by Andy Warhol
Went to the dentist. Asked Dr. Lyons not to take X-rays and he got mad. He said that I hadn’t had one in ten years.
Then went down to the ninth floor to see Dr. Domonkos the skin doctor. Kitty Carlisle Hart was coming out in a sort of disguise and I asked the doctor why she was there and he said he was sending her somewhere else, so I don’t know what that meant. Had a pimple squeezed. He told me to come back next week.
Cabbed to Sloan-Kettering ($2.50) and the waiting room there freaked me out. People with noses cut off. It was so shocking. Dr. Strong took the stitches on my neck out.
Talked to Jamie Wyeth who said we could go late to the president’s fund-raising thing at the Waldorf. When we got there, there were picketers outside and it was like a bad movie. If you saw it in a movie you wouldn’t believe it. They had sections for gay protest and sections for abortion. And they had a garbage can with abortions in it.
We were up in the balcony. When the president came in he went around and shook every single person’s hand in the whole place and that took a few hours. Ann Landers was kind of nutty-acting. She told me that her daughter had a lot of Warhols and she wishes she’d gotten on the bandwagon early, too. The president made speeches and he had a good writer because the jokes were all good.
“I want my vice-president to be an active one, so if any of you have questions on”—he gave a list—“abortion, gay rights, downtown parking, Northern Ireland, the Concorde … just write him letters and he’ll be happy to clear it up.”
Is that the first time a president has ever said the word “gay"? It may be—because of Anita Bryant.
Andrew Young told me he’d seen me the day before walking along Park Avenue.
Then we left and went down to see Bryan Ferry at the Bottom Line. Then everyone went to Hurrah’s for the party for Bryan Ferry that Jerry Hall was having. Ronnie was there with a date, and Gigi was there with a date, and that was a drama. Ronnie said later that Gigi threw a drink in his face and he swears he hadn’t said or done anything to her, but that then he retaliated by ripping the front of her dress.
Friday, June 24, 1977
Ronnie was drinking heavily at the office all day because he’d been woken up by Gigi at the door with two policemen and a restraining order, something like that. So since he was drinking, he was bossing me around, giving me art ideas, which was good.
Nobody was around the office to go interview Diahnne Abbott except Catherine Guinness, so I went over with her. It wasn’t a good interview, I felt bad about it. It degenerated into me interviewing her little girl of around nine from before she married De Niro, and I take the blame for the bad interview because she’s a friend of Nelson Lyon’s so she must be intelligent, and I just didn’t do a good interview. Dropped Catherine ($4).
Gave Jed $20 for car expenses and he drove us to Montauk. We’re now trying now to rent the place to François de Menil or Earl McGrath.
Sunday, June 26, 1977—Montauk—New York
Sunny. Mr. Winters was thrilled all weekend because we told him he was going to get a new Jeep.
Earl and I discussed the cover of the Rolling Stones album that I’m doing. He wanted me to put some writing on it. I was down by the beach, Vincent was surfing, and there was a guy walking his big dog. I ignored him for a while, and then realized it was Dick Cavett. We talked a while and he was fishing for an invitation so I invited him over for lunch. Peter Beard came over with Margrit Rammè, who was kissing Peter in front of Barbara Allen, his old girlfriend, but the two girls got along okay.
Dick Cavett told a Polish joke—put dots on his hands and then put his hand by his ear— “What’re you doing?” “Listening to the Ink Spots.” And then Margrit told one about the Polish police lineup where the guy rapist steps out of the line and says, “That’s the girl!”
Barbara was upset because Jack Nicholson gave the part she “auditioned” for to an unknown girl who did some New York theater things.
I left early with François. He’s a good fast driver—got us from Montauk to East Hampton in ten minutes. Jann Wenner had John Belushi at his place. Jann gave us a tour of the house. If he’d rented Montauk, he could have had something great, but I guess he and his wife Jane just wanted something “adorable.” I was thinking about an idea all weekend that I got from the Liz and Dick book about doing a love affair between two parallel streets that can never meet. Dylan Thomas had once told Richard Burton he wanted to do that, but then he died. It would be a good thing for me to do, a good art idea.
