The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  And so she’s calling from shelters and the odd thing is, she remembers all these details of things that happened to her way in the past. Like she brought up when she had sex with Eric de Rothschild in the sixties and she said that after they had sex he called up Jane Holzer to go for a walk in the park, and she said, “Why did he have to call up Jane Holzer—why didn’t he take me for a walk?” I mean, every detail. Does that mean nothing’s happened in her life since then?

  Oh, and more sixties updates: My sixty-year-old cousin called and she was in town with her son and said they wanted to come and see the office, so they came down. And her son is the one who knew Ondine in Pittsburgh. He once took the film courses that Ondine was (laughs) giving there, and he told me that Ondine is now selling hot dogs at Madison Square Garden. I’m serious. You know, Ondine “rented” all those films from us and then never returned them. Loves of Ondine, Chelsea Girls. And there was a story about Gerard Malanga in New York, about him being the new archivist for the Parks Department and for some reason Vincent was upset that Gerard was saying he was thirty-eight. I took a picture of Gerard the other week, though, and he does look great. But how old is he really? About forty-two or forty-three? And oh, God, on my Blue Cross I just scribble and make it up all the time and then I get these things that say my birthday is August 28, 1982, so if I have an accident I probably won’t get (laughs) my money.

  I’m starting to think that crystals don’t work. Because look what’s happened lately when they’re supposed to be protecting me—my rug has cancer from the moths, I stepped on a beautiful old plastic ring and crushed it, and I was assaulted at the book signing. But I’ve got to believe in something, so I’ll continue with the crystals. Because things could always be worse.

  Sunday,December 1, 1985

  It was rainy out and I sort of wanted to just sleep in. The dogs went away with Jed. I thought about the moths in my rug and I puttered around.

  Went to meet Wilfredo, Bernard, and PH at the Matt Dillon play, Boys of Winter (cab $4). And the play, I mean, after Apocalypse Now, what can you do? If it’d come out eight years ago it would’ve been a smash hit. Everybody got killed, and it was so sad, but the ending was just too corny, because the guy would never have killed his friend like that. And it’s the gayest play on Broadway. One of the reviews should say that and then maybe it would be a hit. Because it’s all men caring about each other.

  It was raining out and we walked toward Eighth Avenue. Got a limousine that was going by ($20). So we went to the Hard Rock and Matt was already there. He introduced me to his mother, and remember I said the last time I saw him he gave me a pat on the shoulder and a kiss? Well last night he just gave me a pat on the shoulder. Maybe because it was in front of his mother. But then I started thinking that when he saw me the last time he was probably rehearsing for this play and he wanted to see how it felt to kiss a fairy in public.

  Sat with Linda Stein and she talked about trying to sell Stallone a house. He called her from his plane and said, “Linda? Sly. Just one thing before we talk at length later: If Elvis were alive today, would he live in an apartment or a house!” And I’m trying to decide if I should try to sell him my house for $5 million. She says she’ll have to see it first. The house next door only went for $1.9, but who knows what she could get?

  Bernard went and got lost, talking to Susan Dey at the bar. He’s a would-be starfucker. Susan Dey was emotional about the play and said she was protesting war now. I don’t know which war. Nicaragua, I guess.

  We left and the rain had turned into a sparkling mist. And we passed a guy in a camouflage jacket going toward the Hard Rock and PH yelled, “Harry Dean!” because she thought it looked like Harry Dean Stanton and it was, so we talked for a minute. I always thought he was this teenager who just looked really bad because he’d taken a lot of drugs, but it turns out he’s not a teenager—he’s almost sixty, so gee, he looks good! Then Bernard and Wilfredo dropped me and I gave them a twenty because that’s all I had.

  And then at work that afternoon I’d spilled some tea on a stack of Polaroids of some portrait and then I couldn’t unstick them, they were all stuck together. With all those signs I’d put up all over, like “Do Not Carry Water Into the Print Room” and I wound up doing it.

  Tuesday, December 3, 1985— New York—Richmond, Virginia

  We had to go down because the Lewises gave a wing to the museum down in Richmond. Fred and I went out to Butler Aviation and I expected a few people on a private plane, but it was about 100 people. And it was everybody from the past I really wanted to see, right? The creepiest feeling. I said to Fred, “I want to go home.” And Corice Arman said the same thing when she saw all the people. Like seeing Mr. and Mrs. Philip Pearlstein just brought me back to ‘49, when I first came to New York on the bus with the Pearlsteins. Durangelo who does those highway paintings was there. And Michael Graves. And Venturi appeared in Virginia, but I don’t know if he’d come down on this plane. Tom Wolfe was there with his wife.

  Lucas Samaras was on the plane, and he was the only one I felt like talking to. I always think these kids are rich now, but he said he still lives in the same old place. He was putting Schnabel down. And I told him he was the Schnabel of twenty years ago. You know how Schnabel won’t shake somebody’s hand when they put it out, and then a minute later somebody else will come along who’s better and then he will? Arne Glimcher was there, he’s producing a Robert Redford movie about the art world.

