The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  And then Chris began taking photographs and he took some of sleeping fortune tellers and the flash woke them up and they chased us all out of the place—I guess none of them wanted their picture taken because of the evil eye or whatever it is.

  Alfred had a dinner party and it was so glamorous, we took a junk out to his private boat. He imported a crew from New York to photograph us while we were there and they were awful, seven of them, and I don’t even want to remember their names. We all went to Disco-Disco, a drag queen place, and an English girl came up to me and wanted to dance and I didn’t want to and she said, “You’re not anything like what they write about in the papers,” and I said, “Well, I know that.”

  Friday, October 29, 1982—Hong Kong

  Muggy. Took the boat across the river to Kowloon ($12 there and back). We had to meet the Sius at their house way up on the hill, you can see all of Hong Kong. We were followed by the crew everywhere, every minute.

  The pre-opening party was “exclusive,” my dear, really grand, lots of people. The show was okay. The gym was open and they had exercises. They got me on a machine and tipped me upside-down with all my pills falling out of my pockets and my hair almost fell off. Then went to the disco. It was just finished one minute before the opening. Danced with Natasha Grenfell, pushed her around, I was drunk. All our possible portraits fell through and Alfred was embarrassed. We sneaked out about 2:00.

  Saturday, October 30, 1982—Hong Kong

  Got material for ideas at the Peking Communist Store ($250). And I finally found out that Hong Kong is actually owned by the Chinese, that England just rents it! So now I know why everyone’s nervous here, the lease is almost up.

  The big opening of the I Club was 8:30 to 1:30. Home at 4:30. Called New York.

  Monday, November 1, 1982—Peking

  Two-hour car ride and everybody was singing great American songs. Finally when we got to the Great Wall it actually was really great. I’d been putting it down, but then it was staggering. We went on the left side because it wasn’t so steep and so crowded, and all the Chinese were taking pictures of themselves. My hair almost blew off and I think they got a picture of it. Soldiers go there with their girlfriends. It’s like walking up to the Empire State Building.

  Then we got in a bus and went to the Ming Tombs and that was staggering, too, and that was somehow two hours away, too. It was a whole afternoon.

  Went to bed with my clothes on. The Peking Hotel. The place was infested with roach motels.

  Wednesday, November 3, 1982—Peking

  Up at 6:30, another crew day. Went to the bird fair, that’s where people get together and sell birds, that’s what they do with their time—sell worms and spiders and birds. Then got on the bus and went to the Summer Palace. Met Americans we knew there—Lita Vietor who was so nice to us in San Francisco, and some Palm Beach people, they were on a tour. Stopped off at the I.M. Pei hotel and photographed it.

  Went to a commune and the children came out and they sang “God Bless America” and “Jingle Bells” and it was disgusting because it was just so sad to see these little kids having to perform like animals. Another truckload of bus people would arrive after us and it would be the same routine and they would hug you, same show.

  Thursday, November 4, 1982—Peking—Hong Kong

  We left the hotel to catch the 8:45 flight. Had some tea ($12). You can’t tip people. Everybody tells on everybody. Then we found out that if you give them a couple of cigarettes, that’s what they really want. Should have done things like that, but we hadn’t figured it out. So got to the airport and sat around for hours. Then a lady and her husband had lost their passport and for an hour and a half they were going through everything looking for it, and the lady was screaming at her husband, it was just such a movie scene, and then two minutes before the plane was ready to leave, the lady put her hand in her pocket and found it. They were really old, it was sad. It was so horrible. They were old and they couldn’t get out of China. “Where is it?” “You had it last.”

  Ran into one of those English groups, like maybe the Clash, on the elevator. On the same floor as us.

  Saturday, November 6, 1982—Hong Kong—New York

  Took a Valium because I was facing an eighteen-hour plane ride. Read the Neil Sedaka book and the Britt Ekland book and they were both so bad. Neil’s daughter, Dara, is the biggest thing in Singapore and Tokyo.