Philip Niarchos kept calling Barbara from his car all weekend from London. He went to a big ball there, all the rich kids were at it.
Monday, June 27, 1977
Looked through the new issue of Interview. Barbara Allen really hates her cover, she says it makes her look fat. Jann Wenner sent the paintings of Mick back, they must have been too much money for him. Catherine was putting Interview down and we had a fight when I told her she was lazy. Nenna Eberstadt at the office sewed up Valentine’s pants, but then last night they split again, so she didn’t do a good job. I made a mistake of mentioning a lisp Valentine has and he got upset because he said he went to therapy for four years to get rid of it and thought he had.
Tuesday, June 28, 1977
Went down to the office where Interview was having a lunch for the Schenley’s liquor people. I was in and out of the lunch because I was painting with the sponge mop in the back. I haven’t peed on any canvases this week. This is for the Piss paintings. I told Ronnie not to pee when he gets up in the morning—to try to hold it until he gets to the office, because he takes lots of vitamin B so the canvas turns a really pretty color when it’s his piss. Answered a few phone calls myself. A couple of cute kids from Sweden came by. Sent Ronnie for photo supplies ($5.95).
Cabbed to “21” ($5.50). Vincent picked me up. It had just started to rain. Dinner was with Peter Beard and his friend Harry Horn from Kenya. People were streaming upstairs for a dinner that Diane Von Furstenberg was giving for Egon’s birthday. I was surprised when I saw Diane’s mother—she didn’t look Jewish, she was small and blonde. Then Mick in a lime suit came in with Jerry Hall. I thought things were fishy with Mick and Jerry and then the plot started to thicken. Mick was so out of it that I could tell the waiters were scared he’d pass out. His head was so far back and he was singing to himself. The top part of his body was like jelly and the bottom half was tapping 3,000 taps a minute. He was putting his sunglasses on and off. Mick started going after Vincent, but it was just a ruse, because I found out later from Fred he’s really passionately in love with Jerry, and it looks like there’s trouble for Bianca. Jerry was saying, “I really have to go,” and when Peter was going to go with her to get a cab she said, “Oh, that’s all right, Mick will drop me off.”
Then we went next door for a continuing party for Egon, this one given at New York/New York by Diane de Beauvau. Franco Rossellini was there with a big black and blue nose, and you couldn’t see anything but that, but I wanted to be discreet in case somebody had hit him, so I ignored it until Franco said finally, “By the way, have you noticed my nose? My little dog bit me.” He has a dachshund, so I got nervous. He took it to a funeral and the dachshund, Felix, got upset and bit his nose and wouldn’t let go.
Wednesday, June 29, 1977
Worked. Victor came by after his trip to Fire Island. He had some come samples with him and I told him to start coming on the sheets and bring them in and we’d have an exhibit together in Victor’s loft—his Come paintings and my Piss.
Thursday, June 30, 1977
George Mason called and invited me to dinner on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Stan Rumbough was going to the dinner, too, and that got me excited, he’s the young rich Post Toasties son of Dina Merrill. Dina is in A Wedding, the Robert Altman movie that they’re filming in Chicago. It just has a little bit of a storyline. Altman’s doing all the things we tried to do in the late sixties and early seventies.
George Mason picked me up. Stan Rumbough is very
big, about 6’3", and he’s handsome, but he talks like a fairy. I’ve seen him a few times with cheap, sort of Oriental-looking girls. He’s got a high, nelly voice, but I guess he likes beautiful girls—he was disappointed that Candy Bergen cancelled out, he said he’d gone swimming with her when he was seven years old and wanted to see her again.
It was an Armenian-Turkish-African-Arabian-type restaurant. Mashed chickpeas, mashed eggplant, three guys playing music. George had his model girlfriend Maret from Finland there.
Barbara Allen was there. She still just really hates her Interview cover. The man with the new model agency came, he brought about five girls and boys. Valentine was in heaven. The owners came over a lot and took pictures. A nun came over to me to autograph a bottle but my pen didn’t work. She said she’d just gotten out of an operation and that seeing me was the most exciting moment of her life since she won $500 in the church lottery, (laughs) I mean, if these are high points for a nun …
Stan Rumbough seemed to like Barbara and was saying something that sounded like “blow job” a lot and blowing into a bottle. Philip Niarchos is probably not going to marry her, so she should get him worried, or something like that. She should live with him and get more things before he drops her.
