The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Friday, April 13, 1984

  We photographed the street people in front of the Public Library and it was fun. One man with chains, and I gave him change ($2) and then people were interviewing me. And I’m going to do that more. I didn’t get photo releases, but I think I’ll start carrying some with me every day. Worked till 7:00. Then had to meet Jon, dinner at Woods ($80). Then ran up to see Friday the 13th on 86th Street (cab $3) and it was the most peculiar mix of a crowd—rich preppie kids and black kids and the whole theater was a constant screaming riot, everybody jumping up and down. It was the weirdest experience ever. And the murders were so gruesome. I want to do a movie called Stalk the City where there’s a murder a minute. This movie opened in 1,500 theaters. It’s (laughs) a Paramount picture.

  Sunday, April 15,1984

  It was a miserable day, rain pouring down. The dogs were running around so that wasn’t too peaceful. I stayed home and did research, looking at the Weegee pictures. He’s so great. People sleeping and fires and murders and sex and violence. I want to do these kinds of pictures so much. I wish I could ride around with the police. But I figure I can just do setups—use plants in my pictures: I want to throw Benjamin in front of cars.

  Monday, April 16, 1984

  Jean Michel was at the office, he brought his lunch and he was on the floor painting and not talking much. I think he stays up all night and so that was his bedtime. Rupert came by and told me about the show at P.S. 1 where they created a replica of the old 47th Street Factory. They had a silver room and people passing out LSD and an Edie running around.

  And Robert Hayes is now in the hospital with pneumonia. But I don’t think he has what he’s afraid he has. I think he’s just run-down and scared because that’s what Cisco has. I mean, I don’t think you can catch it that easily.

  I did a Dog painting in five minutes at five of 6:00. I had a picture and I used the tracing machine that projects the image onto the wall and I put the paper where the image is and I trace. I drew it first and then I painted it like Jean Michel. I think those paintings we’re doing together are better when you can’t tell who did which parts.

  Then the streets were deserted and we finally figured out it was Passover. Dropped Benjamin ($7).

  Tuesday, April 17, 1984

  It was a beautiful day. Took pictures of the street people, of about eight artists who were doing portraits of people on the street. And there was a black ventriloquist with a crowd around him so I stuck my camera up to get the picture but the dummy saw me and yelled my name and then everybody turned around and I had to sign autographs. Took pictures of a couple of preachers, too.

  Stopped at a Japanese place just to get some nourishment, and the waitress couldn’t speak English but she wanted my autograph. So I guess my commercial’s still running in Japan ($75). We had drinks, my first time in weeks, so that made life more bearable. And called John Reinhold. The 860 office said that Jean Michel was waiting there, but I went to the new office and since I was high I terrorized everybody.

  Walked down to 860 and as we passed the new chic food place on 23rd Street a couple of black truck drivers yelled, “Hey faggots!” so that got me down. Especially because truck drivers are usually the ones who’re cheerful and recognize me and wave. Maybe these were faggots themselves.

  Got to the office and called Jean Michel and he came up and painted over a painting that I did, and I don’t know if it got better or not.

  Dropped Benjamin ($6). Glued myself, and cabbed to a dinner at Club A ($4). I was at a heavy-duty table next to Diane Von Furstenberg who’s having Michael Graves do her new store that’s next to Vieille Russie. And I told her not to count on a May opening, I told her how long it took Michael Graves to do John Reinhold’s apartment and I said he’d probably take her little store and divide it into fifteen rooms with forty columns in each, and then she got scared. And she talked about a party she was giving for Michael Graves, but she didn’t invite me.

  Wednesday, April 18, 1984

  I’m just on the phone with Christopher. Robert Hayes is in intensive care, his mother’s coming down from Canada. He was coughing for weeks and pneumonia’s really dangerous, you can go just like that. Before he went into the hospital he was home for weeks, he said from a bad flu. He came in for a business lunch once, though, and I asked Gael why he had round little bandages on, and she said he’d just had moles removed, and that sounded reasonable.

