The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  The ICA opening. Lots of punks. Ann Lambton and I went to sit where the punk band was in the cafeteria and we had fun. Then Fred was arranging a small party back at the Dorchester in one of the restaurants there but it turned into forty-five people. Rock Hudson came in with his big butch sixty-year-old boyfriend. It’s so funny when they have boyfriends older than they are. Thomas Ammann took a picture of Rock and Rock didn’t like it, but Fred said Rock was a bore, anyway. Jack Nicholson came, he’s in London doing The Shining, and I guess we forgot to invite Shelley Duvall. The kids were smoking joints and went out to the clubs—the Embassy Club, Tramps, Annabel’s. But I was too tired.

  Thursday, June 22, 1978—London—New York

  London was just so much fun that I had to leave. Fred and Bob stayed on. Nicky Haslam gave a nice dinner for Fred at a restaurant on the King’s Road. And I think Fred’s really seeing a lot of Diana Vreeland. I mean, we see a lot of her, and then he stays on and sees even more of her. And I can’t figure out why she doesn’t have cancer yet. She’s been dyeing her hair now for, what, seventy years? And I asked her why she doesn’t have wrinkles and she said that her philosophy is to do exactly what she does.

  Took the Concorde with Richard Weisman. Got home and glued myself, went to the bank (cab $5). Tired all day long. Vincent had been out to Montauk, said Mr. Winters wants to quit—he doesn’t like Tom Sullivan being out there, I guess.

  Victor called and said he was back with Halston, that they were back being really good friends, that he had the limousine and he was out shopping and life was wonderful all over again.

  Monday, June 26, 1978

  Have I said that I ran into Cyrinda Foxe recently? I think she made a big mistake leaving David Johansen for the Aerosmith guy because David’s going to be so big.

  I sent Chris Makos out for a Konica camera ($175.55)—it’s a built-in flash, I think it’s going to be great, built-in focus.

  Cabbed to Martha Graham’s thing at Lincoln Center ($3). Martha came out and made an hour speech, she must love to talk. She had on a beautiful dark green Halston with bright green underneath, but the white gloves she wears to cover her hands distract. I guess Halston is probably trying to figure out what to do about that.

  The first number was boring, but the sets were by Noguchi. Went for drinks ($10). Then back for the second number—the sets were by Noguchi again, they were the best thing—but that was boring, too. Drinks again, this time doubles and triples ($20). Then the third number was “The Owl and the Pussycat” that Liza was doing. It was a good number and if she’d sung, it would’ve been better. Halston ran up on stage afterwards.

  Tuesday, June 27, 1978

  Had a meeting with Mr. Kahn about his portrait. He has a big nose and I made it smaller but when he saw it he thought that he would like to have his really big nose, that I should do it up really big. He asked his wife, “What do you think, darling? Should it be my big schnoz?” and she said, “Darling, it’s your big schnoz, and I love it, and whatever you think.”

  Thursday, June 29, 1978

  Had a date to have lunch with Truman and his boyfriend Bob MacBride to discuss Interview. Cabbed to La Petite Marmite which is on 49th in the Beekman Towers ($4). Truman said he’s starting to be normal again and when I believed him he told me I was (laughs) “too naive.”

  Truman was throwing his hands all over the place. I taped, and we dished the whole lunch.

  He said that after lunch he was going to his analyst and I asked why someone like him would go to an analyst and he said because it was an old friend and he didn’t want to hurt his feelings by not going.

  Truman is so silly-looking, open-toe shoes and no sweater, and he said he just decided that he’s going to start wearing anything. He said that Issey Miyake sent him a coat and he just threw it on immediately—he was written up in the papers when he wore it to Studio 54 with a white hat. We had lots of drinks and it was fun, and then it got down to what Truman had invited me for. Bob MacBride who he always said was a writer but who we could never figure out what he did is now doing sculpture. He’s left his wife and kids.

