The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  I called Edmund Gaultney because Calvin Klein had asked me to get in touch with Georgia O’Keeffe because he wanted to meet her and buy a painting. And then I called Juan Hamilton and he was being grand, he said that Calvin could fly to Albuquerque but he didn’t know if Georgia would see him, and I said that Calvin didn’t do things like that and he said, “That’s how it goes.” So I called Calvin and told him that he should call Juan himself, because really, it’s all personality.

  Wednesday, April 21, 1982

  The limousine was picking us up to take me to Butler Aviation where I was shooting an ad for U.S. Air. They had like 100 people for this commercial and the Rockettes were in it, and Dick Cavett who had just left, and I met the director and the assistant director and I hated them, it was just like Hollywood—guys in gold chains and running shoes and bluejeans.

  The makeup girl covered my pimple, then I was put on the plane next to a lady in a grey wig. My line was that I had to pick up a bagel and say, “What is art?” and I couldn’t get it right— the first time I said, “What is a bagel?”—and I had to do twenty takes.

  Oh and I could just scream at Paul Morrissey because I open the paper and I see that Frankenstein is now playing in fifty theaters and during this time when he’s quibbling and nitpicking with me about every little dot in this formal contract he wanted made up to spell out what percentages he owns of which movies, and while he’s having his lawyer, Chase Mellen, write up every little thing—like in twenty years if I’m not around what happens—here Ponti or some Mafia company or somebody is making a fortune off Frankenstein, so why wasn’t Paul on top of that? I think I’m now going to really read the contract he wants me to sign and then I’ll say that I won’t sign things until they’re even more spelled out—I mean, what happens if he’s not around in twenty years? I don’t want to have to negotiate with his mother over foreign rights. I think I’ll do that. Yeah, I think I will.

  And have I mentioned that Mrs. Rupert Murdoch wrote me a letter about saving the church? The one on 66th Street that I go to, St. Vincent Ferrer. It’s in danger of people not going to it. It used to be the chic Catholic church, but now it’s always empty.

  Thursday, April 22, 1982

  Halston’s show was great, the simple wonderful clothes he does. And he used ten or twelve girls. He had this new fabric that’s beautiful, that’s like paper and silk, and people were feeling it to see what it was. It came in gunmetal grey and gunmetal green and like with a waterfall through it, like iridescent. And studs everywhere, lots of studs. Lauren Hutton was next to me and she was using the same camera that I use but she was shooting from the hip and I told her that she’d never get a picture unless she looked through it and put the circle in the right place. She said wasn’t it great we were Montauk neighbors now—she and Halston and Peter Beard’s brother bought 100 acres and she and Halston are going to divide up the land and build on it.

  Discussed the Extinct Animals portfolio with Ron Feldman.

  Sunday, April 25, 1982

  Picked up Jon to go to the park. By accident ran into his boss Barry Diller who was with Calvin Klein, David Geffen, and Steve Rubell out together for a walk. It was sort of a shocking moment. Everybody looked guilty for something.

  Monday, April 26, 1982

  Jane Fonda called and she’s coming on Thursday for me to do her portrait. I decided to do it after Fred read her husband’s bio and political ideas and told me I should.

  Sean McKeon called and he’s back from a modeling job in Hamburg. He said he’s breaking up with the girl he’s living with—she has a nice apartment—and that he was up for grabs if I want him, so I said I’d think about it and call him.

  Tuesday, April 27, 1982

  It was nice to be in the rain with an umbrella, nobody bothers you.

  Chris came by and was having marriage problems—Peter had stayed out till 3:00 and Chris got hysterical crying, and here’s this person who you’ve only seen being strong and you would never dream that he would ever get like that, and it shocked me so much, I decided that I really liked him a lot because he’s actually this marshmallow. I decided that I really had to help keep the marriage together so I invited them out to dinner.

  Worked all afternoon.

