The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  And I kept running into Doria Reagan in her muumuu and I think I kept asking her if it was a Perry Ellis. I was nervous about the fashion show that I was supposed to model in at Studio 54 at 9:30 so I was drinking coffee all day and trying to be thin.

  Cabbed to Studio 54 ($4) and couldn’t find the back door but a black bum found us ($.50). Inside there were twenty-five raving models and me, and they all had big baskets and tight underwear. I talked to Michael Holden and told him I couldn’t believe he wasn’t a movie star yet but it didn’t come out right because I was nervous. I had to go out twice. I was numbers 33 and 49.

  And then afterwards Chris criticized my modeling saying that since I’m older I should walk proud and show who I am and not be shy and keep my head down, but I think I have to figure out a way to be more of a buffoon, to fall down or something.

  Then we went to a party at Heartbreak (cab $8). Chris and Peter were fighting because Chris wanted Peter to pick up a model and he didn’t.

  In the cab going home I was scared because it was a big black driver and there was no picture on the license. Got home and called Jon to tell him about my modeling experience. He was in bed in L.A.

  Tuesday, July 27, 1982

  Went to Madison Square Garden (cab $4) to see Billy Squier, he was just going on. Backstage there were about fifty nude girls serving hot dogs and beer and mud wrestling. Took pictures, then realized I didn’t have film in the camera. And an absolutely nude girl came over and said, “I see you at St. Vincent’s church every Sunday.” The Queen group was really nice to us, they gave us drinks.

  We went to the Palace which is the new discotheque on 14th Street where Luchow’s just moved out of. And it was packed, packed, like a deathtrap firetrap. There’s a lot of little rooms, I don’t know what that means.

  Got home and talked to Jon in California.

  Wednesday, July 28, 1982

  Went out with Jay to a teeth store he found, it’s on 21st on the ninth floor and it’s so great, all these teeth. I wanted a giant-size aluminum set, they said it was antique. They recognized me because Jay had an Andy Warhols TV T-shirt on (teeth $484). Carried the big teeth in the rain. That was fun.

  Calvin Klein invited me out to Fire Island for the weekend and I talked to Steve Rubell and he said that Bianca had called and asked if I was going to be there, because she was invited, too.

  Thursday, July 29, 1982

  Called John Reinhold and invited him to come to Suzie Frankfurt’s with me but he said he wanted to spend time with Berkeley, his twelve-year-old daughter who just got back from camp. So I invited them to Serendipity and we went there (cab $8) and ordered big things just to look at. And it was fun talking to Berkeley, she’s given up being an actress and now she may be a cartoonist. She left camp ten days early. It was one of those ones where you milk cows and feed chickens.

  Dropped them off ($6) and then went with Curley to 33rd and First Avenue to pick up this friend of his and it was a little brownstone and he’s 6’6” and sleeping on the floor and the place is a mess and it’s fun to see how kids really live who go out looking so chic in Brooks Brothers clothes and velvet slippers and here they are living in a hot box. Went to Xenon (cab $6).

  Howard Stein was there. And Cornelia Guest had called and invited me to a party at his place on Sunday in East Hampton. He’s using Cornelia to get into East Hampton society and (laughs) she’s using him to get into Xenon.

  Oh, and Bob is being so grand, he won’t tell me any inside gossip about the Bloomingdale thing. It was in the papers yesterday that now Alfred Bloomingdale’s mistress Vicki Morgan is suing his wife Betsy because she said it was Betsy who made Alfred stop sending her money. Vicki Morgan said, “And after all those Marquis de Sade things he made me do.” So this is the president’s best friend.

  Saturday, July 31, 1982—New York—Fire Island, New York

  Got to the Pines and called Calvin’s from the Boardwalk to tell him that Chris was with me just for the day. They said it was okay. Went over there and only Chester Weinberg and David Geffen were up. It was a grey day, had some breakfast. Then Calvin and Steve Rubell woke up and they talked about the fun time the night before.