  Then there was a lunch at the office for Charles Jourdan shoes (cab $6). Jay came to work glowing, he’s in love with our fashion editor, Kate Harrington. And I said I thought she was going with John Sykes of MTV, and Jay said, “Listen, she broke up with him the day she met me,” so I mean I didn’t want to get into that. Kate has eyes for everyone. She’s so bubbly, so pretty. Let’s hope Jay stays in this good mood. And Jean Michel was after Kate, too—she styled an Interview shoot of him and de Antonio in Armani clothes and he left five joints for her.

  Victor called a couple of times and now he always brings up that I said he could be dangerous and he always mentions Valerie Solanis. He’s staying at the Barbizon now, he said Halston’s changing the locks. He thinks Victor’s stealing his Peretti candlesticks, but actually he just borrowed them to leave with the Barbizon as a security deposit. Victor gave me two at Christmas, but that was with Halston there and it was only on the condition that Halston could get more of them. If he couldn’t, then I was supposed to give them back. But Tiffany does have more of them—I checked.

  Sunday, April 22, 1984—New Hampshire—New York

  I was up in New Hampshire just over the Massachusetts border in Hampton Beach with Jon’s old friend Katy Dobbs, near where Jon’s family has a beach house. Katy talks a mile a minute so it made things easier. It was so beautiful up there, I want to get a house there, too. It’s like Montauk. On the ocean. But they’ve put in bigger windows so the whole view is a window. And they’re winterizing the houses up there. And it was too hard to put the curtains down so I left them up so the sun woke me up every morning really early. I was reading the Ned Rorem diaries while I was up there. From the sixties to ‘71. He missed the whole scene that we were part of, though— he was back in the elegant forties and fifties still. He puts me down a couple of times, I guess.

  It was Easter and we went to see a friend of Katy’s. Fred, her boyfriend who’s on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel, was in Tennessee for a whistling contest. He’s so talented and cute. They call him “Andy” because he looked like me with white hair—the Phil Donahue look—but after meeting me and seeing how old I actually am, now they call him “Son of Andy.” He did the voices for two of the gremlins in the new Spielberg movie and he got $500 a day. That’s not much. Three days’ work. The gremlins are forty minutes of the movie.

  Oh, and on Easter services, they got up at 4:30 to go, but I couldn’t go. I didn’t want to go because I would feel too peculiar in a church where they might see me praying and kneeling and crossing myself because I cross the wrong way, I cross the Orthodox way. And they would be looking.

  Then when they came back we took a ride and then went to Jon’s family’s house for lunch. They had about ten people. Lunch was outside. They have Christmas-tree kind of trees. The twin brothers, Jon and Jay, were both wearing bright green pants. They’re all macho but they like to freak for the weekend. The brother just broke up with a beautiful model who lives in New York who I met once. He’s in his father’s business. Insurance. He just bought a house of his own up there.

  I haven’t heard anything about Robert Hayes.

  Ned Rorem met Anais Nin just so he could be in her diary and she could be in his. And I want to do that, too—I want to find somebody else who does a diary now so we can be in each other’s. And also in the morning the Easter Bunny came and I ate chocolates in bed. And then it was time to get a ride to Boston and get the shuttle to New York (tickets $171, magazines and newspapers $5).

  Monday, April 23, 1984

  There was an earthquake Sunday night
at 8:40 in New York. And we had one last year, too. It’s really scary. I thought Manhattan was built on the stuff that wouldn’t have it.

  So my face broke out in pimples, I was being paid back for not going to church on Easter. And I was supposed to go on Monday, but then I went to Seaman Schepps instead. To look at a bracelet. Benjamin and I wandered around in the rain and the Interviews always look so awful when they get wet.

  I still have a pain in my side and so I’ve changed my appointments with Dr. Linda Li to Tuesday so I won’t have that and shiatsu on the same day, and I haven’t gone to Doc Cox yet about the pain because I’m hoping it’s a muscle spasm or something, but if it’s not, I’m a goner.

  Cabbed downtown ($7). Called Jean Michel and he came up and ordered Chinese food from a place on Sixth Avenue. And then Keith Haring wanted me to go and see his paintings before they got shipped out, because he said I influenced him—he’s painting on canvas now. So we ate Chinese food and things from Pie in the Sky.

  Victor called and invited me to a small birthday party for Halston’s niece, and it’s Halston’s birthday, too.

  And Robert Hayes is a little better, his temperature went down.