  Went to the Coach House and it’s so fattening there—corn sticks and things, it’s so good. I’m 120 now but I’d like to get back down, I don’t think I’ll see 115 again. I’m not anorexic anymore, but I want to be. Lidija says it’s muscles making me heavier. I mean, you see these kids who’ve been working out for a year or so, like Marc Balet who once had a slight hourglass figure, and now it looks like he’s put on a coat! It’s so strange (dinner $250).

  Wednesday, April 28, 1982

  The marriage of Chris and Peter is recovering.

  And I redid the lips on the Agnelli portrait. I wonder what’s going to happen to all these portraits in ten years when the little silkscreened dots that make up the image start to flake off.

  Thursday, April 29, 1982

  Jane Fonda was coming down at 2:00 and I had a beauty class at 1:00. Fred and I had a big fight about the makeup person and he had to go out to cool off. Then he came back. Jane Fonda had her own hairdresser and her own makeup person with her, and she was on crutches and she was oh-so-charming because she was wanting something free. Really charming. She asked about Geraldine Smith and Eric Emerson who she and Vadim once took back to their hotel room with them after meeting them at the Factory. I told her Eric was in heaven and Geraldine was in the phone book.

  I had Brigid stitching away on the new sewing machine I bought because I want to sew my photographs together, but then it turned out that the best sewer is my bodyguard, the ex-Marine Agosto, because he worked in a sweatshop in Hawaii before he went into the marines.

  Wednesday, May 5, 1982

  Cabbed to 720 Park Avenue which is at 70th, the very chic building. Mrs. Landau wants the color of her hair in her portrait changed from black to brown. A boy butler brought in food, mushrooms with pate, stuffed, and then peapods stuffed with cheese. What kind of food is that? Is it French? I knew it must have been handled so much but I was so hungry I ate it. And she has so many Picassos. We talked about restaurants and paintings. Then I said I had to go because Steve Rubell was picking me up to go to a black-tie Democratic dinner.

  He had a girl driver in a miniskirt and blonde so she looked like Blondie but she was a slow driver and so Steve shoved her aside and took over. Went to the Sheraton Center, to the ballroom. It’s so crummy there. Steve wants to get his liquor license back so he’s contributing to everybody’s campaigns.

  Thursday, May 6, 1982

  The birthday dinner for Richard Gere that Silvinha was giving wasn’t until 10:00 it turned out, so I went home and worked a while (cab $5.50).

  Went to Richard Gere’s on East 10th Street (cab $7). It was the penthouse apartment with a big terrace, it seemed like it was almost a block long. Silvinha paints there. Diane Von Furstenberg was there and the South American kids. And John Samuels was there, he said he’d gotten the lead in Hotel New Hampshire with Diane Lane and Amanda Plummer, directed by Tony Richardson.

  Jann Wenner and his wife were there and he looks like he’s losing weight now. Stayed there till about 2:00.

  Sunday, May 9, 1982

  Thomas Ammann came to town and asked about the art business. I asked him if he wanted to go to the opening of the musical Nine with me that evening and he said yes. It was the night of Bob’s birthday party at the new Club A that Elizinha Goncalves was giving for him.

  I picked up Jon and we went to 333 East 60th Street to Club A (cab $7). It was really a great party, so glamorous, you’d never think it was for Bob, all these great people were there. I was next to Betsy Bloomingdale and I talked to her, she said Alfred was still sick. “Suzy” was there, and Lynn Wyatt flew in for the party, and Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal. They had these old men serving who looked like they were from those restaurants on the Lower East Side from years ag
o, the good kind of waiters. It must have taken a lot of work, this party, and a lot of planning. And the food was really great. They had caviar stuffed into smoked salmon so you had two courses in the same breath.

  Monday, May 10, 1982

  I was invited by Jon to see An Officer and a Gentleman with Richard Gere and Debra Winger. I can’t tell if I liked it or not. Jon said he cried three times during it. Richard Gere has gotten to be a really good actor now, though. And Debra Winger is a good actress but she has this nose that just misses. If she had a nose job she could look like Ava Gardner—or anything.

