The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Wednesday, April 3, 1985—Los Angeles

  Got driven to The Love Boat. Talked to Ted McGinley until we broke for lunch. He’s so good-looking and really charming, all these people out here are. The wardrobe guy at the studio is really nice to all the stars and never has a bad word to say. He told PH, “Everyone here just loves Andy,” so that made me feel good.

  And then PH and I walked to Melrose and to the antique stores. And then we went to L.A. Eyeworks and I picked out some more glasses. About six pairs.

  Had to work until 9:30 on the set, and then the driver took me back, and gee those guys are so nice. And Fred had already gone to dinner at Sue Mengers’s, so I followed, and Barbra Streisand was there and she was dropping names like Archipenko, the sculptor, and she said that Steve Ross sends them to her, sends her all these valuable things after she admires them in his place. And she asked how much a portrait was, and I said I just couldn’t talk about price, and she asked Fred and he said $25,000 and she said, “Oh really? So cheap?” And she turned to her Baskin-Robbins boyfriend, and said, “Maybe we should buy one for Steve.”

  Barbra’s really skinny but she had three helpings of curry. And she looks great. She has her hair straight now and her dress showed everything in the right way. But I think this boyfriend is the one who directed the horrible video for the song she has out now, “Emotion,” but I’m not sure. And she’s suing her building in New York because of the roof—it leaks. It’s at 92nd and Central Park West and she didn’t even remember that she’d invited me to a party there, this was about seven or nine years ago—Jed and I went—and she said, “I knew you? Were you famous then, when you came to my party?” As if she would’ve invited me if I weren’t. And I felt like telling her, “Yes I was there, and you had name tags stuck on all the food like a delicatessen— ‘chopped liver’ and ‘gefilte fish,’ and I don’t know, ‘halvah.’ “ It was getting to that point where I might as well have. I told her, “Oh your jewelry is so small, Barbra, why don’t you get bigger things?” And she said, “Oy! I bought diamonds for $60,000 a carat and the next day they dropped to $20,000!” And it’s true, it really happened like that about three years ago. But I told her that the day they went down to $20,000 she should’ve bought three more and cut her losses. And Sean Connery was there but I didn’t talk to him. And Alan Ladd, Jr., who looked sensational.

  And they all talk about Jews trying to be WASPs and they were talking about Woody Allen and Mia Farrow and really putting down Mia.

  Thursday, April 4, 1985—Los Angeles

  Went to The Love Boat just to drop off some posters, the Indian posters, because there’s a lot of people I’d missed when I gave them out the day before, and I could tell who they were because they stopped speaking to me, they thought I’d passed over them.

  Then we went back to the hotel to meet Lana. And she was adorable to me. She was tipsy and it was like a whole different person. I closed my eyes and it was like being with Paulette, that kind of attitude. She said, “Give me a kiss.” And Lana does crystals, too. And she had a cracked rib which she blamed on a Nolan Miller dress she had that made her trip, but I think she must have been drunk. She wears a little quarter-inch cross.

  Oh, and on The Love Boat the last day, Andy Griffith suddenly got really happy, very friendly to everybody, and nobody could figure it out after he’d been so bitter all week. He must’ve had a drink.

  Friday, April 5, 1985—Los Angeles—New York

  So twelve days of bliss at the most beautiful hotel in the world were coming to an end and then they really came to an end when we got the $9,500 hotel bill. We had to pay half of it. I think we were charged for service and for Fred’s room. But we got lots of portraits. The Spelling wife and Doug Cramer and Lana.

  So the car came and took us to Regent Air. It’s just $100 more than first class. It’s $800. There were only fifteen people. And you really feel the turbulence on a small plane. On the 747s you don’t feel anything. The only famous person was Mark Goodson. The rest were just grand types—a woman who looked like Milton Berle and a guy with gold chains so he must have been a Hollywood writer or something (tip $50). They’d showed two movies in succession on the flight—Protocol and The Cotton Club—and both of them weren’t hits, but you could see quality in them so it was sad. And the bathrooms on Regent are three times the size of a normal bathroom. And there was a girl with a portfolio, either a model or a whore or something, just bubbling and enthusiastic. And they come and scramble your eggs right in front of you. When we arrived in New York the airline had twenty limos waiting. Tipped the driver $20.

