The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Friday, March 30, 1979

  I cabbed up to Parke Bernet where I was meeting Suzie Frankfurt and Mark Shand, but it was just Suzie, it turned out (cab $2). Suzie wanted to go to 47th Street, so we cabbed there ($3). Suzie said all the good antique jewelry is in London, but then we ran into a guy from the Philips Gallery in London buying something on 47th Street, and he was bringing it back to London, and then Suzie goes there and buys it and brings it back. He said he comes over here all the time to buy things.

  Saturday, March 31, 1979

  Went to Studio 54 with Catherine and Stephen Graham. Catherine had also invited Jamie Bland-ford, the good-looking marquis who’ll be the next Duke of Marlborough. Jamie introduced me to Gunther Sachs’s son—it must have been from before Brigitte Bardot, he looked in his twenties. The place was crowded, it was like a subway. Stevie came over and told me a couple of stars that were there, but I can’t remember who they were. One was “the new Shaun Cassidy,” a blond kid, Leif something, he’s making millions, they say. Garrett. Then I had John Scribner talking in one ear about John Samuels IV, and in the other ear Cindy the Hustler from Columbus talking about John Samuels IV. And she was jealous because he’d dropped her for Larissa.

  Studio 54 was a lot of fun. I went up in the balcony and Halston was there with Lester, and if you say, “This is Lester Persky the producer of Hair,” these boys just get down on their knees. They absolutely get down on their knees. And then Halston invited me to the next night’s birthday party for Victor. Jamie wanted to go to the basement, but Catherine and I didn’t go with him.

  Sunday, April 1, 1979

  Jamie called and said everybody down in the basement at Studio 54 was in different corners, having coke. They’re doing it there again. I was giving Victor a Money painting for his birthday and money in the kosher pickle jar that makes a burglar-alarm noise when you open it. When Catherine and I got to Halston’s there were just a few people there, just sitting around—Halston, Nancy North, Rupert and his boyfriend who lives with him. Victor wasn’t there yet. Halston showed me the birthday cake and it had money all over it and Halston was going to burn the money, but I said no, that everybody should get the money with a piece of cake when you cut it, so Halston made flowers out of the bills for on top of the cake, he really is clever. Then Victor arrived in the green Halston fur coat that Interview photographed Sophia Loren in. He brought his Chinese friend from San Francisco, Benjamin, the one who was in drag the other night at Xenon and he really looked like a pretty girl.

  Arman and Corice were there and they gave Victor one of those language computers that have different tapes and you push good morning and it shows you bonjour. Victor wasn’t too impressed with any of the presents, and instead of cutting the cake nice with each piece having money, he grabbed up all the bills and put them into his shopping bag. He was disgusting. Catherine and Dr. Giller were making out.

  Everybody hands me Quaaludes and I always accept them now because they’re so expensive and I can sell them.

  Thursday, April 5, 1979

  Picked up Catherine and we went over to Regine’s. Paloma Picasso was there with her husband and her boyfriend. Or his boyfriend. Or their boyfriend, I don’t know how that one works. Neil and Leba Sedaka and their two little boys walked in and Paloma fell madly in love with Neil. She said when she was ten, in Argentina, that they used to sing “Sweet Sixteen” in Portuguese and Spanish, and then she sang it for Neil that way and he loved it, he was so impressed with her.

  And Regine was cute, she now has a “back room.” Everybody wants one just like Studio 54 has—Xenon copied it, too—but as usual, Regine has it all wrong. Hers is too big and too plush and too far away from everything.

  Monday, April 9, 1979

  Fereydoun Hoveyda’s brother, the prime minister under the Shah, was hanged in Iran over the weekend.

  Everyone’s in town for Cy Twombly’s opening. And I’m surprised that I wasn’t invited to the dinner that Earl and Camilla McGrath gave for him.