  Tuesday, May 11, 1982

  Got up early, did the phones. Had an appointment with Doc Cox, walked up there. The receptionist lit into me about how I didn’t pay my bills on time and how Vincent was so awful when she called and I was starting to tell her off but then I stopped. And Doc Cox could hear everything so I guess he was the one who told her to say those things. And Rosemary is still the big cheese over there. I had an 11:00 appointment but I didn’t get out until 1:00 or 1:30.

  The New York Times had a big article about gay cancer, and how they don’t know what to do with it. That it’s epidemic proportions and they say that these kids who have sex all the time have it in their semen and they’ve already had every kind of disease there is—hepatitis one, two, and three, and mononucleosis, and I’m worried that I could get it by drinking out of the same glass or just being around these kids who go to the Baths.

  Thursday, May 13, 1982

  At the office Ronnie was still being difficult. The day before we’d had a fight and I’d told him to cool it. It’s like that time I sent him out and told him to get anything but a key lime pie and he brought back a key lime pie and we couldn’t figure out why he would do that. Well he was stretching and doing it crooked and then we had a fight and he said to me, “Well you, don’t paint, you don’t photograph, and you don’t stretch—what else can you not do?” I don’t know what he’s trying to do. He’s the way he was when he was drinking and taking drugs, only he’s not doing that now. Worked till 6:30.

  Saturday, May 15, 1982

  Went downtown to the gallery where Chris Makos was showing his drag pictures of me and where there was a show of Candy Darling photographs by all different photographers. The place was mobbed, it was the opening, and people like Jackie Curtis and Gerard Malanga were there (cab $6). Dropped Jon (cab $6.50).

  Monday, May 17, 1982

  I went in at the end of the lunch for Jody Jacobs from the Los Angeles Times, and Joan Quinn and Bianca Jagger came. Bianca said she wanted to do the Steven Spielberg interview with me. And now that I’m thinking about it what made Joan Quinn look unusual was that her hair wasn’t colored, the pink and green—it was regular hair. And for once she didn’t ask for a painting.

  Tuesday, May 18, 1982

  I tried to get some background information on Steven Spielberg for the interview with him. I decided not to be mad at the horrible P.R. girl who wouldn’t let me into the screening of E.T. the other night. She sent orchids to apologize and it’s stupid to keep thinking about things like that.

  Wednesday, May 19, 1982

  Went to the Sherry Netherland with Bianca to interview Spielberg and he was really sweet (cab $3). He was on his bed and he invited us to have some dinner. Bianca was hot for him because she wants to be in one of his movies, and he was hot for Bianca because he liked her in her movie. He said that he saw my movie Sleep when he was about twelve and that inspired him to make a movie called Snore. He said it was the most fun interview he’d ever done. We were going to invite him down to the office to try to sell him some art but then he suggested it himself. He said he’ll be back in town on the twenty-seventh and I said I’d be out of town but we’d arrange something. I dropped Bianca at the Carlyle and I went to Jon’s to pick up a script (cab $4). Stayed twenty minutes.

  Thursday, May 20, 1982

  Watched W.C. Fields with a mustache in a movie I’d never seen before.

  Fred was working out our itinerary and plans for Europe. Brigid and I went over to the beauty parlor on Third Avenue and I got a pedicure and manicure. People going by looked in the window and saw me and couldn’t believe it ($26).

  Two girls from Visual Arts saw me and came in and then ran back to school to get their art portfolios out of their lockers to show me. Brigid ran into Gerard Malanga on the street on her way out and brought him in and he had his camera with him but the wrong lens so he was going crazy because he couldn’t take a picture of me getting a pedicure. Then the Visual Arts girls came back and I introduced them to Gerard and it was like old times, seeing him go after beautiful young girls. And while I was there two men came in and made appointments, I guess because they saw me in there. One was a fashion victim. The manicurist said there’d be a three-day wait and he said, “Well, put me down.”

  I’ve gained weight. I don’t know what to do, my shirts are getting too tight for me.