  So got in and it was 6:00 in the evening in New York and that really throws you off. I hate it. You’re dead tired but you feel like you have to have your day. And you call people up but it’s Easter weekend and everybody’s out of town. But then the phone rang and it was Cornelia inviting me to dinner at Le Cirque with Jane Holzer. Cornelia is now going out with Eric Goode of Area, she says he’s trying to break up with Elizabeth Saltzman whose mother runs Saks.

  Monday, April 8, 1985

  Went to Dr. Bernsohn. I’m supposed to arrange a date with Dr. Karen Burke for him. He’s straight. The last girlfriend he had was a body builder but then he dropped her when she became a healer, because he said he couldn’t see her healing other people and absorbing all their things and then putting her hands all over his body after sucking all that up. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Left twenty-five copies of Interview there. I couldn’t have him included in our Health issue because treating with crystals isn’t legit.

  Jean Michel’s still away on his vacation with Eric-from-Area’s-sister Jennifer. They went to Hong Kong, maybe. I wonder when they’re coming back? I mean, how long can you suck dick? … Oh, I don’t know, I guess I’ve missed out on a lot in life—never pickups on the street or anything like that. I feel life has passed me by (phone calls $2).

  Ther it was busy at the office. Iolas was coming. Then it was too light on the top floor to trace, then it got dark and rained and then it got light again.

  Ran into Crazy Matty on 74th Street and he gave me $.25 and he went crazy because (laughs) I took it.

  Cabbed home ($6) and got off at the corner because I like to walk in from the block but I’m not going to do it anymore because out of the shadows jumped Matty, he was waiting in a doorway, and I couldn’t get in fast enough, he caught me. He went away easily, but I’m not going to risk it anymore. It means that anybody could come after me like that. He said he needs a job. So I went it and I had four Reese’s peanut butter cups and a garlic sandwich and I left the TV on and woke up to Sunrise News.

  Thursday, April 11, 1985

  Somebody came by the office and was telling me about the book Dotson Rader wrote on Tennessee Williams so I sent Michael Walsh out to get it ($18.75). And he had all this made-up stuff in it, like that Edie was giving a blow job to somebody and also eating a girl’s pussy, which would never be true. And then he said that Tennessee just loved Joe Dallesandro so when Joe went up to see him Tennessee did his fainting number so Joe would have to hold him in his arms. God, I just always thought Dotson Rader was a CIA person. Just that creepy type. And now he’s gone from the Carters to walking Pat Lawford. I mean, how we met him, in like ‘69, was he took Blowjob up to screen at Columbia where he said he was going to school. But even then he looked too old to be a student, so it always made me wonder.

  Lidija came by and I’m all out of shape after not working out for the two weeks in California.

  And there’s a radiologist in the building next door to me. He just bought a million-dollar machine and they had to knock a wall out to get it in, and I keep wondering if the radium stuff can get to me, because we share steam heat. Everybody says the machines are “foolproof.” Sure. And the Polish Embassy next door, now they want $4 million for it. I guess I should’ve bought it, when then were asking $1.3.

  Had to leave early, cabbed to Radio City Music Hall ($6). The guy writing the book on Liberace was next t
o us and he said that Liberace was really in love with that chauffeur who gave all the interviews to the National Enquirer and that it really crushed him—Scott Thorsen. Now he has a new chauffeur. And the show is just magnificent. A rhinestone cape that shined to the stars. Lots of gay jokes and dirty jokes, and he has all these little kids who are his protégés who play the piano while he goes on a break. And the little boys he introduces as “my dear little friend, my best little friend …” but not the little girls. And he showed a film of his fingers and talked about each ring.