  Glued myself to go to the Whitney for the Cy Twombly dinner. David Whitney had called and said he and Philip Johnson wanted to pick me up, but I said I was running late and David said they always went on time. Cabbed there in the rain ($2). The show was great. Marilyn and Ivan Karp were there and Marilyn told me that the psychic she’d recommended to Truman who Brigid went to who was in Interview called Marilyn up and asked what about this Fred Hughes who wanted to see him and was he “Fred Hughes the actor.” She told him that she didn’t know about any Fred Hughes the actor—that this Fred Hughes worked for Andy Warhol. I guess that’s how they find out all about the person in advance so that when the person gets there for the reading they know all about him already.

  Lily Auchincloss said she’d sent Mr. Hoveyda flowers because of what happened to his brother, and she asked me if I did anything, and I said no, because Bob was away and I didn’t know what to do.

  Tuesday, April 10, 1979

  Christophe de Menil invited me to a blues concert at Carnegie Hall (cab $4). I invited Curley and he met me there. The place was jammed. Allen Ginsberg gave me a big kiss, he was with Peter Orlovsky. We had good seats. Everybody loved the show. Blues could really be big now. The black blues guys are such gorgeous dressers—hats and beautiful clothes and gold teeth that you can really see, and jewelry, and they just let people do things for them. They must be really big stars.

  Curley was obnoxious—he called some boy to come and meet him, so I got mad and I’m never going to take him anywhere again. He’s just a rich freeloader.

  Wednesday, April 11, 1979

  Time magazine called and said they accepted my design idea for their cover of the three Fondas. It has to be done by 4:00 Thursday. They were going through their old covers and saw that I’d done one of Jane. I sent Rupert out to get stats and he didn’t come back with the stuff until 7:30 so I yelled at him. Bob got back from California in the afternoon. He said he’d gotten the John Savage interview, finally, so that’s really great. He said he’s never given an interview before, so now maybe we’ll be able to get the heavier types who say Interview’s too frivolous.

  At Ahmet and Mica Ertegun’s party I played backgammon with Ahmet and lost four paintings to him, we’ll have to see which ones.

  Thursday, April 12, 1979

  The Du Pont twins were at 860—Richard and Robert—and Brigid and I were trying to figure out how they got there, and Brigid finally found out that Fred had invited them! And Brigid took Richard home with her and gave him $25 to clean the stove, and then she spent all night eavesdropping while he made plans on the phone to go to Studio 54, arranging to have his brother iron his light green pants—Robert irons for Richard, because that’s the only thing he does really well. He’s the twin who lived with Rupert and left Rupert for Fred.

  And Truman came down to the office. He loved the new title for our photo book, Over-Exposed. Bob got that title out in California when he talked to Irving Mansfield. I like the title Social Disease better, though, because if we’re not going to be commercial anyway, we might as well always be something that people will avoid.

  Truman’s facelift is the first one I’ve ever seen that really did work. His chins are totally gone, and they were just hanging there for years. The only thing that’s wrong is that the scar over his nose is still two inches thick. I think that one was a mistake. Since the operation he wears a piece of plastic over it, and he could have just (laughs) done that in the first place. Oh, and Truman asked for the originals of his articles back, and we were trying to keep them. I’ll try to give him a Xerox.

  Cabbed back to the office ($3) and everyone was waiting for me. Lloyd called, the Mafia-type kid who worked at 54, and he wanted to have dinner with Catherine and me. He said to meet him at a place called York’s on 38th and Second (cab $4).

  York’s was a funny little place. Then we dropped Catherine and cabbed to Regine’s ($3). I think he had a Rolls Royce parked near York’s but I don’t think he wanted us to see i
t. He said he wanted to meet Regine but when we got to Regine’s he knew everybody. He knows everybody everyplace, and it’s so strange, he’s so young—eighteen—but he acts like forty. I had half a drink and he had three more. Then he told me he was bi. And that got me scared because I always thought he was after Catherine, but then I didn’t know. He told me about his family. He said his father works for Roy Cohn, but he sounded more like a money collector to me. He said his “pop” gets up at 6:00 and goes to the post office every morning to pick up the money that’s come in from the debts he makes people pay up on. He has a seven-year-old sister that will be a beauty, he says—he buys her presents.

