The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  I was sitting having fun with the kids on one side of the stage and then Dennis Hopper called me over to the other side where he was being crazy and silly with the girlfriends and wives. Groupies, really. It’s so funny to see groupies in their thirties—their late thirties.

  I slipped out at intermission and then later on someone told me that they made a big announcement from the stage that I was there, so now they must hate me. We were going over to Laurent, where Dali had invited us for dinner, he had about forty people there. He’s really generous with these kids. Then the kids wanted to go to the Xenon party for Pelé. New York is so filled with Brazilians that it’s like Carnival here.

  Monday, March 5, 1979

  Went to Mercedes Kellogg’s lunch for Ralph Destino of Cartier’s. Gossiped about Barbara Allen. She was spotted down in Florida or Barbados with Bill Paley. One of those places. Nicky Vreeland saw them and told Diana, and Diana told Bob. I was back home at 12:30 and I passed out because of the heavy rain.

  Tuesday, March 6, 1979

  I cabbed down to Union Square and handed out Interviews (cab $4). And then I walked over to the office, 1:00. Neil Sedaka arrived and he’s just adorable, he’s great. We had Jane Forth there to do the makeup and little Emerson was with her. Neil posed, and it was hard to get a good picture, his face is so fat. We worked an hour on it.

  Thursday, March 8, 1979

  Jean Stein called Brigid at the office, she wants to interview her for the Edie Sedgwick book that she’s still doing. It’s such a camp now, she’s got like eighteen people working on it—she has George Plimpton editing it. So she called Brigid and Brigid had Robyn Geddes say she wasn’t there, and then Dennis Hopper called a few minutes later and Brigid took that call and they were talking and Brigid was putting down Jean Stein saying she was pestering her, and it turns out that Dennis is staying with Jean. Then later on Viva called from California and started trouble—she told Brigid that if Brigid didn’t cooperate with Jean that Jean would put everything horrible about her in the book and that Brigid couldn’t sue because it was all true.

  And Dennis probably hates us, too, because I didn’t go to his cocktail party. I didn’t go because I forgot, but I knew I was never going to go and that’s why I didn’t remember. But Dennis is wanting me to go to Mexico to meet some friends of his, and Dennis and his group always did know all the rich people, but they’re so sixties and they’re crazy.

  I tried to work on the text for the photo book with Brigid and Bob, but every time I made a suggestion Bob would scream at me at the top of his voice that it was great the way it was and then Brigid would scream it was great, too. Bob raises his voice so much I really do think he’s nuts. So I don’t know what they want me to even read it for, anyway, since they feel they’re doing such a wonderful job and that it’s all so great great great great. So I left them alone with their greatness. Actually, it’s stinko. I do like the title, though—we’re calling it Social Disease— and the photographs do look really good.

  Sunday, March 11, 1979

  Finished the Joan Crawford book by Bob Thomas. She seems like she would have been a lot of fun, and really easy to get to know in the end. I wish we had remembered she was around.

  Brigid called and said she’s overworked. Truman’s now got a tape recorder and he’s doing all these interviews with everybody and Brigid has to transcribe them. I mean, he could be getting $70,000 to do big interviews like this, and here he’s doing it for nothing for Interview, but then he keeps the copyright, so he’ll be able to make them all into a book.

  Watched All in the Family then cabbed to Judy and Sam Peabody’s to see Nureyev (cab $2.50). Nureyev arrived and he looked terrible—really old-looking. I guess the nightlife finally got to him. His masseur was with him. The masseur is also sort of a bodyguard. And I didn’t know this before I went over there, but Nureyev had told the Peabodys that if Monique Van Vooren showed up, he would walk out. He says she used him. But he’s terrible. When he was so cheap and wouldn’t stay in a hotel, Monique gave him her bed, and now he says she uses him. He’s mean, he’s really mean. At 1:30 the Eberstadts wanted to leave and I dropped them off (cab $3.50).

