by Andy Warhol
Oh, and he said that John O’Shea stole the whole Answered Prayers novel, that that’s why it wasn’t done, but I think he’s making that up, too.
And he says he doesn’t want to live in the present because his book ends in 1965 and he’s trying to finish it. But when could he work?
Oh. And what gets him really upset and nervous is anything anal. If I ask him about fist-fucking he gets so upset. He says he doesn’t want to talk about it.
But I mean, how could anybody make it with Truman? God, I mean I could never do it with Truman. (laughs) God … (dinner $52.15).
Saturday, July 8, 1978
Victor called and said he had parasites. He was staying up at Elsa Peretti’s, she was just back in town, and he was seeing Dr. Brown, the boy-disease specialist.
Sunday, July 9, 1978
Truman called and said he missed me, to come for dinner. This was the day his picture was the cover of The New York Times magazine section. He said he had the phone off the hook, but I don’t know whether to believe that. At 7:00 I went over to U.N. Plaza, took eight tapes with me and a camera (cab $2). I talked to Bob MacBride for a while and then Truman made a phone call to Jack Dunphy so I could tape it. Jack was his boyfriend for thirty years. But he hadn’t seen the article in the Times yet, so he didn’t have any comments.
Truman also told me he’d talked to Gerald Clarke, the guy who’s been writing the book on him for something like five years, and Clarke wanted to know how the girl who wrote the article got Jack Dunphy in it when he couldn’t, and Truman said it was because she’d run into him on the beach, it was an accident. Truman said Clarke called him, but I think Truman probably called Clarke. Anyway, if Clarke did call him, then his phone wasn’t off the hook, so either way he was lying.
Then we went over to Antolotti’s and got pizza. And the drinks there with the vodka and grapefruit juice really do put weight on you, I’ve noticed. I was getting drunk. Then I walked him home, I had Truman on my arm. It’s funnier to see Bob MacBride walk him home on his arm— that’s really creepy. But when I walk him on mine, it’s creepy, too. And he’s weaving, and he’s so strong he was pushing me over. Went home (cab $3).
Got three full-sided tapes out of the evening.
Monday, July 10, 1978
Cabbed up to 44th and Sixth Avenue with Vincent ($3) to the studio of Sire Records to do a commercial for the Talking Heads. I had to do it about twenty times. Afterwards I told Vincent that I can never be an actor—I just don’t have it, I get tongue-tied, something happens. All I had to say was: “Tell ‘em Warhol sent ya,” and it came out like I was reading it every time.
Victor called and said he had to stay in a wheelchair for a month. He had all these doctors and his leg just kept getting more swollen, until he got an eighty-year-old South American who gave him a shot, so he was ordering an ambulance to take him to Studio 54 for the party for Elton John.
Tuesday, July 11, 1978
Victor was at the office waiting for me in a wheelchair, acting very peculiar.
He had a friend with him, Andreas, a rich kid from South America who was telling him the same things I was—that he should go home and stop running around. He shouldn’t be letting the blood run all over his body, he should keep his leg up.
Friday, July 14, 1978
Went over to Doc Cox to show him the pills Jay Johnson brought back from Japan. They sell them over there, they’re pills people take to make their liver digest food. He looked at it and he couldn’t read Japanese so he said, “Take them, I guess.”
Picked up Bob to go meet Truman and Bob MacBride at La Petite Marmite (cab $3.50).
Truman brought another Sunday Times, the one coming this week, the second part of the article on him, but this time it wasn’t the cover—he’d said it was going to be but it wasn’t. I had him autograph it and give it to me. He says he’s going to give another party for his 540 best friends and it’d be in a loft and the women would wear veils. Truman picked up the tab.
Cabbed to the office ($3). Susan Blond sent a limo for Truman and me to go to the Palladium to see Rick Derringer and another act. They took us upstairs to a dressing room where we found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and some milk and cookies, and Truman fixed himself a Jack Daniel’s with milk and this rock and roll manager-type came in the room and started screaming, “Clear the room. Clear the room, we have to talk money.” So everybody left but us, we didn’t know where to go, and he said to Truman, “Didn’t you hear me say to clear the room?” And so I said, “But he’s Truman Capote,” and Truman said, “But he’s Andy Warhol.” And the manager said, “Oh, sorry.”