  Monday, November 8, 1982

  Sent Benjamin down to Chinatown (laughs) because I hadn’t gotten any gifts for anybody when I was in China. And I also told him (laughs) that he was under consideration for being fired because I was so tired of looking at Chinese people.

  Did mail at the office and only got through one-third of what I have to catch up on. I began getting jetlag. Decided to stay in.

  Wednesday, November 10, 1982

  Bob was having lunch with Jann Wenner at Le Cirque. But I knew Jann couldn’t take him away from us because Bob makes so much more money at our place. I think Jann just wants to pick his brain. And Bob said John Fairchild and James Brady were also at Le Cirque, so I guess it’s the new place for gossipers.

  Worked all afternoon. Decided to stay home and get rid of my cold. I watched Dynasty and the best thing was the baby getting kidnapped, because they used a real baby. You know how usually TV shows use a doll? Well Dynasty had the real baby being dashed through the streets with its head bobbing and bouncing around. And gee, everybody on that show has such awful hair.

  Saturday, November 13, 1982

  Chris had invited us to the Shafrazi Gallery for the closing of the Keith Haring show, he’s the one who does those figures all over the city, the graffiti. His boyfriend is black, and so he had 400 black kids there, so cute, so adorable. Just like the sixties, except (laughs) black.

  And Ronnie was there looking very chic with his girlfriend. His art’s selling like crazy.

  Then there was a party for the show in the basement where it was all in blue light and they wanted me to go down, but I knew my hair would turn completely blue, so I didn’t go.

  Monday, November 15, 1982

  Jean Michel Basquiat who used to paint graffiti as “Samo” came to lunch, I’d invited him. And then I went at 3:30 to Julian Schnabel’s where I was posing for him. And I had on a Paramount T-shirt which would have been good to pose in, but he made me take it off, and I was posing like that for two hours, standing there. And I took off my glasses so I could look him in the face and still look out of it.

  Thursday, November 18, 1982

  Had to get into black tie and go to a de Menil party for the Yves Klein opening at the Guggenheim (cab $5). I met Mrs. Klein, she’s remarried. Then went upstairs and Fred was there with Natasha Grenfell. And then Jean Stein came in and I just sort of ignored her.

  Then cabbed to the Guggenheim ($4). Walked all the way up the ramp and saw the show and then all the way down and saw the show. Then went home and was in bed by 10:00.

  Friday, November 19, 1982

  Donahue had a show on gay cancer but I didn’t want to watch it, it made me nervous (cabs $3, $5, phone calls $.40).

  It was busy at the office. Interview was giving a lunch. Worked all afternoon. Had to leave early to go to the pimple doctor, Dr. Silver.

  Dr. Silver said not to use soap ($6.50).

  Saturday, November 20, 1982

  Tom Cashin called and said that Zoli had died of gay cancer.

  Thomas Ammann picked me up in his limo and we went to the Odeon and it was star-studded with artists—John Chamberlain and Joseph Kosuth and the Christos and a lot of art dealers and Barbara Jakobson. And a creepy girl who said she’s been trying to come in to the office to see me, but Robyn won’t let her in. She wants me to look at her work so badly that I’m going to have to or she’ll go crazy (dinner $256.80).

  Monday, November 22, 1982

  Did the streets with Interviews. The Calvin Klein issue is heavy (kitchen supplies $94.02, $9.75, $5.36, $30.85, cabs $3.50, $5, phones $.40).<
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  Worked out with Lidija.

  Worked on the cement sculpture project all afternoon. Did some painting.

  Then cabbed, glued ($5.50). Went to Sandro Chia’s at 521 West 23rd, he’s in the same building that Julian Schnabel paints in ($7). Sandro showed me his new paintings.

  Tuesday, November 23, 1982

  Vincent was going away and so we stayed late and paid bills, and Jay was in a mood where he wanted to get screamed at. When he wants to get screamed at he does something wrong on purpose. Like he painted something the wrong color and he said he knew he did it. After he gets screamed at he just looks like nothing happened but he’s satisfied. And we were there till late.

