The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Thursday, September 1, 1977

  Went to the eye doctor and tried about another fifteen pairs of soft contact lenses. Finally a pair that was very very thin, the thinnest, felt the best.

  Sunday, September 4, 1977—Paris

  Got up late and went back to sleep and I still wasn’t ready when Fred was ready to go at 1:00. Taxi to YSL’s for lunch. Fred had to lie and say that I was a cripple so that the driver would take us such a short distance. The driver looked me over and said, “Yes, I can see that” ($2).

  Pierre showed us his birthday present to Yves: a sixteenth-century vermilion lion with ruby eyes. Yves also had on a lion ring. I taped the entire lunch. They spoke a lot of French so we stared around a lot. After lunch we went to the garden and the dogs were let out and Pierre played with them. He told us that he uses a cock ring. Pierre said that they were putting silicone in cocks now so that they stayed hard all of the time. Yves said he hoped everyone would do it so he could design new pants.

  Tuesday, September 6, 1977—Paris

  Went to Castel’s for dinner. As we were going upstairs Fred noticed that Joe Dallesandro was there so he went down to ask him to come up and join us but Joe said no and that began to bother Fred. So then Fred began drinking champagne. Lots of people there—Caroline of Monaco’s fiancé Philippe Junot, Florence Grinda’s brother, and Pam Sakowitz who’s getting divorced. Fred kissed her hand. Then Fred had an argument with a waiter about the fish forks. I asked Fred why he was so upset, if that meant he’d had an affair with Joe, and he didn’t answer me. We learned more about Fred with every new champagne bottle. Then he decided to go and make Joe come up. Joe looked so dirty, his teeth were so dirty, like licorice. He talked loud, said he drinks a bottle of bourbon a day. He’s making a movie with Maria Schneider—they’re playing zombies. He put down his girlfriend Stefania Cassini who left him. Said that he bought her $5,000 necklaces that she’d hide in the safe and then go run around Rome calling herself a Communist. Now he’s having affairs with boys and girls—just anybody, he said. He asked us to join him downstairs because he had a table. We said that we’d be down. Later he came back and screamed that they were taking away his table so we should hurry up. He had some rich illustrator paying for it all. Joe started dancing with two black guys, and Fred was getting drunker and started dancing with them, too. I got so embarrassed that I left.

  Wednesday, September 7, 1977—Paris

  Phone rang. It was Paloma for Fred but he wasn’t in his bed. Decided that I couldn’t worry about him anymore. Paloma had a lunch date with him and said that she’d call back. About 1:00 he arrived and she called back so we all got ready to go meet her. Cabbed to Angelina’s ($2). Paloma was wearing all red YSL. Talked about old romances and old happenings out of the past. Paloma picked up the check.

  Friday, September 9, 1977—Paris

  Bob got Liza Minnelli to do an endorsement in the Puerto Rican rum ad that’ll run in Interview and he’s now working on Jack Nicholson.

  Someone called New York—found out that Bella Abzug lost, Cuomo won.

  Monday, September 12, 1977—Paris—Venice

  The Air France flight to Venice took two hours and we took a boat taxi to the Danielli ($20). Checked in and then we went out for lunch at La Colomba ($25). Went by Autillo Codognato’s jewelry shop. He’s working on my show here with Doug Christmas. Ran into Nan Kempner. The show is Friday but the paintings are still in customs in Rome. While we were on the launch we saw Graham Sutherland signing prints.

  Tuesday, September 13, 1977—Venice

  We had breakfast and then moved to another hotel where we had a pretty room with a balcony and I liked it better (tips $10, cab $10). Autillo had invited us all to lunch at Harry’s Bar. Had chicken with peppers and listened to Doug and Autillo talk about the customs problems still. They’re going to call the ambassador in Rome to try to speed things up.