  Regine’s husband came by and I introduced them. Then he didn’t charge us. And then Lloyd still wanted to drink some more so he said why don’t we go to the Playboy Club, so that sounded like fun. He likes Bunnies. He has a philosophy about women—he only likes them if they’re very beautiful. He’s Jewish and I asked him why he wasn’t home for Passover and he said they aren’t religious. At the bar three guys were staring at me, but it turned out they worked at “21.” It was strange. Lloyd had two more drinks. He said that his mother is beautiful—she’s only thirty-eight—and that she never wears a dress twice, or shoes, either. He wants to take us to a really great restaurant in Westchester. He said, “It’s better than Elaine’s.” Isn’t that funny? Of all the places to pick. “Better than Elaine’s,” he said. “If you don’t think it’s as good as Elaine’s I’ll take you to dinner for a year, but you have to be honest.”

  Oh, and Steve Rubell got taken to jail. It hasn’t been in the news yet. It was for fighting with some photographers. Lloyd said the only time Steve ever hurt him was when Steve was on Quaaludes and Lloyd said, “Gee, Stevie, I’m glad you like my mom and pop,” and Steve said, “I don’t. They’re nothing. They’re nobodies—it’s you I like.” He said that really hurt him. This was when he was driving Steve home once.

  Friday, April 13, 1979

  I was reading the Margaret Trudeau book. She writes like Viva. If Viva had met interesting people in her life, she would have written a book like this.

  Went to the Copa for the Mork show. Robin Williams. He was terrific. Jed’s sister, Susan, was our waitress (tip $10). Then Mork’s wife invited us to the Sherry, so we went over there and Lucie Arnaz was there, too, and everybody was sitting around a big table of bagels. Mork has a hairy chest and arms but pretty blue eyes.

  Monday, April 16, 1979

  Did I say that the other night Nureyev was in Elaine’s? I never know what you’re supposed to do there when you see somebody. Be very cool so you don’t bother them? Or should you throw your arms around them because I mean it is great when Diana Ross does it.

  I didn’t go to Steve Rubell’s getting-out-of-jail party. In the paper it said that while he was in his jail cell he wrote his diary on Studio 54 cards that he had in his pocket. Isn’t that great? He said the cell was disgusting and that the first thing he’ll fight for is jail reform.

  Tuesday, April 17, 1979

  Called Mork’s hotel. They said to come right over. Cabbed to the Sherry ($2.50). We thought they’d have a limousine because there were twelve of them but then we had to get three cabs down to the Village. They wanted to pay for the cab, but I did ($6). We met on Christopher and Bleecker and then went to a used-clothes store and they had a good time. Mork can tell in a second what will fit him. He picked out three suits and he put them on and they fit perfectly. His wife’s name is Valerie and she’s really nice. She said she’d been down to Bleecker Street already that morning and gotten French provincial furniture that morning to send back to L.A.

  We went though the back streets, and it’s funny—when kids see Robin they just say, “Hi, Mork” without getting excited, it’s like seeing somebody they know. It’s the grownups who get excited. We walked over to Lady Astor’s. Then we went to meet Michael Sklar, who I haven’t seen in years who was in our movies Trash and L’Amour. He looks thin in the face. He’s a friend of theirs.

  Robin’s going to do the Popeye movie. Sue Mengers just became his agent. Valerie said that when she saw Robin was going to get famous and they’d been living together for two years, she told him she didn’t want to go through life and the newspapers as Robin Williams and Guest, so she made him marry her. They’re nice and they’re (laughs) “real.” You know? So they don’t have limousines. But a limousine would have been so much easier.

  Did I tell the Diary about Henry Post’s bad accident? He was driving his new car out to Southampton and he woke up in the hospital. He doesn’t remember a thing. He hit two poles. And then I slipped and said something dumb—which I shouldn’t have because when you’re on pills and painkillers and things you get paranoid—I said, “Maybe because of the exposés you write, maybe somebody sabotaged you.”

  Wednesday, April 18, 1979

  It was a sunny day, walked over to Lexington, passed out Interviews, and then went over to the Russian Tea Room to meet Joan Hyler, my agent who’s going to get me movie parts. She has John Savage and Meryl Streep for clients.