  Went to a Hawaiian party at Gil de la Cruz’s down the street. In the sunlight you can really see what these people look like, you really see. Egon Von Furstenberg was the only one I knew. Although I thought I recognized the dog from the Breakstone TV ad, the one with the black spot over his eye that Sam Breakstone chases away. Then we went for pizza, and you could really see in the light who the dogs were (pizza $20). Then we went back to Calvin’s but we walked in on Calvin and Steve who were with those two porno stars Knoll and Ford and so we were embarrassed and left and went back to the party down the street.

  Then went home again and by this time Chester Weinberg had come back from the party, too, and he had walked in on two guys who told Chester to go away so Chester was hiding out in his room. Then we had barbecued steak and all the talking was gay gay gay. If I’d had a tape recorder you wouldn’t believe it. Then what happens is everybody goes to bed about 12:00 and sets their alarms for 2:00 because “things don’t get really hot until 4:00.” I heard everyone getting up at 2:00 but I stayed in bed, and later I heard them all coming back from their 4 A.M. cruise.

  Sunday, August 1, 1982—Fire Island—New York

  Woke up in the Pines. In the maid’s room downstairs. Talked to Jim the houseboy who wants to be a dancer. Put on block-out sun lotion because I’d gotten red on the grey day before. Continued to read Indecent Exposure and opened right to a page where they were talking about David Geffen, so I read it out loud to him.

  Talked a lot to David Geffen. His father made brassieres. It turns out he was a person I didn’t know, just one of those fringe people around Danny Fields, and he knew Nico when she was with Leonard Cohen. And his new Donna Summer album got the greatest review ever, it’s going to make him $2.5 million by the end of the week.

  Went over to Gil de la Cruz’s for a minute, Diane Von Furstenberg was there. I think she loaned the fabric for the Hawaiian party.

  We got on a seaplane and took off and there were screams coming over the radio that there was a door open, and it was mine, I could have fallen out ($100).

  We ran into Michael Coady from Women’s Wear where you land and he wasn’t drinking so he was sweet. Then the pilot who seemed like he was from New York said, “Where can I get a cab?” And so we told him, and he walked with us, and he said, “Maybe I can help you out.” I said what did he mean and he said he had the best cocaine and I said oh no no, that I didn’t use it, and so then he was embarrassed and so we walked the whole three blocks together without saying anything.

  Monday, August 2, 1982

  Mark Ginsburg was bringing Indira Gandhi’s daughter down and he was calling and Ina was calling and Bob was calling saying how important this was, so I gave up my exercise class and it turned out to just be the daughter-in-law, who’s Italian, she doesn’t even look Indian.

  Went to 25 East 39th Street to Michaele Vollbracht’s (cab $4.50). Ran into Mary McFadden on the way in and I told her she looked beautiful with no makeup and she said she’d never worn more. I told her that in that case, as one made-up person to another, it looked like she didn’t have any on. Giorgio Sant’Angelo was there. The food looked really chic but I didn’t have any.

  Went to Diane Von Furstenberg’s party for the launching of her new cosmetics (cab $4). And all the boys at the party were the same ones who had been on Fire Island. It was fun seeing Diane, she was hustling perfume. Her clothes are so ugly though, they’re like plastic or something. And she had all the high-fashion girls there wearing them. Barbara Allen was there and even she looked awful in the clothes. I did get an idea for new decorating though—big boxes of color that you can put in a room and move around and change your decorating color scheme.

  Thursday, August 5, 1982

  I watched Tarzan on cable and Bo Derek is the worst actress in the world. She was e
ating a banana, and she couldn’t even eat a banana. It was like she had no teeth.

  And Susan Pile told Jon that my birthday was actually August sixth and I’d told him it was on the fifteenth because I thought I could get by it, but now they’re having a party, I think. And I had big fights at the office. Somebody left food around and I was screaming and I told Paige Powell, our Interview ad-seller, to go and scream at whoever it was, and it turned out to be this new kid at Interview who’s just so cute and he’s always nice and smiling to me and walks me to the corner to get my cab and stuff, and so then I was embarrassed and I denied that I’d told Paige to do it—I said that oh, she must have just been on cocaine or something—and Robyn repeated the word “cocaine” to her and she went crazy, and then I got mad at Robyn for telling her, and he blamed it all on Jay and Jay said he didn’t do it and I was handing out pink slips like crazy and I screamed at Jennifer, the new receptionist girl, because I told her not to give me coffee in a coffee cup and she did, she said there was nothing else there and I screamed that there were plenty of champagne glasses and why didn’t she bring it to me in one of those instead of a crummy old cup that everybody uses and God, it was one of those days.

