by Andy Warhol
And everybody was saying how sick Roy looked, and that he was dying. Steve Rubell told me the other week that Roy had cancer and was in remission—that it wasn’t AIDS, but regular cancer. He didn’t look well.
And Jacqueline Stone was going on, worried about her son, Oliver, who’s now in El Salvador directing a movie he wrote and nobody’s heard from him in a week. And I remembered later that Boaz Mazor was the star of Oliver Stone’s first movie and he once told me that Oliver’s mother was a stage mother on the set handing out poppers to the actors to help them act.
And then after dinner the politicians’ speeches started. Stanley Friedman from the Bronx gave a speech and mentioned Lebanon and the hostages there from flight 847 and said we can’t forget the trouble spots in the world like Afghanistan and Nicaragua, while we’re having our nice dinner at the Palladium.
And Philippe Junot during all the political talk just sat there practically asleep. But when somebody at the podium introduced a “twenty-nine-year-old Donald Trump,” Philippe’s head popped up and he said, “Donald’s not twenty-nine!” And then the last speaker was Roy himself and before he started to talk the two big blocks of TV monitors came down and they were all filled with vintage footage of Roy’s face from the fifties giving his anti-Communist speeches. And that was exciting, it was the best thing. And they brought out a big fat cake and then a Kate Smith record was blasting over the speakers with “God Bless America” and the “flag up there” that all the speech-givers kept referring to came down and it was actually shredded red, white, and blue banners. Plastic. Talked to Richard Turley and the lady who invented Weight Watchers. And then the dancing music started and everybody got up. And by this time the kids they’d let into the club were overhead looking down from the balcony on the dinner.
Wednesday,June 26, 1985
Went into the Whitney to see the Michael Heizer show because I wasn’t invited to the dinner that night for the opening, which I thought was so strange, because there it was my good friends David Whitney and Michael Heizer planning this whole dinner with a list and everything and I wasn’t even on it. And David was cool to me. I mean, here’s this man who wants to marry me when Philip Johnson kicks the bucket and he didn’t even invite me to the dinner. He was wearing the Stephen Sprouse tie I gave him. And Tom Armstrong doesn’t invite me to anything anymore because he doesn’t have to court me now that the Whitney’s got all my old films (phone $4, cab $5.50).
Thursday, June 27, 1985
Stuart Fivar is casting bronzes for Stallone and he doesn’t know what to do because he just saw an original of the one he’s casting going at auction for cheaper than he’s casting the copy for Stallone for (laughs), so he doesn’t know what to do, he’s afraid Stallone will see it, too. And Stuart’s girlfriend Barbara Guggenheim was out there in L.A. selling art to Stallone for hours and hours when PH was trying to wring just twenty more minutes out of him for her cover interview for our Movies issue.
Oh aid I forgot to say that on 45th Street I ran into a lady who said her father delivered Ted Carey and his brother and she asked how he was and I didn’t have the heart to tell her he had AIDS.
Friday,June 28, 1985
The doorbell was ringing and the rain had started and Benjamin came to pick me up, but then Matty was waiting for me outside. I gave him a dollar and told him to (laughs) call Warren Beatty. He’s really skinny now. We gave him an Interview and he followed us to Versace and he read it outside while he was waiting and he became so engrossed that we were able to slip past him, he didn’t even see us. Little did we know that he’d be waiting for us downtown on 33rd Street when we got to the office. Benjamin reasoned with him and now Matty’s going to consider giving me the weekends off.
Cornelia called and she tried to tell me a “secret” but I told her don’t bother, that it was so obvious that she was seeing Philippe Junot. All these girls want to see what Caroline gave up.
Saturday,June 29, 1985
Bianca was hit by a car in East Hampton while she was trying to learn how to ride a bike. Gold and Fizdale hit her. They’re those two old dual pianists who write about cooking together now. Steve Rubell sees a big settlement.