  Wednesday, September 14, 1977—Venice

  There was a storm in the night but woke up to a beautiful day. We were supposed to visit Peggy Guggenheim’s collection so we started moving. In the lobby there was a photographer who began to take pictures of me and continued all during the trip back across the Laguna. Doug then took us to II Prisione where my show would be. It’s not a prison, it was a fancy men’s club, it’s next to the Doge’s Palace. It’s a good space with high ceilings but not too big. The white board for hanging went all around the wall but Doug wanted to paint it flesh-colored. The man in charge there took us up to the roof to show us a big cloth banner that said ANDY WARHOL and the dates of the show, 16 September-8 October. There was another one in San Marco Square under the clock and another one on the way towards Accademia. Jed photographed them.

  At Peggy’s we looked around at everything. John Hornsbee, the curator, asked Peggy if she wanted to receive us and she said no. She’s sick. And we didn’t really want to see her anyway.

  Thursday, September 15, 1977—Venice

  At 4:00 I had to go over to the prison to sign some posters in advance. Some high school art teacher from San Francisco had left a can of Campbell’s for me to sign for him.

  Jed and I went to the paper store to try and find some office gifts. We picked out some good designs of Venetian handprinted paper ($60). Went home to rest up. Thomas Ammann arrived from Zurich.

  Friday, September 16, 1977—Venice

  Jed and I got up and did some sightseeing and some more last-minute office shopping (gifts $29, $49, $39). We all met for lunch at Cipriani and Doug didn’t seem at all nervous even though the pictures hadn’t arrived yet. After lunch I went over to check and they’d finally arrived. The flesh color was a little off on the walls but it looked all right anyway. They all started to work. The Italian workers had already started hanging the paintings. Doug’s assistant, Hilary, told me the workers were surprised when they saw that my paintings were closeups of naked bodies and I guess they didn’t think that was good art because they started to make jokes and compare the cocks with their own and they didn’t do much work. She said that she and Doug had to do most of the work themselves. If Italians laugh at you and lose respect, you can’t get work out of them—that was the trouble Paul Morrissey had in Rome when he was shooting Frankenstein and Dracula—I guess the crew decided he didn’t know what he was doing, because they’d just stand around and sort of snicker.

  We went back to the hotel to rest. Then went to the show at about 7:30. After an hour or so we went to Florian’s for a drink and everyone took photos. Then went to Autillo’s apartment on the second floor of a big palazzo on the Grand Canal. The big hall was all set with tables for 100 people. Autillo showed us his collection. He had my Flowers and Jackies and lots of good art.

  At dinner I was beginning to feel my chair slip out from under me and was holding on to the table when a waiter told me I should change chairs. But I guess he put the bad chair at another table because in a few minutes I heard a crash and saw a white-haired man getting up from the floor.

  After coffee we drifted around a little and looked at the collection some more. I was getting tired and was ready to go but it was by then pouring rain. Fred was drunk and he was very quiet. We waited downstairs for the boat taxis. They didn’t come right away so we decided to walk. We held our coats tight around us. Fred slipped once but we got him home all right. Right after I got in bed I felt the entire building move.

  Saturday, September 17, 1977—Venice—New York

  I told Jed that there’d been an earthquake the night before and he said it had just been the wind, but when the floor shifts and everything starts to slide you know it’s an earthquake. It turned out it was—Autillo said a painting fell at his house.

  Got a speedboat taxi to the airport, zipping over the waves ($25 plus $5 tip). At the airport ran into Johnny Nicholson of the Café Nicholson. Bought magazines ($10). On the plane I found a good review of Bad—twenty-five movies opened in Paris this week and Bad was the one getting all the publicity, they’re saying it’s the first �
�punk” movie. They’re calling me the Queen of Punk.

  Sunday, September 18, 1977

  My opening at the Folk Art Museum is tomorrow night. Everybody who’s been giving me freebies all over town now expects to be invited to this, but it’s so embarrassing because the museum isn’t giving me any free tickets, it’s a $100 benefit. It’s just so horrible, these people let you in free all over town and you can’t even invite them. I just kept telling them that it isn’t anything and that it’s going to be boring. Which it is.

