by Andy Warhol
Earl McGrath was there, sour, until he finally got a joint from John Taylor of Duran Duran. And then he introduced me to Randy Hearst, Patty’s father, and then it turned out Patty was there with her cop husband, and I met him, and then Patty came over and was very friendly and sweet, she looks great. And Nile Rodgers was there, the record producer. He’s a fashion plate, his hair’s cut square like Grace Jones’s, and he’s really nice.
Friday, January 10, 1986
Richard Weisman called and said he was getting married, and it’s next Saturday in town.
Thursday, January 14, 1986
Chris told me that what Edmund was actually sick with was TB but that he’s getting over it now. My mother had it after she came to New York, and you just have to take a lot of antibiotics. She never coughed or anything, and I don’t know how she got it in New York, I guess it’s just a virus. Doc Cox found out she had it and she got over it in a month. And the Department of Health people kept coming around for years.
Brigid said she’s going to Paris for two weeks with Charles Rydell. She said her mother’s bought the coffin for her father. They expect him to go any day now. They’ve got a turkey baster stuck in his throat to feed him.
Saw Jewel of the Nile which was a bore (tickets $18, popcorn $7). Michael Douglas’s nose is getting hooked. I wonder if his father had a nose job.
Wednesday, January 15, 1986
An English guy came in and wants me to do new Self-Portraits. I’m working on the War pictures and they’re so hard, I don’t know what they should look like. I’m doing Guns, but I’ve done guns before.
Saturday, January 18, 1986
I got myself into black tie, took a cab to U.N. Plaza for Richard Weisman’s wedding (cab $4.50). And who was sitting there in the lobby but Crazy Matty. They weren’t even kicking him out or anything. Richard was sort of out of it. His youngest daughter was with the son of the woman who Richard lived with for about five years and didn’t marry. And then I guess he met this girl and decided to get married right away. And when she came down I was shocked because he hadn’t said she was Oriental, and his father, Fred Weisman, just had a horrible experience with an Oriental woman and now Richard’s marrying one himself. She’s a model. She’s half American and half Korean.
The wedding itself only took a second. You hardly noticed. “Do you take this woman?” “Yes.” That was about it. And then I had about four pieces of wedding cake. And I asked why Suzie Frankfurt wasn’t there and somebody said that she and Richard had had a falling-out because he gave her $20,000 to get the stucco off the walls and she hasn’t done it.
And everybody was saying they hadn’t known if this wedding was really going to happen. John Martin from ABC said that just before he got into his tuxedo he called to make sure. And Richard’s wife told him that for her wedding present all she wanted in the world was to go to the Superbowl. Yeah, right—“The Superbowl, darling, that’s all I want.” And so then I left and Matty was still in the lobby. And I said to the doorman, “How can you let that person stay here so long and not kick him out?” and he said, “He works for Interview magazine.”
Monday, January 20, 1986
Jean Michel woke me up at 6:00 this morning and I went back to sleep and now my tongue can hardly move. He’s got problems because he’s trying to get Shenge out of the house, he says he’s been supporting him for three years, but the main reason is that (laughs) Shenge is now painting like he is. They’re copies of his paintings. Jennifer’s away. And oh, Jean Michel must be so hard to live with. I told him I’d had dinner with Kenny and the Chows and he wanted to know why I didn’t invite him and I said that I’d called him three days ago and he didn’t call back.
Fred said that the Boston Museum people were still vague about whether they were going to buy the big Electric Chair or not.
Tuesday, January 21, 1986
I think I forgot to tell about the girl on 57th at Park who took off all her clothes and peed in the middle of the street and then walked over and put her clothes on again. In front of that luggage store that I never see anybody in. The southwest corner, you know? Everybody pretended like nothing was happening. She had high heels on.
Benjamin picked me up and on the way downtown we ran into Jimmy Breslin who was just in a sweater, he said he’d just walked through the park, that he walks to the Daily News every day from the West Side and he said he’d walk with us, but we panicked because we were on our way to Bulgari, and can you imagine the column he would write about that? And so we told him we had to go and work on some advertisers, and it was hard to shake him. But gee, that’s a long walk he does every day, isn’t it?