Sunday,June 30, 1985
It was Gay Day parade day. Got in a cab and the driver was a happy faggot, he said, “Hi! Did you go to the parade?” and I just said, “What parade?” and he dropped the subject, talked about the weather (cab $5). And on the news the hostages from TWA 847 were free, and then they weren’t free and then they were free.
Stephen Sprouse called and we made plans to meet. I said I’d pick him up at 9:00 and we’d go down to Odeon for dinner (cab $7). It was sort of empty (dinner $70). Then we walked over to Area. Then I remembered there was a Gay Day party at the Palladium. We started to walk up. Saw some cops by the stable where they keep their horses on Varick Street. They were just back from the parade, laughing. One of them had his nightstick pointing out from his basket and they were laughing about their experiences of the day. A cute one said hi to me (cab $7).
Tuesday,July 2, 1985
It was Emanon the fourteen-year-old rapper and the little Latosha girl at the office for lunch, and Emanon’s so cute, he really is. I think he should expand from rapping into singing. And Latosha does sing like Ella Fitzgerald. I want to adopt little black kids.
Keith called me and wanted to know if our date for Jerry Hall’s birthday party was still on. He said he’d pick me up at 9:00. Worked till 8:00. Keith picked me up in red patent-leather shoes and we went to Mr. Chow’s (cab $9). Mr. Chow’s is fighting having to unionize, because he said he needs the kind of young attractive waiters that you just get off the street. I had a glass of champagne. Jed was there with Alan Wanzenberg. And I notice that Jerry’s birthday parties have gotten more hardcore every year. It used to be her model girlfriends and their boyfriends, but now it’s heavy-duty, no model friends.
Thursday, July 4, 1985
Stayed home during the day, the dog was sick. Watched the soaps and they’re all great, handsome guys and good-looking girls, and they really know how to kiss.
The Forbes boat was parked at 30th Street and the East River, not the Hudson River like I thought. And when Stephen Sprouse and Cornelia and I got there there were all people on the highway screaming my name as I went in so that distracted me and I didn’t take pictures.
Peter Brant was on the boat, he told me that he’d tried to buy the Voice, that he’d really wanted it, but that he lost out when Leonard Stern paid $55 million because he’d only offered $51 million.
Anne Bass was there with her husband Sid and kids, and I didn’t make a fuss over them which I should have. I sat with Mick and Jerry while I ate. Watched the fireworks and it was like they were floating by the boat. “Suzy” was there with her son, and I didn’t know she had one. Then the boat left and sailed around the tip of Manhattan up to where it usually docks on 23rd Street in the Hudson. Going fourteen miles an hour.
And Cornelia’s still with Philippe Junot and Mrs. Vreeland is mad at her for wasting her life, which she is, but she says she doesn’t want to get married, she just wants to have fun.
After I got home Stephen called and said, “Thank you for a really good time,” and for a few seconds I (laughs) couldn’t think who it was.
Saturday,July 6, 1985
Got up to get to work but decided it wasn’t going to happen and I stayed in and read. Tried to read Dominick Dunne’s book The Two Mrs. Grenvilles but it’s too boring because it’s not real and it’s not fiction. Then I started reading the copy of Savage Grace that Steve Aronson autographed for me. It’s about the Bakelite woman and her beautiful fairy son who killed her, and it’s all the real society people talking and these fascinating letters from the father—I guess someone will make a good movie out of it because the people are glamorous and it’s a good story—mothers who want their sons to be fairies so they sleep with them.
Told Stephen to meet me at 7:30 sharp at Diana Vreeland’s for dinner. It was a h
uge rainstorm but it stopped at 7:40 and I walked over. Stephen Sprouse was already there and sweet. He’d brought Mrs. Vreeland some outfits. I had my tape recorder on and she came in and said, “What’s that?” and I (laughs) told her, “A camera,” because I thought she couldn’t see. And she said, “No it’s not.” So then I told her it would be like old times, taping again, and she said okay. She said she has a girl sit in the room with her while she sleeps. I thought that was so strange, that she would want that. But then, I guess she is sick, so … She had four vodkas and she smoked about fifteen cigarettes.