  I’m invited to Halston’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

  Wednesday, November 24, 1982

  This weekend Bianca accused me of telling People magazine about her and Senator Dodd, she said the only people who knew were me, Steve Rubell, and Halston. So I guess Steve told them. And Page Six of the Post had a thing saying she was now seeing Woodward in addition to Bernstein, and she actually picked up the phone and called the Post and made them correct it the next day, that she’s only seeing Bernstein.

  Thursday, November 25, 1982

  Thanksgiving. It looked cold out. The office was closed. I’d woken up at 4:00 and turned on TV and some movie with Margot Kidder was on that I couldn’t figure out but it made me so scared. It was the end and the police left her alone in the house—I don’t know why, because she was traumatized—I guess they thought the crimes were over, and then you hear some guy upstairs, coming down, calling her name. And you don’t know what’ll happen. And it got me so scared. Got up. The house was empty.

  Talked to Chris and Peter. Peter’s mother had come down from Massachusetts and they were cooking turkey and they invited me to come downtown.

  Watched the Macy’s parade on TV. They had the first woman balloon—Olive Oyl.

  I called Berkeley Reinhold and she was watching it from her window. She said her mother was making Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. Her father was in Hong Kong, so I called John Reinhold there, I dialed it direct. He was at the same hotel where we’d stayed, so it was easy to remember—the Mandarin. I made a faux pas. I told John his wife was making a Thanksgiving dinner, and he was upset because she’d never made one before.

  Watched every soap opera and for the holiday every one of the shows had every one of their characters gathered for Thanksgiving dinners. It used to be high-class people in the soap operas and now that’s just on Dallas and Dynasty. Now the people on the daytime soaps are lower-middle class—they don’t have butlers and maids.

  Talked to Jon in New Hampshire.

  Went to Halston’s for dinner and Martha Graham was there, and she looked frail, like she’s on her last legs. And then Steve Rubell came, and Jane Holzer with her son Rusty, who’s so handsome now. And he’s smart. I talked to him the whole time. He goes to Buckley and he had the highest average and he studies all the time from after school till bedtime, and then he studies some more in the morning before school to maintain his 93 average. He said he and another kid were the only ones who knew the answer to the question “Who painted Campbell’s Soup Cans?”

  Jade arrived with Bianca, she goes to Spence. And I had Rusty go say hello to her, and she was aloof, she said, “Do I know you?” and he said, “Of course,” and she said, “Oh yes, about a year ago,” and he said, “No, two years ago,” and so he was annoyed, she was putting him down, but Jane explained to him that girls get nervous and do that.

  The turkey was organic, from Jane’s Pennsylvania farm. I slipped out without saying goodbye to anyone.

  Friday, November 26, 1982

  Found out that after I left Halston’s, Rusty discovered a fire that’d started in a fireplace and gone to a Marisol sculpture and into a closet, and if Rusty hadn’t noticed it, Halston’s would have burned.

  I’m giving everyone framed underwear for Christmas. Went up to 86th Street and then down (cabs $5, $4).

  Jon called, said he was back in town.

  Saturday, November 27, 1982

  Brigid called and I invited her to see Cars (tickets $200). Cabbed to the theater ($6). We had first-row seats but on the side.

  The first act was so boring, but I noticed the pussies of the girls in the cat suits. I was so revolted. You could see the slits up their fronts. They should really wear pads. And you could see the hair coming from their pussies, but then they also had cat fur put on there, so it was confusing. But oh, you could just see everything! Maybe that’s why all these old men are going to the show. And I finally saw what the set was, a big Pop Art thing, it was like two-feet-high Coke bottles, and two-feet-high Campbell’s Soup Cans, whatever you would find in a kitchen. But Oldenburg size. And people were gesturing me to look at it. And a lady near us put her husband’s coat and hat on a box in front of them, and it turned out to be a Brillo box that was part of the set and his hat got squashed when a cat sat on it. Oh, but those pussies. You could see the— cracks—and the lips—of the—the—the—vulva. Okay? That’s how outlined it was.

