The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  And Barbara Loden died. She was sweet.

  Monday, September 15, 1980

  Cab to the Jewish Museum where Time magazine was taking photographs of me ($3.10). It’s the same photographer that’s been photographing me for years. Ron Feldman was there.

  Eunice Shriver had called in the morning and said she wanted to come in to see the Modern Madonnas that I told her about and I invited her for lunch, but then later she cancelled. The place was busy, everyone was running around. One of those boys from Las Vegas that Edmund Gaultney brought by decided to have his portrait done. We couldn’t find anyone to do makeup though, so I did the makeup myself and I guess I can actually do makeup, it came out pretty good. The boy was really suntanned, I put on white.

  Went downtown to Dr. Giller’s birthday party. It was the pretty people, everyone we knew. Rupert crashed, and when Rupert crashes he stands there in bright red and smiles. Tommy Pashun was there. And a defense lawyer named Ed Hayes who looked like he was from Laverne and Shirley, like a plant that people invite to parties to wear funny clothes and jump around and make things “kooky.” Sort of forties clothes, really crewcut, about twenty-nine. He said, “I can get ya outta anything.”

  Tuesday, September 16, 1980— New York—Philadelphia—New York

  I changed my mind about the train to Philadelphia for Jamie Wyeth’s show at the Fine Arts Museum. Had Fred get a car. Bob and I cabbed to Doubles ($5). We were having lunch with Jean Tailer and Pat Buckley. I checked my bag, had drinks, and then lunch. It was a ladies’ lunch, all the ladies like to go to Doubles for lunch because it’s cheap and you can eat all you want and go back all the time and it’s horrible food like smoked turkey and smoked ham and it gave me a sore throat. All these rich ladies who spend money on clothes but they won’t buy good food. Bob was the best gossiper. Pat Buckley said she was so thrilled that Shogun was on TV. She said the night before she just went to bed with a tray and watched all three hours of it and had her girlfriends call her between segments—she didn’t even go downstairs to see George Bush who was having dinner with her husband. And she was so disappointed that it was only going to be on for two hours that night.

  Arrived in Philadelphia and couldn’t find Delancey Street, the driver was too old and cranky. Saw the cracked bell. Found Walter Stait. We told him that we wouldn’t be staying over after all, that we had to do a portrait early in the morning in New York. Had tea, changed.

  Emlen Etting was there in a black cape and black hat, so old, looking like one of those funny fairies. We gave him a lift to the museum. All the old bags were there. Met Jamie, did some TV. His father and mother were no-shows. His brother Nicky and his brother’s wife Jane who works for Sotheby’s were there. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t, and Nureyev wasn’t. I saw Bettie Barnes who let my cat die. It’s a man. B-E-T-T-I-E. I once gave him a kitten and the kitten was crying and I thought it wanted its mother so I gave him the mother. We had two cats left, my mother and I had given away twenty-five already. This was the early sixties. And after I gave him the mother he took her to be spayed and she died under the knife. My darling Hester. She went to pussy heaven. And I’ve felt guilty ever since. That’s how we should have started Popism. That’s when I gave up caring. I don’t want to think about it. If I had had her spayed myself I just know she would have lived, but he let her die.

  So it was Jamie’s big show. I had to stand in front of my portrait. Jamie is painting bigger—more Pop—pictures now. I told him he should go even bigger and he said he didn’t think you could get stretchers that big and I said you could get them as big as the sky.

  Phyllis Wyeth was my dinner partner and my other dinner partner was Bonny Wintersteen, she’s filthy rich.

  Warren Adelson and his wife were there and she was wearing the same dress she wore in Monte Carlo and I said, “That’s the same dress you were wearing in Monte Carlo,” and she said that when she was getting dressed to come she said, “Nobody will remember this dress except Andy Warhol. He’ll say, ‘That’s the same dress you wore in Monte Carlo.’ “ It was funny, we had fun.

  Walter Stait was funny. I was having a good time until Fred told me that this place, the Fairmont Hotel, where we went after the museum, was where they had Legionnaire’s Disease and then my throat started hurting more. But they said it had been completely renovated.

  Then we slipped out and went back to Walter’s to get Fred’s bag. A two-hour ride back. I wanted to give the driver a really big tip, but Fred said you can’t spoil them ($20).