  And I introduced Robyn to Iolas, I thought that might do the trick for Robyn’s art career. Robyn’s such a nice kid but he has no ambition and he does want to be an artist, and so I thought that since Ronnie left and things worked out so well for him—his art career is doing really well —that maybe it could happen for Robyn, too. So seventy-four-year-old Iolas grabbed Robyn’s hand and was holding his palm. They say that you get energy from that and you do, I think. So Iolas thought he’d get Robyn’s energy. But I was hoping Robyn would get his.

  Paul Morrissey is going off to Germany, he’s getting offers to do all the movies Fassbinder was supposed to do. They should ask me!

  Friday, August 6, 1982

  It was a depressing day, my birthday. Wandered around the neighborhood. Called John Reinhold for coffee but he had a lot to do because he was getting ready to go on a trip to Japan. Jon was going to New Hampshire.

  Ran into Robert Hayes and he said that Greg Gorman the Interview photographer had called and they wanted me over on 18th Street near Fifth to be in a publicity photo with Dustin Hoffman who was in drag filming Tootsie, and I thought that sounded like fun.

  But when I got there, they said, “All right, we’ll be shooting your scene soon.” They actually were putting me in the movie. So Greg Gorman was really devious, he must have known that for that I’d want to get paid. They thought they could just get me in one second, which they did. Dustin looked great. When I think of all the lady teachers I had that must have been really drag queens! But then they thought that Dustin should be in a sexier dress to be photographed with me, so they wanted to change him and asked me to come back at 3:15.

  And Ruth Morley was the costume lady. I know her because I worked on a Thurber play that Kaye Ballard was in, and I really did the costumes but Ruth got credit because of the union. In 1954 or ‘55.1 guess I was exploited. And it was a rich-bitch producer, and you really do see people carry on and cry because the show isn’t going right.

  So went back to the office and there were little packages around, and they kept calling me from the Tootsie set. Took Susan Pile over there with me, she was in town from L.A. It was my birthday and I was trying to be in a good mood but I was a grouch. When we got back to the set, Dustin was wearing something more gay. And it was going to be Dustin’s birthday on the eighth and I told him that was mine, too. (laughs) Met Dustin’s new wife, very pretty, who looks like Debra Winger. So many of these girls now do. But the baby looks like one of those babies Barbra Streisand would have with Elliott Gould.

  Walked on Columbus and Central Park West and saw Ron Galella shooting on Central Park West and it turned out to be in front of Linda Stein’s where she was having a party for Elton John after his Madison Square Garden first-night concert. Called her up ($.20) and she wasn’t back yet, so went over to Jon’s and called again and she said to come, just not to bring too many people.

  It turned out to be 100 Zoli models. That’s what Elton had asked Linda to get and she did. Timothy Hutton was there with Jennifer Grey.

  Tuesday, August 10, 1982

  Wandered around the East Village and that made me feel weird. It’s picking up again, the places were lighted. Gem Spa is still there. I thought about the fifties when I lived on St. Mark’s Place and then about the sixties when we ran the Dom discotheque there with the Velvets and Nico playing, and about going to all those psychedelic things at the Fillmore and eating at Ratner’s delicatessen and everything. It was nostalgic.

  Saturday, August 14, 1982

  The limo driver said that he didn’t know really how to get to New Jersey, but that he’d try. We picked up Christopher and Peter and went out to the Meadowlands to see Blondie, and before them on the bill was Duran Duran and also David Johansen.

  We went back to see her. And Chris Stein has lost thirty pounds, he’s been sick, I think it’s all this bad air from some air conditioners. Debbie’s so fat now, she kicked us out because she wanted to get dressed in her Stephen Sprouse clothes.