  We went back to Truman’s place in U.N. Plaza. He’s redecorated, but the bulldog’s torn off the buttons and the fringes from the furniture. And Bob MacBride brought out his—toys. His art. It was little cut-outs, like you make in kindergarten. You know? Like circles, and then you paste another circle over it, and you make hexagons and things. That’s what he does. And they wanted me to help him get a gallery. I said he’d just missed Leo Castelli, that he just went out of town, but that when he got back we’d make a lunch for Leo and him, and Leo will think that’s fun—lunch with Truman Capote.

  I told Truman I would tape him and we could write a Play-a-Day, he could act out all the parts himself. (laughs) He could really do it—play his grandmother and everything.

  He gave me all the dirt, we dished Lee and Jackie. Lee’s got a new really rich boyfriend in San Francisco, that’s why she’s spending time there.

  Truman said the Ladies’ Home Journal offered him $10,000 to review a movie but they wouldn’t tell him which one it would be, and then he found out it was The Greek Tycoon so he turned it down. I think Truman likes me because I like everything he doesn’t. He’s so nuts, you’re embarrassed sitting there with him. And he’s always talking about how he’s getting a hundred thousand for this and a million for that, but who knows.

  He was thrilled, he said, with his Tom Snyder show a couple of months ago, thought it was really one of his best. I don’t know why he doesn’t go on The Gong Show.

  Home to glue. Then picked up Catherine and went to Doubles to get the bus to see Lucie Arnaz opening in Annie Get Your Gun out at the Westbury Music Fair. Barry Landau was in charge, and I think he (laughs) invited all the people in his apartment building. I really think he did. People were going in for drinks and Gary Morton couldn’t get in because he didn’t have a tie. The doorman was so dumb, I told him, “Don’t you know that’s Mr. Lucy?” Lucille Ball looks so old but she has a beautiful body, and she really was a beauty.

  On the ride out, Bill Boggs did some announcing, and then Gary Morton did some announcing, like, “Here we go by a garbage can,” things like that, and finally after an hour and a half we arrived. The place looked empty, but then when they saw Lucy, every old lady in pantsuits came swarming. God, why do Americans dress so bad? Do they want to look unattractive so they won’t get raped, or what? When did it start?

  But Lucie Arnaz was good, and I just love Harve Presnell, he’s the one I always really loved. He’s 6’5” and Tammy Grimes had an affair with him. The show was really long, I don’t know why.

  Oh, a woman came up and asked for my autograph and she said, “I’m Gloria DeHaven,” and I looked at her and it was. So I think maybe there were a lot of old stars that you just couldn’t tell. A kid was throwing up, and it was funny because we all just stood there and watched him.

  Friday, June 30, 1978

  Prince Rupert Loewenstein said that Catherine’s stepmother or stepfather or something had just inherited $50 million and they hadn’t told Catherine about it yet, the English don’t bother. Catherine was going to meet Prince Charles at dinner at her mother’s in London, her mother thought it might be a nice match (newspapers and magazines $16).

  Halston and Stevie said that Bianca’s living in Mick’s Cheyne Walk house in London, but she’s not supposed to be there, so it’s boarded up, but she’s still inside. They said it’s really small, just one room on top of another room—smaller than Fred’s in New York.

  Went over to Halston’s and Liza arrived around 12:00 with her new boyfriend, Mark, the stage manager. They just met, after six months of working on the show. He asked her if she wanted to see paradise, and she said yes, she asked him where it was, and (laughs) he said in his room, so they went there and fucked. He does sculpture in marble. He’s very good-looking and very big—either Jewish or Italian, I can’t tell which. Halston was sweet, trying to get Stevie to start an art
collection and trying to convince Liza she should have me do a nude portrait of her, so she was doing her number, saying how could she go nude with her body, and she was taking her tits out and the guy was getting turned on, and then she was saying, “How would I cover my fuzzy?”

