The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Monday, October 15, 1984

  I had an appointment with Dr. Linda Li. I was fifteen minutes late and so I had to wait. She told me that I was allergic to potatoes, and I don’t know if she’s magic or if she smelled them, because I had had some. And she told me not to eat them for a while, the white ones. Left there (phone $2, newspapers $3).

  After work I went with Jean Michel to finally check out of his hotel room at the Ritz Carlton, but when we got there he decided it was too beautiful to leave.

  Tuesday, October 16, 1984

  Jackie Curtis called and said that Alice Neel died. I’d been meaning to call her for a while. She was a sweet old lady. I guess she was old enough, though, in her eighties, I think. It seems like I just saw her on the Johnny Carson show. Jackie wants to take an ad in Interview for a play he’s opening, but how can we trust him to pay?

  Jean Michel, me, John Sex, and Fab Five Freddy cabbed uptown to the Lyceum and the Whoopi Goldberg show ($8). We were late and in the second row. Whoopi was great, for one and a half hours just a blank stage but she held your interest. She’s really intelligent and everything. She does a thing where she asks for quarters from the audience, but then she didn’t give them back. So when it was over and we went back to see her she said that she usually gives them back—I asked her—but that a guy had given her a dollar bill and that threw her off, and now she had about $4 and so she might just now give the money to a Catholic charity. She really liked Jean Michel and I invited her to dinner, but she said she had cramps or something.

  Wednesday, October 17, 1984

  Our lawyer, Risa Dickstein, was on the cover of the Post, because she’s the lawyer for the Mayflower Madam, so that shows you what kind of a lawyer we’re so fortunate enough to have.

  Then Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the fairy princess, came to the office for lunch with her husband, the fifty-eight-year-old fairy prince that she married when she was twenty or something and got on the cover of every German magazine because he’s the billionaire who needed kids for heirs. And now they have three kids. And Betsy Bloomingdale was there, too.

  Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis started some dirty talking. He said that when he was young and he went to Hollywood and met Marilyn Monroe that she came on to him and invited him over for dinner, but he said he wasn’t into women then—he said this out loud. They talk like that. And the wife talks about boys, and then he talks about boys with big cocks. It’s very abstract. So anyway, he said that he asked Marilyn Monroe who else was going to be there and she said a few names, and he arrives and Marilyn comes out in a décolleté negligee and he said, “Where are the other people?” and she said, “They all cancelled.” So they had pink champagne and then dinner and then she pulled a little string and she was standing there stark naked and he couldn’t … so he said he just banged her on the knockers and said, “See you later, toots.” He said that he could’ve pretended and they could’ve just wrapped themselves around each other, but that—he repeated it again—he wasn’t into women then. She must’ve known how rich he was. Or else maybe he was good-looking. Because he did also say that Pablo Picasso once saw him and wanted to do his portrait, and said he’d do two and give him one, but he thought it was just some old guy after his body. This was on the beach. But I don’t know if his stories are true. They probably are, but he remembers some things about me that I don’t, so … Like he says he once invited me out and that I said I was sick and that then he called me at home and I wasn’t there, but I know I never gave him my home phone number.

  And then I walked them to their limos and Gloria wanted a cock drawn on her Interview. And Fred said this was our first society party in the new building. But it would’ve been great in the ballroom. But it’s leaking up there. And Fred had tables built on the roof! I don’t know why. And his little dining room is nice, but it’s not the same.

  Monday, October 22, 1984

  Went to the new offices and met the construction person that Vincent and Fred are liking so much. I got mad at him when I heard that it was going to be $100,000 for a terrace on the roof, and I just said, “We want just a plain old roof.” And I laughed in his face when he told me it would be done by Christmas. Oh sure. I’ll have to think about this.

  Rupert said that his apartment was robbed so not to get upset if those unsigned prints start showing up at auction. But then the police called and said they’d gotten some things back.

  Worked till 7:30.