Sunday, July 16, 1978
Barbara Allen called me in the morning to go out to Forest Hills to the tennis matches. Richard Weisman had to go out early because of something to do with ABC television. I was going to go but when I saw how foggy and grey it was I decided I’d watch it on TV and get some work done at home. But I went to church, then came home and watched the matches on TV. It was Nastase vs. Vitas Gerulaitis. I was for Vitas and he did win.
Then Barbara and Bob called and said that Vitas was having a dinner for everyone out at the River Café in Brooklyn, on the barge, and they talked me into going. They said they were coming to pick me up. At 10:00 they did. Barbara was showing us the ring Nastase gave her. Then Nastase came in with a beautiful girl, a model, and Barbara went upstairs and cried. And then Richard Weisman was saying how silly Barbara was to be upset when she knew Nastase was married with kids and everything anyway. Truman said he had a really rich guy for Barbara and that she’d have three planes and all the money in the world and a house in Mexico, and that cheered her up.
We were there until 2:00. Vitas paid. He said he’d just been in London and while he was in a club talking to Ringo Starr, Stevie Rubell kept pulling on his arm and saying, “Come on, Vitas, we have to go, Bianca wants to leave,” and Ringo said, “Who’s the little midget you’re taking orders from now?” Vitas said Stevie’s really insecure when he’s not in his own club. And Stevie doesn’t know about Europe at all—he still thinks Gianni Agnelli’s name is “Johnny Antonelli,” that’s what he always calls him. Once he said, “Johnny Antonelli, he’s the one who really owns Fiat—not all those Rattazzi kids.”
Monday, July 17, 1978
I had to think about what drag to go in to Halston’s party later on, so I sent Robyn out for a wig and he came back with the perfect one—a grey Dolly Parton ($20.51), and I put it on and wore the dress I’d once designed for a Rizzoli art fashion show that was parts of six different designers’ dresses all sewn together. Went over to Halston’s. The first person we saw was Stevie who was dressed like Liza—he thought—in red sequins, and he looked awful. All of the waiters who look so good in Studio 54 just looked like tramps at Halston’s. Stevie kept pulling out his cock from under his dress and I was surprised, it was big. Barbara Allen was the best, she came as a man in a jockstrap. With a jacket and a mustache. Stevie’s boa caught on fire and he would have disintegrated if some fairy hadn’t put it out. Halston in drag looked like Diane de Beauvau. I guess now it’s easy to see why he liked her so much, that’s the look he likes, sort of fat-faced and chubby.
Tuesday, July 18, 1978
Truman’s picture was in the paper from going on The Stanley Siegel Show drunk. I didn’t see the show. He’d told Stanley not to ask him anything about drinking but then he went on the show drunk.
Thursday, July 20, 1978
I went to a doctor in the morning for one of those terrible once-a-year physicals where they do everything. When it’s the same nurse it’s not so bad, but Rosemary is away and Doc Cox has a male assistant, and so (laughs) it felt like you were at the Anvil. First I got a pelvic X-ray and then a proctoscopy, that’s what it’s called, and it was too embarrassing. Doc Cox went out of the room to see a lady patient and she spilled water on him so when he came back it looked like he’d peed on himself. The Doc was sweet. Then I picked up some things for the office ($15.21) and got do
wn there by 2:30. The lunch was for Eartha Kitt, and Barry Landau had brought Polly Bergen down, too.
Brigid had already done her Eartha Kitt imitation for Eartha and Ronnie was looped, saying it was his “last day” on the job—Fred had screamed at him the day before that the place was too dirty, that he wasn’t cleaning up enough. Ronnie and Eartha were fighting and nobody pulled him out of the room. The fight was over James Dean’s personality and whether he was “difficult.” I guess Eartha was thinking she was a rebel, too, so she was standing up for James Dean, and it’s not the same thing at all—she did it for civil rights and James Dean was just a person not showing up for work. And the fight wouldn’t have been bad if Polly Bergen hadn’t started sticking up for Ronnie, saying he was right, and then when Polly left the room Eartha said something like that she was full of shit, and then when Eartha stepped away once Polly said something like the same thing about Eartha, but not in those words.
