The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Called Jon and nobody answered. Jane Holzer called and said she was in Washington with the guy who wrote Shampoo and Chinatown, Robert Towne. His new movie, Personal Best, is about to come out, it’s about dyke athletes. They were coming up to New York later and she wanted to have dinner. And she said, “Bring your tape because he’s so fascinating, so fascinating.” I don’t know what she was trying to do.

  At 10:20 I went to Elaine’s (cab $4) and Elaine’s fat again! So fat. After all she went through getting thin. Jane was already there with Robert Towne and they had the good table. For the first three hours I hated him. In fact I may still hate him, I’m not sure. He was just that California way. All those words that I hate like “asshole” and “bimbo.” “Bimbo” drives me up a wall. He didn’t want to tape, he said, because he’s been working so hard on “my baby,” but he said, “If you want me to, Jane, I’ll do it.”

  His wife Julie was there and she gave up acting for real estate. She’s good-looking but just almost at the stage where he’ll trade her in. Just almost over the hill. And we were there the whole time and Jane didn’t even tell me until she dropped me off that this was John Payne’s daughter! I would have had a great time!

  Robert Towne talked about “Warren” a lot so I said I’d just seen “Jack” in Aspen. Oh and in the beginning he quoted my line to me about “in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,” only he said “ten minutes” and then it was funny because Mark Rydell the director came over fifteen minutes later and quoted me the same line and he said fifteen minutes and then he and Robert Towne argued over the time and I had to agree with Towne because I was with him. But what does this mean, that they both quoted it? So then I asked him if he’d like to buy the quote for a title and he said (laughs), “No, I like one-word titles best.” So then I told him I’d sell him the title “THE” that Tennessee Williams once sold me. He laughed. I thought Jane was paying for dinner but then he did and I was embarrassed. He had a limo and we dropped him at the Carlyle and then Jane dropped me and she told me that she had had an affair with him before he married Julie.

  Friday, January 15, 1982

  Got a call from Jon and he was coming in from Los Angeles and we were going to the preview at Radio City of the new Coppola movie. But then his plane was really late and he didn’t make it.

  The movie, One from the Heart, was boring, stinkeroo, and Frederic Forrest is one of my favorite actors and he’d gained about twenty pounds for the role. It was pretty, but looks aren’t enough, it’s not going to make it.

  And I was putting the movie down afterward but then I saw the press coming at me, People magazine and Time, and so I changed my tune and told them how much I loved it.

  Saturday, January 30, 1982

  Jon picked me up and we cabbed to Sheridan Square to see Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy (tickets $3 5, cab $7). It was at the Sheridan Square place and the theater was one of those firetraps, and it was embarrassing because there were nothing but boys going in, and so we went around the block and then when a couple of girls went up to the box office, we stood near them. The play was four hours long but it was really funny, it had funny lines and everybody loved it, everybody laughed. Like the drag queen said, “I’ve had so many names—Kitty Litter, Beef à la Mode….”

  And when the play was over the usher said that Harvey Fierstein wanted to see me. I’d always had it in the back of my head that somehow he was somebody we knew vaguely, but I couldn’t remember, and then I met him and he said, “Don’t you remember me? I was that 500-pound boy who was in your play, Pork, and look at what I have here—a hit play!” And he’s great, his voice got so low. He’s appealing and really talented—he wrote and directed it and acts in it. I told him I’d try to get Interview to do a story on him because he’s new talent.

  Dropped Jon (magazines and newspapers $10, cab $6). Got to bed around 1:00.

  Monday, February 1, 1982

  After three weeks of planning our lunch with Mayor Koch it was finally going to happen today, then his father died, but they said he wants to reschedule. And James Brady on Page Six was so mean, because he reported that Mayor Koch had asked for all thirteen episodes of Brideshead Revisited on tape, to imply that that must mean he has a “problem,” but it was mean to put it in the paper when his father just died.