  We went to the Lewises’ house. We chit-chatted and then people had to change into black tie at the Lewises’ to go over to the museum. I was just in a turtleneck and my coat, so all day it looked like I was about to leave. My Calvin Klein with the hood. But for some reason nobody thought it was unusual. They told me that at 6:00 I’d have to be on TV live, so I got nervous about it being live. But then I didn’t care and I got it over with.

  Julian Schnabel and his wife came, they’d missed the plane, and Alex Katz had missed his, too.

  And I had to go to the bathroom because of all the vitamin C I’m taking now, and the bathroom was full of guys with cigars and I’m really going to have to get over this bathroom phobia because I just feel so … I mean, there was a stall but somebody was in it and I tried to wait, but … And they said, “Oh, you’re Andy Warhol,” and I’m trying to pee, and then right after you pee they want to shake your hand.

  Leo Castelli was there with Toiny and she’s a lost soul and he’s really out of it. But the horrible thing was seeing everybody looking thirty years older. I’m so spoiled from going around with nineteen-year-olds. At least Ivan Karp has a lot of energy and he’s fun. Oh, and Ivan says he’s (laughs) collecting Barbarian jewelry now, he gets it at a store in the East 90s. The tribe—the original hordes.

  Friday, December 6, 1985—New York

  There was a screening of Young Sherlock Holmes at the Gulf + Western Building but I want to avoid that place—Jon Gould comes to town now and doesn’t even call me.

  Worked till 8:30, then went to Schnabel’s at 20th and Park. It was so glamorous, the Christmas tree was up. Fred was there, in an art mood. Dinner was catered by II Cantinori. The girls were absolutely all wearing the shortest shirts ever and then the Madonna stockings. Marisa Berenson was in a black miniskirt. She has the right body. Those boy asses. And Schnabel’s wife, too, she had one twenty inches above her knee.

  Sunday, December 8, 1985

  Went to church. Paige called and she’s thinking of going to a place uptown to get treatment for being a chocolate addict, some treatment they give heroin addicts. And she said she finally is completely over Jean Michel. It happened to her at the Comme des Garçons fashion show. She said he looked like a fool out there on the runway modeling the clothes and that’s when she finally was over him.

  Bob Colacello was having a dinner for São Schlumberger at Mortimer’s at 9:00. Got there when they were just starting to eat. I was next to an Indian lady named Gita Mehta and a Brazilian Portuguese woman who’s married to
an Irishman.

  And I was talking to Fred who’d been to the galleries and things with Twinkle Bayoud and her husband Bradley the day before and he told me I had to start getting new ideas to paint. He said Roy Lichtenstein’s selling every painting, that they all have red stickers on them, and they’re all $200,000 or $300,000.

  Monday, December 9, 1985

  Jean Michel called me early in the morning to tell me about the fight with Philip Niarchos he had at Schnabel’s on Friday night. I guess he still remembers some funny comment Philip made once about how now they’re “letting niggers into St. Moritz.”

  The two McDermott-McGough artist kids came by to visit. They’re living down on the Lower East Side, and since they do everything nineteenth-century style, they haven’t had a phone or a kitchen, but now they’re having that stuff installed in just one room of the apartment. So they’re coming around. But they were still dressed in nineteenth-century. They said they had just had meetings at Paramount with Jon Gould and this is about those stories that I taped them telling and had Brigid type up. Now they say he wants to produce that movie with them. Well, I predicted this, right? What a swell guy.

  Thursday, December 12, 1985

  The Boston Museum returned the Electric Chair painting because they said the shade of red was off. It was slightly different, and I told them that would make it more interesting, but they still wanted to send it back for me to think about it. If they had it next to the black panel it wouldn’t matter anyway. I think they’re just procrastinating. But it costs around $4,000 every time you ship it somewhere with the insurance and everything. And Fred was going to Atlanta.

  Sunday, December 15, 1985

  After seeing the Sam Shepard play the night before, I got up and read the transcripts of those days with Truman that I’d taped where he’s going to the masseur, then to the psychiatrist, then for drinks, then for dinner, but by talking in them so much myself, I ruined them. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. I was, you know, saying everything’s wonderful and everybody’s wonderful—the usual. I thought I could turn these tapes into plays and they’d be my little fortune, but they’re not, they’re just awful.

  Paige said that she and PH were going over to Stuart Pivar’s musicale because PH wanted to cover it for the Party book. The reason I don’t want to go over there is because I just can’t take hearing Archie and Amos barking in Jed’s apartment next door on their weekends off. Do you know what I mean?

  PH called me afterwards and said it was the kind of event like in a comedy movie where the boy would bring his girlfriend there to prove he was sensitive, that the men and women were very intellectual and dreamy, sitting on the nineteenth-century chairs and things listening to the beautiful music.

  Monday, December 16, 1985

  Brigid just called on the other line and she’s reading me an article in The New York Times and I think it’s about Rupert’s boyfriend. Hold on … it says “Patrick McAllister,” and I don’t know if that’s his last name, but he has AIDS and it doesn’t give Rupert’s name but it says he has a boyfriend who works for a “famous artist.” And now I feel bad because I’ve always been so mean to Patrick. He found out he had AIDS in August—oh, but I’ve hated him for years. But still I do feel bad now, and that would explain a lot of things that Rupert does now like going into macrobiotics and things and taking courses like EST.

