The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  And then we went to Area. Jean Michel has the right walk to pass right through the crowd. He made me go to the bathroom there, the men’s room, and it’s so funny there, there are girls putting on makeup in the mirrors and the men are pissing in the urinals and it’d be great if it weren’t that it smelled like shit. It’s just my kind of movie. I guess the ladies room is the same way except without the urinals. Then I got out of there and went home. Oh, and that lady at the Whitney who was so thrilled over Jean Michel, she got him to sign a picture of the painting. That’s as good as signing it, and then you paste it to the back. That’s why Leo sends me up photographs sometimes.

  Saturday, March 23, 1985

  Worked, went to Karen Burke’s (cab $4). And I followed Garbo around the streets. Took pictures of her. I’m pretty sure it was her. She had the dark glasses and the big coat and pants on and the mouth, and she went into a Trader Horn store to talk to a woman about TVs. Just the kind of thing she would do. So I took pictures of her until I thought she would get mad and then I walked downtown, (laughs) I was alone, too.

  Stayed up all night until 5:10 getting ready for the next day to go to California for The Love Boat and now maybe a Coke commercial, too.

  Sunday, March 24, 1985—New York—Los Angeles

  Placido Domingo was on our plane and he was nice, he came over and talked (newspapers $6). Beverly Sills was on, too. And Fred said Alan King was on and said hello but I didn’t see him. Then a white limousine picked us up and took us to the Bel Air Hotel. And as we were going in Philip Johnson and David Whitney were walking out. Philip’s here to give a lecture at one of the colleges. Went to the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, and everybody from New York was there—Laura Landro who writes the movie stuff for the Wall Street Journal and Susan Mulcahy, and Ahmet Ertegun and Mark Goodson.

  Monday, March 25, 1985—Los Angeles

  Got up early and The Love Boat at first wasn’t sending a car. They said it “wasn’t in the contract.” They wanted me to take a cab. But Fred talked to them. And when we got here, since they didn’t have a room reserved for Fred, I’m wondering if they’re paying for his. I think they must be. So I went to the wardrobe place and ordered a pair of Reebok shoes, but I only ordered one and I should’ve ordered more. And the kid who came to pick me up, I asked if he was trying to be an actor, and he said, “Oh no, I’m Captain of the Cars.” He was very cute. We drove to the old Goldwyn Studios on Santa Monica near La Brea.

  These places are so cold, you sit around freezing all day in these soundstages, and it’s no wonder people want to be actors because the only place it’s warm is under the lights.

  So then I was done there and they brought me back to the hotel, and then Suzanne Somers had told Doug Christmas that she just had to have lunch with us, so we went to meet her at Ma Maison and then she cancelled. But Orson Welles was there at his own table and he said he wanted to meet me and I went over and he was just great, really great, and he’s a person I would like to interview myself. And then afterwards we went to Doug’s place and Roy Lichtenstein was there signing some things, so that was exciting.

  And then Jon met us and took us to the Beverly Hills for drinks. The taxis from there to the Bel Air are expensive ($8). Got dressed and went over to Spago where Swifty Lazar was having his party for the Academy Awards. And the traffic was so bad, it took so long to get over there. It’s on Sunset above Tower Records. I had to sign like 800 autographs. All the press was there like Susan Mulcahy and Barbara Howar. And Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart came and just everybody came after the awards. Faye Dunaway and Raquel Welch and just everybody.

  Tuesday, March 26, 1985—Los Angeles

  Got up really early. The paper had me as the big star at Swifty’s. Got picked up to go to The Love Boat set. Had to do my “Hello, Mary” line, and the gay director is saying, “Give it some pizzazz—Hel-lo, Ma-ry!” And I say, “Hel-lo, Ma-ry.”

