The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  People in the streets were laughing and throwing snow.

  The movie was great, I enjoyed it so much, it’s so decadent. There are no girls in it, and all these boys fighting. Mitchell Lichtenstein looks great, just like his father, Roy, twenty years ago, and I do think David Keith is going to be the new John Wayne.

  Sunday, February 13, 1983

  It was all snow outside and it was beautiful, not too cold. Went to church.

  Nelson Lyon called and we gossiped. And he said that Paul Morrissey had talked to Bob Colacello this summer on some Greek island where they were freeloading off Thomas Ammann and Bob told Paul that he was thinking of quitting because I still didn’t know how to spell his name. Well listen, I always thought it was stupid for him to change how he spelled his name, and then not really change it—to just drop the “i” from “Colaciello.” I mean if Bob expected me to spell it, he should have made it a really simple name—something that I could spell.

  Tuesday, February 15, 1983

  Woke up with the same old unhappiness and crud. Oh, but Lucy is making me happy this morning. I Love Lucy. She’s so funny. She’s at the Brown Derby with Ethel and Fred, and she stared at William Holden so he’s staring at her while she eats spaghetti and Ethel has to cut off the strands. Oh it’s good. She’s disguised and her fake nose catches on fire! It’s the funniest one.

  Called Catherine about the lunch we were having for her that afternoon at the office. She invited about thirty people.

  Was picked up by Benjamin and went to Doc Cox’s and saw Rosemary who’s back. She says she stays up listening to Mahler and reading icon books and she goes to work at 4:00 in the morning and finishes at 10:00.

  Left there and went to Sotheby’s but they tried to make me check my bags, and I told them no, and then they wouldn’t let me in so I walked out, I told them they were losing my business for good. I mean, it’s my “purse.” Ladies don’t have to check their purses, so why should I?

  Forgot to say that Diana Ross sent me a big bowl of candy kisses and she’s so sweet, I have to send her something. It looked like she could have wrapped this up herself.

  Oh, and Crazy Matty had been up at 860 and left the worst letter, it was crazy like Hinckley or something.

  And Bob Colacello was invited to our lunch for Catherine but he turned it down by saying, “I have to go to a meeting with my agent.”

  Wednesday, February 16, 1983

  Another lunch at the office for Catherine. She said she became great friends with Bob Dylan in England. I guess she’s doing a lot of entertaining, showing her houses. She’s wild, Catherine. She learned a lot from Tom Sullivan.

  Watched Dynasty. Joan Collins is so good. And they took the bandages off the fairy son’s face, and it’s so funny, it’s like the men are now doing all the old Bette Davis and Joan Crawford things—like when you “remove the bandages.”

  Thursday, February 17, 1983

  It was a beautiful spring day, almost. I had a lunch date with Lady Sharon and Jill Fuller at “21,” it was Jill’s birthday and I brought her a Dollar Sign. I was surprised to look at her hand and not see a wedding ring, and she said that it was over already—he was just some kid she’d met in a discotheque. He called her an old bag or something and she threw him out.

  I told them the real story of Bob’s quitting after I wouldn’t give him the Hammer & Sickle painting. And when I later got back to the office and told Fred that I’d made a mistake and told it, he got mad and he said that now it’ll be in the papers. Which I guess is true. And Jill and Sharon said that people were going to drop Bob. And actually, Jill and Sharon are the kind of people who would drop Bob. And Sharon said, “Bob’s a friend of mine, but he is moody and it’s hard to take.”

  But you know, it’s true, all those people are really going to drop Bob if he doesn’t have a column someplace. They just want to be in a column—that’s what they have him over for!

  Oh, and that Iranian lady, you know, Bob’s friend, Mercedes Kellogg, Sharon was telling me what a fat thing Mercedes was and that Sharon helped her and got her to lose forty pounds and now she’s dyed her hair blonde and is a big hostess, and she doesn’t even call Sharon.

