The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  But still, today, if somebody said, “We have to do this to the Puerto Ricans,” I mean, could you do it? You couldn’t. So how did they do it? I mean, think of some German you actually know: could they do it, or … But if you do it once, you can do it again and again, that’s for sure. So after they did one, I guess it was easy.

  Monday, April 17, 1978

  Closed up early because we had to go see Tom Cashin open in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the musical down on Second Avenue and 13th Street (cab to theater $2.30). I had to pay for the tickets, they weren’t free ($23). Tom’s number was right before intermission and he was good, he was cute. He got a big hand. I got out at 8:00.

  Then I stuck on a black tie with my bluejeans and rushed over to Lee Thaw’s. It turned out I was early, and then a little later when Bob and Fred came, they were making excuses for me, that I’d be late, before they realized that I was already there. This was a dinner for the Van der Kemps from Versailles, and the Herrings from Houston were there and Mary McFadden and Tammy Grimes. I made a faux pas and said to Tammy, “You’re wearing one of Mary’s dresses,” and she said, “No, a Fortuny.” I said Mary’s name first because the last time I said to someone, “Oh you’re wearing a Fortuny,” the person said, “No, it was a Mary McFadden.” Then Mary showed me the difference—hers had a machine-stitched hem and the Fortuny’s hem was hand-stitched.

  And then there was a party at Hurrah’s for Tom’s play so we were going to go there, but we stopped at Studio 54 for a minute (cab $3). And when we were there Halston tapped me and said that Liza and Baryshnikov were there and wanted to go right then to see the portrait of Liza. So we went to the Olympic Tower, and they loved the paintings. They did look great. Baryshnikov talked about them for hours. And Baryshnikov told me that his mother when he was eight was getting him interested in art and music and makeup and dress designing, and he had Harper’s Bazaar around and knew about the art director Brodovich…. I don’t know what city in Russia, it must have been a big one. And I brought up Chrissy Berlin who was the one who actually helped him defect, and he said that she was just someone he liked for a minute, that he only likes every girl for a minute. He said his first love was Makarova—she left her husband for him, and then changed her mind and went back, and last year when she got married again he went to her wedding in San Francisco and he didn’t feel a thing. He was the best man, she married some rich guy.

  Tuesday, April 18, 1978

  I finally got a BMW painted, black with pink roll-on flowers. Maybe they’ll read meaning into it. I hope so.

  Some kids from Alabama brought me up some of the Space Dust candy that was on the front page of the Post today. It explodes and crackles inside your mouth.

  I talked to a lady who said she goes to hospitals and makes flower arrangements for cancer patients, and I told her I’d like to, too. I wouldn’t like to, though. I was going to ask her wasn’t she afraid she’d catch cancer, but I don’t know, maybe a little bit of flowers does make a dif— Oh, I don’t know. Flowers wouldn’t make me feel better if I were a patient. Only that you’d know that on a certain day a person was coming in to do the flower. Isn’t it funny that they can cure diseases and still not know what causes them? Like they cured polio, but they still don’t know how you get it. And all those kids dying in New Jersey of cancer. I guess it’s the water.

  Wednesday, April 19, 1978

  Called John Reinhold and he invited me to lunch. Went out in the rain and got a cab ($2.50) to 46th and Fifth. I went upstairs and looked at stones, he’s teaching me all about them. He said that he never buys hot stones or cheap stones, that he just waits for the good things and pays the price. We walked over to Pearls in the rain for lunch, and it was fun. On the way in we saw Corice Arman waiting for Arman who was parking the car. John and I talked about Holocaust and I always thought that John was born in Europe because he has sort of an accent, but he was born in the U.S., I guess he needs the accent for the diamond business. Pearl made a good lunch, we had whiskey. John had a kid staying with him and his wife who—he’d reminded me of René Ricard when I met him—I said was a creep, and then I had to explain how when I say “creep” it doesn’t mean that I don’t like them, and that took an hour. After work I had to leave for Eleanor Lambert’s cocktail party for Bernadine Morris, the New York Times fashion writer who’s done a photograph book with a girl photographer on fashion.

