by Andy Warhol
Then we cabbed back to Halston’s ($3) and when we got there, he was just going to bed. You could see he was really ready to go to bed, he had Linda in his arms and everything. Linda’s his dog. Then Bianca got on the phone and made calls to find out who was where, who was at the Ice Palace, who was at Elaine’s, and then we went up to Elaine’s (cab $2.75).
After the show Liza’s group had gone to “21,” and Bianca was calling there leaving messages about I guess coke—calling it “the book.” Like, “I haven’t got the book for her yet.”
Halston hadn’t dressed Bianca before she went out so she looked really awful when we went to the theater, but nobody had wanted to tell her. But when we got back to Halston’s he finally told her how terrible she looked. He had her take off the turban and put on dark lipstick, and then she looked good. But then she realized how bad she’d looked for the photographers at the theater. Jade was wearing a long dress.
Then Peter Beard came in with a guy who had a beautiful glove on and a bottle of coke in the other hand, and then later he showed us his hand which was a stump, it looked like in the movies when they show the fiendish ghoul—he lost it in a plane crash, his third plane crash, a DC-10 that he owns. He passed the bottle of coke around (dinner $130.38, tip $20).
Then we went to the Ice Palace (cab $3) and it wasn’t so crowded, just a few hustlers, and then around 3:00 Jed and I slipped out.
Tuesday, January 10, 1978
I walked over to Halston’s and when I got there Jane Rose, Mick’s secretary, was there and she was calling Mick so that he could sing to Jade before bedtime. Then we tried to get Fred on the line but it was busy for four hours. I wanted him to come out with us because I wanted to be able to duck out early.
Bianca was telling her side of the marriage story. At first she was saying that she never cheated on Mick, but then she said he was splitting from her because she had so many affairs—she had one with some guy named Llewellyn and now she’s having one with Mark Shand. But she said she never flaunted it publicly. She told me that she wanted to be somebody on her own, and that she’d always wanted to make it on her own so that (laughs) she could buy any waiter. She said she’s giving Mick his divorce and I told her that they shouldn’t break up. She said she and Mick hit rock bottom, that she can’t go to bed with him because she just doesn’t think he’s attractive. And she said Mick was “rude,” putting her down recently, she said she’s never put him down. She said she couldn’t be “free”—like a free spirit—with Mick because of who he was, and she was a nobody. And she talked about her trip to Hollywood coming up and she talked in that lub-luh-luh voice about her “role” in this movie with Tony Curtis and Lionel Stander and Gloria Grahame. She said they were rewriting the part for her, that she’d told them certain things she wanted. It takes place in Costa Rica. And she’s scared because “the Critics are waiting to tear me down.” And I don’t know if she can do it. I mean, she tells me she can dance, too, and then last night I made a point to watch her and she’s no Rita Hayworth, she’s no Rita Hayworth.
She was happy because the Daily News finally ran the pictures of her with Liza and Jackie O. from the night before at The Act in it (cab to Studio 54 $3.50).
I’d given some beads to Jade earlier, and Bianca was saying that now this breakup is taking its toll on Jade, but Jade looks okay to me. Bianca is such a tease, she’s always going after guys and getting them all excited, giving them her phone number and then when they call not doing anything.
Wednesday, January 11, 1978
Paulette called a few times to say not to be late. I dropped off Catherine and Fred ($5) and picked her up at the Ritz Towers at 8:15 (cab $1.50). I asked her where the new Halston she bought was, and she said, “I brought it back, it made me look too fat.” She was wearing the dress that looks good on her, the YSL, and she had on her rubies, about a million dollars around her neck—I know, because I saw a stone like that that wasn’t even as good and it was a million.
We drove to the Waldorf Towers and the driver went around the other way to avoid the anti-Iranian demonstrators. Some creep asked us what I thought about the torture in Iran and Paulette said, “Listen, Valerian Rybar is torturing me here in New York.” He’s still decorating her apartment, she was complaining that it’s been a year.