  So since our lunch was cancelled, I went down to Odeon where Leo’s workers were having a surprise party lunch for him. The ride took an hour ($10).

  It was just star-studded. There was a different artist at every table—Jasper Johns at one table, Robert Rauschenberg at another one, Dan Flavin at another, Artschwager at another, Richard Serra. I sat at a table with James Mayor and Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lewis and I went over and said, “This is the table I want to sit at because everybody here owes me money.” So Mrs. Lewis gave me a dime.

  I gave Leo underwear and a snot rag with dollar signs and he loved it, no one else brought presents. And his wife Toiny was there and I had copies of Interview with me and people told me to put it away because it had the interview that showed Leo’s girlfriend Laura de Coppet and she and Leo were still having an affair and people told me it’d caused a big fight—that Leo was supposed to go to Rome and Toiny saw the interview and got so mad she tore up his ticket and he had to stay in town an extra day. It was the biggest fight ever, they said.

  Hans Namuth took every artist to the bathroom to take pictures and I decided to be a camp and I cuddled and felt up Rauschenberg and found out he has a bad body.

  Wednesday, February 3, 1982

  Talked to Stuart Pivar on the phone and we decided to do something together. So I went over to his place on West 67th and it was strange going into that building because Jed lives there. And then we decided to walk over to the auto show at the Coliseum (tickets $15). The DeLorean cars were the cutest with the doors that open the other way. They were $40,000 and now they’re $20,000.

  Then Stuart dropped me at the office and I worked for a couple of hours on Crosses and Valentines. Did that until 7:00. I was supposed to go out with Jon but he had to work on his new loft that he just got. Chris called and he and Peter were going to go to the reopening of Danceteria, which is now going to be where Interferon was, but I decided not to.

  Thursday, February 4, 1982

  The Du Pont twins sent me an invitation to the opening of a new restaurant called Jeanie’s in the old Tudor Hotel, and it was a Nikki Haskell event (cab $4). Cornelia Guest came but I guess she’s been reading her newspaper clippings so she only stayed a minute. The food was good and I ordered a lot. And the steak arrived and Chris had his wrapped up and ready to take home for breakfast before it was even served, practically, and they wanted to know what was wrong.

  And there was a party for Pia Zadora that Frank Sinatra was even coming in for at Hisae that we could have gone to but Bob wouldn’t put her on the cover, and she would have been just great to have on the cover, I just love her. It’s like if Andrea “Whips” Feldman had been not crazy and had a better nose. Pia’s like all those tiny girls we knew who always grabbed the spotlight.

  Friday, February 5, 1982

  Was picked up by Jon to go to see Venom, on Broadway and 46th Street (cab $5, tickets $10). Jon checked how it was doing with the manager, it was a Paramount movie. It was about 60 percent filled.

  Well, it was the audience that was really the horror show. In front of us was like a family, a mother and then I think a couple of daughters with their boyfriends, and they were eating and kissing and feeling up, and it was so strange, so crude.

  Then Puerto Ricans came in back of us and their feet were up and they were smoking joints and there were all these big black bruisers lurking everywhere.

  Then when we left the theater I was nervous because we were on the street where somebody’s been throwing rocks off buildings and killing people. We went to Studio 54 where Liz Smith and a Lumet girl were having a birthday party called I think “15 & 50.” I saw Sean McKeon outside and I asked if he wa
nted to get in and he said yes, and so I got him in, and I introduced him to Jon (hatcheck $2).

  Saturday, February 6, 1982

  I went to Jan Cowles’s place at 810 Fifth Avenue where she was having a birthday party for her son Charlie. Gave Charlie a Dollar Sign painting and Leo was there. Joe MacDonald was there, but I didn’t want to be near him and talk to him because he just had gay cancer. I talked to his brother’s wife.

  At 11:00 cabbed to La Coupole ($5). Diana Ross was there with Patrice Calmette and Iman and Bianca and Barry Diller and Steve Rubell. They were just finishing dinner. I tried to make Barry Diller laugh because he never does and everybody says it’s impossible, I asked him to dance but he didn’t even crack a smile, so then I gave up and just told him that I loved his movie Venom. Then he laughed.