  Cabbed home ($6) and glued then went to dinner at the Sacklers’ on Park Avenue and it was for Princess Michael of Kent. And you were supposed to get there before she arrived but I was late. It was dinner for only eight people. And there was a lady stuck in the bathroom and everyone ignored her for half an hour and when she got out she accused Jill of hearing her and not doing anything, and Jill said she hadn’t, but I mean, J heard her, so …

  Friday, October 26, 1984

  Victor came by. Halston’s working at home now.

  Julian Schnabel was having a birthday party at Mr. Chow’s and invited me but Jean Michel and I didn’t want to call him back because we knew he wanted to come and see what we were working on. Worked till 7:50 (cab $6). John Lurie who starred in Stranger Than Paradise came over and we had champagne and that was a mistake. Dropped him at 12:30 (cab $7).

  Saturday, October 27, 1984

  Kate’s picture was big in part one of the Truman Capote article in New York magazine, and part two is about to come out so I’m wondering if it’s going to say how she’s actually the daughter of the old boyfriend, Jack O’Shea.

  Monday, October 29, 1984

  This was the day of the New York marathon, and it was hot and humid so the runners had a bad time. One man from France died—the first one to die in the marathon. And the girl who won was pooping in her pants, she had diarrhea, and they tried to brush over it, but they said, “She’s tugging at her pants again.”

  Kenny Scharf called and invited me out for a ride in his Cadillac that he drove here from LA and painted. Now he’s got champagne glasses and monsters on it. He and Keith came along and the car looked like really something and the police were in back of them because they were just curious, like everybody else. So we drove uptown to 90th Street and East River Drive to see the mural that Keith had done. It’s like 2½’ wide X 200’ long, like three blocks long. He painted it white and sprayed little black and red figures, but it would’ve been better just silver. It doesn’t make the city look better, really.

  Halston called and invited me to dinner at his house where Jack and Anjelica and Steve Rubell and Alana were going to be, and Bianca, and I said sure and watched TV and then at 9:00 walked over there. Ann Turkel who was married to Richard Harris was there. Bianca was kissing her boyfriend as if she were Jade or something, in front of Alana, who was talking about money settlements. These girls. It’s so strange, like over the hill, talking about “settlements.” Bianca was putting down Alana’s house in L.A. and saying it was so trashy and in the worst taste and she and Alana almost had a fistfight. They’re friends.

  And the big person at the party was Peter Wolf and I told him how all the girls were so crazy about him, they love him in his music video. Dinner was good. Halston’s hair is receding a little. His house doesn’t have the flair that it had when Victor lived there.

  Tuesday, October 30, 1984

  Ferraro was on the news. I was liking her a lot in the beginning, but now she’s more like all the rest of them, like mechanical.

  Jean Michel was in bed with some new girl and didn’t show up. Bruno arrived and surprised us. And his wife—Yoyo. And they looked at the big paintings that Jean Michel has been doing silkscreens on, and they had a sour look, they said it ruined his “intuitive primitivism.” But he’d always Xeroxed before and nobody knew, it just looked like new drawings, and put on with that stuff. Worked till 7:30.

  Then there was a party for Van Johnson at Limelight. When we got there he was leaving already. It was a party he was giving for Janet
Leigh. And he was such a camp. He said, “Oh, I’ve been dying to meet you forever!” He seems like a big boozer. I guess there weren’t enough cute boys in there. Then in the middle of the room was a shower and a girl in it and blood all over and a guy like Tony Perkins in a grandmother’s outfit. And in the middle of all this was the real Janet Leigh in a blue sequined dress.

  Wednesday, October 31, 1984

  Bruno just called—at the Christie’s auction Jean Michel’s painting went for $20,000. I think he’s going to be the Big Black Painter. It was one of his sort of big paintings. I think Jean Michel’s early stuff is sort of better, because then he was just painting, and now he has to think about stuff to paint to sell. And how many screaming Negroes can you do? Well, I guess you can do them forever, but … And he bought a $700 mask for Halloween yesterday. Mexican. He just spends money. He did give up the room at the Ritz Carlton and he doesn’t take limos now, so that’s an improvement. But what he should do—and I’ve told him this—is keep his early paintings and store them so that he’ll have them to sell later on. Because Bruno just buys up everything and then sells them off slowly. But Jean Michel really should be keeping them for a nest egg. The paintings that get good prices are Rauschenberg’s early pieces and anything by Jasper and Cy Twombly. Wesselmann’s sort of selling off … Rosenquist’s prices are just medium, but I think he’s the best, I really do.

