Chivalrous, when Marisa Berenson was divorcing her second husband, Richard Golub, in 1987 and there was a problem over Andy’s wedding gift, Fred rushed to her defense. Andy had done three portraits of Berenson, and Golub was insisting on co-ownership even if the late artist was his wife’s friend. Thanks to Fred’s appearance in court, Berenson got them back.
The chivalry extended to children too. While he was sharing a house with Shelly and Vincent Fremont, their young daughters Austin and Casey found a dead animal and were pretty upset about it. “Fred did this whole elaborate funeral procession,” Vincent recalls. “We went in a little line and dug a hole.”
Dutiful, he always went to Mrs. Vreeland’s Sunday dinners, which required him to be serious and grave-faced. At her side, he was almost taking the role of Reed, her late husband. True, the grande dame had peered into my face and said, “I thought your father was greaaat.” Otherwise, I privately found the atmosphere to be staid and depleted. The gathered people were clearly there out of politeness. Fred, however, would hear no wrong. After Dominique de Menil, Mrs. Vreeland was his second mentor. So albeit an ingrate, I appreciated his staunch loyalty and his refusal to admit that her Sunday affairs were snooze-worthy.
Vreeland aside, Fred was fairly frank about society’s ways. He had a horror of the pretentious. “Who does that writer think he is?” he said about a friend’s boyfriend. “He kept on asking, do I like berries. Of course I like berries.” When I got upset about a Park Avenue lady failing to send a book, Fred said, “Oh, for God’s sake, Fraser, you cannot be annoyed with [X], who’s been cheated on by her husband in New York, Paris, London, and St. Moritz. Pick on someone else of your own strength.”
Like a stern headmaster, he also insisted on standards from his male buddies. He blasted Whitney Tower Jr. and James Curley for endlessly sniggering at one of Mrs. Vreeland’s dinners. I presume that they were stoned. He also blasted Mick Jagger when he brought back “an unsuitable date” to a friend’s Hamptons home, Fred’s somewhat practical reasoning being, “She’ll be there for breakfast!”
Mick and Fred were good together. I remember one Saturday evening when I joined them at Fred’s home. There had been a torrential rainstorm and I arrived with sopping-wet clothes and water in my shoes. “Fraser, don’t you own an umbrella?” Fred asked. A cozy scene then ensued downstairs in his kitchen that led to his enthusing over his favorite silent epic films while Mick silently towel-dried my hair and then combed it.
Like everyone, Fred had his moods. But the demon drink was a disaster for him. It became a case of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hyde. Unfortunately, in the mid-’80s, his drinking got out of control. And the embarrassing incidents began to mount, such as his taking his trousers off at Nell’s or firing off crazing monologues at restaurants like Mortimer’s. “Andy found it rather sad what was happening to Fred and didn’t know how to react,” recalls Kenny Jay Lane. “He wasn’t going to get rid of Fred, but it was a case of ‘What am I going to do with him?’ Fred got messy. We don’t like messy.”
When he was traveling with Andy and Fred in the mid-’80s, Christopher Makos recounts, certain mornings Fred woke up drunk. “Andy would get so pissed off with him,” he says. “They were like a married couple because their business relationship was so tight. And Andy couldn’t really get out of it and start anew because Fred knew everything.”
This contrasts with Bob Colacello’s memory of traveling with Fred five years earlier. “He was wonderful because he always boned up on the language, whether it was Germany or Italy, and he also boned up on the architecture,” he says. “So we’d be in Düsseldorf and Fred would take you to the grandest houses, point them out, and give you a history of the families that owned them.” Andy, on the other hand, was bored by the guided tour. “His reaction to most architecture was, ‘It’s just a pile of rocks,’ or ‘It’s so cold and probably has no heat.’”
With hindsight, Makos wonders if Fred wasn’t deeply unhappy with both the work relationship and the fact that “he wasn’t fully attuned to his own homosexuality.”
Although gay, Fred vehemently hid that side of his life. French interior designer Robert Couturier had a secret affair with him in the late ’70s. “He was incredibly intelligent, his taste was phenomenal, but there was a huge bitterness,” he says. “He regretted not belonging to a certain world.”