  Then Calvin Klein invited us to see his new apartment on 66th and Central Park West (cab $6). Diana Ross went in a limo. The place is beautiful, a duplex, with a gym and modernized windows and he did it himself, all white and he has a stairway like Halston’s, wooden with no banister, and it looks like a work of art and it’s very scary. And everything’s in order and he collects the same things I do. Stieglitz’s pictures of Georgia O’Keeffe. And Indian rugs and blonde tortoiseshell.

  Monday, February 8, 1982

  It was such a beautiful day that I decided I wanted to stay out until the sun went down, it was so warm and sunny.

  On TV was a movie The Day the Bubble Burst about the big crash of the stock market in 1929 and Jon asked me if I was around for it. I said no.

  Thursday, February 11, 1982

  The Oscar nominations came out. And Faye didn’t get nominated for Mommie Dearest. If that isn’t acting …

  Sunday, February 14, 1982

  Brigid’s in the hospital seeing about having her gallbladder out.

  Marisa was having her wedding to Richard Golub at Halston’s office place and she looked great in a pink tulle Halston sleeveless, and you see how beautiful the dresses can really look when they’re on somebody like that. They talked and laughed during the ceremony, that was sort of good, the bride and groom. But he’s just another guy looking for a beautiful girl to get him into the papers.

  Cabbed back to pick up Chris to see Quest for Fire. And Rae Dawn Chong was in it, the girl who was going with Owen Bayless who used to work for Interview. She was naked in the movie, her role was that she teaches mankind how to fuck in the normal position instead of doing it from behind. The audience loved it. It was different. There was no dialogue.

  Monday, February 15, 1982

  Brigid said she was going to be operated on on Wednesday.

  Walked to Columbus Avenue through the park with Jon and there was a group of five big bruisers hanging around and when Jon runs he dances and runs up telephone poles and swings on trees and he has his earphones on so he didn’t hear it but this group applauded.

  Wednesday, February 17, 1982

  Brigid’s now going to be operated on on Friday morning at Roosevelt Hospital. She said Lee Strasberg just died there and that Joanne Woodward’s having a foot operation there.

  Saturday, February 20, 1982

  Got up early and had to meet Rupert. Brigid called and said she was walking around. She said it was hard having the operation but she was glad it was over now.

  And Matt Dillon was having a birthday party, his eighteenth, at Studio 54. And that boy, Baird Jones, whose father runs People, was having all rich preppies from Harvard and Columbia at a party at the Savoy. He’s turning into Elsa Maxwell, giving parties at a different place every week, having all the rich young preppies there. But Fred had a dinner I had to go to at his place.

  Sunday, February 21, 1982

  Got up early, went to church.

  Vincent called and said Shelly had an 8.2-pound baby girl and that the birth was really easy and they named her Austin.

  Monday, February 22, 1982

  Got up early and went to exercise class. Brigid didn’t call but I knew that she was okay because she checked in with the office. The Mayor Koch lunch was still on for the next day at the office—I was surprised, because he just announced he would run for governor, and I thought he’d break the lunch date.

  Jane Fonda called and I tried to call her back but didn’t get her so I wondered all day what that was about. Then later Kate Jackson called and it was fun to get these movie star calls. She said she was just calling to say hello, and I told her I’d loved her movie, Making Love. And Chen from Liz Taylor’s office called to invite me to Liz’s fiftieth birthday party in London on Saturday but I think we’ll be in Belgium, it’s supposed to be a smasheroo.

  Tuesday, February 23, 1982

  This was the day Mayor Koch was coming to lunch and Vincent was all excited, and I kept saying he was going to cancel but he still hadn’t, and then at 11:00 he called and cancelled. Vincent was really disappointed and now I think Koch is awful. He could have come just for five minutes. I mean, now I’m not going to vote for him. I know I don’t vote, but so what, I mean, he’s still awful. And they were showing on the news the clips of him in the past saying that he would never run for governor, so he just changed his tune and that means he’s just like everybody else, he blows with the wind.