  Wednesday, September 17, 1980

  I was tired from the Philadelphia trip.

  So many Jewish newspapers are coming to interview me about the Ten Jewish Geniuses—Jewish Day, Jewish Week, Jewish Month—and Fred thinks I shouldn’t do any more interviews for a while, that I’ve been doing too many. And he’s right.

  I walked home, glued myself together. Thomas Ammann was picking me up to go to Sondra Gilman’s party. It was for Nick Roeg, but Nick was gone when we got there. It was so hot there, people were sweating. Sylvia Miles was there, and Sylvia acts so funny, she feels like we’ve dropped her and she says she wants to “renew our relationship.” But whenever she invites me to be her date someplace, it’s always someplace that I’ve already been invited to, so I have to tell her that I’m already going and that I’m taking somebody. And she told the best gossip—that Joe Dallesandro is now living with Paul Jabara. No wonder he hasn’t been calling for money.

  Sondra had some interesting people there—like Tony Walton the stage designer. Sondra looked great in this beautiful bright yellow silk dress—the color I used on the Debbie Harry portrait—and it made her look so young, eight years old, and we asked her who made it because it was really pretty and she said, “You’ll fall over if I tell you.” So she told us and Bob and I did fall over—it was a Diane Von Furstenberg. Off the rack for $120. It really was pretty.

  Sondra produced the new Nick Roeg movie, Bad Timing with Art Garfunkel and that girl I think I met there, Teresa Russell, she didn’t look like anything. The food was awful. We left and Sondra was still serving quail eggs, they have a quail-egg farm.

  Thursday, September 18, 1980

  I went to the office and had a fight with Carole Rogers about her throwing some envelopes out. She said they only cost thirty-five cents, but I proved that they cost $2. Bob was in a better mood because he moved into his new bigger office. Jay Shriver is really good at straightening up the place.

  Senator Heinz’s wife called and said that I just had to come to her dinner in Washington next week because she’s planned on Jamie and me and it was in my honor. Ronald Reagan, Jr.’s people called to say he’d agreed to be interviewed by me for Interview, which I didn’t know anything about.

  Joanne Winship was calling me all day about whether I was picking up Carolina Herrera to take to her Italian Boy Scouts charity dinner, which I was, but I wanted to wait to call Carolina in order to drive Mrs. Winship crazy. Mrs. Winship threatened that if I didn’t let her know right then, that she was going to send a car for Carolina, which I knew she wouldn’t. I picked Carolina up and she was wearing one of her creations, she has about twenty that she did herself, she’s going into the designing business, that’s why she’s here staying in New York. We got a cab and went to the Pierre ($3). Monique Van Vooren was there and she wanted her picture taken with me, so we did, and then I walked away but then she grabbed me and said how dare I “dump” her and I said, “Oh come on, Monique, you’re crazy.” She said, “How could you drop me! I’m going to be so big next year.”

  Then Monique sat at our table and Joanne Winship said, “These disgusting people who sit where they’re not supposed to!” And Monique said, “Oh you bitch.” And Joanne said, “You phony, you’re my guest and you’ll sit where I put you!” It was so nutty, Joanne was a raving maniac. I loved it. I just wanted a tape recorder so badly.

  Fred got left for a second and when he came back Joanne saw him sit back down next to Mrs. Vreeland where he’d
been sitting before and she screamed, “How dare you sit in that spot!” Poor Fred, he’d just gotten up to go to the bathroom.

  Then Ron Link who’d staged the fashion show before the dinner sat down at our table and Joanne screamed at him and then he hated her and left and then Joanne told Monique he’d left because of her. I mean, she’s just bonkers, totally crazy. I had such a great time.

  Saturday, September 20, 1980

  Was picked up by John Reinhold to go to Bill Copley’s wedding party (cab $5.25). The door was open when we got there. There was a tent set up in the back, Donald Bruce White was catering. I was jealous of the bride because she had on a $145,000 string of pearls from Tiffany’s. This is the woman who was a real madam who Bill cast in his play that Maxime de la Falaise and Denise Bouché were also in. I left her name off the present I brought—on purpose. It was a Shoe.

