the results of my tests, so finally I braced myself and decided to be brave and that if it was anything horrible I’d just take it in stride. So I called and they said nothing was wrong. After all that drama they made, and then nothing was wrong. So I hung up feeling that health sure was wealth.

  So anyway, Grace was just great, she’s a real presence. She had a big acting scene where she sees a mouse and gets hysterical, which is so stupid.

  Tuesday, June 26, 1984

  I’ve been getting a lot of commercial portraits to do lately—like liquor bottles and things instead of people.

  Thursday, June 28, 1984

  Brigid made me write a letter to Robert Hayes. A note. So I copied down what she wrote and she sent it off to him. He’s going home to Canada to die.

  Steve Rubell called to say that he hadn’t seen me in a long time and that he was sending a car to pick me up and take me to the Go-Go’s party at Private Eyes, and it was just the party of the year, kind of exciting. Paige took photos. And they gave you yellow stickers and that meant you could have free drinks. Isn’t that funny?

  Monday, July 2, 1984

  Jean Michel called at 8:00 in the morning and we philosophized. He got scared reading the Belushi book. I told him that if he wanted to become a legend, too, he should just keep going on like he was. But actually if he’s even on the phone talking to me, he’s okay. And the phone calls from pay phones are now $.25. I’m just not going to make calls anymore. All the pay phones uptown were converted already to $.25; downtown there are still some $.10 ones left.

  Tuesday, July 3, 1984

  Chris walked in right when his ex-assistant Terry was there—she was picking up
a photograph printing assignment from me. So that was almost a big confrontation, but Benjamin saved the day saying they were his pictures.

  Saturday, July 7, 1984

  When I was walking on the West Side one of these days, from a block and a half away I saw this little figure walking toward me, and you know, I never recognize anybody, but somehow I picked him out because he had that walk that’s like folded inside of itself that says, “I will walk straight ahead, I will not look at anybody, I will not make eye contact.” But I just felt like saying, “Hi, I think you’re great,” so I did, and he unfolded. Sean Penn. I don’t know if he knew who I was or not.

  Tuesday, July 10, 1984

  Got up on the wrong side of the bed. Had a big fight with PH. Picked up by alias Ming Vauze and we did the streets. Got magazines and newspapers ($4).

  Paige was having a big lunch at the 33rd Street building for the black kids from Ralph Cooper’s Amateur Night at the Apollo with their mothers and a couple of grandmothers (cab $6). And the kids all had these elaborate names—like Latosha and Emanon—and then the mothers and grandmothers were Grace, Mary, Ann. And the boy, Emanon, rapped with noises instead of words. They were all really cute.