  John Fairchild, Jr. called and invited me to see Manhattan on his father’s tickets, but I looked in the book and saw I had a dinner at Alice Mason’s. She’s the real estate person in New York who got Carter elected president. Dropped Rupert (cab $4). Went to 150 East 72nd Street.

  And I wanted to see her apartment, because after all, she’s the big realtor, and when I saw it you couldn’t believe it, it’s just nothing, on a sixth floor with (laughs) paint peeling. Nothing special at all.

  But it was a heavy-duty party. It was all big, tall, beautiful intellectual girls and old, rich bachelors. A room full of heavies. Bess Myerson, John and Mary Lindsay, John Kluge. Jaquine Lachman who was so thrilled that Mr. Lachman died, but now Rita, an ex-Mrs. Lachman, is giving her problems.

  The daughter of Alice Mason brought me into her mother’s bedroom where my Carter portrait was and other photos of her with Carter. They had funny art around the house. At around 12:15 I slipped out.

  Thursday, April 19, 1979

  Had to go to the memorial service for Ambassador Hoveyda’s brother who was executed in Iran. Cabbed to Riverside Drive ($2.50). Everybody was there. We took our shoes off. There was a rug in the middle of the floor and no one wanted to step on it because it was like stepping on the body because there wasn’t a body there. There was Iranian music. It was like the best cocktail party but with no drinks.

  Steve Rubell’s suing Ron Galella, I read in the papers—for starting a fight at Studio 54, he says. And I’m invited to Ron Galella’s wedding on Saturday. I think I’ll go.

  Friday, April 20, 1979

  Talked on the phone to Henry Post. He’s getting better. They restructured his nose.

  Tuesday, April 24, 1979

  The papers were full of Margaret Trudeau walking off the Today Show—she really knows how to get the publicity—and then showing up at Studio 54.

  Cabbed downtown ($3.50). Passed out Interviews. Walked over to the office where I was meeting David Whitney and David White and Fred at 12:00 to go through all the portraits I’ve ever done for the show at the Whitney.

  Sunday, April 29, 1979

  Cab to Ruth Warrick’s on Park Avenue. I was a little late. Lucie Arnaz had already left. I was standing there and this really good-looking guy came over and then I realized it was William Weslow who used to be with the Ballet Theater twenty or thirty years ago. I was introduced to him a few times and he always ignored me, he’d never talk to me because I was nobody then. He’s a masseur now, Henry Geldzahler goes to him. He was fired from Balanchine in about 1970. He said that Balanchine said, “Listen darling, you’re too old, we’ve seen you too much around, and you’re through, darling. I hope you’re not going to commit suicide, darling, are you?” And he said he told him not for somebody like him—he wouldn’t give him that much pleasure. Balanchine doesn’t like boys, he only likes tall girls.

  So now he’s a masseur. Dick Cavett uses him,
too—he said Dick’s sent him about forty people. He made me feel his legs and (laughs) I giggled.

  It was such a weird party. When you go to places where people are sort of nobodies and you have to think of what to say to them, it’s so hard. I met Kay Gardella, that’s who I met. The newspaper television critic. And she’s really fat. She’s the fattest person I’ve met in years—most people aren’t fat anymore, they’re chubby. Nobody’s really fat anymore.

  Monday, May 7, 1979

  Went up to Hoveyda’s exhibit at the Bodley Gallery. Hoveyda had a letter in the Times yesterday about his brother, a letter to the new regime that said his brother didn’t run away from the country like all the other ministers because he believed in Iran, and Hoveyda called it murder, he said that the new prime minister could look forward to getting murdered, too. It was a good letter (cab $4.50).

  Bob had a big lunch where he got lots of Lee Radziwill gossip. Everybody thinks she was just too drunk to make it to her own wedding. In San Francisco. She left the groom waiting at the altar. But I think she’s probably just depressed because she got so skinny that her chemical balance changed and she doesn’t know what she wants.

  Wednesday, May 9, 1979

  The Du Pont twins came in and Brigid told them that Freddy von Mierers had called and put out the word that he was going to send the police after them if they didn’t return his two sweaters. They turned bright red, and she told them not to come around anymore since they steal. Dropped Rupert (cab $4).