  It was a small party. Ludwig is Bill’s new dachshund and he’s different from little Tommy who was run over, but he’s nice. I gave him food so he liked me. They were cutting the cake and this guy came over and said he wanted to talk to me and he took me aside and I thought he was going to say some nice things and suddenly he was so mean! He was the boyfriend of the madam’s girlfriend. I don’t know what was bothering him. I was afraid to get up, I thought he would swing at me.

  John Reinhold and I left quickly and John said to me, “Why didn’t you look at his suit, because then you never would have talked to him.”

  Sunday, September 21, 1980

  I tried to watch TV but nothing good was on. Oh yeah, that’s right, the debate. I couldn’t stand to watch either one of them though—Reagan looked so old, so crunched-up. And the other guy, Anderson, looks too much like Chris Hemphill.

  Monday, September 22, 1980

  Raquel Welch’s secretary called and said that Raquel would like to change our lunch from 1:30 to 1:00 so I stayed uptown, then walked to Quo Vadis.

  Raquel was a half-hour late anyway, she didn’t get there till 1:30. She looks great for forty. Her new husband is some French film producer. Raquel is sweet now that she’s come down a little in the world.

  Tuesday, September 23, 1980

  Bob was giving a big lunch for Paige Rense, the editor of Architectural Digest, and it was a big success. There was Eugenia Sheppard and Earl Blackwell and Lily Auchincloss and Pat Buckley. And Lee Radziwill who Paige Rense is interviewing for Interview—and Cris Alexander was there to take pictures of the two of them. Jean Tailer was there and Christina Carimati and Marion Javits and Joe Eula who I haven’t seen in months. Twenty-seven people.

  And Victor called from Paris. Halston and the gang had gotten successfully through China. He said it was wonderful, that I’d missed a great thing.

  Wednesday, September 24, 1980— New York—Washington, D.C.

  Got to the hotel, checked in. At 7:00 went to Steve Martindale’s cocktail party where we saw Liz Carpenter who said she still wanted her portrait done, but then I asked Ina Ginsburg if Liz was serious, and Ina said, “Well, I think you should tell her the price.” I guess she doesn’t know it costs $2 5,000. Ina said she’ll probably have a heart attack. Liz Carpenter kept saying, “You’ve got to Xerox me.” Instead of Polaroid. “When are you going to Xerox me, darling?”

  And then we went off to another party for the Dyke Women of the Year. You know, the dykey types—what’s it called? “Outstanding Women.” And the first person I was introduced to was this creepy guy who said that Viva was in town and that he was going to be her lawyer in a lawsuit. He was saying, “Viva’s very unhappy about the situations of the past,” implying that she wanted to sue us, and I was saying, “Well, Viva makes her own problems. I mean, they’re not mine.” It was very creepy, just absolutely creepy. It’s just those kind of creeps who make problems. The kind that want to start trouble over nothing. Oh, but actually, when I think about it, Viva could never stand being with this guy for one second.

  Then we took the brownies Ina had in the car over to Senator Heinz’s. Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth were there. And then Liz Taylor came in with John Warner and she came over and was really sweet and then later she came back to our table and had dinner with us. John would bring me a full glass of wine but he’d bring Liz a thimbleful, and she’d say, “Well, what happened?” and he would say, “Oh I don’t know, it was the bartender, he just didn’t give me enough.”

  And I met Mrs. Kassebaum, the daughter of Alf Landon, the only lady senator. A lot of tough broads, but funny ones. There was a Portuguese guitarist there because Mrs. Heinz is Portuguese from Mozambique. We toured the house, a beautiful house, and they have really rich, great paintings. They have a Copley. And Mrs. Heinz made the food, it wasn’t Heinz, it was Portuguese duck and rice, but I just had one helping.

  Ina dropped us off at the hotel. Went upstairs and they’d left a package of Godiva chocolates and I ate the centers out of them. I opened every center. And they left a bottle of brandy so I drank that. And a basket of fruit and I ate all the kiwis. Got sugared up and I guess I passed out but I woke up an hour later.

  Thursday, September 25, 1980—Washington, D.C—New York

  On the plane I read Conversations with Joan Crawford. I loved the way she said “shit” and “fuck” and everything like that. Oh God, if only I could have gotten Paulette to do that when we were trying to do the book with her, it would’ve been so great. I’ll have to ask her as a Christmas present if she’ll do it now, let me tape a good juicy tape so that I can use it someday. I wonder if I can really ask her for it—“Oh, please Paulette—just a present so I can (laughs) jack off by it.” That’s a good line, right? Yeah, I think I’ll tell her that.