Bob thought Eartha was interesting enough to do a story on, but I don’t want to hear about the White House, that story’s so old I don’t want to hear about it. We made a date for the next day at Quo Vadis to have lunch with her and her daughter, Kitt, and I gave Bob the assignment of keeping Barry away. And Ronnie decided to stay on. Victor didn’t come by to see me, so that was like a vacation, but he sent me over a present—a cock ring, his.
We tried to get Truman on the phone, but he didn’t answer.
Got dressed and picked up Catherine. Her English friend Jamie Neidpath was with her, he’s a land baron. He looks twenty but he’s thirty. He dresses in funny clothes, long stringy silk ties like the Beatles used to wear and frock coats, and I asked him why he dressed funny and he said because he just decided once that this was the way he was going to dress forever, and so he has.
Cabbed to the Bottom Line ($6). Steve Paul was there, I think he manages David Johansen. Lou Reed was at the next table and Catherine was madly in love with him, that was why she wanted to come to this thing. And Fran Lebowitz was at another table with her arm around some girl (laughs) so I got a few snaps of that. And oh, David Johansen is so cute, he’s just so adorable. The only thing he does wrong is jump around, he should learn not to do that like Lou learned not to. Lou invited us over to his place.
It’s on Christopher Street, between Sixth and Seventh, sort of where the Voice used to be, upstairs from a bagel store. When we were going in the kids around were whispering, “There’s Lou Reed.” He tells them, “Go kill yourself.” Isn’t that great? The two dachshunds he got after he saw me with mine are so adorable—Duke and Baron. He’s sort of separated from Rachel the drag queen but not completely, they have separate apartments. Where Lou is, it’s actually more of a house. It’s a rent-controlled thing he got from a girlfriend, six rooms and he only pays $485 a month. The best room is a long skinny bathroom, 2’ X 12’ and he said he was thinking of changing it but I said not to, that it’s really great that way. And oh, Lou’s life is everything I want my life to be. I mean, every room has every electronic gadget in it—a big big big big TV, a phone answerer that you hear when the phone rings, tapes, TVs, Betamaxes, and he’s so sweet and so funny at the same time, so together, it’s just incredible. And his house is very neat. He has a maid come in … well, I guess it does smell a little of dog shit, but… Then he was on the phone and he ran a tape of his concert and it was him trying to get the old Billy Name Factory Foto look, very contrasty. Catherine went downstairs and got grapefruit juice and bagels and orange juice. Lou only had a funny pint-size bottle of scotch.
Friday, July 21, 1978
Bob MacBride called me and said he wanted to see me, but I didn’t want to see him alone without Truman and I said I’d call him back but I didn’t, so now I’ll have to lie and say I tried but I couldn’t get him.
Monday, July 24, 1978
Bob MacBride came for lunch, and I had McDonald’s ($4). He’s worried about Truman, he says he’s sure he’s going to commit suicide. He says Truman is checked into a private hospital room in the same building as my dentist, Dr. Lyons, at 115 East 61st Street, but that nobody knows it. Truman’s upset because everybody’s saying he’s washed up. Bob said that on the morning of The Stanley Siegel Show he dropped Truman off there himself and he was fine, so he thinks Truman must have taken a Thorazine or something. Truman says he doesn’t remember anything about the show. I keep trying to get it out of him if Truman is writing the Answered Prayers book or not, and he won’t say yes or no.
C.Z. Guest sent her husband over yesterday, Bob MacBride said, to try to convince Truman to go to a hospital in Minnesota. I didn’t know if he wanted me to give him advice, or what. I didn’t know what to tell him so I just said, “If Truman goes to the hospital, when you go to visit him, try to get me in.” I’ll tape it. Because you can’t stop people—if he’s going to kill himself, he’s going to do it.
Tuesday, July 25, 1978
Forgot to say that the night before what I watched on TV was the Miss Universe pageant.