  Monday, May 31, 1982

  Talked to Brigid, she’s up to 170 and people are asking her if she’s having a baby. I called Jay Shriver and he came in on the holiday because it’s been such a crummy weekend. Worked all afternoon. Sent Jay for supplies ($30). Did some hand-painting. Finished the Crosses. Dropped Jay (cab $5.50).

  And England is winning in the Falklands.

  Friday, June 4, 1982

  Had a 2:00 shooting at Avedon’s for a Christian Dior spread. Andre Gregory was there and he’s in a play downtown that he wrote. He co-wrote and produced the movie My Dinner with Andre, and he told me that when he was raising $500,000 for it, they told him, “What’re you trying to do? Make an Andy Warhol movie?”

  Everyone was wearing Dior clothes and they wanted to shoot me painting, but I said that it’d be more modern if it wasn’t, to keep it simple or it’d ruin the shot. Doon Arbus was there and it was her first time back working with him, she and Avedon had had a big fight.

  Saturday, June 5, 1982

  Up early. Got supplies for the office ($22.73, $33.82). I went into one of those Korean produce stores and there were about fifteen people in there, it was mobbed, and I listened to this guy rave about a pineapple for ten minutes, and by the time he was through, I was dying to get one, too. He was saying, “I want it ripe and ready! Juicy! Luscious! Ready to eat, right off the bat!” And then I turned around and it was Nixon. And one of the daughters was with him, but looking older—maybe Julie, I think. And he looked pudgy, like a Dickens character, fat with a belly. And they had him sign for the bill. There were Secret Service with him. And the girl at the cash register said he was “Number-One Charge.”

  Went to My Dinner with Andre (cab $4) and there was a line so I told the girl that Andre sent us and would she please let us in and she thought I meant for free, but I said that I’d pay. I fell asleep, it was so boring. Hippie talk. I guess the kids are thinking this is intellectual because it tells about feelings. Home, bed at 1:00 (cab $4).

  Tuesday, June 8, 1982—New York—Baltimore—New York

  I had to go to Baltimore to see Richard Weisman’s father, Fred, present my portraits of Ten Sports Figures to the University of Maryland. By the way, does the Diary know that Fred Weisman got his skull fractured by Frank Sinatra in the sixties? At the Polo Lounge in Los Angeles. They didn’t know each other. Sinatra hit him with a phone.

  Decided to fly on New York Air because I’d done the commercial for them, and it was a mistake because the plane didn’t take off for forty-five minutes, they said they were waiting for parts but I think they were just waiting for the plane to fill up. And nobody mentioned my commercial, not even the stewardess when she handed me a bagel.

  Arrived at University of Maryland and a girl comes running up and says, “How does it feel to be at the school that graduated Valerie Solanis?” I didn’t know that Valerie went there! I’d never heard that, so that was new.

  Was photographed and invited to the house of the president. And so we walked over across the campus, to his house, to sit and chat w
ith a select few, which is always so boring. Got the shuttle and was back in New York at 3:45.

  Rupert came and we worked on the poster for the Fassbinder movie till 8:00.

  Wednesday, June 9, 1982

  Somebody stopped me on Park Avenue and said, “You’re that person on that commercial,” and I said yes and gave him an Interview, and then he said, “Maybe you can help me?” and I said what was it because I was in sort of a rush, and he said that he wrote scripts and would I look at them and then he said, “And what’s your name?”

  Curley had his twenty-fifth birthday, and so we sent out for things and had drinks.

  Thomas Ammann just called to tell me that Fassbinder just killed himself. Well, he really was strange. When he came to the office he was reeeally strange. And when I say somebody’s strange, you know they’re strange. He was thirty-seven and did forty movies.

  Dropped Rupert (cab $5). Went home and was picked up by Richard Weisman to go to the Grease II premiere. Jon was taking Cornelia Guest. The movie was everything I dreamed for. I loved the Pfeiffer girl and the Caulfield boy and Pat Birch’s direction was great. It was so good. John Travolta is so dumb for not doing Grease II. What is he doing now? Can you imagine being a star and not working? Do you sit in your palace and take (laughs) acting lessons, or what?