  I guess I’m going to finally face moving out of 860 because Stephen Sprouse has rented the place.

  Glued myself together, picked up Gael, and we walked to Jams to meet Fred. And this dinner was really horrible. It was just me complaining. I should’ve been like a cheerleader, saying, “What can we do to make our magazine even better than the wonderful thing it is?” But it didn’t turn out that way. Gael was explaining the printing costs. And really, I should have been positive. I know that you get more out of people by encouraging them. Although I did encourage someone once—Chris Makos. And what I got out of that is that this week they’re auctioning off a picture of me in drag from the ones he took. And Gael wasn’t eating so I thought it was because I’d made her upset, but it turned out that she was just trying to diet because she’s gotten really fat. But she just rubs me the wrong way—she thinks she’s so great or something. We just don’t communicate. I don’t know if she’s stupid or if she just plays dumb so she won’t have to do what you’re telling her to do (dinner $140).

  Then we talked about the covers, when would be the Mick, when the Health issue, when Mickey Rourke. It was just a very frustrating dinner, nothing was accomplished, just arguing. It was all my fault. We all would’ve been better off going to a Halloween party. Fred walked us both home.

  Thursday, November 1, 1984

  Julian Schnabel called and said he was coming by with that rock person, Captain Beefheart. And we didn’t want him to, and then I got worried that Julian might have heard what I’d been saying about him—that he goes around to other artists’ studios to find things to copy.

  I had to leave early to see Christophe de Menil’s first fashion show. She’s becoming a clothes designer (cab $8). Went to 79th and Fifth, the French consulate. And the dresses were all just linen and the sleeves were like folded napkins, a 1914-style look. Funny sleeves. I don’t know why she would want to go into the dress business—it’s not like she has a “statement” to make. Bianca was there and Steve Rubell told me that the reason she didn’t want anyone at the birthday party she gave for Jade was because Jade’s gotten chubby. So I slipped out (cab $4).

  Then Cornelia and I walked over to the Pierre for the ASPCA benefit thing. I talked to C.Z. Guest and she said that Truman got her out of being just a housewife and showed her that she Á ] O could do things. And she said that she never told Truman anything personal, but I mean, we were standing there for five minutes and she told me every personal thing you could think of about her family … I mean you’d bring up drinking, and she’s saying, “I lived with a drunk for years, so I know.”

  Friday, November 2, 1984

  Worked till 7:00. Then there was an opening of Schnabel. So went to it (cab $6). I was putting his painting down, being funny, and then I saw he was next to me but I don’t think he heard me. There were a lot of plates on the wall. Schnabel said that he was a short-order cook at Mickey Ruskin’s restaurant on University Place for a while. Gee, poor Mickey. Nobody even mentions him now. He’s just forgotten. The show was interesting but I had to leave because Cornelia was picking me up for the horse show.

  Sunday, November 4, 1984

  Went to meet Alba Clemente, the beautiful wife of Francesco Clemente at their loft in the Tower Records building. She studied acting, she has a great laugh, and she’s rich. They live in India six months a year. That’s why his paintings look the way they do, I guess. Then we went to the Odeon (cab $10). It was fun, we chit-chatted about art. There were big silences, though. Jean Michel is so hard to talk to. His thing is he’s in love with waitresses, so he gets quiet and watches them. Alba said that her girl who was minding the children had a crush on him (lunch $90). And then we went back to her place so that Jean Michel could meet the girl, Monica, but she’d taken the kids out. And then Jean Michel was getting inspired from seeing Clemente’s work and wanted to go do some painting himself.