  Sunday, April 14, 1985

  Went to church and then went to meet Stephen Sprouse at the Mayfair and he was nervous about what he was going to ask me and finally he just blurted it out and I thought he’d been about to ask for my hand in marriage, but he asked (laughs) for a loan of a million and a half dollars. And I actually was so happy, it would be great to be in the fashion business. I’m not going to give him the million and a half myself, but I said I would talk to Fred about finding investors for him, and then we could have a part of the business for setting it up.

  And Stephen gave me two wigs (tea $25) and went home and talked to Fred and he agreed it was a good idea.

  Called Jon who’s in town and staying at his own apartment on the West Side, and then walked over across the park to meet him and ran into Archie and Amos on their day off and they didn’t even recognize me. I was—crushed. They were off their leashes and they were with Jed and they didn’t give me a thought. And so met Jon and we went to the Cafe Luxembourg and had dinner and we didn’t talk much about his new life ($75).

  Monday, April 15, 1985

  Read about ten different magazines and got so nervous because everything is so glamorous. Even all the sick people look glamorous in magazines.

  Oh, and the Tennessee Williams book that Dotson wrote. Chris Makos told me that he sees a lot of himself in “David,” the hustler who Dotson says had both Tennessee Williams and “the Movie Star”—Tony Perkins—paying his rent. They each thought they were paying it all. So that sure does sound like Chris, but most of it, I don’t know, it sounds like Dotson just made it up.

  Wednesday, April 17, 1985

  Fred was working on the Stephen Sprouse thing, he’s gotten Richard Weisman interested.

  And Eric Goode invited me to a party at Area for (laughs) the “unicorn.” The unicorn that’s been in all the papers from the circus. PH and I should cover that for the Party book. It’s funny.

  Friday, April 19,1985

  It was an all-day crystal day. The big cheese, Dr. Reese, was in town, and my appointment was for 12:0 at Bernsohn’s—he was taking me to lunch with Reese and they were going to do my cranium. I asked Reese how he started in crystals and he said that when he was little, “Mr. Morning” came to see him. When he was a baby. He saw “Mr. Morning,” but nobody else did. And then in the army he got interested in electricity and the body and all this stuff. Reese was talking about his trip where he went around sticking crystals all over the pyramids and the Wailing Wall. And he eats things like coffee and doughnuts. But he cures the coffee by passing the crystal over it ten times. And he says he knows somebody in South Africa who went to the Wailing Wall who now wants to get his money out of South Africa and do movies. Reese is Episcopalian, so I feel better with him than with the Jewish crystal people, somehow, because knowing he believes in Christ I don’t have to worry that crystals might be somehow against Christ. And his assistant —this girl—kept asking him, “Should we tell him? Should we tell him what we want him to do?” And finally Reese said, “Yes.” So the girl said, “Your forces are with us. You’ve got to come to Tibet with us. You have the ability to do great things.” And then they do talk about needing people to support their studies. So do you think they’re going to ask me for money? That that’s it? Bernsohn is so materialistic—the new laser-beam record players and the new apartment. Then they tell me I was Chinese in my other life and that I have to go to Tibet with them…. Look, I know the people are ridiculous, but it’s the crystals I believe in. They do work. When you think that these crystals were in the center of the earth and have all this energy…

  Oh, and I got a letter from my niece Eva in Denver that said, “God Bless You, and by the way I stole your drawings ten years ago, do you want them back?” In like 1970 when she was living here and taking care of my mother. She told me she rolled up some of my Flower prints and took them and they’ve been in her basement. But her letter is so full of God Bless Yous and Our Blessed Home and Our Blessed everythings that she sounds like one of the Moral Majority. And my nephew Paul is still in Denver—the ex-priest who’s married to the ex-nun, and they have two children.

  Saturday, April 20, 1985

  I got a call from Keith, he wanted to work all day on painting the elephant. Fred had it painted white so Keith could do a painting on it. This is the elephant I had to buy for Diana Vreeland’s costume show at the Met for “Marilyn Monroe” to be riding on. It was pink, and then after the show it came to Fred at the Factory, and then Jean Michel and Victor painted some stuff on it, but not much, but still I would’ve kept it a Jean Michel even though it wasn’t much of one, but Fred thought it would be better as a Keith Haring, and so Keith is going to paint it, now that it’s white.