Grace Jones arrived at the office to pick up her portrait and she was wearing Issey Miyake and she had a hat on that was like Rasta hair and she has big kisses on the mouth for everybody, like even Sam. And she’s so excited that she’s going to Hollywood to play a woman Dracula. I mean how many more women Draculas can they have? She’s so excited. She said they gave her “artistic control.” She was saying that she was going to turn yellow and then white and then green, and so then I thought that maybe they just gave her artistic control of her face.
Saturday, January 25, 1986
Went down to Julian Schnabel’s. The food was already gone and back in the kitchen when we got there. I guess when they said 7:30 they meant it. So Julian took us into the kitchen and we sat around there eating couscous. It was so good. He gave me a copy of his book to read to see what I thought. And what I thought was that he was really influenced by Popism. It starts off with how he arrived from Waco, Texas, and then being at Max’s and who he met. Everybody but me. It was sort of interesting because he’d go back and forth from then to later, like he’d say, “August, 1983” and put something in. I don’t know if it’s a prologue to a book or if it’s a catalogue or what. It’ll sell a lot.
Then they brought out the birthday cake. And I was shooting with my camera and this person pulls down her hat and walks away and I didn’t even know who it was and I went into the kitchen and then Diane Keaton comes in and said, “Hi kids, how are you?” And I mean, who does she think she is? I was taking pictures of the cake. And I mean, she goes around the city doing her photographs of anybody she wants, so where does she have the nerve to act like that? And then she went downstairs and I was talking in a loud voice about how I thought she was a phony and maybe she heard, but I don’t care. If I see her again I’m going to tell her off once and for all, what a big phony-baloney she is. Julian had a lot of new work around. He’s buying back his early work that he sold for $600 or something, for about $40,000, because he knows he should. He doesn’t know how to deal with me and Jean Michel. He owes us some pictures (supplies $1).
He had a lot of Joseph Beuys stuff around. Joseph Beuys just died on Friday. And Tinkerbelle died. It was in the Friday papers. It said that she died on Tuesday when she jumped out of a window.
Edit deAk was wearing one of these Afghan hats and she said that she told Diane Keaton once to “stop wearing those stupid hats,” and then she comes in wearing a stupid hat herself and runs into Diane Keaton, so she was really embarrassed.
And the Music issue is coming up and I really have to call Eric Andersen back, he’s been calling me, and get him into the issue. Interview doesn’t ask me to do interviews myself anymore or anything. They used to ask me to do a person now and then. Were my interviews bad, or …
Sunday, January 26, 1986
Went to the flea market and it was raining. Then went over to the East Side to the armory show. At Sotheby’s they’d just sold a table for $1.2 million. A record. And at the armory there were all these people that I used to buy junk from for $35, and if I’d only bought the $100 stuff, that stuff would be worth a lot now, but I bought the cheap stuff. And now what people want is only one of a kind. My art is just the opposite.
Tuesday, January 28, 1986
Brigid came in and said that her father had died and that she wanted to go home, and I told her to keep
on working. Paige was very sympathetic, but I was trying to just, you know, make it less traumatic for her.
Thursday, January 30, 1986
Benjamin Liu came and gave me the tragic news that his costume jewelry business is soaring and that he’s going into it full-time and won’t be coming by for me in the mornings anymore. So an era has ended. I guess I’ll just be going straight to work, which is just as well, I’ll get more work done. There are other possibilities of people to try out, but Benjamin was special.
George the secretary at Yoko Ono’s called and invited me to a dinner party for her big screening of the movie she and John made in 1972 and a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, I think for Bangladesh. And there were a lot of other things to do but I decided to do that. I asked if I could bring someone to Yoko’s and later they called and said okay, so I asked Sam Bolton. He’s only interested when it’s big celebrities.