  Saturday, February 26, 1983

  The night of the Roy Cohn party. Cab to Studio ($5). Ethel Merman sang “Happy Birthday.” And Ivana Trump was there and she came over and when she saw me she was embarrassed and she said, “Oh, whatever happened to those pictures?” and I had this speech in my mind of telling her off, and I was undecided whether to let her have it or not, and she was trying to get away and she did.

  Poor Earl Wilson must have had a stroke. He was there and he can hardly walk, he just sort of scratches his feet along the ground, so I guess that’s why he’s not doing his column so much anymore.

  Monday, February 28, 1983

  Benjamin picked me up and we tried to feed the big gingerbread house that little Berkeley Reinhold had given me for Christmas to the pigeons in the park. But they didn’t like gingerbread and they didn’t like candy. And I tried to get rid of some fruitcake, too, and they didn’t like that, either, so I feel like just letting them starve. I mean, what do they want? They do like nuts though, so maybe I’ll bring them some peanuts sometime. Okay, so then we went downtown ($6).

  Then met Lidija, worked out, then joined the lunch that was going on for Tom Armstrong, Sandy Brant, David Whitney, and Philip Johnson. They were there to try to talk me into giving the Whitney all my old movies and they’d restore them and catalogue them and show them, but I don’t know. Vincent says I have to because these people are friends. But I think maybe we should work ourselves on somehow trying to make them commercial. I told these people that when you describe these movies they always sound better than they actually are, and that if people really saw things like Sleep and Eat they’d think they were boring. I also told them that I wouldn’t be an easy sell, that Tom Armstrong would have to entertain me at the Knickerbocker Club. Which is what was supposed to be happening, anyway, but Vincent just wanted to get this lunch out of the way fast. So they said sure, and we’ll do that, so I guess they think that I’ll do it, but I don’t know if I actually will or not. I’m deciding.

  Then I was meeting Paige Powell after that at the Berkshire Hotel, the one where the Rolling Stones stayed, because there was a menswear convention there, and she thought it would be a good place to leave Interviews and try to sell ads. I like Paige (cab $4). It was incredible there— every jacket was the same, every sweater was the same. Five floors of clothes and they were all the same.

  Cabbed to meet Chris and Peter and Maura Moynihan. Then down to the Bottom Line to see Lou Reed (cab $8). And Lou’s lyrics you can understand now (drinks $140.08) and the music was really loud. He did a lot of familiar songs but you didn’t recognize them, they sounded different. Lou’s in A.A. now, and he’s also working out, getting definition, getting trim. Chris was trying to clean Maura’s fingernails because they were dirty. And she had a spot on her dress that she said she just got but it looked old. I mean, she’s Irish.

  Wednesday, March 2, 1983

  Victor told me he saw Jon at a gay club but I didn’t say anything to Jon. And Chris keeps wanting to know if he can collect on the watch that I promised him if Jon would … and I told him no, not yet. [NOTE: Although Jon Gould continued to keep an apartment of his own, he was now living inAndy’s house, in the fourth-floor guest room.} And I was worn out from Victor telling me all the gossip about Halston, it made me nervous, about Halston throwing him out of the car and about Liza wearing a YSL. And this is the night I was going to the party for Liza’s father at MOMA.

  And it was strange, because as Victor was telling me about all these fights with Halston he was screaming at me for not being a close close friend to Halston, accusing me of remaining on the surface and taking the benefits without the responsibility. Which I do do because I just don’t want to be that close to Halston because he can really turn on you.

  Steve Rubell called while
I was talking to Victor and he wanted to go to MOMA with us, and so I told him that Jane Holzer and I first were going to the Claus von Bulow party for Catherine.

  Called Victor and he said he was going to MOMA as Mrs. Halston. The new secretary said that Halston wouldn’t be providing transportation, so I guess the times are changing.

  Thursday, March 3, 1983

  How could Tennessee Williams choke on a bottlecap, do you think? How could that happen?