  Monday, March 12, 1979

  Went to Lester Persky’s Hair premiere at the Ziegfeld. Then got into the limo and went over to the pier building where the party was and it was the biggest party in the world—they had trees hanging and the whole place looked like Central Park, but without the muggers. Elizabeth Ashley was there and she was sweet and adorable and friendly. She said she saw me at the Knicks game about a month ago.

  Oh, and the weirdest thing. Oh, this was so ridiculous. This old man comes running over to me and kisses me on both cheeks and my lips and it was just disgusting and it turned out to be Leonard Bernstein, and he was carrying on, everyone was looking, saying he’s been desperate to meet me for twenty-five years and that we had to get together and talk, and that we desperately must see each other tomorrow. Really, everybody was staring. And then Doc Cox came and said he wanted me to meet his new boyfriend, so he took me away and then Leonard Bernstein found me again, and it was more of the same, and it was such a camp. I mean, I remember in Pittsburgh this friend of mine saying a queer conductor was in town trying to pick up boys, and that was the first I heard of Leonard Bernstein. And he was hugging me and kissing me more, then putting me down at the same time. Like he’d say a big compliment and then the next sentence would be a put-down. Things like, “I always wanted to meet you but everyone told me you’re a creep.” Things like that. I finally got away from him.

  Wednesday, March 14, 1979

  The BBC was at the office doing a story on Fran Lebowitz and then on us interviewing Jessica Lange (pastry $17, $2.77).

  Jessica wants to be a serious actress. She’s thirty and she’s pretty but she has caps on her teeth, I think. They asked me where I found Fran and I said, “In the gutter.” And then they asked me if I’d read her book, and I said no. I hope it came out right. What they were actually saying was that since she’s so good, how come she writes for you. I asked Fran to help us interview Jessica, and she said she didn’t do interviews. And then she didn’t have her column for us, so we were upset. She actually did give funny lines, though, this time. She told Jessica she loved King Kong, and Jessica said she hadn’t seen it. And Jessica said to Fran, “I loved your book,” and Fran said, “I haven’t read it.”

  Picked up Jed and Paulette Goddard and we limoed to the armory for the Cartier party that Ralph Destino was giving to celebrate the anniversary of the Santos Dumont wristwatch that he got Bob to help get celebrities for. Truman was there in his sailor’s cap—he looks like he’s lost a lot of weight. It’s strange. It’s as if they took his face and chiseled off some of it. It’s not like he looks younger. It’s just thinner. And his scars are all gone. The only one left is the one from the fold on his nose. And Monique Van Vooren was there, she said that Nureyev was coming. And I said are you sure, and she said, “Don’t worry, if he’s getting a free watch he’ll be here.” And right then he walked in. He really looks so old.

  Mr. Destino spent so much money to get the airplanes into the armory—the wristwatch was invented for a pilot—and the whole party probably cost about $100,000, but it just didn’t work.

  Robyn Geddes’s mother, Caroline Amory, was there, and Lynn Wyatt, and Joanne Herring. And Catherine was there, she’s very fat but she looks beautiful. Like a sexy English fatso, a beautiful body, but all filled in. Like a jelly jar.

  Paulette was wearing so much jewelry it must have been $3 million worth of rubies, and she was saying she wants to sell off her paintings, and she was saying how much money she had. She decided she didn’t want the woman’s watch, that she wanted the man’s watch, and she told Mr. Destino and he said fine. The watches they were giving were $1,300 watches, and they gave eight of them, and I guess they cost them $600 apiece. Marion Javits didn’t know who Mr. Destino was and she said to him, “These watches are crap,” and he said, “I’m the p
resident of Cartier.” And so she was going crazy because she couldn’t get out of it—literally going crazy. Finally I told her, “Well look, Marion, it’ll be a memorable evening for him—he’ll never forget it.”

  Bob and I took Paulette home. And Bob was gushing and sentimental and telling Paulette he loved her, and so just to make things lighter I said, “Gee, Bob, you never tell me you love we.” And so I go home and fall asleep and the phone rings and it’s Bob saying that he’s never said so but that he does love me, and I mean, what’s wrong with him? Is he flipping out?

