The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Watched cable TV looking for Andy Warhol’s TV on MSG-TV but it wasn’t on, so called Vincent and he was in bed already and didn’t know why it hadn’t been on.

  Tuesday, May 10,1983

  Karen the almost-doctor came by, and I think I will become her first patient when she gets her office in three months. I am thinking of a facelift but she said to wait and she’d give it to me. I never went back to Dr. Rees after that consultation, I still owe him $200.

  Then Steve Aronson came in with a girl named Evgenia, she’s a Guinness but she has a Polish last name and she’s Robert Lowell’s stepdaughter—a short dark-haired English girl, she’s trying to be a model. And we all went to Worth Street, just near Canal, and I let the girl pay for the cab. Somehow I didn’t want to, somehow I wanted her to. The three of us were being photographed together, I didn’t know why, for the English magazine Ritz, which I hear David Bailey’s sold, but it’s still hanging on. Somebody was getting something, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And you could tell the photographer was an amateur because he took too many pictures, too many rolls. Left there. Dropped Steve off ($5.50) and then I finally put it together what it was all about. The girl wanted pictures to use in her modeling portfolio and the Ritz wanted pictures of me, so she used Steve to get me down there by telling him they needed me to represent (laughs) “hype” because they’re running an interview with Steve on his book Hype. In the cab Steve said the picture they took of the three of us was going to be on the cover and so then I just looked at him—I mean, if it’s for the cover, they’ll just crop him out anyway and they’ll use a picture of me and say, “Mr. Hype.” So that was a real waste of time for everybody but the girl.

  Wednesday, May 11, 1983

  You know, you begin to wonder if there isn’t something to these Polish jokes. I mean, the Polish Institute is next door and they have a sign on the door that says to use the next door, and they have an arrow pointing to the second door. Well they walk right by that second door and come to my house and ring my bell. It really makes you wonder.

  My sister-in-law Ann just got me on the phone, and she keeps wanting to come over here and I keep telling her I’m going out of town. And they just had a forty-year reunion and I was the only one in the family not invited because they knew I wouldn’t come. And she just told me her daughter now sells mortuary plots, and she said, “She’s married to a 6’4” guy and he’s Lutheran and he’s very nice, what a nice guy, uh, he’s not working at the moment, but …” I always hated this sister-in-law. She made her one son become a priest and I guess he really didn’t want to. I always thought she should be a nun herself. And the daughter, Eva, when she was taking care of my mother when I was in Paris making L’Amour, she made me rush right back to New York saying she just had to leave and get on with her life, and I told her, “What life?” She could have just lived in New York and kept taking care of my mother, but she wouldn’t, she went to Denver. Well, she’s still out there. And here’s my sister-in-law telling me all things I don’t want to hear, like, “Do you realize it’s the anniversary of your father’s death? Did you go to church for Assumption?” [Note: Andy’s father died in May 1942 when Andy was thirteen.]

  Saturday, May 14, 1983

  It was sunny, warm. The tree in front of the house didn’t make it through the winter and I asked people what I can do about it and they said you have to call the city and tell them about it and they probably won’t do anything until the fall.

  Met Benjamin and we went downtown to the Sandro Chia show at the Castelli Gallery (cab $5). And then went over to Tony Shafrazi’s and saw the works of somebody named … I forget. It’s Fred Flintstone graffiti, that’s what he’s known for—Kenny somebody. Scharf. And so I was thinking of buying a work of this artist and I figured it would be $4,000 or $5,000. So we left there and when I called later on after thinking about it they said it cost $16,000. I mean, these are kids right off the street getting these prices!

  Went to the office and John O’Connor came to help. Did two big Rorschachs and they looked kind of good, I don’t know. I get so confused looking at art, you don’t know whether to change or stay the same. Oh (laughs) I know, I won’t change, I won’t change.