  Monday, November 29, 1982

  I’d invited Pierre Restanay and his wife to lunch. He was so nice to me in the sixties I wanted to be nice to him. He’s the French art critic. And his wife is very striking, 6’2”—I guess she was a model. French women if they’re chic have the dykey look. Mrs. Restanay was wearing an old Lanvin men’s coat.

  Ronnie Cutrone came by and while I was working out with Lidija, he entertained Pierre and his wife, he didn’t know who they were, and Pierre said that he’d seen his show at Shafrazi and liked it. Ronnie’s selling everything he does. He could have been doing this for years. He actually was doing all that stuff first that the Italians now are doing.

  And then later, I decided to go see Twyla Tharp do dances to Frank Sinatra songs. Called Jon. Picked him up (cab $6). And as we were riding up to the Rainbow Room in the elevator, we realized there was a Paramount party on the floor below.

  Got to the Rainbow Room and it was star-studded. Saw Sam Spiegel and Peter Duchin who said, “This is my live-in girlfriend,” and it was Brooke Hayward. That’s a strange couple. And Leo Castelli was there, and he doesn’t hug me anymore. He’s never with Laura de Coppet anymore, either. And this performance, I guess Twyla just decided to do something just straight, she had nine couples doing nine ballroom dances, but any people at Roseland would have done it better. And afterwards I talked to Twyla for a minute. And then, as we were leaving, I saw Dick Avedon, Tuesday Weld, “Taverne,” and Paul Simon and they said Ann Reinking was there and Baryshnikov and Treat Williams (coats $2).

  So then the elevator stopped on the floor where the Paramount party was and Nick Nolte got on and Eddie Murphy. And Nick Nolte’s fat and his hair is over his eyes, like one of those dogs, but he’s so good-looking. They say their movie is really good, 48 Hours. And Eddie Murphy’s really handsome. That intelligent look. They say he’s going to be bigger than Pryor. And I was just speechless, and I said how thrilled I was, but then I remembered I’d met him at something once before. And then some girls were lined up to get Nick Nolte’s autograph so I did, too, and he just kept his head down and signed, he didn’t even look up to see who it was (cab $4). Bed at 12:00.

  Thursday, December 2, 1982

  Cabbed to Xenon ($4) for Cornelia’s birthday party. And I guess she was bored because she picked us out right away. Then photographers came over and said that Stallone was on the other side of the dance floor and that he wouldn’t be photographed with any girls, so would I go over there and be photographed with him. So I did, and Stallone was sweet, he said he was starting to shoot a movie in February in New York starring John Travolta, and that I really should stay in touch. He had about eight bodyguards with him at the bar. Then left. Got a fast cab ($5).

  Saturday, December 4, 1982

  I invited Curley to see Tootsie. We couldn’t get in at first, they were giving us a hard time, there weren’t tickets for u
s that Charlie Evans was supposed to leave. And if I’d known at that time that I was actually in the movie which I didn’t even get paid for—that I appear on the cover of People magazine with Tootsie when she gets famous—I would have been pushier and said I could take in as many people as I wanted.

  And the movie, they play it really straight, Dustin does. It’s not really like a drag queen, it’s like having an aunt that you didn’t know was a man. It’s something else entirely.

  Then we went over to Charles Evans’s. It was packed with stars, so we sat by the food so we’d see everybody. Dustin was sweet, and the director Sidney Pollack was, too. I talked to Teri Garr who was great in the movie, and we talked about Henry Post and does he have gay cancer— that’s the rumor. And Curley got me to drink. I had vodka.

  Tuesday, December 7, 1982

  Went to the office to meet Jeff Bridges (cab $4.50). Bianca was supposed to do the interview with us but she cancelled out last week. Got there, did some videoing. Jeff Bridges is big and rugged, like 6’2", he’s like a regular guy, he was sweet and hard to talk to. Then he said he was an artist and he took Polaroids of me and I showed him my painting stuff, gave him a tour, and from the Polaroids he’s going to do a portrait of me.