  PH met me there and we sat in the dressing room for a couple of hours while they rearranged the lights or whatever they do. My Stephen Sprouse jackets were there on the wardrobe rack and when I wear them, I think I finally look like people want Andy Warhol to look again, and now I’m thinking I should’ve worn the silver one the night before to Spago and that when I’m out of New York I should forget all this black-tie stuff and just go for flash. Talked with PH about movies and abstract ways to do scripts.

  Made a phone call to Jon and he said that Shirley MacLaine was trying to call me because she was really upset about the little banner headline on the interview he did with her in the Health issue. It said: “Metaphysical Madam.” And Jon shouldn’t have gone over to her and said, “It’s not my fault,” because that’s the wrong negative thing to do. She never would’ve even noticed it or thought about it, probably, and now she’s up in arms. I don’t even know why. What does “Madam” mean? I mean, it’s just a regular word. And the introduction I guess Gael wrote, and it’s just all stuff from other places. Jon wrote one and they didn’t like it, they said it had too much of himself in it—Gael told him, “You are not Arianna Stassinopoulos.”

  Went back to the Bel Air and had dinner there with Vincent and Andrew Friendly, Fred Friendly’s son, who’s trying to sell our TV show. And he talks about his “lady” and who in their right mind would talk that way. It was a good dinner and he paid.

  And Joanna Carson came over to say hello and she’s so beautiful. We talked about her son and his career.

  Wednesday, March 27, 1985—Los Angeles

  Shirley MacLaine was calling me and I didn’t call her back, so then she called Gael Love in New York and told the receptionist, “Let me talk to Gael Hate.” And now she’s telling Gael that she wants to see the sources for everything that was in the introduction to her interview. Fred said he’d call Shirley and smooth it out.

  So I finally finished shooting that day’s scenes on The Love Boat. Got back to the hotel so late, and then Fred and I went over to Doug Cramer’s, right above the Bel Air Hotel in this big house that they’re adding rooms to to make it even bigger. And Linda Evans was there and Joan Collins and Morgan Fairchild and James Brolin, and the ship captain from The Love Boat—the bald guy.

  And Calvin came in right from a plane and said that he wasn’t going to have his big party at Steve Rubell’s new club for its opening. He said he’s spent six months trying to get a new image and he doesn’t want to blow it. I told him that I’d bought a bottle of Obsession, one of the first, and he said why did I go and do that when he’d sent me one and I said that I’d gotten the one he sent after I’d already bought one.

  It was 10:30 before dinner started. And Shirlee Fonda is still in love with the playwright guy, Neil Simon. And Doug Cramer’s friend made me take pictures with his 3-D camera. Marcia Weisman was with her new friend. There were beautiful dogs. Thomas Ammann was there, and Jody Jacobs from the L.A. Times, and the Spellings.

  And then we went to Mr. Chow’s because Jean Michel had decided to give his own party there since he hadn’t been invited to the Cramer one. And he had all these really cute boys and girls there.

  Thursday, March 28, 1985—Los Angeles

  Jean Michel was really sweet and sent over a drawing for me. He’s gone off to Hawaii.

  Had a day off from The Love Boat.

  The couple from A&M records, the Mosses, came for a portrait, and the wife was puffy around the eyes and we had to wait for her eyes to go down.

  Went over to Tony and Berry Perkins’s in one of the canyons. They have a big house, six bedrooms. There’s really a lot of traffic. Where Jon’s house is there’s absolutely no traffic. And Tony cooked the dinner and listen to what it was—meatloaf and polenta and bread pudding. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten like that. Not since the fifties when people were poor. He uses this new cookbook that has a lot of recipes from the forties and fifties like Rice Krispies Squares. It’s called something like short-cut cooking. Wendy Stark was there and she wasn’t so cheerful, maybe it was just because she wasn’t drinki
ng. Sue Mengers was fun, blabbing away, and her husband was with her. They have Indian rugs. And Tony asked after Chris Makos. Berry was kissy and huggy. Nick and Lisa Love were there. We stayed until about 11:00 and then went back to the hotel.