The du Pont lady and Paul Jenkins were there, they’d just stepped off the Concorde. “Suzy” was there, and her apartment is also being done by Valerian Rybar and she told Paulette not to take it personally—that he’d been doing her place for two and a half years. I told “Suzy” I loved her column that day because there was so much dirt in it about Mick and Bianca, and how Mick has left Jerry Hall, and about Liza and Baryshnikov and Scorsese. Hoveyda and Zahedi were there, Barbara Walters was there with Roone Arledge. I was so excited to meet Roone, we talked about Art Buchwald. And Mayor Koch was there with Bess Myerson, and she’s really tall and handsome and he’s about the same height. And Governor Carey walked by and I said hello to him a couple of times but he didn’t say anything, he was with the Ford girl. And Beverly Sills was there, she’s tall, too. This was a thing for “artists” and tomorrow the queen is opening an Iranian exhibit at Asia House. Shirley MacLaine said hello to me a few times. And Mollie Parnis was there, and Jerzy Kosinski.
Then they started the speeches. Zahedi, then the—empress, the queen. Then Koch, then Carey, then Kissinger—and he talked for almost forty-five minutes, so long-winded. They flew in violets for the ladies, and the caviar was called Pearls of the Caspian Sea and Paulette had about a pound. It was white and not too salty. The violinist from Lester Lanin asked for Paulette’s autograph. Paulette wanted to leave so we did and she said she’d go out of her way to drop me at the door, it was so cold. I mean, you know it’s cold when Paulette gets considerate.
Thursday, January 12, 1978
Interviewed Lucie Arnaz at Quo Vadis, and it was nothing really startling. She’s so tall, she eats everything, she’s a little fat and she was wearing jeans so she looked fatter, but she has a beautiful face. We brought up Jim Bailey the female impersonator and Burt Reynolds. She dated both of them. She said Burt was sweet and devoted. These girls are brought up strict, they think you shouldn’t put out.
Went uptown ($6) to pick Catherine up at 7:50 and walked over to the Copa for the Bette Midler opening that Mica Ertegun sent tickets for. Ron Galella was there and he had his own camera crew—a TV thing was being done on him. It was the same Mafia-type people at the Copa like when we had our party there last year. Richard Turley was standing in the doorway and he asked if he could try to slip in with me, and I didn’t know what to say, I said he could do whatever he wanted to but that it was Mafia and that he’d never make it, and he didn’t. Chessy Rayner was there, and Peter Tufo and Lee Radziwill were there together but she was at a different table from him, and I’ll get to that in a second.
I couldn’t see anything, just the top two inches of Bette’s head when she finally came out. And Catherine was sitting so that she faced Peter Tufo and pretty soon I felt his leg rubbing against mine and I guess he thought it was Catherine. They were really flirting hot and heavy, and he said to her, “Why don’t you get up on the table and boogie?” and I was surprised because he’s usually so sour. He was yelling things like (laughs) “Colored sounds!” at the black girls singing.
I kept hitting Catherine to turn around and look at the show, but she was telling about going to Plato’s Retreat the night before. She said she didn’t know if she’d been penetrated or not while she was there, and hearing this got Peter Tufo hotter, and she spilled a drink on his pants, but that just made him hotter, too, and he slipped her a note that I found out later said just “When?” and all I could think was that it was a repeat of our friend Barbara Allen taking Peter Beard away from Lee, and now here our friend Catherine was stealing Peter Tufo.
I just wanted to run out, it’s a firetrap there, I hate to be in places like that. And then everybody left, Catherine went back inside to get the “
When?” note and we got separated, and she went over to Quo Vadis in the Erteguns’ limo, and I walked over and when I was walking in Lee and Peter Tufo were fighting, but Lee stopped fighting to wish me Happy New Year with a kiss. We were at Ahmet’s table. Dinner was a little pigeon. Lee left first and I thought Peter Tufo would stay for Catherine, but he left with Lee, so Catherine was safe. And Ahmet was loading up with cognac and being funny. And afterwards we were all invited up to the Cotton Club, which they were reopening with Cab Calloway in Harlem, and Catherine and Mica and Ahmet wanted to go, but I don’t think anybody else really did. I walked Catherine home, and it was early.
Also today, got back my photographs of Edwige cutting her wrists at Victor’s party the other night, and Victor said that her scars would be punk jewelry.