  Sunday, May 15, 1983

  Called PH and she’d just interviewed the guy who directed War Games, and he told her that when he directed Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta didn’t want to wear the famous white disco suit because he didn’t think white was cool—he wanted to wear a black one. But then the guy pointed out to Travolta that if he wore black he’d fade into the background and you’d only be able to see the girl he was dancing with, so he changed his mind fast. That’ll be a good scoop for Interview.

  Went over to the Criterion to see Breathless (tickets $10). It’s strange to see Richard Gere doing this. If it’d been somebody like Matt Dillon it would have been like a James Dean movie. It’s that Sartre way, the nothingness thing. You would think existentialism would be still modern, but it isn’t. He does bad things and you see his ass all the time, he just drops his pants every chance he gets. But it’s strange to see someone that age doing that, but maybe that’ll bring back that kind of person. It was written by our old friend, Kit Carson. The movie had an old-fashioned feeling to it.

  Monday, May 16, 1983

  Brigid just told me that Mickey Ruskin O.D.’d at 3:00 in the morning. Mickey had been calling her for months, wanting her to give an interview on Max’s Kansas City and the sixties for a book he was doing on Max’s.

  Called Julian Schnabel ($.50) and then went over there. He has four floors in the building that Les Levine bought years ago and then co-op’d. Schnabel used to be his assistant. Julian’s following my philosophy of doing a painting a day, he’s trying to be the new Andy Warhol, so that made me nervous so I left and worked very hard at the office until 8:00.

  Wednesday, May 18,1983

  Benjamin had invited Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf for lunch. I tried to get Keith on the Interview cover, I was thinking it would be good to have an artist on the cover, art is so big now, but they wouldn’t let me. It looks like we’re going to use Miguel Bose.

  Richard Gere hasn’t returned Interview phone calls about being on the cover, so I guess he’s not a friend.

  Oh, and Paige is upset—Jean Michel Basquiat is really on heroin—and she was crying, telling me to do something, but what can you do? He got a hole in his nose and he couldn’t do coke anymore, and he wanted to still be on something, I guess. I guess he wants to be the youngest artist to go. Paige gave him a big art show uptown last month and she’s the reason he’s been around the office—they’re “involved.”

  Thursday, May 19, 1983

  The papers were full of Lord Jermyn getting busted for “trafficking in heroin.”

  Friday, May 20, 1983

  A day for more newspaper shockers, Monique Van Vooren was charged with cashing her dead mother’s Social Security checks for years, ever since she died.

  Decided to go to the Fiorucci party at Studio 54 and it was so embarrassing to at this point get into a cab and say (laughs), “Studio 54, please.”

  And Peter Beard was there, he’s back from Africa, but he said not to tell Cheryl.

  Monday, May 23, 1983

  I decided to take Chris to Europe again because I get nervous being alone there while Fred’s off doing business.

  Then Chris was having John Sex at his place with his boa constrictor—he uses it in his act— so I went over there to take pictures, took about three rolls, but I was scared of the snake. And the snake sleeps with him. And John has the most unusual hair, the most extreme style—a very big big exaggerated pompadour, dyed blond and hair-sprayed, and he said that when he got into a cab one day his hair was just this big mess and standing out all over the place and the cab driver said to him, “What’s that? An Andy Warhol wig?”

  Monday, May 30, 1983

  Memorial Day. It was dreary, started to rain. Had to meet Bruno Bischofberger at the Jockey Cl
ub in the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South, so I walked over there. Bruno was waiting inside with Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente.

  And Julian Schnabel’s painting just went for $96,000 at auction. Clemente is another one of those new Italian painters, like Chia and Cucci. And somehow Julian is in this category, too—he really is determined to be a big star.

  Later, I was getting calls from Victor and he was crying and hysterical and saying he had no friends and that when Halston came home “something” was going to happen at 6:00. And I said, “Oh, Victor, I mean, I just don’t want to be involved because the last time I was involved you told me to mind my own business. Just don’t do anything crazy.” And he said that he would drag Halston’s name through the papers and ruin his image, and I said that he would be the one who got hurt. And I think this is all because Victor’s new boyfriend just jilted him and people transfer these things.