  Thursday, March 15, 1979

  Paulette and I were in the Post standing next to the airplanes. The airplanes got lots of publicity.

  I called John Fairchild, Jr. and invited him to Elephant Man, and he said he’d go, and I said that he’d probably cancel later and he said no, if his life depended on it he wouldn’t do that. And then I got home and sure enough there was a long note, cancelling, saying that “a friend came unexpectedly to town.” And I just don’t know how to handle that. What should I do? Because I just knew he would do it. Should I tell him I never had tickets anyway, that I just wanted to see what he’d do? Should I tell him that? Or just say I didn’t care, or maybe I should go to the other extreme and make him feel really really guilty because I just know he feels terrible about it. He probably didn’t sleep all night, but I mean, he knew he wasn’t going to go and no friend came to town, so why did he say yes in the first place?

  Elephant Man is Equus with an elephant instead of a horse, but I couldn’t stand Equus so how could I like this? But all the actors are good.

  After the play we went to Mortimer’s to pick up Catherine. When we were leaving, Sam Green insisted we come and see his new place before we went down to Studio 54, and so we went there, and Sam’s really got a great place. You open the door and there’s these big stairs, and I was kidding around telling Catherine right in front of Sam that he was a big cocaine dealer and he didn’t say anything, so now I don’t know if it’s true. It’s the new kind of place—empty with nothing in it but a rug, and then that photo of him with Garbo at the King Tut thing. And Sam really does get around, he traveled all over with John and Yoko, talking to the Dalai Lama and things. Catherine broke her shoe, she really is fat.

  Then as we were leaving, across the street there was a party for China Syndrome going in and they yelled to Sam, “Can Andy Warhol come to the party?” So we went over, and we saw Jim Bridges and he’s really the hottest new director now. He said that Jack wasn’t there—Jack Larson, our old friend Jimmy Olsen from Superman—that he was back in Hollywood. Jim is a big star director now, so he wasn’t as friendly, he was acting more Hollywood. He’s on Easy Street now.

  Oh, and Bob was all upset in the afternoon because he was expecting Mr. Destino to call and give him a Cartier watch, but he didn’t.

  Friday, March 16,1979

  Cabbed down to Chembank ($4) then walked to the office. Fred told me I have to go down to Washington on April 6 to teach crippled kids how to paint, and I’m not looking forward to it. It’s for Phyllis Wyeth. Fred went down to Leo’s because Leo just sold a painting of mine, so that comes right when we have to pay more in taxes—it eased the blow for a second.

  David Mahoney was giving a St. Patrick’s Day party at Halston’s. I picked up Catherine, and we went to the Olympic Tower (cab $3). Curley was waiting for us. He said he’d been invited, but he wasn’t, really, he just got in using our name. The Kissingers were just leaving and I told Nancy I’d just met her aunt and she said, “Oh yes, the crazy one.” We talked to Governor Carey and he liked Catherine.

  It was wall-to-wall celebrities. Truman was there. Steve Rubell was not so friendly to me, he’s being cool, somehow, I think because I’m friendly with Henry Post. Walter Cronkite said hello, he was cute, and he introduced us to his daughter who’s an actress. And I met the kids of Mahoney who’re good-looking now. The girl used to be heavier and dumpy, but now she’s pretty. She was in the same green Halston as the year before.

  Monday, March 19, 1979

  Halston picked me up and we went over to Martha Graham’s studio on I think 63rd, to watch her rehearse. Martha arrived and she’s so great, so young. She has a guy who looks after her. Then we went over to Halston’s for dinner. Martha’s going to England to do a command performance, and to Egypt, and to Lisbon. Her Iranian performance was cancelled, naturally, but I don’t see how she can do it at her age, it’s so hard, traveling like that. We talked about cosmetic surgery. I remember somebody telling me once that when Martha was down and out, a kind couple took her in and gave her a facelift and then her career revived. Now maybe she’ll get a hand operation, too, she said, because really her hands are just like little stumps.