  Saturday, July 1, 1978

  It was a pretty day. I worked all afternoon and then Victor came by and we went propping in the Village, we went to Utrillo’s, the used clothes store, and left Interviews there. They said that they could sell old issues there if we sent some over. Then we went into the second-hand shops along 6th Avenue and one guy said, “Oh, you’re the one I sold the stuffed dog to.” And then I went into another shop down the street and the woman there said, “Oh, you’re the guy I sold the stuffed dog to.” Actually she sold it to Fred. So I said, “How could two places sell us the same stuffed dog?” and she said, “Oh, we used to be partners.” These people just know the price of everything, every little piece of fifties junk has a price that they know! And I mean the easiest thing would be to just buy something new and stay in business for ten years and then sell it as an antique. Victor bought these clear plastic chairs from ‘65—or maybe even later—for $150. Was that a good price? What would something like that sell for new now? And they’re nice-looking. Molded. It’s things like old Mickey Mouse stuff. Why not just get it new now and don’t use it and then you’d have it new in ten years instead of the old beat-up things they sell (photo supplies $16.96).

  Sunday, July 2, 1978

  It was a pretty day out but I stayed home, worked on some drawings.

  Victor called all day long, wanted me to come down and see the dog he wants to get, and go cruising and propping, but I thought it’d be a good chance to relax and (laughs) think. Have I ever said that before? I had a soggy mind. I’m working on invisible sculpture now, and paintings that look like they move, like Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase.” I think I’ll move some fruit around.

  Oh, and Truman called me. He said he loves my idea of doing a Play-a-Day and that he’s (laughs) already done eight. He said that by Wednesday he’d be out of the hospital—he’s there for a blood check—and that we should have lunch.

  Tuesday, July 4, 1978

  The Fourth of July. Raining out, watched The Brady Bunch then went to the office (cab $3.50). Victor was calling, wanting me to see his dog-to-be. I tried to talk him out of getting it. I told him he was a dog himself.

  At 4:00 Victor and Rupert picked me up and we walked over to McDonald’s to have lunch and hand out Interviews (lunch $9.50).

  Talked about silkscreening while we cruised. The people in the Village were so unattractive, God. They were all the leftovers who didn’t get taken away to Fire Island for the holiday. Dropped Victor at the Morton Street pier ($4.50).

  Wednesday, July 5, 1978

  Cabbed to Chembank ($4.50) then walked to the office and made some phone calls. Then cabbed to La Petite Marmite ($3) to meet Truman and Bob MacBride. They were on the wagon but I had orange juice and vodka. I taped his ideas for plays, but oh God, (laughs) they were so boring. He said to me, “I have so many ideas, I’ve just got so many I’ll tell you three plays right now,” and then he told me the first one. He said [imitates]: “It’s called The Greek Ideal, and it’s about a young man and his mother, and he’s a Greek scholar and he’s going to Harvard and he’s maybe a little crippled. His mother gives him a present before he goes away, she takes him to a Greek island and it’s just the son, the mother, and a maid”—I guess there was a maid—“and they’re sitting on the island and suddenly the mmmoooooon rises and out of the moon come hundreds of little rats and they eat him. And the mother is in a black hood.” Well (laughs), I didn’t know what to say, I said, “Oh, that’s great, Truman, but does it have to be rats? I mean, there was Ben and Willard and everything….”

  And then Bob said to me, “Don’t you know that’s from Truman’s old short story, ‘Walk Around the Block,’ which he did years ago and everybody’s copied it?” And then Truman told the second play, which was not as bad [imitates]: “A young man of sixteen down South marries a girl of thirteen for her money, and he’s precocious and paranoid….” I didn’t really get that one. And when he got to the third play he said (laughs), “It will be improvised and we can do ANYTHING! It’ll be called Deep Holes.” So then I said, “But gee, Truman, can’t I just tape you, the real thing, and do plays about real people? Can’t I go to your gym with you?”

  So we have a date for Friday at 11:00.

  Then after lunch we went over to his apartment and there were two copies of The New York Times magazine article on him that’s going to be out this week, an advance copy. And the picture with it didn’t look like Truman, it looked just like his mother. He was in a straw hat and a bedsheet that made him look pregnant, standing in the grass. And the article says just exactly what he did in his life, that he only likes men who have a wife and lots of kids, because they were the family that Truman never had, that he likes to become close to the kids. And it described Truman’s boyfriend John O’Shea, the one that Bob and I met in Monte Carlo a few years ago. It was funny, it wasn’t even talking about Bob MacBride and there he was fitting the description, reading about it. Truman said, “No, not six kids, just four or so is plenty.” Then Truman read the article and Bob took me into the bedroom to show me more of his artwork. And Truman read for about an hour. Then Bob said he needed a nap, then Truman said he had to leave, so I asked him if he were going to his psychiatrist and he said no, to the gym. His gym is right where the old Factory used to be, 47th and Second.