Instead, Fred was more comfortable nursing public crushes on Marina Schiano, the stylist and former Yves Saint Laurent executive, whom he married, allowing her a green card; Loulou de la Falaise, the style icon; and Sarah Giles, Vanity Fair’s editor at large; and a lengthy infatuation with Natasha Grenfell, a banking heiress whose mother was Tennessee Williams’s executor. All women were European and looked quite different from one another. They were socially apt at any occasion and known for their strong personalities.
These women brought out the best in Fred, in the same way that macho men made him into the class nebbish who egged on the playground bully. I noticed this when artist Julian Schnabel appeared at the Warhol Studio. Famous for his plate paintings, he was the piping-hot artist at the time. Very handsome and dressed in pajamas, he arrived with a tray of little bun sandwiches from Sant Ambroeus, the Madison Avenue hangout, then proceeded to chomp through all of them. I was sitting at reception and he kept snarling in my direction. What was I meant to do? Hide my face? Fred then returned from their lunch and said how rude Schnabel had been about me. It was so unlike Fred that I put his behavior down to the artist’s influence.
When Fred chose architect Peter Moore to renovate the building, it was obvious that Peter’s WASP style and charm had helped. The same went for Tim Hunt, the younger brother of Formula One champion James Hunt. Plucked from Christie’s tribal art department in London, Tim was hired to help Steven Bluttal bring Andy’s inventory together. Yet both Peter and Tim were mild-mannered, elegant gents who must have been aware of a vague crush but never took advantage.
The same could not be said about Ed Hayes, a man-about-town whom Fred appointed to be the lawyer of the Andy Warhol estate. Indeed, Fred would fire Robert Montgomery of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, who had represented Andy for decades, and replace him with a man who knew nothing about the art world. “They both wore bespoke suits,” offers Vincent Fremont. Shocking as it may sound, it was the bespoke-suit connection and Hayes’s macho bravado that attracted Fred.
“Fred came over with Hayes and he had a huge crush, you could see it,” recalls Peter Frankfurt. “I mean, Fred went to see a Bruce Springsteen concert with him. It was wacko. And Hayes was totally on the make.” Suzie Frankfurt had a Biedermeier desk, similar to one that Andy owned. “Hayes wanted her to take it apart to show him the secret compartments,” continues Frankfurt. “He was worried that Andy might have hidden diamonds or jewels in his.”
Hayes, thanks to Tom Wolfe’s book The Bonfire of the Vanities, was a bit of a star. True, he was a Queens-born Columbia University Law School graduate and former Bronx assistant district attorney with a small office practicing in criminal cases. But most people knew that Wolfe—a famous novelist—had based his hero on Hayes. And if they didn’t, Hayes was happy to tell them.
It was all very tough chic glamorous, including a huge white wedding to a former catwalk model and guests including Robert De Niro and his girlfriend Toukie Smith, Tom Wolfe, TV personalities, police chiefs, and Bruce Cutler, the loudmouth lawyer of John Gotti.
And Fred lapped it up. I wonder if he felt he was one of the big guys. The problem was that Hayes was inexperienced, and in spite of claiming that he would work only on Warhol’s estate, he was still doing his own practice. I gleaned this because he would have early-morning meetings and liked to boast that money didn’t change hands but fancy carpets and other such items did.
Hayes was always drawing attention to my breasts. It was pretty weird. “Breathe in, breathe in,” he’d say. Implying that they would look bigger. Once when I was interviewi
ng someone on the telephone, he came up behind and grabbed me roughly by the waist. Shocked, I turned around and told him to fuck off. He went quite red in the face and had the nerve to berate me afterward. When I tried to reason with him and say, “Listen, Ed, what you did was incorrect,” he flipped. In a nutshell, that captured Mr. Hayes.
Yet Fred was smitten. He felt protected by Hayes, who, when Andy died, arranged security from the Major Case Squad for the artist’s house. “We had probably the highest-quality security in the Western world,” Hayes informed Vanity Fair’s Colacello. “I wanted guys I knew, homicide detectives.”