  I was talking to Calvin Klein and he said he was going on vacation and I said where, and he said, “And I’m not telling anyone, and just alone alone alone, absolutely no one, and it’ll be so wonderful.” And then I went across the room and Giorgio Sant’Angelo was saying the same thing, that he was going for two weeks alone alone alone to the Greek islands and I said, “Are you sure you’re not going with Calvin Klein?” and he said, “Oh, you know everything,” and I said no, that I’d just put two and two together.

  And Diane Von Furstenberg was there and she lives in Eleanor Lambert’s building so she invited Bob and me down for dinner and to watch Holocaust. So we went down and Diane’s mother was there, and Marina Cicogna. Diane’s mother had been in Auschwitz, and when the concentration camps came on she was laughing—she said that they made it so much more glamorous than it was when she was there, that all the women had crewcuts and it was a lot more crowded, that where the movie had 20 people there were really 300,000. And it was weird to be seeing this with Marina Cicogna whose family was so involved with Mussolini. Before it was over, Diane was ready to go out, she was calling for a limousine.

  Friday, April 21, 1978

  Milton Greene was at lunch at the office and he said that I’d given him the idea to do a Marilyn Monroe portfolio, so he’s selling ten photographs of her for $3,800. Fred told him he thought that was high, but he said he’s already sold a few to museums. But I don’t know, the photographs aren’t even that good. And it seems like they were all taken in the same sitting. He and Marilyn had that company together, they did The Prince and the Showgirl. I know Milton because he and Joe Eula were the nicest to me on the first day I came to New York—he and Joe were close for years but then later Milton married Amy. Somebody had given me their names, to look them up, and I did and they told me I could use their phone and everything, but I never took them up on it because (laughs) they were so nice it scared me.

  And Matt Collins the big male model came by. He’s so good-looking, and Brigid got a kiss out of him. And Margaret Trudeau was there and said she’ll do the Rums of Puerto Rico ad for me.

  I wanted to go home, but Carole of Toni and Carole wanted us to see her new apartment, so we went over to, I think, 79th and the Hudson River. And it was a nice apartment. It was really neat, and it looked rich, and she and her girlfriend said their most treasured possession was a Warhol over their bed, and we went to look at it, and it was so sad, because it was a fake. And I knew it, and Brigid knew it, and Victor knew it. She said it was part of her “divorce settlement” from Toni. Should I tell her? It was so sick.

  Saturday, April 22, 1978

  Went up to the Carlyle where Jerry Hall is registered as “Miss Philips.” On the way we got film (cab and film $5). Jerry was ready to go as soon as we got there, she came down in a second. Cabbed to Quo Vadis ($2). She’s so beautiful, everybody looks at her. She’s only twenty, I didn’t know she was so young. We avoided talking about Mick. She said she left Texas and went to Paris when she was sixteen. Her first roommate was Tom Cashin and then she met Antonio and he drew her and everything. Oh but Mick and she are going to have beautiful children, and I guess Mick really does want children—he had Jade, and Jade’s pretty, but the kids he’ll have with Jerry will be stunning. Maybe a beautiful boy. I think he wants someone who’ll stay home now that he’s not going to be on the road too much. He wants a wife who’ll be there and Jerry’s willing to give up her career.

  Then after we left Quo Vadis we walked along Madison back to the Carlyle and had champagne and orange juice. While they stay there Mick pays the hotel a
nd Jerry pays room service. She makes good money, $750 or $1,000 a day. She showed us a love letter from Mick, it said, “I love you”—it was signed “M” with an “X.” We didn’t have any more tapes so I said, “Why don’t we tape over one of Mick’s?” You know, meaning one of his new originals. I was kidding, but wouldn’t that have been funny? Jerry wants to be an actress. She’s taking lessons.