Stan says he’s a “photographer.” These rich kids, it’s so funny to hear them sit there and say, “I have a job, oh yes, doing pictures for a catalogue, I work for a man who does catalogues, and this is the second time I’ve been to Brooklyn—the first was yesterday, I came here to pick up some wax fruit to shoot….” I asked him if he wanted to do pictures for Interview. I mean, Dina interviewed herself just to get Stan’s picture of her published. And he said, “I’m in a busy time now, what with the catalogue work….”
Then on to Earl McGrath’s party for the Star Wars people—Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and another girl, but by the time I got to 57th and Seventh they were gone (cab $8).
MacKenzie Phillips asked Vincent, “Got any blow?” Jann Wenner was there and I introduced him to Stan Rumbough, but Stan is so stupid-sounding and I forgot to clue Jann who he was, so Jann probably thought he was just some kid who took pictures of waxed fruit, because that’s all he was talking about again.
Good food. Fran Lebowitz and Marc Balet were there, they may have come with Jerry Hall and Bryan Ferry. Jerry seemed to be back with him.
Earl showed a videotape of the Sex Pistols.
Barbara and Stan and I left together, and when I left them they were still together.
Friday, July 1,1977
Suzie Frankfurt and Jed left early for Montauk in order to spruce it up for the prospective renters.
Victor invited me over to Halston’s house for dinner. Halston had gone to Joe Eula’s for the weekend in upstate New York, and he lets Victor use his house on 63rd Street while he’s away but he never tells him when he’s coming back, just to keep Victor on his toes. So Victor invited lots of people for dinner with me. One of them was Peter Keating, a top male model. His hair is receding, but he didn’t start to get popular until it started to recede, he thinks it’s because this way he doesn’t “pose a threat” to men.
Victor made a chicken. The house was freezing and I was the only one cold because everyone else was taking coke. Halston has a freezer stacked full of vodka, so it’s like drinking liquid oil. I had about four small glasses. Also there were a couple of John Waters people from Baltimore. The one guy who looked like a heavier John Waters said that he was Divine’s roommate. I asked if he and Divine were lovers and he said, “Well, after all these years, you really fall in love with the mind….” Victor said he’d made it with someone in a van in front of Halston’s, because they weren’t sure when Halston was coming back.
Saturday, July 2, 1977
Victor called and said he wanted to take me to dinner in the Village. I picked him up (cab $4). We went into porno magazine stores for research materials for the “landscapes” ($36) and another one where the guy wouldn’t give us a receipt ($17). Bought a “fairy shirt” that has my name on it. It’s just a list of names of people who’re gay all over it like Thoreau, Alexander the Great, Halston, me—but they have Richard Avedon on it. And there was somebody else on it who I’ve never heard was queer, either, but I forget who. Cruised the whole area. The Village was so packed with everybody who couldn’t afford Fire Island. Victor had a “big black number” coming over to his house that he wanted me to photograph as a “landscape,” so we cabbed back ($3.60). Then the big black number called and said he wouldn’t be there for hours, so Victor and I cabbed to Studio 54 ($3). It was filled with beautiful people.
Went back to Halston’s, Halston wasn’t home, waited for the “landscape.” Took pictures when he got there until I ran out of film. When I opened the door it was bright daylight. I was surprised. Home at 7:00.
Sunday, July 3, 1977
The kids called from Montauk, everybody was out there. Jan Cushing, Jackie Rogers, François de Menil and Jennifer Jakobson, Barbara Allen. Mick had moved over from Peter Beard’s and spent time in one of the bedrooms with Barbara.
Walked over to Victor’s-at-Halston’s. I ran into Stevie of Studio 54 on the street. Victor was trying to call his big black number again. Halston came in just as I was leaving, and that was awkward, really awkward.
Victor is my new Ondine, he even uses a TWA flight bag like Ondine used to. But it’s getting kind of too heavy, seeing him so much. He should get his art career going, but he thinks he doesn’t have to have sex with somebody to get ahead. I told him, “You’ve got to fuck your way to the top.” Then I told him the Barbara Rose/Frank Stella Story.