  The rain caught up with us in Manhattan. Bob had checked his bags so we had to wait a little (cab $20). We all went home to drop our bags off. 11:30.

  Ron Reagan, Jr. was coming to the office. The photographers came and the hairdresser came, the stylists came, the art directors came—so the place at six o’clock was filled with like twenty-five people. And Bob was going around, crazy, saying, “Is this what it is to take a simple picture of a nice-looking boy?” They kept arriving—the assistants of the assistants of the assistants, and finally we said this is crazy and sent them away and then we were down to three people, four people.

  Then Ronnie Reagan, Jr. came with his girlfriend, hand in hand. And a black friend who takes care of him who he called “Chocolate Boy.” And Jamie Kabler who’s married to Mrs. Annenberg’s daughter arranged it all. He ran over to me and said, “Can you believe this? Lally Weymouth called Ron up for an interview and when he told her, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do interviews—I’m only doing one interview and it’s for Interview magazine,’ she said, ‘How can you work for that homosexual publication? The two of us are more the same kind of person. I mean, I’ve got top family and you’ve got top family, and you’re giving an exclusive to that newspaper?’ “ Jamie said Ron got really upset and wanted to call off the shoot, but Jamie ran out and bought an Interview and Ron read it and it didn’t look homosexual to him, and he said he didn’t care anyway, that he still wanted to be in it because he wanted “to meet Andy.” And go out to dinner with me. And he turned out to be a really nice kid, God he was so sweet. The only trouble was he kept pawing the little girl. He and the girl live together. The Chocolate Boy is just a close friend.

  And he’s very smart. He didn’t say much, but then when he did it was smart. Lispy and cute. And he was sort of sitting there looking bouncy. Then they took pictures and he drank. He drank more than anybody I know, I don’t know if it was just not to be nervous or what.

  Then went to do the interview at 65 Irving. I didn’t know what to talk to him about, I was too shy and he was too shy. But then Bob got a little encouraged and started asking about his father. And I asked him (laughs) on Bob’s behalf, whether his father dyes his hair. He said everybody asks him that question. I blamed it on Bob. Bob then blamed it on me. Ron said no, his father doesn’t, and that his mother’s very sweet and very adorable. So
then I got sneaky and brought Ordinary People up, and I told him how much I hated Mary Tyler Moore, that after I saw the movie if I saw her on the street I’d just kick her. And at that point he was almost going to say something about Nancy, but then somehow he got the drift of it and changed the subject. Because I think the mother in Ordinary People is just like Mrs. Reagan. Really cold and shrewd. And by the way, little Timmy Hutton, the star of it, turned us down, he won’t do any interviews.

  Okay, so we’re at 65 Irving. I told him I’d never had frogs’ legs and he was so sweet he ordered them just so I could try it. He’s really sweet, a beautiful body and beautiful eyes. But he just doesn’t have a pretty nose. It’s too long. Big full lips. He doesn’t look like anybody in the family, it’s surprising. I don’t know if he’s a fairy. He was sitting there holding his girlfriend’s leg, touching her. She’s twenty-eight years old, her name is Doria, and they met in California. She invited me over for a Cuisinart dinner—he bought her a Cuisinart for her birthday. And they have a ten-inch television set, Quasar.

  Then outside we ran into Annie Leibovitz and she’s gotten over her “heart attack.” She looked great. I took some Polaroids and gave them to them as souvenirs, and I gave them Philosophy books and Exposures. And then little Ron wrote in one to the black friend, “To my favorite nigger,” and the boy said he’s going to show it around when he goes to the White House. Then we were talking about Merce Cunningham and Ron said the piece Merce did with the helium pillows was his favorite and I told him that I’d made those Silver Pillows and he said that he didn’t even know, that that wasn’t why he’d said it. Bob just fell in love with him, thought he was so great. Jamie Kabler had a limo and we dropped the Reagan kids off, they live on 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth. They had a really good time, they really liked us, so we’ll be going off to Cuisinart dinners.