  Sunday, April 23, 1978

  Bob said he and Kevin had had dinner with Diana Vreeland and that Diana was saying that I wasn’t avant-garde anymore. She said that the book Bob and I are doing, the photography book—Chris Hemphill brought it over to show her—wasn’t avant-garde, and she said that Jackie O. had said I wasn’t avant-garde, either. So it’s all just Chris Hemphill saying these things, blabbing to both of them, and then them repeating it. Because they don’t even know what I do. And Diana was saying how great Saul Steinberg was, and Bob told her, “He’s just an illustrator.” She must be mad at Fred or something, and that’s why she’s putting me down, because I can’t believe it, we had such a good time together that night last week, she was so much fun. And Chris Hemphill is doing her book for her. Fred set that up.

  Then Stevie called and told me to ask Bob to invite Elsa Peretti, he said he didn’t care about that fight in the basement, that he didn’t care that she called him a kike.

  So I picked up Catherine and we went over to Halston’s. Then the doorbell rang and Joe Eula came back and said that it was Barbara Allen—I’d told her about Halston’s party—and Halston got offended and said, “This was supposed to be a small party!” And then Barbara came in with Gianni Agnelli and Baron and Baroness Von Thyssen, who I didn’t recognize, but I guess they thought I was ignoring them because of the painting they sent back a few years ago. And Bianca and Dr. Giller had gone to the Erotic Bakery and gotten a big marzipan cake of a cock fucking an ass, and then another one of just a cock. Over on 70th and Amsterdam. They have the stuff in the windows, and the cookies are chocolate tits. And Bianca brought the cake in and she put the cock and balls up against her, and it was coffee-colored so she looked like Potassa the drag queen. Halston was pretending to eat it and suck it. And Catherine made a faux pas and said the chic thing would be to cut the cake and eat it, and he said, “No, that would not be chic.” He was high and he wanted to leave it uncut. As I sat there looking at Bianca I started getting more and more nervous about Interview’s cover story next month on Jerry Hall.

  We stayed at Halston’s until about 1:00 drinking, then we went over to Studio 54 in limos. Gianni Agnelli didn’t come with us, he went home to wait for a call about the Moro kidnapping—he’s somehow involved with working out a ransom deal with the terrorists. The baron and baroness came, and somehow we got lost from Stevie. They didn’t understand about going to the basement. And Stevie had the basement decorated now, with scarves and candles and popcorn, but it’s (laughs) like going to a St. Mark’s Place hippie pad.

  Tuesday, April 25, 1978

  The Rums of Puerto Rico have cancelled their entire ad campaign, they said the FCC is giving them too much trouble and that Margaret Trudeau would be too hot to do, for sure. So then I had Bob call them and ask about our money, and they said we’ll get it.

  Chris Makos called about me being interviewed by a psychiatrist who’s doing a book on IQs and I said I wouldn’t do it unless I got paid, and he called back and said, “$1,000,” and I asked Fred and Fred said it sounded like fun, so then I said okay.

  The Ungaro party was at Doubles. Then dinner—Quo Vadis—Margaret was being so sweet, she was gossiping and saying that she knew (laughs) she could tell me anything because I wouldn’t tell anybody. She said that Pierre Trudeau was in town and that she’d introduced him to Lacey Neuhaus and she was thrilled that they’d hit it off.

  And Margaret is so in love with Tom Sullivan. They were just in Georgia and she said that Tom was riding so fast on a horse that she had to hide behind a tree and close her eyes, that it was the fastest she’s ever seen anyone go. He does take chances, Tom.

  Wednesday, April 26, 1978

  Closed the office early because Fred and I were going up to his place to wait for Averil to pick us up and go to the Mets game (gave Fred $4). I forgot how expensive cabs up to 89th Street are.

  Drove out to Shea Stadium with Fred and Averil in her mother’s mini-Cadillac—she’s a fast driver. Fred had given me a winter coat and I really needed it, it was freezing. At the end of the eighth inning when we left it was 0-0 and on the way in on the radio it was still 0-0 (toll $.75).