  Dropped Benjamin ($7), went home, got dressed, then (laughs) crashed a dinner. It was for Shirley MacLaine and I thought I was invited but it turns out I wasn’t. I mean, I’d had Brigid call and she said, “Cocktails at 7:30 and dinner at 8:30.” So when I got to the Limelight at 9:00 (cab $6) the doorman said, “Oh my, you’re awfully early, aren’t you?” And I said, “But I’m invited to dinner,” and he said, “Oh, oh, sorry.” And then we went in and dinner was just starting. The guy said, “Excuse me, Mr. Warhol, let me just go check something,” and then he came back and said, “Sorry Mr. Warhol, yes, it’ll be all right.” So I still didn’t know I was crashing. But I mean, finally I was getting the idea, because it was really intimate. Only like thirty people. Bella Abzug was there and later on Iris Love and Liz Smith came in. The theme of the party was “white” and Liz was in a white tuxedo and Iris talked to me about the dogs because that’s all we have in common, and I just had a white turtleneck on but everybody else was in white tuxedos. And the food was really good. Exotic. A vegetable that I never saw before that looked like crinkled-up green beans. And some perfumed lamb that was interesting. And everybody gave speeches. I was the only one who didn’t give a speech.

  And her daughter was sort of pretty, Shirley’s, she looks like Penelope Tree sort of, and she gave Shirley a kiss on the lips. And Bella got up and made a feminist speech, and her husband got up and then a three-tier wedding cake came out, and Shirley gave her dramatic speech. And then there was coconut ice cream. And Shirley came around and she patted me on the shoulder like a dog and said, “Hello there, Andy.” Then finally it was time for me to leave and go to Halston’s.

  Cabbed up to 63rd Street ($8). Halston’s niece is really pretty now. And Halston handed me a piece of paper in the shape of a boat and I was so thrilled, I knew it was the rent check for $40,000. So that made my evening. And since it was so rainy I didn’t have any gifts with me so I wrote an I.O.U. to Halston and Victor and the niece. “I.O.U. One Art.” Liza said that Mark’s only doing his artwork now, that he’s stopped producing plays and now he’s just working at his studio on Prince Street. So I guess he must be having an affair down there. She said he’s almost ready to have a show.

  So anyway I went home and I opened up the paper boat and instead of a check, it was just nothing—like “Happy Birthday” or something. It wasn’t a check and it should have been a check. All done up like a boat. It should’ve been a check.

  Tuesday, April 24, 1984

  I had an early appointment with Dr. Linda Li (cab $4.50). This is all to keep myself beautiful for business. Linda Li with her secret powers, it’s all too crazy. And I can see why these Chinese women make out. It’s all sex. She puts her hand on her cunt and pokes me in the gut through to the other side, and throws my whole body around. She said she’s never dropped a patient, but I could’ve been the first. She has control over your body. She’s not bad-looking. So I was there for a half-hour being tossed around. Then phone calls ($.50).

  Jay’s still cheerful, so I guess his affair with Kate is still okay. I went over to Yanna’s for further beautification. I went past the cops at the Police Academy, and the girl cops are cute, they’re not like dykes now.

  Wednesday, April 25, 1984

  The Kennedy kid, David, was the big headline. He’s dead, and they put out an extra edition and they were screaming it, and it was selling newspapers fast. He was the one that everyone thought might be gay. Blond and pretty and fey and not like a dog—he didn’t have those teeth. And this morning on the morning show they had Boy George on for fifteen minutes, and he was being a problem, saying he screams at people who want autographs now. And Count Basie was on for half an hour because he died.

  Monday, April 30, 1984

  Victor came by and he was putting me down, asking Jean Michel why he’s hanging around with me. And they went off together to Victor’s to look at some things. And I hate the paintings that I did yesterday.

  Then Jean Michel called me. His show at Mary Boone is coming up this weekend and I guess he’s nervous. Sent out for lunch ($44.25). And the gossip is that Julian Schnabel left Mary Boone for Pace because they gave him a million up front. And Jay’s still in a good mood so he’s working hard and looking around for a mover to help us move completely out of 860 and up to the new place.

  Oh and in Ned Rorem’s diary he talks about some girl named Jean Stein being so terribly in love with him. Something like that. I’d like to mail her that page anonymously, let her see how it feels to be put down in print. I think I will.