And Bob met today with the Rums of Puerto Rico guy from Kenyon & Eckhardt and the guy who’s from something like the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, and they want to have a party at the office to unveil the Liza portrait I’m doing because Liza’s endorsing Rums of Puerto Rico, and so they’re giving Interview three months of rum ads. They’re trying to get Burt Reynolds for this campaign, and I’d be doing his portrait, too, but the two people he wants to be in the ad with him, the agency didn’t think they were “cosmetically right.” So Bob called Burt’s manager in L.A. and had to ask if they could submit some other possibilities, and the manager said, “Listen, Burt’s endorsement is worth a million dollars and he’s only even considering it because he wants a Warhol portrait, and if Burt sent a midget and a dwarf over to be in the ad with him, Rums of Puerto Rico and their ad agency should be thrilled.” And Bob said the people Burt wants aren’t even bad-looking anyway.
Friday, January 13, 1978
Lunch for Bloomingdale’s at the office. It was a big thing that Mr. Traub himself came down. And Cal, the friend of Robert Hayes’s who was at Bonwit’s and gave us ads there, is now at Bloomingdale’s. Bob gave a big impressive speech about Interview, and then he turned to Carole Rogers, Interview’s associate publisher, and said, “Carole, could you give us some statistics, please?” waiting for her to reinforce the figures that he’d given—that Interview’s circulation is 80,000 and that 20 percent of that is subscriptions—but instead she said, “Our subscriptions are 7,000,” and everyone turned red and gasped, and Bob couldn’t believe it. Afterwards Cal called and said that was the first thing Mr. Traub brought up in the car after they left, so that might have blown it, but they’ll give Interview something because they do think it reaches the right people. All the Bloomingdale’s people were in blue suits.
Saturday, January 14, 1978
Went to a screening of The Leopard that Suzie Frankfurt was having at her house. Victor was there with a really good-looking little seventeen-year-old high school kid from New Jersey, all-American Happy Days type of good looks, and I was thinking how can he come to New York and do things like meet me, and know Victor, and go to the Ramrod and come to Suzie’s for a screening of The Leopard, and then go back and sit all day in high school.
Monday, January 16, 1978
We found out Andrea Portago is marrying Mick Flick this weekend in Switzerland. And then Barbara Allen came by with Lacey Neuhaus. Barbara was just back from Acapulco, and she was very tanned. When she heard the news about Mick Flick and Andrea, she tried not to look shocked—she recovered in a second and said, “I only had one date with him and he was so boring that I left before the espresso.”
At around 4:00 Margaret Trudeau arrived, and Marc Balet and Robert Hayes took her to be photographed. Arranged to meet her at 9:00 at Quo Vadis. Worked until around 8:00, then dropped off Catherine (cab $4).
Went home, glued, and then walked over to Quo Vadis to meet Bob and Margaret Trudeau. She did a really great interview. She had five margaritas. Her family sounds like Viva’s, she has a lot of sisters, too, but then she’s more intelligent and more beautiful than Viva and her family, because she’s not so crazy. She hitchhiked in 1969 in Morocco. And she had us turn off the tape and she told us that she sat next to Nixon at dinner and he didn’t talk to her the whole time until he turned around and told her about the sex life of a panda, and that was it.
Margaret was wearing a new designer’s dress. She said she was just on the list of the worst-dressed women in the world. She told us that wherever she goes, no matter who else is around, the photographers always go after her and keep snapping. Then we went over to Studio 54 for Scavullo’s birthday party and it was true (cab $3.25). Margaret was dancing and the cameramen went crazy. Stevie had said there would only be one photographer, but there were twenty to fifty. When they brought in the birthday cake, which was in the shape of a camera for Scavullo, they didn’t even notice the cake—they were still going after Margaret.
Tuesday, January 17, 1978
We went to the Vincis’ dinner for Lina Wertmuller at the Italian embassy. She coughed all over me and then said she was just getting over the flu. But I found that lady Cappy Badrutt and she was fun—I really like her, she’s so beautiful, like an elegant courtesan. She told me about some of her affairs. When I left Bob stayed on so Fred dropped me off.
Wednesday, January 18, 1978
John Chamberlain and his new wife Lorraine came to the office for lunch. She’s really pretty, a lot younger than he is. He said he was tired of living in lofts—he’s looking for a small apartment in the Dakota. He’s still doing the same sculpture things, but they still look great—the car crashes—and people are still buying them. I did some photographs of him and his wife.