  Cabbed up for dinner with Cornelia at Mortimer’s ($4). She wasn’t there, but Cosima von Bulow was there with her father, Claus. He’s handsome. He said, “Thank you for being nice to me before I was a star.” I don’t know if he was being funny. I guess he means when he used to come to lunch at the office when Catherine Guinness was working there. And then he left and said that he knew Cosima was in good hands. And she’s so beautiful. I had a good talk with her. She said she didn’t want to be an actress because her teacher at one of those schools like Brearley discouraged her after she was in a play—said she was no good or something. Everybody just comes over to her and asks her about her father. Absolutely everybody. People who don’t even know her. But she is a good actress, she handles it well.

  Monday, April 22, 1985

  My weight is up to 128, I want to get back to 125.

  Went over to Sotheby’s, it’s jewelry auctions all week, and the place is eight-deep in this category now. It seems like everybody is buying at auction just instead of in the stores. So I guess the stores will be suffering or they already are. But I’m sure they send people to buy and bid their category up. And ran into Ivana Trump in the basement looking at the cheap stuff there.

  Oh! And who should I run into at this jewelry auction but my worker who I can never find, Rupert Smith! I said, “So this is where you spend your days.” He was shocked to see me.

  Oh, and gee, I saw Lee Radziwill on an old cover of Life and she really was pretty and I could see why Truman wanted her to be an actress.

  Wednesday, April 24, 1985

  The big news on TV is that Coke is changing their formula. Why would they do that? It doesn’t make sense. They could’ve just come out with a new product and left Coke alone. It seems crazy. And all the TV news shows love it, they’re doing all these stories of people sitting around taste-testing.

  In the morning went to Dr. Bernsohn’s and Bernsohn said that Reese felt I was a “Janooky,” that he felt I could be the really big one. “Janookys” are the head crystal people.

  Left there and ran into David Whitney and invited him to lunch to find out about the art business. He said that Peter Brant paid $40,000 for a Jasper Johns print. For a print!

  Vincent was upset because Polygram called and said that Lou Reed doesn’t want to get back with the Velvets. And Polygram wants to buy our tapes for $15,000 which isn’t enough. And I mean, I just don’t understand why I have never gotten a penny from that first Velvet Underground record. That record really sells and I was the producer! Shouldn’t I get something? I mean, shouldn’t I? And what I can’t figure out is when Lou stopped liking me. I mean, he even went out and got himself two dachshunds like I had and then after that he started not liking me, but I don�
�t know exactly why or when. Maybe it was when he married this last wife, maybe he decided that he didn’t want to see peculiar people. I’m surprised he hasn’t had kids, you know?

  I worked on the Lana Turner portraits, turning this sixty-year-old into a twenty-five-year-old girl. It took a long time. I wish I had been able to just work from an old picture and it would’ve been this beautiful painting. But this way it’s not really a good picture.

  Thursday, April 25, 1985

  Dr. Bernsohn says he doesn’t want to be associated just with crystals because he could lose his license—he said that in Massachusetts people have lost their licenses. But I mean, if you really believe in something, it seems kind of funny if you won’t take the consequences.

  I’m trying to find another store that sells the sculpture of the Last Supper that’s about one-and-a-half feet—they’re selling it in one of those import stores on Fifth near Lord & Taylor but it’s so expensive there, about $2,500. So I’m trying to find it cheaper in Times Square. I’m doing the Last Supper for lolas. For Lucio Amelio I’m doing the Volcanoes. So I guess I’m a commercial artist. I guess that’s the score.

  Friday, April 26, 1985

  Worked all afternoon and was going to work until 8:00 but my light burned out on the tracing machine so I had to stop. I called Jean Michel to see if he was invited to Schnabel’s because then I would pick him up, and Shenge answers and I say I want to know if he’s invited and Shenge says, “Oh, he’s invited? That’s nice. I’ll go tell him.” And I’m screaming, “No no no!” It was a birthday dinner for Schnabel’s wife, Jacqueline.