Miss USA was actually the best, she was from Hawaii and she looked like Jerry Hall, but when it came to the question, “What do you think of the United States?” instead of saying something serious like “It’s the most free nation that glues together everything” she blew it and she said something like “Oh, I love the beaches!” Miss South Africa won, she looked like a brunette version of Miss USA but she gave a serious answer, and Miss Colombia was too stoned to talk. (laughs) No, I’m only kidding, she wasn’t … but they had around seventy-five girls and most of them were from South American countries you never heard of. The ex-Miss Universe looked really black, but maybe it was my TV.
I cabbed to the office to pick up Vincent, we had to go to a lunch for 600 people at the Plaza given by Gerry Grinberg the head of the North American Watch Company. The paid speakers were Art Buchwald and ex-President Gerald Ford (cab $4).
And Mr. Grinberg took me over to see President Ford and he said, “Nice to meet you.” And I told him that he’d already met me at the White House and he said, “Oh yes, of course.” He looked sort of out of it. I asked him (laughs) how his wife was, and he said she was out shopping and I said, “At Halston’s?” and he said (laughs) yes, that maybe she was there. But once he got started on his speech he didn’t seem so out of it at all, he remembered the whole speech. It was a good lunch, steak and potatoes.
And on the way out we went into the Teuscher candy store in the lobby of the Plaza—the one where they fly the candy in every day or something—and I wanted to sell them an ad in Interview, but I wound up buying $200 worth of candy instead.
I talked to Ronnie. He told me he’s now going to one of those halfway houses to stop taking drugs and drinking. He said he hadn’t slept at all in a week. I asked him if he was having trouble with Gigi and he said that well, yes, that she’d thrown the wedding ring out the window. I don’t know why she ever got married, she’s always going to run around, and Ronnie wants her to be like his mother in Brooklyn who never leaves the house. Now she’s styling or doing makeup on the Brian DePalma movie and that’s going to lead to other things, so …
Went home and called Truman, but there was no answer, I should have called before I left for work.
Wednesday, July 26, 1978
Went to meet Truman and Bob MacBride at La Petite Marmite. Truman’s just checked out of the hospital. He said that the Guests are taking him to Minnesota to a hospital there to dry out some more. He said he got about 100 letters about his Stanley Siegel Show and he read me the one from Stanley Siegel, which was so disgusting, saying how great Truman had been and you just know if he really cared he wouldn’t have let him go on, and this one show really put Stanley Siegel on the map, it got him national attention.
Thursday, July 27, 1978
After work I just stayed in. Watched 20/20 and instead of saying, “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,” it was so funny to hear Hugh Downs say, “As Andy Warhol once said, in fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.�
� People on TV always get some part wrong, like—“In the future fifteen people will be famous.”
Oh, and I forgot to say that Truman really is looking more and more like his bulldog. He sits there and rubs his eyes as if he were kneading dough, and then he takes his hands away and they’re all red—the whites are red, the rims are red, he really looks like his dog, really drooping.
Friday, July 28, 1978
It was a slow day at the office. We sat around eating lots of fruit that we’d gotten for lunches so it wouldn’t go bad over the weekend.
Saturday, July 29, 1978
Jed and I walked over to the Pierre and then we went to the Oyster Bar in Grand Central and it was closed and then to La Petite Marmite and it was closed, and then we cabbed to Woods but it was closed ($3). So we went next door to La Relais because we wanted to see if it was good and when we went in, it seemed like everyone was there—Charles Collingwood, and Helen Frankenthaler and she was awful, she always is and she always was. She was with a European gallery owner. Denise Hale was in the restaurant and I asked Helen if she’d like to meet her and she said, “Why? Would it give Denise a thrill?” I asked her if she were going to Washington on Wednesday for the Móndales’ party for artists whose work is in the vice-president’s house, and she said she was. I’m going down with Fred. I asked her how her big silkscreen was—I heard she’d done a big one—and she said, “I don’t do silkscreens—I leave that to you.” And so I was confused if she did one or not, so then I said, “I mean for your multiples,” and she said, “I don’t do multiples.” She was awful. Well, she married Motherwell to get a start. Her work’s terrible.