Some blacks recognized me a few times this weekend, and I’m trying to figure out what they recognize so I can somehow sell it to them, whatever it is.
Tuesday, July 5, 1977
Rupert came by. He was wearing a lady’s jumpsuit. Ronnie had told me that Rupert wasn’t gay, that he lived with a girl, so I teased him and said, “What are you wearing that for? Are you a fairy?” and we all fell over when he said, “Yes, I am.” Ronnie’s eyes popped out. Suddenly it all started to make sense—the blond hair poofed up, the walk, the women’s clothes—he was gay!
Victor called. He said that Halston threw him out, accused him of stealing the coke. Victor says Halston keeps most of the coke in the safe but he doesn’t know that Victor can open the safe. He also detected that Victor had had a gang bang because there were greasy handprints on the walls and come on the Ultrasuede.
Wednesday, July 6, 1977
Victor came by the office to loaf. Halston took back the key to his house because of the gang bang. Or maybe it was because he caught me there. We’ll see if he’s mad if he starts sending the paintings back.
Cab ($4) to Elaine’s for dinner with Sharon McCluskey Hammond, and her favorite cousin who she just met for the first time a week ago, Robin Lehman. My ears perked up, because he’s the son of the guy that left the Lehman wing to the Metropolitan Museum.
Steve Aronson said he wanted to look at the menu but Sharon told him, “If you ask for the menu, Elaine charges twice as much.” Steve flashed a wad of money and said, “I can afford to hear the menu. There isn’t a menu in the world I can’t afford to hear.” Sharon said, “Okay, Steven, have it your way. Waiter? The menu.” Later, when Steve and Catherine were leaving, Steve threw $40 on the table. Valentine said oh no, no, that that was too much for two people and that we shouldn’t take it. Then the bill came and it was $148! I hadn’t even had anything to eat. Robin had a steak. Sharon had spaghetti. Steve had spaghetti. And nobody even drank.
Thursday, July 7, 1977
Bob and I cabbed to the Pierre Hotel for the lunch in honor of the empress of Iran. There were demonstrators out front and it was scary, they wore masks, but they were Iranians, you could tell, because their hands were dark. We were special, so we went to shake hands with the empress— the, you know, queen. Governor Carey and Mayor Beame were in the receiving line, and Zahedi.
T
he queen was reading a prepared speech and it was going along okay, and then a woman in a green dress in the press section stood up and screamed, “Lies, lies, you liar!” and they dragged her out. The queen kept on reading her prepared statements and then afterwards apologized to everyone for the noise and demonstrations that were going on because of her. She said that women’s rights in Iran may not seem so much to Americans, but in Iran it was big steps.
Cabbed to meet Ronnie ($2.50) and look at uncut stones for my Diamond paintings. Then cabbed down to the office ($3).
Cabbed up to the Iranian embassy ($2.50). There were no demonstrators out in front. Inside I saw Otto Preminger again and it was the second or third time in a few days, so he asked me what we were going to do tomorrow. I posed for pictures with the queen in front of my portrait of her. She said she was jealous of Hoveyda because he had eight Warhols and she only had four. The queen is taller than me.
Cab to Marina Schiano’s for dinner ($3). Françoise de la Renta was there, she put the Shah down saying he was greedy and awful but she said she liked the queen. She said he had twenty-five mistresses an hour. Suzie Frankfurt was there. Bob was in the bedroom where there was coke. Giorgio Sant’Angelo came in and then Suzie and I were sitting right there and Giorgio says to Bob, “Who is this Suzie Frankfurt?” This is that thing that people on drugs do. It’s just like they do in Hollywood when they don’t like somebody—they talk about them as if they weren’t there. In a way it’s great—if it could only happen more. Marina and Giorgio are the ones who really do it a lot. I said, “Suzie, they’re talking about you!” Bob said to Giorgio, “She’s a good friend of Andy’s, it’s all right.” “But who is she?” Giorgio said. “She’s very rich,” Bob said. This is all with us sitting right there, with Giorgio and Bob acting as if we couldn’t hear. Finally I said, “Oh come on, Bob. You’re talking about people in front of them.”