Thursday, January 19, 1978
Went to the auction of Joan Crawford’s costume jewelry. Saw PH there bidding on a huge pink necklace and when it went over her limit she dropped out, but then I bid some more and got it and gave it to her. She was so grateful she took me down to the Village to Sixth Avenue near Waverly and showed me a secret store she’d discovered on the second floor where a man sells all the Diors and Balenciagas that belonged to his sister who’s now dead. It was the greatest place and I bought about five dresses. Everything there is size 14, though, because the sister was fat. The store is called Fabulous Fashions, and it has hats and handbags and umbrellas, too, and it’s all cheap.
I went home to change for dinner, but I forgot that Sandra Payson—you know, Lady Weidenfeld—had told me it was black tie. So I glued myself and went over there. Cabbed to Sutton Place ($2.25). It was a small dinner party and when I saw I was the only one not in black tie, that’s when I remembered that she had mentioned it. When they saw how bad I looked everybody ran away from me and they didn’t come back until they were drunk. I was trying to make it better with conversation, so I just started telling them about how I was buying lots of dresses now, and they just backed away. And Mrs. Payson invited me, I think, because she wanted a painting, but she never mentioned a thing about it so I guess she was so shocked by my clothes that she decided against it.
The party was for a ballerina whose name I forget, but who was the big ballerina at the same time Margot Fonteyn was—not a Russian, though. She told me about every cat she’d ever had and how each one died. She had a Siamese who jumped onto a ledge and then fell five stories, and she said she could still see the claw marks that it left on the ledge, and that was sad—it tried to turn around and it slipped.
Friday, January 20, 1978
This was the morning of the big blizzard that had started the evening before. Biggest snowstorm since ‘69.
Down at the office I looked out the window and for about an hour a black man was trying to get his car unstuck. He went down into the subway and came back with a shovel and he tried to dig himself out, and whenever he’d get back into the car to try it he’d take the shovel inside with him—I guess so it wouldn’t get stolen. After an hour, a bigger Negro guy with a bigger shovel walked by but he didn’t help him. McDonald’s closed early. Chemical Bank closed at 1:00.
Saturday, January 21, 1978
Cabbed over to Studio 54, and then when we got there,
the place was packed. Ken Norton was there. It was jumping for a snowy night, Stevie couldn’t believe that so many people came out in the blizzard for it, he was turning away people at the door as usual. Then we wanted to go down to a place called Christy’s Restaurant on West 11th Street where there was a Saturday Night Live party for Steve Martin. We went outside to try to get a cab but we couldn’t. Then along came a white guy and a black girl in a car who offered us a ride anywhere we wanted to go, and we took it. They said that Stevie wouldn’t let them in to Studio 54 because they didn’t look right, but they looked okay to me—I mean, he looked like a fairy and she looked like a drag queen, it was the Studio 54 look. As we were going along Catherine looked out the window and said wasn’t that Lou Reed on the street, and it was. He was with a Chinese chick, and they got in and he was very friendly. When we got to Christy’s, Steve Martin was great, he seemed thrilled to meet me.
Sunday, January 22, 1978
Sam Beard was giving a fortieth birthday party for his brother Peter in his apartment on 92nd and Park. It was an exciting party. Jackie O. and Caroline were there. Caroline asked me what I thought of totalitarianism and I couldn’t pronounce it so I tried to joke about it and she said, “No, I’m serious.” Mary Hemingway was there, and Jonas Mekas filmed her being a lion attacking Peter Beard.
Fred was there with Lacey Neuhaus and Stevie Rubell was there. Victor arrived in a torn T-shirt with spurs on his arms, with a present for Peter—it was something that looked like he might have found in the street or maybe used in Halston’s display window, like a part of a machine. And he had a present for me, too—a used jockstrap. It was great. Barbara Allen was there with Philip Niarchos, he’s in town. Ronnie and Gigi and Walter Steding were also there, and Jennifer Jakobson who doesn’t seem to be with François de Menil anymore. And Steve Aronson. He’s a real charmer, he speaks so beautifully and wears those great clothes. Peter was very happy because all of his old girlfriends were in one room.