  Our seats were up in the concessionaire’s box, and that was fun. I took pictures of the mother, the wife, and the kid, three generations of concessionaires (hot dogs $20). And the milk shakes were so thick they must have been plastic, it was like drinking margarine. Marianne Faithfull came along and read a poem she wrote and somebody put down drugs and she said, “Oh don’t put down drugs, because I’m on cocaine right now.” And I did like her so much, she was much different than when she stopped by the office a few weeks ago with Jay Johnson. She was so intelligent and so together. And she didn’t have an English accent, she was like an American, and so alert and not out of it at all.

  Monday, August 16, 1982

  I watched one of the morning shows and they had Ken Wahl on and he’s very good-looking but he was smart-alecky and saying all the corny things dumb actors say. Like that he could “go back to pumping gas.” He said, “Well, I’m from the Midwest.”

  But tell me why it is that everybody is so good-looking now. In the fifties, there were the really good-looking people and then all the rest who weren’t. Today, everybody is at least attractive. How did it happen? Is it because there’s no wars to kill the beauties?

  Friday, August 20, 1982

  Christopher found a boy named Christopher on Christopher Street who said that Paul Morrissey had also just found him on the street and asked him to be in a movie he was doing in Berlin.

  Saturday, August 21, 1982

  Stopped at Schrafft’s on 58th and Madison and the waitresses there were all saying, “Is it him?” “It’s him.” “It isn’t him.” And so when I went out I said, “It’s me,” and they were thrilled.

  Ran into Claudia Cohen on Central Park South where she lives with forty-foot ceilings, and we decided to be Puerto Ricans and sit on a stoop and gossip. She told me that that big Joan Hackett/Marsha Mason “girlfriends” rumor that got all over town was started by Bobby Zarem because he got mad at Joan Hackett who was his client. And so then we left each other, and one minute later I saw Bobby Zarem walking along, talking to himself.

  Monday, August 23, 1982

  The Duran Duran kids came by and brought some bigger and taller girlfriends. Tried to stay on a diet but went off it by nighttime. The German kid who had us do the Fassbinder posters came by. It turns out that Paul isn’t actually taking over any Fassbinder movies, it’s that this kid hired him to do a movie, and it’s going to be, Paul says, about a hustler who hustles in order to buy clothes. But isn’t that why all hustlers do it? … No, I guess that isn’t why Joe Dallesandro would do it.

  I told the guy that Paul was nuts, that I’ve come to the conclusion he really believes all these wild theories he comes up with. No matter who Paul’s talking about now, he’ll either tell you they’re really a Communist, or really in the Mafia. Before it just used to
be that they were really a fairy or a lesbian.

  Wednesday, August 25, 1982

  Got up and it was raining. Decided to stay uptown because Mercedes Kellogg was giving a lunch and somehow I was invited and I thought it would be a good chance to corner Bob about the Bloomingdale death gossip because he’d be there, too.

  Cabbed to Park and 74th ($2). It turned out to be a birthday party for Claus von Bulow. And Doris Duke was there with Franco Rossellini. He said that Isabella’s getting a million and a half for one of her modeling contracts and that she and Marty Scorsese are still trying to work it out.

  So when I had Bob cornered in the cab I asked him about the Bloomingdale death, because it came out in the press on Sunday or Monday that he had died on Friday, and Bob had seen Betsy Friday night out in California, but Bob said that Jerry Zipkin knew but kept it a big secret and hadn’t even told Bob when he and Bob went out to the supermarket together.

  Sunday, September 5, 1982—Montauk

  Bianca came by with her Senator Dodd boyfriend who is a cross between Teddy and Bobby Kennedy. He’s the youngest senator, thirty-eight. Took a walk, took pictures, got back to the house. Halston was all dressed, saying goodbye to us and we were shocked because we didn’t know what happened.

  Then Jon found out that Halston’s mother had died. Halston kept it a secret all through dinner last night, he acted as if nothing happened, but he told Victor to tell us after he left.