The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  The whole day was spent being nervous and telling myself that if I could just get good at stuff like this then I could make money that way and I wouldn’t have to paint.

  Then when I went back there at 5:30 we went on and I thought I was going to pass out. I forced myself to think about the next job I could get if I didn’t. Went along and the drawing came out terrible and I called it “a masterpiece.” It was a real mess. I said I wanted to be Walt Disney and that if I’d had this machine ten years ago, I could have made it. Then afterwards people saw the portraits of Debbie and thought those were (laughs) the Xeroxes.

  And the news is full of Rock Hudson having AIDS in Paris. And now I guess people will finally believe Rock Hudson’s gay. When you’d tell them before, they wouldn’t believe it.

  Thursday, July 25, 1985

  The doorbell rang, it was Doc Cox picking me up for the dinner at II Cantinori with Chris and some Interview contest winners. And I told him that even though I haven’t been to see him for a while, I’ve been examined by insurance company doctors so not to worry. These kids looked great until a real model came along, and then you could see the difference and you realize that a model is a model.

  Then I took everybody over to the Palladium for the sixties party there, and it was easy to get them all in because Steve Rubell was right at the door. So we went in and God I hate that place, so packed, so hot. And I never sweat. Never. But at this thing I started to a little. Every girl who said hello was an “Edie.” And somehow they never get the hair right—Edie’s was straight back and dyed like a boy and really white, but they usually give themselves bangs or something. Everybody gets the Edie look wrong and I don’t know why. They do something different that’s not the way (drinks $20).

  Martin Burgoyne came over and invited me to be his date to the Madonna wedding in L.A. in August.

  Saturday,July 27, 1985

  I called Keith to tell him I was invited by Martin to Madonna’s wedding. Keith’s invited, too. We cabbed with Paige down to Wooster and Broadway ($5). It was a party for Clemente that the Artforum girl was giving in a big beautiful loft. Bianca was there on crutches so I was glad I’d sent her flowers. She thanked me for telling her about Eizo because he helped her leg. Rammellzee the black graffiti artist was there and he threw me by saying, “Entertain me, show me why you’re great.” And I froze up. He has long long eyelashes. We decided to go to II Cantinori to dinner.

  We got there and we were waiting for Jade and her boyfriend. And Jade, she really has to grow another head or she’s finished—you know what I mean? She’s really beautiful but she’s still smaller than Bianca. And for a while she’d been the tallest girl in her class. She was saying how everybody thinks she’s the luckiest girl in the world for having these two great parents, but that they just don’t know how hard it is. She also said that she couldn’t wait to get married and have a baby who’ll scream “Grandma!” and “Grandpa!” at Bianca and Mick. I told her she should marry Steve Rubell and she said, “He wouldn’t be faithful,” and Steve said, “Well would you be faithful to me?” and she said, “I’d have to think about it.” Which was a good answer.

  Keith said he was going up to 108th Street for an acid party, so he dropped us off.

  Monday,July 29, 1985

  Keith called and said that Calvin told him that the Bel Air was for old ladies and that Steve Rubell was trying to get a deal at the Beverly Hills. For Madonna’s wedding. I guess they want to be able to bring people home and I guess you can’t at the Bel Air.

  I went to see Dr. Li and she took everything out of my pockets and tested the phone numbers that I had there for black magic. She does do that stuff. She puts your hand on your chest and you see if the energy is there. You put your arm out in front of you and she tests for resistance—you’re lying there like a horizontal Hitler youth. Last week she took the stuff out and it was the same stuff I always carry. Two keys, stuff from Japan that John and Kimiko Powers gave me, and some phone numbers.

  Went over to Café Luxembourg (cab $4). Carl Bernstein was there and waved across the room. He was with three girls. And David Byrne the Talking Head was there but I never know how to talk to him. Martin Burgoyne was with us and he put his hair up and looks like a girl. He’s twenty-one but he looks jaded. And Keith said that when Madonna was staying at Keith’s, sleeping on his couch, the stories he could write about the people she had sex with…

  Tuesday,July 30, 1985

  Ran to meet Patty Raynes and the baby. This is Marvin Davis’s daughter (cab $4). She was sweet. She told me Tatum was also going to get her portrait done, so that was exciting.