  Averil dropped her mother’s car off at the 52nd Street garage, and then we got a cab for Elaine’s. Bob was having a dinner for Baron Leon Lambert from the Belgian bank, so he had Chris Makos and Catherine Guinness, and Catherine was wearing a T-shirt that said “Where is Palestine?” Her great-grandfather was Lord Moyne of Palestine who got assassinated there in 1944 by the Stern Gang. She asked Leon if he was Jewish. And he’s half-Jewish, his mother’s some kind of Rothschild. And Catherine said, “I don’t give a damn. Do you realize that if Hitler had won the war, my step-grandfather would be dictator of England?” Sir Oswald Mosley. The founder of the British Fascist Party. But Bob said Catherine and Leon seemed to hit it off anyway.

  Then Chris’s boyfriend arrived, Peter Wise. So we went over (cab $3.25) to Studio 54’s anniversary party. We got out on West 53rd Street and went in the back way because there were mobs out front. We went to the basement with all the gold pillows and the ceiling sounded like it was going to fall through from the dancing. Halston said we should (laughs) rehearse for later when they brought the cake in and we had to give speeches, so he rehearsed his speech. Truman had a tin-foil hat band around his black hat and I was talking to him when YSL walked in with Marina and he gave Halston a really big kiss, so that was Fashion News. Yves looked like he could have been on something.

  Then we went upstairs and sat on a piano in front of the curtain and the cake never arrived and Halston made a speech about how much Studio 54 has done for New York and he was good, and then he said, “And now I’ll pass the mike to Andy.” But I already had a mike in my hand, and it’s bad enough not having anything to say when you’re holding one mike, but I just said, “Uh, uh, oh, gee, uhhh …” I don’t know, I just made sounds and you couldn’t have heard it anyway, and people laughed, and then Bianca said something and it might as well have been in Nicaraguan because you couldn’t understand it, and then she passed the mike to Liza, who was wearing a red Halston, and she sang something like “Embraceable You” but it was from The Act and it had lines like “Forget Donald Brooks/Halston has all the looks.” And Bob said that he hadn’t heard such self-indulgence by a clique since Hitler in the bunker. Left with Catherine, dropped her off ($3.50).

  Wednesday, May 3, 1978

  Nelson called, he’s still plugging away at his screenplay. He said he had to take a Valium when Fran Lebowitz made it so big—they still don’t speak—and his old friend Brian DePalma has The Fury out.

  We were invited to John Richardson’s for a dance. We limoed over and it was so chic. Lynn Wyatt was there and Nan Kempner, and—The Empress. If Bob calls Diana Vreeland “The Empress” or me “The Pope of Pop” in his “Out” column one more time … Diana took out her compact and brushed on an inch of rouge and said, “Is it Kabuki enough yet?”

  Bianca’s being really awful to Barbara Allen, getting back at her for Mick, and now she’s got Halston against Barbara. But I got back at Bianca—I told her she missed the best fashion show, Ossie Clark’s. I said, “Oh Bianca, it was all just made for you, my dear—a beautiful bat-wing dress and a Wonder Woman outfit that you should run right out and get immediately.” (laughs) Because you see, she’s stuck. She’s Halston’s friend and Halston’s clothes just aren’t right for her—they make her too short and they cut her body the wrong way. They look like a bad diaper. I mean, I like Halston’s things because they’re simple, and that’s what American clothes should be, but they just don’t look good on Bianca,
she needs to wear more of a costume.

  Saturday, May 6, 1978

  Then Arman called and said he’d sold eight Flower fakes of mine, because, he said, he didn’t know they were fakes. But I said, “You must have known or you wouldn’t have hid them away for all these years, and you must have bought them cheap off somebody like Terry Ork or Soren Agenoux.” So those fakes really did damage and Gerard is still swearing up and down he didn’t do them. They made my prices go down because people are now afraid to buy paintings because they feel they could be buying fakes.

  There’s an auction coming up of paintings that Peter Brant is selling—a big Electric Chair, a big Soup Can, a big Disaster, a big Mao, and a small Soup Can.

  Sunday, May 8, 1978