  Tuesday, May 1, 1984

  Got up early. Benjamin picked me up and we went to the Calvin Klein fashion show. We were late, but they’d saved my seat up front (cab $6). Nan Kempner didn’t say hello, probably because she didn’t invite me to her dinner that night for Jamie Wyeth, I guess she was embarrassed. But maybe it was my fault, because when you’re late you rush in and you don’t know who to look at first because everybody’s there, so you’re awkward. And Calvin’s stuff was like Perry Ellis with touches of YSL. I guess Marina Schiano puts in her two cents. The colors were all somber. Blacks and greys.

  It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to get out of the office but never did. Jean Michel came by and we worked. Went to the Coe Kerr Gallery for the Jamie Wyeth opening. Ran into Lacey Neuhaus and Doug Wick, and talked to Ted Kennedy, Jr. Jean Kennedy Smith was there and she was nice and smiling. Jamie invited me down to the farm this weekend but I said I had to be packing and moving.

  Cabbed to the Ritz ($4) with Jon, we went in to see the Stephen Sprouse fashion show. It was early but it was mobbed already. My seat was gone, so I took Charivari’s. Teri Toye the transvestite was in the show. And everybody was saying it was like the sixties. The show was great, really the fashion is so good again with these disco kids, they have a real look. Like the boys with the straight cut over one eye. So extreme now.

  Wednesday, May 2, 1984

  It looked pretty out but then it was sort of windy. Was picked up by Benjamin and we went out on the highways and byways with our Interviews.

  And John Reinhold called and said he was leaving town on a trip and wanted to tear a dollar in half like we do and then when he comes back we’ll put the dollar together and spend it.

  And Woody Allen won his suit against the look-alike just like Jackie Onassis did against hérs. So now the poor Woody Allen look-alike can’t work in commercials. They told him that unless (laughs) he became famous in his own right for something he couldn’t pose for ads. Isn’t that something? But I mean, why can’t they just put “Model Joe Schmo” (cabs $3, $5).

  And I just hate the Trumps because they never bought my Trump Tower portraits. And I also hate them because the cabs on the upper level of their ugly Hyatt Hotel just back up traffic so badly around Grand Central now and it takes me so
long to get home (cab $6).

  Robert Hayes is doing really well, he’s recovering, it was double pneumonia, and he had a crying scene with Gael, told her that he’d been doing too much coke and let himself get run-down and that he’ll never do it again and that he was going to write me a letter. So it was double pneumonia, not AIDS.

  Jean Michel was there but he was nervous about his show and I had to push his hand around the canvas. For the first time in a while he’d taken heroin, I think, so he was moving slow (cab $7).

  Then went home and Eizo gave Jon and me our shiatsu treatments. And my pain went away. Watched Dynasty, and it was the first time Diahann Carroll was on the show and it was so good. What a camp. She meets Alexis and she out-champagnes and out-caviars her—“This champagne is ‘burned.’ It’s been frozen at one point.”

  I’m so sick of the way I live, of all this junk, and always dragging more home. Just white walls and a clean floor, that’s all I want. The only chic thing is to have nothing. I mean, why do people own anything? It’s really so stupid.

  Thursday, May 3, 1984

  Mary Richardson called and said that the only thing that the Kennedy kid who O.D.’d—David —had on the wall in his apartment was the napkin drawing I gave him—I don’t remember if I drew a cock or just hearts.

  Everybody at Interview was thrilled that Robert’s gotten better. I’m going over to see him. Gael said he’s happier and brighter and younger-looking than ever.

  Jean Michel called and wanted us to come down to the Mary Boone Gallery to look at his show, so I said we would. So I took Jay and Benjamin and it looked great (cab $5). Jean Michel was very nervous. He was with a pretty Korean girl who’s the secretary of Larry Gagosian, his gallery person in L.A. But he’ll just break her heart. All these pretty girls go for him. They were lovey-dovey, holding hands. Then Jean Michel wanted to go to dinner, so we decided to go down to Odeon because that way we’d be close to the Area party for Vincent Spano that Vic Ramos was having (cab $6). And Robert Mapplethorpe was there and something’s wrong with the way he looks now. He’s either lost his looks or he’s sick (dinner $280).