  Monday, September 19, 1977

  Went to see Dr. Poster (cab $2.50) because when I plugged in my contact lens cleaning machine in Paris it was the wrong voltage and it blew out.

  Richard Weisman was coming to the office at 2:30. When he arrived he said I had to go to Columbus tomorrow to take pictures of Jack Nicklaus. Richard and Fred had a meeting about the series of sports-star portraits Richard commissioned, and I wished I’d stayed in the meeting longer because after I left they decided there would be the show in December of the ten Athletes portraits we finally settle on to exhibit and I think January would be much better.

  Chris Makos came by and gave me a copy of White Trash, his book of photos, and it looked good, he did a good job.

  Left the office early. Doc Cox said he was picking me up in his Rolls Royce and I cringed, because I just hate to be seen in that car. But he arrived in a cab and I was secretly thrilled when he told me the Rolls had broken down. But I changed my mind when we arrived at the Folk Art Museum because there were photographers all over and actually, for once, the car would have been a big hit because just getting out of a crummy taxi was a bomb.

  Ultra Violet was there and now, thinking about it, she must have had a facelift. She looked like the first day I met her, really great. Really really great. She was wearing a dress with gold coins pinned to it and she was selling them. She already sold the good American ones. I think she got the idea of owning gold coins from me in the days when she thought that whatever I did must be really smart.

  We went over to the Four Seasons. There were cocktails in the lobby before dinner. I was seated in between Sandra Weidenfeld and Estée Lauder. Estée was really nice, she’d put perfume on the table for free samples. Peter Duchin’s orchestra was playing.

  Marina Schiano didn’t like the end of the table she was at—she was upset she wasn’t with Fred, Diana Vreeland, and Diane de Beauvau—and she said that for $100 she should be able to sit next to her husband, Mr. Hughes. [Marina was married to Fred Hughes for a few years although they maintained separate residences.] She went over to Bob who was at another table having a miserable time, and told him that she was going home—this is 10:15—and to pick her up for the Studio 54 party in about an hour. She said that she could have been out with Marvin Gaye instead of at this thing.

  Doc Cox was really drunk, drooling over Bob’s Kevin. Kevin Farley. I signed things for people and felt bad because they were my friends and I went blank and couldn’t remember their names—people I’d known for twenty years who gave me my first job.

  And then afterwards Alana Hamilton was giving a birthday party for Mick Flick at Studio 54. I was so happy to go to a big fun party after that horrible dinner (cab $2.50).

  Peter Beard was at Studio 54 and for the first time I saw him so drunk that his words were slurring. He told me he was glad after the Montauk fire burned his mill-house down that he wouldn’t be doing diaries anymore, that he was actually relieved they’d all been destroyed. I told him not to be relieved, that he had to do more. Sterling St. Jacques was there, he said he has a part in The Wiz—he and Pat Cleveland have broken up. He brought me over to Shirley Bassey and she seemed thrilled to meet me.

  Stevie Rubell was nice to me and kept bringing me vodkas, but the vodka there is the cheapest and I hide it. But when Bob came over it was just what he drinks so I gave it to him, but Kevin shook his finger and said that it was a “no-no”—he doesn’t want Bob to drink. It’s so sick, Bob letting himself be henpecked.

  Tuesday, September 20, 1977

  Watched Stanley Siegel. Brooke Shields didn’t show up so he did a live telephone interview with Sophia Loren, who’s in town at the Pierre. Her English is good now. But you know, seeing her on TV this morning, she’s just … trashy. She said she wouldn’t let her daughter be in a movie like Brooke Shields’s Pretty Baby, and I mean didn’t she just fuck her way to the top? Who’s she kidding? She’s so pretentious. I’m supposed to see her on Thursday. Oh, and Monday afternoon at the office I stood there and listened to an unbelievable conversation—Vincent on the phone with our lawyer discussing if I should serve a summons on Sophia Loren when I went to have dinner with her! This is for the lawsuit we’re bringing against her husband Carlo Ponti, who produced Frankenstein and Dracula [see Introduction]. They were completely serious. Now see, it wouldn’t be direct—there would be this little man with me and when Sophia opened the door, the little man would slap her with the summons. Then she and I would have dinner as if nothing happened. This is what they were working out for me! I just watched Vincent’s end of the discussion on the phone and my mouth was open.