  Fred decided he’d go to L.A. for Madonna’s wedding with us.

  And later on that night Keith told me that he’d asked Yoko Ono for $200,000. I was shocked. He wanted it for his store. I said, “But Keith, you’ve got enough money,” but he said he didn’t want to sell his paintings now to get money because he thinks they’ll be worth more later. And he said she said all her money was tied up, that yes, she had a lot but that it wasn’t at her fingertips, and I was just shocked that he would ask, I really was, but he seemed to think nothing of it.

  Ran into Yoko and her boyfriend Sam Havadtoy and went back to the Dakota with them. He’s Hungarian, it turns out, and he’s going back to buy a big house there. And he doesn’t let Yoko push him around. He eats sugar and drinks and doesn’t pay attention to her, and I guess she wants to be pushed around now. And he was saying that he didn’t want Sean to be an actor, that he felt he should go into something else, so he was sounding like a father. I guess he just takes care of Yoko. But that’s hard. There were three cats in the apartment and Yoko said that the cats hadn’t talked since John died until she put a record on. And Sam gave us a tour of the place and it’s so big. I’d never seen all the rooms. The bedroom and everything, so I guess they do sleep together. But he’s looking for an apartment of his own, too, so I don’t know what that means. Sam made hot chocolate but then nobody sort of wanted it. Sean’s away at camp and loves it.

  Friday,August 2, 1985

  The Tina Turner concert was great. I thought she was copying Mick Jagger but then somebody told me she taught him how to dance. And oh, what is Ron Delsener’s problem? He never got us backstage passes and he’s complaining to me about Cornelia wanting free tickets, and I felt like saying to him, “Look, you want to get into society—well, someday she might invite you to that big party, you know?”

  The wife of Glenn Frey of the Eagles came over to me, and Cornelia screamed. “Get away, you groupie!”—so mean and rude. She picked all that up from hanging around with Boy George and Marilyn.

  Monday,August 5, 1985

  The Enquirer and Star and People and Newsweek and Time all had Rock Hudson on the cover. We should’ve had him on Interview’s cover. It would have been funny to have a phony baloney interview with him on all the newsstands now—“Why I’m Straight,” by Rock Hudson.

  Gael called and said that Kim Basinger is going to be the cover for November and I said, “Whaaat?” I mean, she’s older and she’s not going to be anybody and even if she is, so what, you know? I’m just so bored with movie-stars-for-yuppies.

  I was at Dr. Li’s and she told me to give up bananas and wheat and broccoli and hot food.

  And I want to do a Madonna headline—the Post one: “MADONNA ON NUDE PIX—’SO WHAT?’ “—and use a photograph of her from a different day that would fit right in, but Keith wants to use a photo he took of her and Sean Penn. Which is kind of grey. But I’ll do it both ways. We’re doing a painting together for her wedding present.

  Walter Stait called and said that Ted Carey had passed on in East Hampton. He was having an opening on Saturday out there of all his paintings. I didn’t know he lived in Jed’s building on West 67th. In Stuart Pivar’s building. With this Italian kid. I knew he was about to go, Walter had called me last week.

  Tuesday,August 6, 1985

  In the morning Benjamin picked me up and it was a pretty d
ay. And since it was my birthday I decided to do all sugar, just an all-sugar day, not deny myself anything (cab $6).

  All this Happy Birthday stuff. Bernard the drag performance artist brought me the greatest present, he’s really clever. A beautiful package from Van Cleef & Arpels, and inside was a big beautiful bracelet box, just everything perfect and beautiful, and I was so excited, and inside the bracelet box was a typed card and it said, “Andy Warhol wants nothing for his birthday,” because that was what I told a magazine was the best present. “Nothing.” I don’t know if he had to pay for the packaging or what. So I came face to face with my own philosophy and I was (laughs) so let down. It was great. It’s worse than eating your own words, getting them back in a Van Cleef & Arpels box.