Andre Leon Talley was coming the next day to read the Rothschild book to her, she said. She can’t remember names, but then she never could. And the funniest thing was she said that someone who was going through things for her found her birth certificate, and it was August 29th and not September 29th, the date she’d been celebrating all her life because that’s when her parents had told her her birthday was. So she’s a Leo, she finds out.
Monday,July 8, 1985
I forgot to say that over the weekend I saw an old Naked City episode from the sixties on TV that had Sylvia Miles and Dennis Hopper, and it was during the filming of this episode that I met Dennis, when Henry Geldzahler took me up to 128th Street on the East Side where they were shooting it, and I guess Sylvia must have been there, too, but I didn’t know her then. And she was playing old whores already.
Fred was just back from L.A. and we may be getting the building off Doheny and Melrose for our Interview office out there. It’s a house, but it’s zoned for business. Down from a million to $500,000. And he’d said at first that it didn’t need work, but now he said that it needs air conditioning and wiring.
Dr. Bernsohn told me that Jon is going to Tibet with Dr. Reese—for his health, maybe, I guess. And to research his scripts on crystals, I guess. I don’t know … he’s completely gone from New York now. He’s just working out there in L.A. I guess I’ll find someone better to work on movie projects with. I mean, that was the main reason I got so involved with him, so …
Anyway, Dr. Bernsohn said he’d been to Sedona, Arizona, that and his back was cured. I didn’t know anything was still wrong with it. Sedona is one of the three big points. The others are the pyramids and the the Bermuda Triangle.
Went and looked at the September Movies issue of Interview that they’re working on, and I didn’t like the illuminated manuscript kind of lettering that heads each category—I think they should’ve just done a new kind of modern type, not the curlicue look. And the Stallone pictures that Herb Ritts took don’t look any different than movie stills, there’s nothing that makes them unique, because Stallone’s just in his boxing trunks. Why didn’t Ritts at least have him hold a hanky in one shot or something, to establish that it was our picture, not just some still from Rocky IV.
Tuesday,July 9, 1985
I met a guy from Paramount last night named Michael Bessman, and I guess he has the job that everybody wants—in charge of development. I think he must have just gotten the job that Jon was wanting. I don’t know if Jon would have been good at it. He never liked any of the projects I thought of, but now that he’s trying to go into production, I’m just waiting—I’ll probably see my ideas being announced as his new projects. Like the “Music Hotel,” that one I was doing with Maura Moynihan. Jon always thinks it was his idea after the movie comes out. Like Footloose. He knew Dean Pitchford, the friend of Peter Allen’s, and he remembered that they were all talking about it at a party once and then after Dean Pitchford did it as a movie Jon would always say it’d been his idea, too. But these things are all in the weather, and it’s whoever does it that counts.
They were telling me that Cosima von Bulow cancelled her shoot for Interview because she got a sunburn. But I mean, she lives in Newport, and she doesn’t know about the sun?
Sent Benjamin out on a simple errand and it cost me a thousand dollars! I’d given him $2,000 to go get the large-size sculpture of the Last Supper that we’d bargained the guy down from $5,000 to $2,000 on. So he went there and it wasn’t there anymore. The Last Supper comes in small, medium, and large. So then at this other place, I’d gotten the guy down from $2,500 to $1,000 for the medium. But Benjamin forgot we’d gotten them down, and he bought the medium one for $2,000! He didn’t remember! It was actually the size I really wanted, anyway, but he wound up giving the second store for the medium one what he was supposed to buy the large one for. So this means he hasn’t got a head for figures—a thousand dollars is a lot to waste. I just couldn’t believe it, after I’d haggled so hard.
Went to Marylou’s on 9th Street for a models dinner (cab $5). Joey Hunter was there. And all the boy models at one end of the table were desperate that they didn’t have girlfriends, and then the girl models were at the other end of the table tired and complaining that they didn’t have boyfriends.