  On the way out, in the lobby of his building, he held up the picture of himself in the article for the elevator people. He said, “Look, it’s me. How d’ya like it?” And he was talking about the article, it said the word “decline,” and he said, “Decline? What decline? I’m the most written-about writer in the world.” I guess he’s confusing written-about with writing.

  Thursday, July 6, 1978

  The woman from Detroit called and said the Henry Ford portrait is on for later in the month. Oh God, Detroit. Maybe Henry Ford’s neighborhood will be okay.

  When I got home Barry Landau called and said he was uptown and he’d pick me up to see Timbuktu. We went backstage and I gave Eartha some Interviews, told her we’d like to take pictures of her daughter, Kitt McDonald, and do an interview with her. We saw the show, drinks at intermission ($10). Barry’s been walking Eartha’s saint bernard and he didn’t tell her but he and his friend Greg or Craig took the saint bernard down to Christopher Street for a gay walk.

  Friday, July 7, 1978

  Went over to meet Truman at U.N. Plaza at 11:00 (cab $3). He came down in the elevator. I had the tape on. He was talking about Babe Paley, she just died and he was upset, he’d been calling around trying to get lilies of the valley for her. He said he hated Bill Paley for being mean to her or something.

  We walked into the gym and people were looking at us, we looked peculiar. Then we went into the room for Tony to massage him and Truman took off his clothes and I (laughs) took pictures. He’s fat but he’s losing weight. On the way over, his pants were falling down, like a loose diaper—you could see the crack in his ass.

  Then after lunch Truman took Bob MacBride, who was with us by then, and me to his psychiatrist. Truman had told him that I was going to be taping so there (laughs) was Truman on the couch, and he was talking about his father and his mother and his stepfather and how his father took his money and all that crap and the psychiatrist was saying all the things that they say in the movies—“Now let’s get back to that dream you had.” And Truman got up and looked out the window and then at us, and he had tears in his eyes, he was sort of crying, and then when he was finished he bounced up and said, “Wasn’t that wonderful acting?”

  Then they were going home for “a little nap” and I finally realized that “a little nap” must mean sex with Bob—they must do it every afternoon and I guess I’ve been interfering—but I think Bob likes it be
tter that I am, it gives him an excuse not to.

  So we went back to U.N. Plaza. I was outside the door trying to tape Truman in the bathroom pissing, but he closed the door.

  Then Bob said it was time for dinner. It was just like a vacation, like being in the country—right after lunch you have dinner. Truman does really eat only one meal a day, though, I’ve watched him.

  Before we left Truman had a stiff vodka. Then we went over to the restaurant across the street called Antolotti’s. Bob fell asleep at the table and Truman told him to go home.

  Truman told me that his fantasy is to make it with the psychiatrist, that that would get their relationship to a “new level”—that then he would be “in power.” I was going to ask him didn’t he think it was so old-fashioned to be thinking that way, but I didn’t, I’ll save that for (laughs) another session.

  He told me that he blew John Huston forty times and then he told me about Humphrey Bogart. He said that Bogart was “reeeally scared” of him and that one night he carried Bogart up to bed, and tucked him in and said to him, “You’ve got to let me do it, Humphrey.” And (laughs) he said Bogart was really nervous and said, “Okay, but don’t put it in your mouth.” So then Truman said to him, “Listen, Humphrey, we went to the same school, Trinity, and I know you must have done it there.” But I don’t think they did both go to Trinity. Truman makes up so much. Then later, Truman said, they became best friends and he said once they were staying together at somebody like David Selznick’s house, and Bogart jumped into his bed with a hard-on. But Truman said he told him it was (laughs) just too early in the morning.