  Friday, March 4, 1983

  Mrs. Vreeland called for Fred and she was talking in a lower-than-usual voice. I think about her and think what it’ll be like, thirty more years of life.

  Monday, March 7, 1983

  I went to Dr. Silver the pimple doctor (cab $7) and he said I should drink more water, and I will, but I’m not sure I like peeing a lot, because then I’d have to go home more because I don’t like to use public bathrooms at all.

  Tuesday, March 8, 1983

  Jon called from California and said he’d make it on time for the Bette Midler show and he did. At the end she did a serious thing where she broke down and thanked the kids who’d slept in line to get tickets. Jann Wenner was behind me and he said, “What is Bob Colacello doing?” and then he tried to make it sound intriguing that he had lunch with him. I said, “Why don’t you hire him?”

  The show was over at 11:30 and I was home at 11:45. Didn’t go to the Club A party for Bette.

  Wednesday, March 9, 1983

  Brigid had a fight with the whole office about stealing a grapefruit and then Paige screamed that someone had stolen her scarf.

  At 3:30 I went to 35 West 31st Street to a big studio where I was being shot for a commercial for the city for the Brooklyn Bridge. And I guess they got me on the rebound from Woody Allen, because on my dialogue sheet all the lines said “WOODY.” The lines were: “That’s art,” “Perhaps in red,” and “A masterpiece.”

  Thursday, March 10, 1983

  At the office the phone rang and they told me it was Henry Post’s friend Todd and I got goosebumps. Somehow I knew what it was. And he told me Henry had died—he got another cyst in his head from the virus that he got from his cat. I may have forgotten to tell the Diary that I called him last week in the hospital and I woke him up, and I felt so bad. I asked him what I could get him and he said nothing, that there was nothing he wanted. He told me he was really weak and had to get off and he said that he didn’t know if he was going to make it.

  And I begin to wonder if Doc Cox is any good. I don’t even know if they really check my blood right. Maybe Henry would have been better off with one of those boy-disease specialists.

  And Lords of Discipline—Paramount’s decided not to advertise it anymore because it won’t take off. It’s just doing okay, $9 million. But then what I don’t understand at all is why on Entertainment Tonight they put down the Paramount movie Lords of Discipline when they could just not mention it, since Entertainment Tonight is Paramount’s. I just wish I could understand the psychology but I’m baffled. Why should they go on TV and say their own movie was slipping when they could just ignore it? I just wish I could get it.

  Friday, March 11, 1983

  Brigid’s knitting away, making a replacement for the cashmere Halston scarf that I lost last spring that I loved so much. How is it possible to lose a nine-foot scarf? I still don’t know. And Christopher was with me and he didn’t see me lose it, either. Nine feet of red scarf and nobody noticed.

  Sunday, March 13, 1983

  Halston called to invite me over to dinner. He’s getting so grand, he was saying things about “$3 billion” and “J.C. Penney” and I don’t know what it means, except he let things slip about “selling out” and I guess he has actually sold out and will be having his name on cheap stuff. I guess that’s what it’s all about and that’s what he’s worried about, he’s not sure he’s doing the right thing.

  I get so nervous with Halston because I don’t want to say the wrong thing and get him mad, because he’s our tenant in Montauk and I don’t want to blow it. He wanted to gossip, but I just said things that I knew were out already.

  Monday, March 14, 1983

  I went to 47th Street to see Boris who hasn’t had anything new in so long, he was crying poor. Nobody’s buying and nobody’s selling for some strange reason. And no auctions, either.

  Rupert called and said Ron Feldman wanted me to come right down to the gallery on Greene Street and sign prints. I said to tell him to fuck off, that I’d be down when I felt like it. And then Ron called himself and said that he would give me my check if I came down, and then I felt like it. He said he’d send someone for me, because I said I didn’t want to go down alone, so Rupert came up in a cab for me—I’d thought he was going to send a limo. So I went down there and Ron took me into his office and said, “And now we’re going to talk about sheets and pillowcases.” I said, “No. We’re not.” I said, “Well sonny, I’ve turned down millions of dollars in deals for sheets and pillowcases and I’m not going to do it for you”

  I left with Robert who works for Rupert (cab $5).