  I told her I saw her dance in Pittsburgh in 1948 and she said she was from Pittsburgh, and Halston was surprised, he didn’t know that, he said they’d never really talked. Halston gives her clothes, and somebody else gave her money to redecorate, but instead of redecorating she bought one expensive thing instead of doing the basics, but she said it was just because she didn’t have time to do the basics, that she’ll get to it. Halston served caviar and baked potatoes. And when Halston serves baked potatoes and caviar, it’s always with like a pound of caviar. I don’t know if it’s really caviar these days, though, because with all the trouble in Iran, where can they be getting it? They may be just making it up.

  And the Du Pont twins called me at Halston’s, they were calling all over town for me, and I wouldn’t take the call, and then they had the nerve to ring the doorbell and they were drunk and giggling and I went to the front door and told them off.

  Oh, and Halston’s mad at Bianca because she never arrived from London, and it was supposed to be Mohammed’s day off and Halston had him wait at home all day, and when he called her in London she said that she had food poisoning, but he didn’t believe her because he’d heard her use that excuse over and over again on other people while she was staying at his house.

  Tuesday, March 20, 1979

  Fred saw Cocaine Cowboys and he thought it was just terrible, he said he was so embarrassed for me. But then I don’t know, Fred doesn’t know what’s good with movies.

  Friday, March 23, 1979

  I stayed uptown because I was going to Brady Chapin’s at 225 Central Park West for lunch, it was a cute little building. It was a reunion for Scavullo and Nancy White and me, because we used to work together at Harper’s Bazaar. And John Tesh came, the 6 ‘4” newscaster on channel 2, and he’s so handsome. He didn’t eat anything, and he brought a girlfriend. Brady knows him from jogging in the park.

  Saturday, March 24, 1979

  Got up early. Thomas Ammann called and he picked me up at 10:30, he wanted to see the new New York things with me. We went to some shops, it was fun (kitchen supplies $50). Then went home and glued myself for Fiorucci’s, went there at 1:30 and began signing Interviews and I was there all afternoon. Paulette showed up and Keith Richards and Ron Wood, and it was the first time I was seeing them in the daylight and they looked so old and beat-up. Their girlfriends looked young and fresh.

  Paulette was sweet, she said she does all her shopping there now. The kids who were waiting on her didn’t know who she was. It’s so strange to be famous in one category and then other people don’t know who you are. But I explained to them that she’d been married to Charlie Chaplin and they connected with Charlie Chaplin. I was there until 6:00 and then took some of the kids to Reginette ($70).

  Sunday, March 25, 1979

  I have to go to Monique Van Vooren’s party at Studio 54. She called a few weeks ago and invited me to her party, but I guess in an abstract way she was telling me she wanted me to give the party, because when I asked her when it was, she said, “Any day, at your convenience”—that was how she was inviting me to the party, but I didn’t get it. Then she gave the same pitch to Bob and he got the message and explained it to me.

  Monday, March 26, 1979

  It was a ni
ce day but colder. I went out passing Interviews, and I stopped in at Primavera and ran into Audrey the owner and decided she would be a good person to go around to the new places with and to learn about new categories from, so we ran around town and we had fun. Audrey said that a lady brought in a Castellani and she gave her $100 and now it’s worth $10,000. Well, that’s what you do, that’s the antiques game. If it’s an old person selling it you give them a break and give them a little more, but it’s like if you go to a flea market and you see something that’s really worth a lot, and the person selling it doesn’t know—you don’t tell them. And categories disappear. It’s like Deco—you hardly ever see a Deco piece anymore. People just get them, and then they put them away, and they’re all collected up, categories go (catalogues $8). Then we were in Suzie Frankfurt’s neighborhood, so we rang her bell. Suzie looks good. She’s in sort of a floozy look lately—her hair frizzled and pulled back on one side. And really really big shoulders. Extreme. That’s how she looks best. And she looks really rich.

  Tuesday, March 27, 1979

  Brigid called and said she was freaking out, she said she feels like a garbage can—she was over 152—and she doesn’t know what to do, and I told her she should go to church and pray to God.