  Cornelia called and was so sour. She never even sent a gift or anything and didn’t mention my birthday.

  Stephen Sprouse brought me a gift, one of his old paintings. Keith asked me who I wanted for the dinner. He said his birthday present was to take me down to Glenn O’Brien’s softball team’s game where Matt Dillon was going to be playing down on Leroy Street with the graffiti artists against them, so that was something to look forward to.

  Glenn’s team was playing against Futura’s graffiti team with Matt Dillon. And Ronnie was on Glenn’s team and then this girl was walking by with a little dog, and she stopped and said hi, and guess who it was. Gigi! She said she and Ronnie have been back together for two weeks. And I just looked at that dog and all I could think of was how Ronnie drowned the cats when he and Gigi were breaking up. And now he’s broken up with Tama Janowitz who was really nice. And Maria the jewelry designer was nice, too. Gigi said that she works for the movies.

  And Matt Dillon struck out with three people on base, but he was cute. And then Lidija came by, they’d told her at the office that I’d be there. Jay wasn’t playing because he’d hurt his arm or leg. And Wilfredo is so crazy about Matt Dillon that he carries around a paperback called (laughs) The Life of Matt Dillon. I’m not kidding, it’s a real book.

  Wednesday, August 7, 1985

  Somebody told me that Jon Gould has gotten a rich South African to finance movies and has a deal where Paramount will match the money the South African invests.

  I had a dinner date with Fred last night, and Bob Denison and his new wife, so I couldn’t go with Karen Lerner and Steve Aronson to see John-John Kennedy in his play at the Irish Theater—it’s invitations only, you have to be invited by someone in the cast. John-John turned us down for the Interview cover. I guess he would have to give away too much talk to be on our cover, but with People he’ll just get a big story and not have to say a thing.

  Bob Denison married the kind of girl that his kind of person should marry—upturned nose, blonde, sort of the Joan Lunden-type, a little past thirty, she was in a Valentino dress and she had a good sapphire ring on. She does the morning Today Show, the segments on beauty and fashion. I don’t know her name. And I was complaining so much about money that Bob gave me a dollar and I had the wife sign it so I could find out her name, but then I couldn’t read her name and Bob never called her anything. And Fred’s still talking with a British accent. He is smart, though, that’s the good thing. He knows how to bring up topics, which I don’t know how to do. And we talked about the chic-est perfume and the chic-est man and the chic-est show and the chic-est car.

  On the way home from Le Cirque this well-dressed guy with a briefcase stopped Fred and me and said his wallet had just been stolen and everything and Fred believed him and gave him money. I didn’t though, because a real person wouldn’t ask, they’d do something else, go someplace else. But Fred gave him money and he went toward the subway. But then Fred realized he’d left his umbrella so we went back, and there was the guy doing the same thing to somebody else. And Fred screamed at him that he was a crook.

  Thursday, August 8, 1985

  Tama Janowitz came by the office to see Paige. Tama’s upset because Ronnie’s gone back with Gigi and I kept slipping and bringing up Ronnie without meaning to. She seemed like she was holding up well but then later she broke down and said she was still so in love, that she didn’t know what to do, and I told her that she was so talented and pretty, and that she had everything and I didn’t know why Ronnie would leave her to go back to a really awful person like Gigi, and she said she was thrilled to hear me say that. I told her she had to get over her romance and just use it for material to write about.

  Monday,August 12, 1985

  Cornelia looked great last night at the party for the movie Key Exchange. It was at Harry Winston’s jewelry store on 5 5th Street and Fifth because his son Ronnie Winston helped produce it I think. Cornelia was in a golden yellow dress and she was wearing her long blonde braid. A few weeks ago she saw somebody with it, and she’s good that way, she finds out right away where they got it and goes the next day and gets it. And the dress was $40 from Bloomingdale’s and on her it looked like it cost thousands. Floppy on top and a miniskirt. She was the best-looking girl there. She’s got to lose her champagne double chin, though, that’s the only thing. And they were making her feel bad about not being in Hollywood.