  Tuesday, May 31,1983

  Fred told me that as he was going by 63rd Street and Park, he saw these two guys hugging and kissing in the middle of the street and it turned out to be Victor and his boyfriend, so I guess I don’t have to worry about Victor for a while again.

  Wednesday, June 1, 1983

  Bruno came to lunch, and Jean Michel Basquiat. And after Paige’d been crying away that he was destroying himself on drugs and was going to die, here he showed up as healthy as a horse, he’s put on twenty pounds, and he was just in Jamaica, and he looked actually handsome. He gets his hair cut at this shop on Astor Place that’s gotten so chic, it used to be $2.50 for a haircut and now it’s $4 something.

  Thursday, June 2, 1983

  Liz Smith did a whole column on Calvin, saying that she sat next to him the other night and he absolutely denied the rumor that he had AIDS and that he looked healthy and happy and that he was now off in Morocco.

  And I forgot to say that yesterday on the Today Show Steve Aronson was on to promote Hype, and they quoted my “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” line. The girl who interviewed him was the blonde who’s replacing Jane Pauley for the week. She attacked Steve but he deserved it—he went too far in the book, he was too mean. How is it that someone so smart and so funny can’t figure out that being mean always backfires?

  And Chris said that he visited Tony Perkins and Berry. I guess Psycho II will make a lot of money this summer. He said that when Berry went into the other room Tony started pointing to Chris’s crotch and saying, “I’d like to see you,” and all Chris could say was, “All right, Norman.” I never really liked Tony because he treated me badly once when he was with Tab Hunter.

  At 1:30 Curley called and said he was just sitting there with his dog thinking about me.

  Friday, June 3, 1983

  The city is just teeming with beautiful kids who all look like models. They must come from everywhere. And the Post today had the headline: “Fashion Designer Dies of AIDS.” But it wasn’t Calvin, it was a South American. And I heard that last night at the Santo Domingo wedding party which I didn’t go to, someone was saying to Zara who works for Calvin, “Okay, enough is enough, you’ve got to tell me, what’s the story with Calvin?” And just at that moment he walked in looking so healthy and he said, “I just got back from Marrakesh.”

  Saturday, June 4, 1983

  It’s now around the time of the fifteenth anniversary of the day Robert Kennedy was killed and I was shot. They found a letter at the new building saying “Welcome to the neighborhood,” and it was from Crazy Matty. He’s living at the Hotel Seville, just a few blocks away. Went to bed early and that was that.

  Sunday, June 5, 1983

  Cabbed to the Water Basin on 32nd Street and the East River near where the helicopters take off ($6) to go to Brooke Shields’s eighteenth birthday party. Brooke was sweet, her mother thanked me for coming. The usual people were there, Cornelia with her beau. Couri Hay and Scavullo and Sean Byrnes. And Ted Kennedy, Jr. came and said hello. Brooke ate with us, and it’s just so funny to see her with her little girlfriends, because here’s this 6’ goddess and then these short little ducklings who’re smart—I mean they’re smarter than Brooke, but it’s just like two such different things. She looks twenty-five. If she could only get her voice down to sounding less feminine she could really make it in the movies.

  And Brooke thanked me for the present of putting her on the cover oí Interview, but I’d already given her a painting, so she was just being nice saying that.

  And she gave out pictures of herself in a little silver frame, which was a cute idea. The food looked good, everybody looked pretty. Slipped out at 12:00 and went home to walk the dogs.

  Monday, June 6, 1983

  The morning was great. Chris called and said that Coleco was going up ten points by the minute. He and I both have some.

  And I love seeing the new People magazine with Tony Perkins on the cover, and it talked about him being gay, as if it were all in the past. Isn’t that funny? And it talked about Brigitte Bardot and Ingrid Bergman and Jane Fonda trying to make him. Left out Tab Hunter and Chris Makos, but it didn’t say that he used to hire hustlers to come in through the window and pretend to be robbers. I wonder if Chris had to do that. I guess maybe he did. Chris did get wild.