  Friday, March 29, 1985—Los Angeles

  They picked me up at 6:00 to take me to the set. The same cute driver. I wish he was a fairy, but he isn’t. He’s trying to make all the girls. And they all have Barbie doll bodies! You can’t believe them. No hips and big tits. He’s just divorced and says he’s a “country boy,” he lives “in the Valley” or someplace like that. Jay is his name. The Captain of the Cars. And he sits there and does crossword puzzles all day when he’s not driving. And I said, “Don’t you want to further your career? If you can do crossword puzzles, you can direct.”

  I had to sign autographs for all the girl actresses and dancers. I was finished by 9:30. Marion Ross from Happy Days plays the ex-superstar, and she’s a little old to play an ex-sixties superstar, but I really love her so much. She’s a wonderful person, and she helps me, she has so much love. And when we do a scene together, she does great facial things that help me do my lines. And actually, though, Ultra Violet’s probably older than Marion.

  And then we went over to the Dynasty soundstage and tried to see Catherine Oxenberg but she said she was in an accident and was crying and didn’t want to see us, I don’t know. I bet she just had a fight with her boyfriend.

  Then they took me downtown to do the Diet Coke commercial. And there was a float and about eight ex-Miss Americas or Miss Universes and all the police were lusting after them, and I was wearing my Stephen Sprouse jacket. And one of the girls in a bathing suit said that she had been in Walter Steding’s group. And I went and waited in my own private mobile trailer and I used the bathroom and that was fun, and then I guess the word the crew uses for the actors is “talent” and so one girl opened the trailer door and said, “Where’s the talent?” and she looked around and didn’t see any I guess, so she left. I don’t know, I guess she didn’t recognize me. And we were on a big float with pansies. The girls sat on the pansies, and I had to say, “Diet Coke,” and I drank it for the first time.

  Later went to Wendy Stark’s dinner for Sharon Hammond. Dennis Hopper was there, very straight. I asked him to reshoot all the photos he took in the sixties and we would run them in Interview. Shoot Peter Fonda again and all those people. Wouldn’t that be good?

  And Wendy made curry with her own hands. Nobody ate it except Fred. And they brought out banana-cream cake for Sharon’s birthday. In the day we were shopping for a present for her and all I did was get things for myself, so I gave her an I.O.U. It’s so strange to see Sharon away from New York and Southampton. She was wearing a dress from North Beach Leather, it looked like rubber.

  Oh, and Ron Perelman is out here and he said, “I want to have a big talk with you. I want to buy your magazine for my wife. Who do I talk to?” And I said, “Fred.” For Claudia, he wants it.

  Saturday, March 30, 1985—Los Angeles

  Went to be photographed for an L.A. Eye works ad at 4:00. And one of the women owners was there and this fat queen named Teddy was doing my hair and after he left someone told me that that was the one Joe Dallesandro was living with for years and may be back living with again, and I went crazy—because it would’ve been so much fun if only I’d known. Joe would go and live with a fat queen hairdresser just to be perverse.

  Went to Spago for dinner. Gene Kelly was there with his son, and his son said he’d see us later at Brad Branson’s party (dinner $300). So after dinner we went to Crenshaw Avenue way in the black area of L.A. where Brad Branson who does photographs for Interview was giving his second weekly party. He’s doing it like a club, but with friends’ names on the list. And it was actually great, he had all the cute kids there and it was two floors and a garden part and some people said that Madonna had been there right before we got there. Fred was with Rupert Everett, and Nando Scarfiotti was there, and Susan Pile and Paul Jasmin and Toni Basil. And all these kids were coming over to me, and it was fun. I was keeping an eye out for someone to fill the new vacancy as my New York Wife. And Mary Woronov was there and I never have anything to say to Mary. I can’t ever really forgive her for being such a creep about Chelsea Girls in the sixties, for demanding money—saying she wouldn’t sign a release until she got it. She squeezed around $1,000 out of us. She was talking to that screenwriter named Becky Johnson—she’s a friend of Jon’s. She and Mary were both in the GQ article on “The Most Eligible Women in Hollywood.” Whatever that means. The most desperate, I guess.