  Tuesday, March 15, 1983

  It was a beautiful day. Walked on the street and a little kid, she was six or seven, with another kid, yelled, “Look at the guy with the wig,” and I was really embarrassed, I blew my cool and it ruined my afternoon. So I was depressed.

  Monday, March 21, 1983

  Benjamin walked me over to the Knickerbocker Club where I was having lunch with Tom Armstrong and Sandy Brant who flew up from Florida just for the lunch, and David Whitney and Fred and Vincent. They’re all still trying to get my movies for the Whitney Museum, but I haven’t said yes yet. I don’t want to, but Vincent and Fred are against me.

  The Knickerbocker Club is really chic, really rich. I guess I made a mistake saying “cock” in the big room because David Whitney almost died, but then he said “fuck” about five times. We had drinks in the dining room and then went into our own little dining room. The food was great. We had champagne and that finished me off for the rest of the day. They toasted me, although I haven’t given my answer yet (cab $6).

  Interview was moving to the new building, and they were complaining because they had to move in the rain. Seeing Interview move made me have to face the fact that I’ll have to move out of 860 soon, too. But after they left, seeing all that clear empty space, it was just so beautiful that now I don’t want to leave. With all my stuff, I could probably fill up the whole new building.

  Wednesday, March 23,1983

  It was great having this big empty place now. Like the loft I always wanted. Jennifer is answering the phones at the office because she’s on Easter break, and she’s mostly sitting on Robyn’s lap. We got tickets for the opening of the New Art show at the Whitney, the Biennial. And the show is just like the sixties. And Keith Haring is so big, he flew from Japan to New York for three days and then to Paris. These kids are selling everything—Jean Michel Basquiat’s show sold out in Los Angeles.

  Friday, March 25, 1983

  Princess Pignatelli came down, her husband has 200 photographs of me that he wants me to sign. And I talked to him on the phone and I was talking to a wall. I said, “But they’re your photographs, why do you want me to sign them?” and he’d say, “But they’re of you,” and I’d say, “But they’re your photographs.” Two hundred prints. So we left it that way.

  And Ina Ginsburg was there and her son Mark, and she wants the portraits redone and one thing she wants me to change is the color of her hair. And Mark took me aside and said, “It’s because it reminds her of the concentration camp. She doesn’t want to think of herself as that brown-haired person.”

  Decided to see The Outsiders which was just opening, and I loved it, it was like watching Lonesome Cowboys. You can’t believe it—young boys with dyed hair reading poetry in the sunset. The Sal Mineo type. And then they’re in this old church hiding and the boy says, “All I really want you to do is read Gone with the Wind out loud to me.” And all the boys are
so cute. And this schmaltzy music playing as if the boys are going to kiss. Things were all cut up so they didn’t make sense. It was like seeing Bruce Weber photographs. Every boy was a raving beauty.

  Sunday, March 27, 1983

  I got a cab to the Whitney in the rain (cab $4, admission $5) to see the Biennial again. And it’s sure different from when I used to go in the fifties—then it was small paintings and—now it’s —well, it’s an interesting show. There were two Frank Stellas, two Jasper Johnses, and then Keith Haring is the only one of the young artists in it that I know. When kids like Ronnie start to paint badly, everybody starts to copy it. It’s strange. We were there for about two hours. I only had to sign a couple of autographs (cab $5). It was still raining.

  Decided to stay in and watch The Thorn Birds. It was sick, all these people trying to make one priest.

  Tuesday, March 29, 1983

  I’m trying to figure out if these episodes of I Love Lucy where they go to Europe were done before or after Auntie Mame. They were about the same time, I think, but I wish I knew which was first.