  Tuesday, June 7, 1983

  It was really busy at the office. Jay came in the back to where I was working and told me that Sidney Poitier’s son was there. And everybody at the office, they all believed it. It was like believing in the Du Pont twins or something. Jay really fell for it. Finally we got him out when he said that his mother Diahann Carroll was coming to meet him there, so I said, “Oh, you might miss her if you don’t wait for her downstairs.” Oh, and Diana Ross was going to be coming with her. I forgot. Diana Ross, too. And still they all believed it.

  So cabbed up to the Museum of Natural History ($8) in traffic. Saw Halston’s show then went to his place. And when I got there Halston said, “A very strange thing happened. My doorbell rang and there was this boy who claimed he was the son of Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll and he said he was meeting you here for dinner, and I told him, ‘Listen, darling, you’re not invited.’ “ I guess when this kid was at the office in the afternoon he must have overheard that I was going to Halston’s for dinner.

  Wednesday, June 8, 1983

  The fake Poitier kid called the office and said (laughs) he was coming for lunch. He’s beautiful, like a mulatto girl. Lispy. I screamed at Jay and said that if he let him set one foot in the door I’d kick them both out. Jay still isn’t convinced the kid isn’t real! But then he never did come.

  Thursday, June 9, 1983

  Got up early because I had a 10:00 appointment at the office that Fred had made with Wayne Gretzky of the Oilers (cab $6). When I got there they said that Gretzky had just called and said he was coming right down. Meanwhile Fred who had made this early, early meeting wasn’t there yet. By 12:30 I was still the only one there, and I was mad. I found out from Brigid that the reason Fred was late was because he’d brought home a black girl and she’d Mickey Finn’d him and taken all his watches, so I didn’t yell at him. And finally Gretzky arrived and he was adorable, blond and twenty-two and cute. He doesn’t wear shoulder pads when he plays. I told him he should go into the movies and he said that he was going to be in a Fall Guy and a Tom Selleck. He dates a Canadian singer.

  Brigid went up to Jennifer’s graduation from Spence, and I couldn’t go, I disappointed Jennifer, because I had the Gretzky thing and then lolas to tape. But I called her and told her to bring her father down afterwards for lunch. Sent Brigid out for desserts ($20) and had champagne with Jennifer and her father. And then after they left, that’s when Benjamin told me that her father had been Edie’s psychiatrist! Jennifer didn’t tell her father until a few days ago that she was working here. Jennifer stayed on and worked.

  Sunday, June 12, 1983

  Up early, it was a beautiful day. Went to church. Then Jon and I cabbed up to the Bronx Zoo where I’d never been in my life ($20, adm
ission $5). And it was really great. Took a lot of pictures, it was fun. Decided to go on the Safari Trail ride, and ran into Ron Galella who was there with his wife who’d also never been. Then Ron gave us a ride to the Grand Concourse and we got— a subway ($1.50). The subway made a lot of stops at first, but then it was express. Got off at Columbus Circle and walked home.

  The day had been mostly black. Originally, the city was having Puerto Rican Day, so that was one of the main reasons to get away. But P.R. Day was 98.9 percent black. The subway was 85 percent black. The zoo was 80 percent black, the park was 99.5 percent black. Whites are really a minority.

  Monday, June 13, 1983

  Eddie Murphy’s person called and said he turned us down for the cover. I wonder if this is all on purpose. Is Rolling Stone putting the word out? Well, I’ll remember. An old dog never forgets.

  Tuesday, June 14, 1983

  Got up early. Benjamin went to Boston without even telling me. He went up to perform with fifteen girls and him as a drag queen. He still goes in drag. On request. He lip-synchs to records.

  At 10:00 I had an appointment to do a modeling job for the Jordan Marsh catalogue at Scavullo’s. I used my own makeup after reading the AIDS piece in New York. I forgot my lip gloss, though. And for the first time in a long time I haven’t had one pimple. Karen Burke’s treatments are working. She gave me this stuff called Ten Percent, and it’s benzoyl peroxide. Which is what Clearasil is. But then Clearasil has the coloring, so I can use it like makeup.