  Sunday, March 31, 1985—Los Angeles

  In the morning we went to look at buildings all along Sunset for a new Interview office. We looked at one big elephant that’s $800,000 and there’s one for $1 million and one for $400,000. So that took a long time.

  Then it was the night of the big Love Boat Thousandth Guest Star party at the Beverly Hilton. Fred was taking Rupert Everett but at the last minute Rupert cancelled, he said, “My tuxedo is crumpled.” And Jon picked me up and we went over there. Had my picture taken for fifteen minutes with Joan Collins, who then never went in to the dinner, I don’t think, because nobody saw her in there. But it was just packed.

  One of Aaron Spelling’s daughters was at our table, in her teens or twenties, and Troy Donahue who now has short blond-white hair. I reminded him of that time in the early seventies when he came up to 33 Union Square. He said, “What you guys did to me that day! Your elevator was broken so I had to go up in the freight elevator in the back, and it opened into this dark room where you were screening a movie and I had to walk out from behind the projection screen, and everybody was facing the screen watching movies, and I stumbled over everybody sitting on the floor in the dark, and I was on acid….”

  They introduced a lot of stars and then finally out came Lana Turner, the thousandth guest star, who had given them a hard time by being so late, and that’s why dinner was late. And then they brought me up on the stage with Carol Channing and Ginger Rogers and Mary Martin. And for some reason they didn’t mention the portrait they commissioned me to do of Lana. But it’s finally scheduled for me to shoot the picture on Thursday.

  Peter Duchin’s orchestra played. He’s another one of the guest stars on the boat this week. So it’s Peter Duchin, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Cloris Leachman, Andy Griffith, Raymond St. Jacques, Milton Berle, and me.

  And signed a lot of autographs for the kooky autograph hounds of Hollywood. PH and I both took pictures for the Party book.

  Monday, April 1, 1985—Los Angeles

  Got picked up at 8:15 to go to The Love Boat. Flubbed my lines in the morning, felt bad about it. Worked all day. Andy Griffith seems bitter to be on The Love Boat. PH came by about 2:00 and we went into the makeup room and she opened up her mouth and said, “So who’s playing your drag queen?” and Raymond St. Jacques whirled around in his chair and gave her a withering look and said, “It’s not a ‘drag queen.’” And there he was with lipstick on and everything, and in the original script it had called the role a drag queen.

  Then went back on the set and did the scene where I had to walk up to the reception desk with Raymond St. Jacques and my “entourage,” and then as we’re walking off, the Love Boat girl asks Raymond St. Jacques, “How does an artist know when a painting is really successful?” And he says, “When the check clears.” And once they did it wrong and it was better—she said, “When is a painting really finished.” Finally I was done there, about 6:00.

  Tuesday, April 2, 1985—Los Angeles

  Got up at 5:00 and was picked up by my driver, Jay, at 6:15. Worked all day, had a scene with Tom Bosley. Got done pretty early, then went to a big signing of Interviews at a bar called Nippers in the Rodeo Mall, and it was jammed. I sat upstairs and signed and signed. And Fred was downstairs and he started drinking and continued drinking, I don’t know why. Some people brought old issues for me to sign—like from the first year—the Helmut Be
rger Damned one, and the Elvis one and the Raquel Welch one. And actually I think they were ruining them to have me sign them. And John Stockwell/Samuels was there looking really good, and he was just in from North Carolina where he was shooting a miniseries, North and South with Liz Taylor.

  It was just mobbed with people. Lots of young kids, didn’t know many of them. Molly Ringwald came. Lots of champagne. And then went back to the Bel Air with PH who was keeping me company because I was depressed. Jon went back to New York, I guess he didn’t want to be linked with me in L.A. He never gave me keys to his new house, so I guess I’ll never be staying there, and I’m … Oh, I don’t know. Life is interesting, I guess.