Was picked up by Sam and we cabbed to Amsterdam and 64th or 65th for the screening and I was next to Jann Wenner (cab $4). And John was such a great comedian, so natural on stage and those funny little movements and good lines. Yoko was just screaming, it was one of her early performances.
Then there was a dinner at Jezebel’s and Jann gave us a ride in his limo. Roberta Flack was there and Earl and Camilla McGrath and we all walked in and they were shocked with this glamorous place that they didn’t know about. Jezebel redid it and it looks cleaner now. She kissed me hard on my cheek. I was next to Roberta Flack and one of the Spinks brothers came in wearing a big fur coat. And Michael Douglas came later.
And I guess I don’t know how to talk to little Sean Lennon. I’m too abstract. Because Roberta Flack was so great with him. He said, “Roberta, what is a torch singer?” And she said, “Well, Sean, a torch singer is someone who sings with not too much music playing, very softly, and with a lot of feeling.” And then he felt he understood. The sweet potato pie was really good and then I realized it must have had bacon lard in the crust.
Afterwards Jann Wenner offered me a ride home and so Sam and I went with him and I said he didn’t have to drive Sam downtown, that he’d get out on 66th Street with me and just get a cab home, and Jann made comments like he didn’t care what I did in my private life. So we got out at 66th and Park and I gave Sam money to get a cab and I walked home ($5).
Saturday, February 1, 1986
Paige and I went to Global Furniture—they advertise. There was an umbrella thing as big as a whole room that I’m thinking we should get for the Madison Avenue part of the building so that the people across the street can’t look down and see me painting. It’s such a huge umbrella, about 20’ X 20’. It’s only about $800. We were there all afternoon.
Sunday, February 2, 1986
I puttered around and then went to church, and while I was praying this guy comes over to sell me a $100 raffle ticket. Can you believe that? For the church. He forces this ticket on me and it’s this queeny decorator and then I hear him back there telling somebody how he just sold it to me, and I think he was actually getting rid of his ticket that he bought and didn’t want. And they’re selling 300 tickets at $100 each, so that’s what, $30,000? And they’re giving a $10,000 cash prize, so you just know what that means—if you win they’ll want it back as a donation. He said, “I hate to disturb you while you’re praying, but …”
Wednesday, February 5, 1986
I picked up a copy of Status magazine from the sixties, and it was so interesting, all these people who were social climbing then and they still are. And Wyatt Cooper was the editor. Gloria Vanderbilt’s last husband.
Paige was having a business dinner for Janet Sartin and Steven Greenberg who was bringing Margaux Hemingway as his date. He picked us up in his limousine and when Paige and I went out we caught him and Margaux really kissing in the car and they got embarrassed when we saw them. Went to Mr. Chow’s.
And the best thing was Burgess Meredith was there and I sort of know him from years ago, he dated a girl who lived in the big apartment that I shared with all those kids on 103rd Street. And when he was leaving he came over to say hello, and he said “How’s your ex-wife, Paulette?” I think he actually thinks that I was married to her, too. He was with a beautiful girl, I couldn’t really see. It could have been a daughter or a date, I don’t know.
Monday, February 10, 1986
At 7:30 the Mattel car came to take me to Pier 92 at 55th and Twelfth Avenue where Billy Boy’s big Barbie doll exhibition was, and they were going to unveil my portrait and the portrait looks so bad, I don’t like it. Barbie (laughs) has problems. The fifties Barbie had a more closed mouth and beautiful sensual lips, but the eighties Barbie has a smile. I don’t know why they gave her a smile. I could never relate to Barbie because it was too puny. Someone told me that the Arabs have just commissioned a bigger Barbie. Fred said it was through Billy Boy that I got the portrait. I think he asked Billy Boy to suggest it to Mattel. I’ll have to get this straight from Fred, it was a surprise to me. I didn’t know how it happened. And I guess Billy Boy has a lot of great sixties stuff because all those pictures in the display cases were his—of Edie and me and all the Vogue things, and the Cow poster. How does he have time to do this—collect his antique couture clothes and design his jewelry? I think Bettina has done a lot for him. Fred said Bettina was who the original Barbie was based on. I talked for a minute to Mel Odom who designed a lot of the stuff in the show, he’s very talented.