Wednesday,July 10, 1985
I’d redone the portrait of a lady from Boston and we had lunch for them so they could see the new ones. I learned a lesson: I should never show a portrait when I know it isn’t right. The first time around I knew that I’d made her look like a horse, and still I showed it to them. And the thing is, this woman’s actually nice-looking, it’s just one of those people who photographs all the wrong way—all the bumps are in the wrong places. Like the bump of her nose just goes the complete wrong way in pictures, and it’s actually a perfect nose in life. But now they loved them, they took three.
Jean Michel came by and did a masterpiece upstairs. He wants to get work done before he goes away again. He had Jay filling in paintings, and I’m going to have Jay fill in, too. He tried to hire Jay away, but Jay didn’t want to work for him.
Saturday,July 13, 1985
Watched the Live Aid thing on TV. Bobby Zarem’s office had been calling, wanting me to go down there, but when you’re with that many big celebrities you never get any publicity. Later on that night Jack Nicholson introduced Bob Dylan and called him “transcendental.” But to me, Dylan was never really real—he was just mimicking real people and the amphetamine made it come out magic. With amphetamine he could copy the right words and make it all sound right. But that boy never felt a thing—(laughs) I just never bought it.
Someone gave me a copy of Leo Ford’s sex video and I put it on when I got into bed and he was massaging this limp sausage of his for so long and there was another guy there doing the same thing with his limp one, and I fell asleep and when I woke up they were (laughs) still doing it.
Monday,July 15, 1985
Saw Dr. Li and had fun. We were going to go back to the East Side but it was such awful muggy weather that we just went downtown. A girl came by with the Edie look, but I told her there wasn’t anything I could do for her. I guess she wanted me to wine and dine her and change her life, but I mean …
Gael came in and she’s losing weight. I told her she should start going on TV shows to promote Interview and make it sound glamorous.
Tina Chow went out today and got her crystal. The crystal in the kitchen at the office still isn’t working—it still isn’t repelling the roaches. Vincent says the roaches even run around the clock in the stove, under the glass. I’m going to bring it back to Bernsohn again.
Thursday, July 16, 1985
Cabbed to meet Ric Ocasek of the Cars who’s doing a solo album, and we were filming him for our MTV pilot show, Andy Warhols Fifteen Minutes (cab $6).
And there was a big rainstorm with big hailstones and that was exciting. We ran around with buckets, putting them under all the holes in the roof. Worked with Rupert until 8:00.
Then I went to dinner with Susan Mulcahy of the Post’s Page Six. And you know, I realized watching her last night that she’s gotten more tough. She’s still sweet and everything, but the job has put her into a power position, which is weird. She does have to fill up the page and I see her becoming more like Bob when Bob got aggressive and tough. She acts more like a man now, and she’s now accepting the idea that she’s beautiful.
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br /> Wednesday,July 17, 1985
Ran into Sylvia Miles and I told her that we really had to go together to the opening of Marianne Hinton’s tromp l’oeil gallery show this coming Tuesday because it’s called “Opening of a Loo.” So then Sylvia and I can both finally say we’ve been to the opening of a toilet.
Monday,July 22, 1985
Went up to the Kiss of the Spider Woman screening (cab $5). This is the movie Jane Holzer produced with that David Weisman, the Ciao Manhattan person. I can’t stand him so I hate to say it, but I liked the movie. And I guess people are wanting arty movies now, or something, it’s the right time.
I had to get home early and dye my hair because of my public appearance at Lincoln Center for Commodore Computers the next day. Dyed my eyebrows, too. Black. I always dye it black first, and then leave some white and everything. I’m artistic, sweetheart.
Tuesday,July 23, 1985
The day started off with dread as I woke up from my dreams and thought about my live appearance and how nothing is worth all this worrying, to wake up and feel so terrified. Had to be over at Lincoln Center at 9:00, so I was up at 7:30 (cab $4). Debbie Harry got there before I did. She’s a blonde again and she’s lost another ten pounds. And she was wearing the outfit from Stephen Sprouse that I’ve never seen anybody else wear yet—the shoes glued into the leg stocking. We ran through it, and the easiest part is running through our thing for the press, that’s so easy. They said we had to be back there at 5:30.