Hayes was flash, he was brash, and he was the worst person to have on board when someone became sick. Fred’s multiple sclerosis flared up within less than a year of Andy’s dying. It was tragic to witness. At the beginning of 1988, I was with Fred outside Hammacher Schlemmer, when he fell and could barely get up. In a drunken state, he had always tumbled, but this was different. It was the early afternoon and he was stone-cold sober. With difficulty, I got him into a taxi and suggested that I take him home since we were on the Upper East Side. However, Fred wouldn’t hear of it. He was fine. And when we returned to the Warhol Studio, Vincent wasn’t in his office. Instead, we were welcomed by the loud voice of Ed Hayes.
Meanwhile, others who cared about Fred would say, “Is he all right?” “His jokes were just not as funny, not quite as well judged,” says Anne Lambton. “I would think, ‘This isn’t like Fred. What’s got into him?’”
14 Preppy Vincent—The Only One with the Warhol Enterprises Checkbook
After several weeks, I began babysitting for Shelly and Vincent Fremont. With their daughters, Austin and Casey, and their stylish downtown apartment, they represented a different side of Manhattan. It was one of family values and interest in American arts and crafts. Through their steadily acquired collection, I discovered Mission furniture. Talks with Vincent also showed a more caring side of Andy. Their relationship was fight-free and different from the others.
“He trusted preppy Vincent and let him run the Factory,” says Anne Lambton. “It showed how even-keeled and clever Andy was.” At Warhol Enterprises, Vincent was the only one with the company’s checking account. Andy also loved and respected his wife, was a godfather to their elder daughter, and guessed when the couple were going to elope. “Andy was in Texas with Fred, he called and I said, ‘Are you coming back for the weekend?’ and he said, ‘Oh, are you getting married?’” recalls Vincent.
With this in mind, it must have been horrendous for Vincent to deal with the lawsuit against the New York Hospital. “Andy’s death made me realize two things: Don’t get operated on the weekend, and never hire a private-duty nurse, because the nurses on the floor don’t come in,” Vincent now says.
The problem was that Andy’s gallbladder had become gangrenous. “He would have died if they hadn’t taken it out,” notes Fremont. “It would have poisoned his entire body.” Accompanied by Ken, a tall blond who “was nice but not the brightest guy in the world,” Warhol checked into the hospital. “Andy took a small private room and went under his assumed name [Bob Roberts],” Vincent continues. “I told the day nurse, ‘You can call him either Mr. Warhol or Andy inside the room, but he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here.’ Andy really wanted to get home as soon as possible.”
After the operation, at eight forty-five on Saturday morning, Vincent saw Andy in the recovery room and then went home. “It was Austin’s fifth birthday,” he says. “And I had hired a private-duty nurse—based on the instructions of Denton Cox, Andy’s doctor.” Vincent then returned in the afternoon, around four-thirty. “I waited until he was back and acclimatized in his room and I now regret that,” he says. Having been sedated, Warhol was sleeping with an IV attached to his arm. “His wig was off,” he says. “The day duty nurse said, ‘The operation went well, and better than expected.’”
Later that night, Andy called and spoke to Shelly’s mother. “He couldn’t remember the second private number of his house,” says Vincent. “There was one number and then the private number that Fred, Pat Hackett, and I had.” At six-thirty the following morning, Vincent was informed that Andy was dead.
On every level, the New York Hospital screwed up. After Warhol’s gallbladder surgery, performed by Dr. Bjorn Thorbjarnarson, more than twice the required volume of liquids was pumped into him. This resulted in internal pressure, which in turn resulted in his death from heart failure. Not helping matters was the fact that he had been given morphine, a painkilling drug that further suppressed his pulmonary capacity.
“Andy kept putting that operation off,” recalls Catherine Hesketh. Anne Lambton remembers “a terrible seizure” on the 1975 book tour after he had eaten chocolate. “It was so frightening,” she says. Nevertheless, the artist was prepared to suffer the gallbladder attacks because he had an eerie sense about returning to the hospital.
Meanwhile, Vincent had an eerie feeling about Fred and his decision to hire Ed Hayes. “The biggest mistake post Andy’s death that precipitated a lot of headaches was firing Bob Montgomery,” he reasons. “When Fred told me, it was already fait accompli that he had brought in Ed Hayes, who had no experience in estates and foundations.” Cole Porter, Marilyn Monroe, and Andrew Lloyd Webber were a few of Montgomery’s clients, and he excelled at protecting the integrity of their work—as exemplified when he managed to stop the maker of a toilet-bowl cleaner from changing Porter’s lyrics to “I’ve got you under my rim.”