And they unveiled my painting and the Mattel president said he just couldn’t wait to see it and I just cringed.
Then left and went to the Peter Allen birthday party at Bud’s on Columbus and 77th Street. Liberace came and he looked great. The papers say he’s been sick but he doesn’t look it. He called me over to be photographed with him but then it still looks like you’re pushing your way in.
Wednesday, February 12, 1986
Paige was having a big business dinner at the Café Condotti. Rupert gave us a ride up there, to 38 East 58th Street, and the place was cute, but kind of like a Coca-Cola stand, that size. And I got a shock when I walked in and Jed was there. I had my dates, the nutritionist Tama and Paige introduced me to a couple of weeks ago at a blind-date dinner who I thought was blond but he turned out in that light to be grey, and Bernsohn. Steven Greenberg and Margaux Hemingway came. And Bettina came with Billy Boy and she had on a black Azzedine outfit. His clothes look good on her. Jed designed the restaurant and he put my Grape prints on the walls.
And then afterwards, Stephen Sprouse walked me home, and he said that The Limited wanted to give him a contract but that he wasn’t going to do it.
Thursday, February 13, 1986
Went to Martin Poll’s apartment on Park Avenue for his party for Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen (cab $5). Everyone was supposed to wear red and black so she wore green. Stallone used my kind of lines on me. He said, “I read about you in every paper.” I told him the same thing and he said that the Star was now even doing interviews with his mother, and I said that I was reading them. That’s about all he said, and that was only at the end, when they were going to the door.
And for a present I gave Stallone one of those paintings, Be a Somebody with a Body, and he liked it a lot.
Friday, February 14, 1986
Worked a little bit and then went to Fiorucci from 4:00-6:00 to sign America books and signed 185. And Billy Boy came by the store and then Paige came and took us over to the Café Condotti for tea. And that was fun. When we sit underneath all my Grape prints, it seems like it’s our place or something.
And meanwhile, Jean Michel is really unhappy—Shenge is having his one-man show. And I mean, he’s (laughs) just as good as Jean Michel. And Jean Michel kicked him out and changed the locks, but then finally he let him in to get his paintings.
Monday, February 17, 1986
I screamed at the Interview girls because one of them set off the alarm and it costs $50 every time the alarm company comes. Even if you call them one second after it s
tarts and say it was a mistake, they want the $50 so they tell you “The guy already left,” and he comes.
Rupert dropped me off. Heard about the Tylenol mystery on the news. I watched Letterman and he’s suddenly gotten too sure of himself. Too cocky. It’s not becoming on him. He had Raquel Welch on. Oh, and Sandra Bernhard was on and she had some Diane Von Furstenberg-brand towel paper, and she said, “Andy Warhol calls Diane Von Furstenberg and says, ‘Let’s go dancing,’ but she says, ‘No, I’ve got to clean up with my Diane Von Furstenberg towel paper.’ “
Wednesday, February 19, 1986
No Benjamin, so I guess it’s really over. And I’m also losing Lidija because now that she’s opening her own gym she can only give workouts in the mornings, which I don’t want, so I’m going to have to find someone else. I walked to work.
Went to 50/50 and then went to Speakeasy. Then we went up to the office (cab $4).
Then I heard that Rupert’s friend Patrick had died that morning at 3 A.M. when he was taking a shower. He was in the hospital in Maryland and he used to go to Rupert’s in New Hope, Pennsylvania for the weekends. And usually he had two people with him, but he decided to take a shower and he died in it. He was a guinea pig for a new treatment, so they don’t know exactly what happened with him. So that was the bad news. The good news was that Edmund got out of the hospital. Peter Wise was going over there to cook. And I wish I could help him, somehow, but it was good to hear that he got out.