  Chrissy Berlin was at the office and she loved her portraits. It was sort of busy. Fred was going off to Europe to sell art.

  My old model date Sean McKeon’s back in town, he’s been away about a year doing plays in France. And this girl asked me about Sean, she said, “Is he straight?” And I told her yes. Because I mean, how do I know different? I met him when he was with a girli And you have to believe what people tell you, don’t you?

  Worked till 8:20, then walked to the Ritz Café, which is the new restaurant where La Coupole was. I was going to meet a Ford model that Paige invited for me. He was just back from Japan and he hated it there, and it was just like listening to an exact copy of every other model—from New Jersey, talks about motorcycles, modeling, eating, and hating Japan. But they’re good-looking and that’s enough. The perfect nose and so much like Sean McKeon you would think they’re from the same mold. And if you put glasses on them they could look distinguished, but they’re brainless.

  Paige brought a black Jewish lawyer named Rubin for Tama and he looked (laughs) black and Jewish. And Tama brought for Paige a novelist who’s written four novels and he was jealous because Tama was in The New Yorker and Tama was jealous because he’s had four novels published.

  And this was all about looking for new faces and brains and ideas. We were in a booth for six people and it was fun.

  Home before 12:00 and didn’t watch Letterman. I’d seen the news earlier, about the Mafia shooting in midtown which is so abstract. They’re just doing it on better streets now.

  Wednesday, December 18, 1985

  There’s somebody ringing my bell really long. Really long. Maybe it’s Crazy Matty. He hasn’t been around in a long time. Oh, it’s the chocolate man. He’s trying to deliver chocolates. Hold on …

  They were calling it the coldest day of the year, but it wasn’t bad in the sun. Went over to Dr. Bernsohn’s and he put me in a negative mood. He showed me this crystal and he said, “I paid a thousand for it and it usually costs $5,000, but it’s worth millions to me, there’s nothing like it in the world.” And I said okay, that maybe I would trade him a print or something and he said, “A print? A print? I was thinking more like two portraits, one for my mother and one for me.” He wants $50,000 worth of portraits! He said I have to let him know by Friday because Dr. Reese would be “programmed out” if I waited longer.

  I think I’m just not going to call him. You have to draw the line somewhere.

  Thursday, December 19, 1985

  After reading that big article on Carl Andre and whether he pushed his wife out the window or not, it’s so easy to imagine a fight. I wonder if they were having a fight and she went to jump out the window and he tried to stop her. He said he got the scratches on his face “moving furniture.” Which he shouldn’t have said. I’ll be disappointed if he’s guilty. I would think if he was that he would say so, because there’s something about him with integrity. So if he’s guilty why is he trying to save himself? I would be disappointed in him. I would think he would just say so.

  And Lady Ann Lambton is in a movie about Sid Vicious and his girlfriend. She’d gone to the audition disguised as a punk rocker and she got the job.

  Tina Chow called and said there was a dinner for Jean Michel at 9:00, just really small. Jean Michel had his mother and her friend there. I brought him a present, one of my own hairpieces. He was shocked. One of my old ones. Framed. I put ‘"83” on it but I don’t know when it was from. It’s one of my Paul Bochicchio wigs. It was a “Paul Original.”

  You know, I heard the kids at the office talking about my wigs, and when I think how much work time they spend gossiping about me … I mean, like now Brigid has Sam to hate, because I take him around with me, but I mean, he’s just a babysitter for me. And Wilfredo’s really the best babysitter. He’s sweet but he’s street-smart. And he takes numbers and follows up on business contacts. But he’s so busy with his styling work at Interview and he still works Saturdays at Armani.

  Dropped Sam. Gave the driver a big tip because it’s Christmas ($10).

  Saturday, December 21, 1985

  Called PH and said I’d gone to Jean’s and gotten her the earrings she was in love with and that I’d pick her up to go to Vincent’s Christmas party and give them to her (cab $6.50). I didn’t like these earrings at first, but I now think they may be Schiaparelli, I really do. She was thrilled, she didn’t think she’d be getting the pin, too. And when she put them on, they did something for her, they’re unusual—strands of gold that bounce around with rubies in the center.

  Sunday, December 22, 1985

  Stuart Pivar called
and invited me to rummage for ideas with him. Went to church (cabs $4, $3). Went to the flea market on 76th Street, and that one’s indoors. Bought another Santa Claus sculpture. I just don’t know what to paint.

  Fred does help me all the time getting ideas. He really does. But in the end ideas are actually just physically working it all out. You’d think it’s easy once you have an idea, but it’s not. It’s just like writing. Like the Truman Capote play I wanted to do—if I’d only looked at it at all before he died, I would’ve followed him some more for three days and kept my mouth shut and really gotten something. So we walked around and people nudged each other when they saw us.