Since I was a better on-foot messenger than typist, I was always delivering important documents to the offices of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Although never privy to the contents, I gathered from Vincent’s tense expression that the correspondence was heated. Once, I was in the elevator of the lawyer’s swanky building—it was made of dark glass, and located in the lower Fifties on the East Side—when it suddenly dropped about thirty-five floors, for what seemed like several seconds. Then the elevator dangled for a few minutes and swiftly returned up to the law offices, the point of origin.
It was strange. Vincent insisted that I must be exaggerating. “That’s a lot of floors,” he said. Then I began to doubt my short-term memory. However, I hadn’t been alone. The young woman accompanying me—I presume a legal assistant because she remained steely-eyed and unruffled—got out at the same floor I did. Naturally I tried to let the incident go. But never quite could. There was something surreal about the experience, and in a way it captured an element of my first year of Adventures in Warhol Land. I was surrounded by dramas that had nothing to do with me and yet I felt strangely protected by the cast of characters. The likes of Fred, Vincent, Zara, and new arrivals, like Cosima Vane-Tempest-Stewart with her boyfriend, Johnson Somerset, were never dull.
On one occasion, Fred got quite tipsy in Shelter Island, where he rented a house with the Fremonts. “I’m just a leaf swaying in the trees,” he said. It was a surprise but a delightful one. However, if anyone was swaying, I was. After several years of living in Los Angeles, where I had pretended to be focused and directed, I was content to be malleable. And when dipping into Manhattan’s social pool saying that I worked at the Warhol Studio suited the situation. If I have one lasting regret, it was not following the advice of Andrea Brenninkmeyer, who did a series of odd jobs for types like Xavier Moreau, Helmut Newton’s American agent. Having spent three years at Boston University, she was better accustomed to the East Coast than I was. “You’ve got to smile more,” she said. Her argument being that New Yorkers might mistake my look as cold and snooty. Smart Andrea, dumb Natasha.
Meanwhile, Miss Zara Metcalfe was appalled by my English Muffin and Warhol Studio status. “Tashie, you just did two years in Hollywood away from your family connections,” was the gist of her argument. “You cannot now return to being ‘the daughter of’ when working in New York. You’re capable of doing something much more serious.” Her logic nagged because she had a point. “Why don’t y
ou write?” she’d say. Because the w verb was associated with my mother and other members of my family, I’d privately think but not necessarily voice. However, I have to thank Zara for planting the writing seed in my head.
Writer and director Nora Ephron could not hear enough about Zara and her adventures. It was easy to comprehend. In a city where so many were influenced or borrowed aspects of their personality, Zara was A-to-Z herself. I guess a certain amount stemmed from incredible social confidence that comes from being a member of a smart British family. Her great-grandfather was Lord Curzon, a viceroy of India, and her grandfather was the well-connected Fruity Metcalfe, a pal of the Duke of Windsor. And then there was her father, David, a popular figure whose range of pals included Henry Ford II and Lord Lambton. But tipping the family tree and adding Slavic mystery and exoticism was her mother, Alexia, a Canadian beauty of Ukrainian extraction who had been the third, and much younger, wife of Sir Alexander Korda, the esteemed film producer.
Both Andy and Fred were crazy about Zara. They had initially met in 1975, at her eighteenth-birthday party, held at Boodle’s, a private club in London. It was meant to be a “comme il faut” night that would finish early. However, since Zara’s best friends were Rachel Ward, Clio Goldsmith, and other great beauties, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Andy, et al. gate-crashed, just before dessert. Hard liquor suddenly appeared, as did a major stash of drugs. Zara’s father was furious, but his daughter’s reputation was made.
After arriving in New York, Zara worked for the art dealer Wildenstein & Company. Placed in the basement, she was meant to be cataloguing the rare illuminated books. Eating food was banned. This did not, however, stop Zara from enjoying a tuna sandwich during her lunch break. That was, until she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She slammed her magazine shut, including the sandwich, but forgot to retrieve the latter. A few days later, whiffs of tuna began wafting into the gallery, and that was when Zara hopped it to the public relations department of Calvin Klein.
After Andy Page 17