  So we went to the studio (cab $3.50) and worked two hours. Jean Michel was painting back in the images he’d painted out when he was on smack and he came up with some masterpieces. Then he called the girl, Monica, and invited her to dinner. She wanted to go to the Lone Star because her semi-boyfriend who’s Schnabel’s assistant was going to be there, but Jean Michel didn’t want to go there because he was afraid if there was competition that he would lose the fuck.

  Tuesday, November 6, 1984—New York—Washington, D.C.

  Election Day. It was the worst start imaginable. I was up at 7:00, ready at 8:00. I called Fred and he was just out of it. It drove me crazy. He was rambling. Maybe he’d just slept for fifteen minutes, I don’t know.

  Anyway, an hour later we were in Washington. Went to the Madison Hotel. Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia came with us. Her daughter, Catherine Oxenberg, starts on Dynasty next week and she was coming down later. And then some of the people went off to the White House but we weren’t invited so we stayed in our rooms.

  So we ordered lunch and that was expensive. Jean Michel ordered a ‘66 Château Latour wine for $200 (lunch $500). Then we limoed to the Sequoia, the presidential yacht, and it was cold and miserable and getting dark. Same old people. Peter Max and his girlfriend, who’s so beautiful, tall and Texan, and I don’t know why she’s with him. She was at the beginning and ending of Heaven’s Gate. A top model, I forget her name. I talked to Chip Carter while I was there.

  Then we went back to the hotel and Jean Michel rolled a joint. Then we ordered dinner, which was disgusting (tip $5). Fred didn’t realize that he had only yellow socks and brown shoes, so he couldn’t wear his black suit. Entertainment Tonight got me on the way in and asked me who I voted for and I said, “For the winner,” and they said, “Who’s that?” and I said, “The winner is the winner.” I don’t even know what I meant. If they ever put all the clips they’ve ever gotten of me together they’d see that I’m a moron and finally stop asking me questions.

  I took pictures of Melvin Laird dancing. Jean Michel was so hard to deal with, he gets so paranoid. This was a “Non-partisan Party” that the Weismans were having because at the last election they gave a party for the Democrats and this time everybody was a Democrat but pretending to be a Republican.

  Wednesday, November 7, 1984— Washington, D.C.—New York

  I called Jean Michel’s room and said we’d be leaving in one second. And I went into his room and photographed him getting out of bed with a hard-on. And then he began rolling a joint. Jean Michel ordered a whole meal but it never came. Cabbed to the airport ($20).

  Jean Michel and I went to the back of the plane and he was smoking joints, and I realized that he’d left his brand-ne
w Comme des Garçons coat in the hotel room when he’d been rolling, and he called and I called but they’ll never send it. He knows just what looks good on him. He’s 6’ —or 6’1” with his hair. He’s really big.

  Got a cab into Manhattan ($22). Then went to 33rd Street and sat in my room and made phone calls. The boiler was broken and it was freezing in there. And I want to take the key away from those two bathrooms outside my office because every other minute somebody’s going in and out and I can’t stand it, the constant production of peeing all day. I’m going to make the Interview kids go upstairs to one of those bathrooms or something, because who wants to hear that all day.

  I went to Private Eyes (cab $7). Scott was at the door, so he let us right in. Madonna was on the platform and since Jean Michel had once been involved with her, we started to go up, and the bouncer said, “Step aside for Mr. Warhol,” and then tried to block Jean Michel and I said that it was okay, he was with me. And Madonna kissed Jean Michel on the mouth but she was with Jellybean, who said he’d heard his pictures in Interview made him look 6’ tall so he was thrilled because he’s 2’. And Jean Michel was moody because Madonna got so big and he’d lost her. And Dianne Brill tried to get on the platform and the guy just pushed her back and I said, “Don’t you know who that is? It’s Dianne Brill,” but he still wouldn’t let her up. And she was so conspicuous in her rubber outfit and Frederick’s of Hollywood stuff and everything, so she was really humiliated and that’s the way things go—you think you have so much pizzazz and then something like that happens in front of your friends. It’s happened to me. Sometime, someplace, it happens to everybody. And I told her I’d talk to the P.R. girl but she said no, that it was okay.