  And she was in a sweet mood last night, not being a brat. She was saying that her mother never helps her—that she competes with her and she won’t get her on the cover of Town and Country— and I told her that she could get herself on the cover but she should wait until she’s selling something or it’ll be a waste. And I told her not to be hard on her mother, I explained to her, “You know, when you’re old and you don’t feel old, you want to be in with the new generation and be part of it….” And she said that she really misses her father because he was the only one who cared about her. So I think she’s going to go out to Hollywood for a month and try to get parts.

  Tuesday,August 13, 1985

  Dolly Fox came by the office and I wanted her to meet Cornelia. And they got along great, they were talking about the people they’ve introduced that then fall in love and why can’t it happen to them and Dolly came up with that it was because they were rich. Because Dolly had to talk Julianne into going to see Bruce Springsteen and then they went backstage and Bruce and Julianne’s eyes met and that was it. I asked Dolly if she’d fucked Bruce before she introduced him and Julianne, and she said no, but that she’d been just about to. And I asked if Julianne had done it with Bruce on the first night and she said no, not on the first night. And Dolly also introduced her friend Dana to Eric Roberts and he immediately left Sandy Dennis and now they’re going to get married. Dolly looked beautiful—her eyebrows are so perfect and so is her eye makeup.

  Wednesday,August 14, 1985

  Keith came by yesterday and he wanted to use my tracer, so I guess he knows I had one, so (laughs) I had to admit it. He had a baseball player with him. And my date for the Madonna wedding, Martin Burgoyne, is being wined and dined by People magazine because they’re trying to get information about the wedding out of him—he and Madonna used to be roommates. Nobody knows where the wedding’s going to be, yet. And Martin is going to have to be at the door to let all the right people in, like the important ones Sean and Madonna are running into and inviting at the last minute.

  And I picked up the phone yesterday and it was Dolly Parton and she was cute, she said, “Hey, Andy! You know who this is?” And I said, “Oh God, with that voice …” And what she wants to give her agent Sandy Gallin is a portrait of her and she asked how much it was, and I just was too embarrassed, I said she’d really have to talk to Fred or Vincent for that. She said she was leaving for L.A. Friday afternoon so we made a date to take the picture at 11:00 on Friday morning, so I hope it works out.

  They should be getting the Stallone issue in today. Everybody was talking about the Stallone interview—they said he sounds smart. Is that possible?

  Thursday, August 15, 1985—New York-Los Angeles

  We were on the ground for twelve hours. We couldn’t get the go-ahead because of storms in the areas we’d be flying through. And then Dia
ne Keaton had a fight with the stewardess, she wanted to get off the plane and they wouldn’t let her because they were finally second in line, and the captain by the end almost was crying and saying it was his worst experience, and that he wasn’t going to turn it around at this point to let them off. And Steve Rubell had a big fight with the stewardess. Not while we were on the ground because he didn’t want to get thrown off, but as soon as we were in the air, he started, “You bitch, give me your name.” It was Pan Am.

  Finally we got to L.A. at about 1:30 and went to the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  Friday,August 16, 1985—Los Angeles

  It was just the most exciting weekend of my life. Martin went down to the hairdresser earlier in the day to have his hair done. We rode in a limo out to Malibu and when we saw helicopters in the distance we knew we were at the wedding. Somebody had tipped the reporters off about where the wedding was and about ten helicopters were hovering, it was like Apocalypse Now. And one helicopter had a girl hanging off with a camera and they were all trying to get in close. And the security people found camouflage-outfitted photographers in the bushes. And I looked really close at Madonna and she is beautiful. And she and Sean are just so in love. She wore white, and a black bowler hat, I don’t know what that was supposed to mean. And someone said that Sean had shot at the helicopters the night before. The only boring celebrity there was Diane Keaton, really. And it was the right mixture of nobodies and celebrities. Sean came over to say hello, and the good-looking family of Madonna was there, all the brothers. And you can see Madonna and Sean love each other so much. Really, it was the most exciting thing ever.