  Catherine said we had to go to the screening of the Sophia Loren movie since it was especially for us because were going to interview her. Cabbed to 1600 Broadway ($2.60).

  It looked like a 1950s Italian movie. Beautiful settings. Sophia is a housewife with cute fat Italian kids, and on a day when Hitler’s in Italy, the whole building goes to his parade. Her bird that talks gets away and she’s intrigued by Marcello Mastroianni, the man across the way. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up he was telling her that he was a fairy and he couldn’t get it up for women. Then I fell asleep again. When I woke up she was on top of him and they were making it but they had their clothes on. It was all mostly in one room. Then she’s home and everybody comes back from the parade and she sees the light go out across the way and two guys have come to take him away and send him to, you know, Fire Island or someplace because that’s where they sent his boyfriend.

  Wednesday, September 21, 1977—New York—Columbus

  On the plane Richard Weisman said that Vitas Gerulaitis had just been to Columbus and staked out the best motel and the best girls to call.

  As soon as we landed Richard called the girls’ number and they arranged to meet at midnight in Richard’s room. Then we went to the motel Vitas said to. It was almost a dump but it was okay, like every other motel, like being at a Holiday Inn, with a pool and everything.

  As soon as we checked in there, we went to another motel, the one that Jack Nicklaus owned, to meet him.

  We waited while he talked on the phone. He looked fat, but Richard said that he was once 280 and was now down to 180. He was very suntanned, but his eyes, around them, were white where his sunglasses were, and his hands were tiny and white, he wears gloves on the course. His hair was blond, and he said something about needing a haircut, but I had the feeling that his hair was just the way it always looked, puffed just-so over the ears, like it was “coifed.”

  I started taking pictures but none of them were coming out good. It’s so hard taking pictures of suntanned people because they come out so red. He was being friendly and Richard was trying to be friendly but somehow the situation was strained, he didn’t understand what was going on. And I had my tape recorder with me and was taping, but when I sort of realized that he wouldn’t understand that, I just quietly shut it off. Richard’s secretary Claudia showed him pictures I’d done of Tom Seaver, Muhammad Ali, and Pelé, but he still didn’t really understand why we were there taking pictures of him. Richard had sent him a book showing my paintings but he didn’t understand the style.

  And then he got another phone call, and we were getting nervous and I took some more pictures and he didn’t like any and we didn’t like any. Not getting good pictures made things more and more awkward and finally he said, “Well, you know what you want—you don’t tell me how to tee off on the green,” and I felt more uncomfortable and everyone
just wished we could leave. Then finally he liked one but it was just nothing, a front shot, and I didn’t see any difference between the rest of them and that one, but he said he didn’t want to be looking—what’s the word? It’s like cocky, but it’s a short word—he didn’t want to look like that, and he thought this one made him look like a nice person. He talked about his wife and his kids.

  Forgot to say that when I was taking the pictures, there wasn’t a golf club around, they were all down on the course. He went around to some of the offices asking if anyone had clubs and finally came back with some that he said were just like his, and I didn’t know that golf clubs have hats on them with drawstrings.

  We ran out and dished the whole thing in the car and that’s when it suddenly occurred to me that he actually had looked like he might be lonely and maybe we should have invited him out with us, but he hadn’t suggested anything himself, and nobody just knew what to do, so nothing happened. We looked around for a place to have dinner. Fred and I wanted to go back to New York right after taking the pictures but the only flight out went to Atlanta first.

  We saw a building with about twenty floors and there was a restaurant at the top that moved around in a circle. We decided not to go to that, and then decided that we would go there after all. It had some name like River House. It was next to a Howard Johnson’s. We went up in the elevator and sat down in the restaurant, and it began to revolve. There were ladies there playing harps.