  Jane Fonda called again. She wants a free portrait of herself so she can make posters from it to sell to raise money for her husband Tom Hayden’s election campaign. Fred can’t decide if I should do it.

  Wednesday, February 24, 1982

  Victor called and said he wanted to see Victor/Victoria—he thinks it’s about him. He said Halston would have dinner afterward just for the three of us.

  Tuesday, March 2, 1982—Berlin

  We went over to where Fassbinder was filming this movie called Querelle by Genet. Brad Davis is the star of it. I got my picture taken with Brad and I got his autograph on an ashtray for Jon. Met Fassbinder and he was wearing outrageous clothes, the leopard-skin jodhpurs, and one of the guys standing there said he thought Fassbinder had dressed up like that just for me because he usually wears just plain black leather. He looked like a circus trainer. And Brad Davis looks so strange, so delicate-looking. Much better than he did on the cover of Interview.

  Saturday, March 6, 1982—Paris

  At 6:30 I had an opening at the Daniel Templon Gallery which I didn’t know I was having but since I was in town I had to go to it. We got there and it wasn’t so bad. It was the Dollar Signs and they looked pretty good. We ran into Sao Schlumberger there, and she didn’t know I’d be in town. She offered us a ride back to the hotel. She was cute, wearing leather and foxtails. And then we invited lots of models to a party Lord Jermyn was giving for me—he said it was a party for me but I think it was just a good excuse. That was at 9:00. We picked up Chris and walked over.

  Johnny Pigozzi told me that John Belushi died from an overdose.

  Then the models said they had another party to take us to and Eric de Rothschild said he wanted to come with us and that he had “a limo” outside, but it turned out he just had a Volkswagen, and so about eight of us had to fit into it. And we got to the party and it was really great, all these beautiful models, one better than the other. Dancing to beautiful tunes, American, smoking joints and cooking frankfurters with the windows open. Then the police came and we got scared, everybody had to throw their dope away. It was about 2:00 and we had to think about getting back and packing for our trip back to New York.

  Chris and I left and cabbed back to Fred’s apartment ($10).

  Monday, March 8, 1982—New York

  Victor gave me a call and said that he’d been with some Amsterdam boys and that everybody’s afraid of getting the gay cancer so now they fuck with their big toe. Now it’s (laughs) whoever has the biggest toe. He said, “It’s wild.”

  Saturday, March 13, 1982

  Got up early to meet Jon. It started raining but it was warm. Decided we’d go to the Met to see what the new Rockefeller Primitive Collection looked like (cab $4, admission $7). Liz Holtzman was g
oing in to see it, too, and she was nice and charming, she came over to say hello. There were a lot of photographs of the Michael Rockefeller boy who got eaten and a boy and a girl were looking at one of them and I heard them say, “He looks like a hippie.” The collection was great, it’s mostly African but some American Indian and some Mexican and some South American and the installation was terrific. Walked down from 83rd Street to 44th Street and stopped at Barnes and Noble for reference books and some books that’ll help with Interview, about Dorothy Kilgallen. Bob Bach was a good friend of hers. I just ran into him recently. He’s the one who gave me the job as the hand drawing on the weather map for about a week once on CBS, during the Will Rogers, Jr. show in the fifties.

  Monday, March 15, 1982

  I got a letter from Billy Name and he wants me to give his photographs from the original Factory on 47th Street to Jean Stein for her Edie book, and I just hate her, I don’t want him to.

  And Brigid was back at work and it was wonderful, she was radiant and God, she really has a beautiful gallbladder scar, you can hardly see the staple marks. We sat at the conference table for an hour and she told me everything about the gallbladder attack and operation.

  Tuesday, March 16, 1982