The Andy Warhol Diaries

by Andy Warhol

  Nick Rhodes called from London the other day and said they had a girl. I think he was disappointed. They’re coming here in September.

  People from Denmark talked to Fred and want me to do a Hans Christian Andersen portfolio.

  Saturday, August 30, 1986

  Martin called me in the morning and he wanted to give me his ticket to Madonna’s play. He’d already seen it and was too tired to sit through it again, but he said he’d meet me afterwards and take me to the party at Sardi’s. Worked till 7:00. Went to the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (cab $6).

  The best thing about the play was the costumes which were done by Kevin Dornan who was once the fashion editor at Interview, our first. Madonna changes outfits all the time, from one beautiful one to another one. And Sean Penn wore a gun holster and fuschia socks and shoes. The play was like a Charles Ludlam, abstract. Madonna was good when she wasn’t trying to be Judy Holliday or Marilyn. She chewed gum through the whole two hours and I did, too. She was blowing bubbles and everything. They didn’t do any curtain calls. Liza was there and I went over and said hello, and after reading in the Enquirer that she weighed 200 pounds, she wasn’t fat at all, really. Marc Balet was there and I got mad at Kevin because here he’d gotten Marc two tickets and hadn’t offered me one.

  After the play Martin met me backstage and there was a big candy chocolate leg there from Krõn and everybody was eating it, and Martin was, too. And it’s so sad, he has sores all over his face, but it was kind of great to see Madonna eating the leg, too, and not caring that she might catch something. Martin would bite and then Madonna would bite. I like Martin, he’s sweet.

  We went in Madonna and Sean’s limo to Sardi’s. The big bodyguards were with them and they said to the photographers, “If you take one picture we’ll kill you.” And there was Ron Galella and I felt bad, but what could I do?

  Warren Beatty came over and said, “Hi, how are ya?” He looks old, he doesn’t look good, but I think he looks unattractive on purpose, because if he just did a few things he could be a knockout again.

  At 2:00 I left and went to Broadway myself and got a cab, and none of the photographers cared because I was alone (cab $6).

  Sunday, August 31, 1986

  It was a weekend of illness. It was Martin, and that rabbit’s foot that Stephen Sprouse gave me last Christmas—when I picked it up it just disintegrated. I’d left Martin at the party, he was having fun, even still at 2:00. The dogs weren’t feeling well. Jed was in London, I guess, and they miss their weekend vacations.

  Tuesday, September 2, 1986

  Fred turned down the big licensing deal, it was kind of a relief. He said so, too. He said he couldn’t put all that time in.

  Wednesday, September 3, 1986

  The morning started off with the bad news that our Ric Ocasek video was cancelled after Vincent had worked for a week scouting locations.

  Stephen Sprouse came and brought me the Debbie album he did the cover for and it looks great, clever, he really is a good art director, he knows how to use his handwriting and everything. Ric Ocasek came by, he felt guilty.

  Robyn came by, and Fred got mad at me for not wanting him to work there again. Fred says Robyn’s a changed person, but there’s so much action in New York, I don’t know if he’s doing a smart thing to come back. Now he knows how to silkscreen. Then my nephew who knows the software came and he was waiting for the other kid who knows hardware, and they were going to talk to Gael. His friend’s name is David Patowsky or something like that. He’s from Pittsburgh, too. These kids should change their names before they come to New York.

  Yoko called and invited me to the Medea Japanese thing in the park. I invited Jay and we cabbed up to Yoko’s and the traffic was so bad it took an hour to get to West 72nd Street (cab $7.50). When we got to the Dakota we saw the limo was still there, we went upstairs and they were all just leaving, they’d called and found out it was a “rain or shine” concert, and it was really raining, I forgot to say that.

  So we went, and we sat in the park and it was the first day I didn’t wear my double jacket and it was pouring. Sean left. I started chewing gum just to keep warm. It was a modern version of a Japanese group doing Medea. It stopped raining. Afterwards we had to go backstage and the Japanese are so interested in me for some reason. They interviewed me and Yoko. Ran into a lot of friends I haven’t seen in forty years.

  Then got into the limo and went back to Yoko’s and she had store—bought food, it was like the way we entertain at the office. Sean talked to us, he was being friendly, but he was bored. But Jay knew the secret of how you tear a phone book in half—you bake it in the oven until it gets dry and then you can tear it, and I said, “Well Sean, if you’re bored, why don’t you learn how to read the phone book. I mean, do you know the last person in the phone book? Do you know the first person?” So then we started looking and he called information and asked them for the number of AAAAAAAA Bar and they would say, “The AAAAAAAA Bar? Yes, sir.” And then we called and asked for Richard M. Nixon’s number and they said, “Wait a minute,” and then there was a click like they were tracing us and Sean got scared and hung up, and then I scared him by telling him that it wasn’t really hung up, even when you hang it up. And then Sam— Yoko’s Sam—called the White House and a recording said if you wanted to talk to President Reagan to call back between 1:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. And then we dialed F—U-C-K-Y-O-U and L-O-V-E-Y-O-U to see what happened, so we had so much fun.

  Thursday, September 4, 1986

  A lady came to pick up her portrait and I noticed a scratch on it and I’m standing in front of the scratch trying to hide it when Rupert walks in and makes a big speech about it. About the scratch. One of those days.

  Worked till 8:00. Took Wilfredo and Sam with me to dinner at Castellano with Philip Johnson and David Whitney. David wasn’t drinking so he was reserved. Philip was thrilled with the young kids. We walked back to Philip and David’s apartment and they invited us up, it was the first time they were having people, and some kids were coming out of the building as we were going in and they yelled dirty things like, “You’re going up to fuck.”

  It was great up there, my Cow wallpaper in the bathroom. And it’s kind of great, their life, eating at the same restaurant every night. Then we went downtown to the benefit for Martin Burgoyne at the Pyramid on Avenue A (cab $8, admission $30). Martin gave us big kisses and that threw me for a loop. Stayed five minutes. Madonna had been there and left.

  Friday, September 5, 1986

  Picked up by Benjamin, forgot he was coming. We took interviews..

  Worked all afternoon. Steve Rubell called and said that at 7:45 he was having people backstage and for something to eat before the MTV awards which were at the Palladium. No cabs. I kept walking and I had bundles that filled up my hands. And in the pouring rain with my hands full people were stopping me for autographs!. So stupid. Dropped my packages off and got a cab down to the Palladium. They had it all roped off and you needed a ticket (laughs) to get on the sidewalk (cab $8).

  Our seats were in the balcony. Grace Jones was at my table, but of course she wasn’t there yet. Her manager asked me would I accept her award for her if she wasn’t there on time and I said, “No!” Grace finally appeared just seconds before she had to go up, she had a five—foot hat on, it hit people two feet in either direction.

  Went home (cab $6) and read the Tony Zanetta book that said David Bowie got his ideas from copying Andy Warhol in the beginning, about getting the media’s attention.

  Monday, September 8, 1986

  Vincent called and said that the record company wanted us to do the Ric Ocasek video after all, if we could get it done by the sixteenth.

  Couldn’t get a cab. Then these two ladies stopped for me and said, “Get in the car,” so I did. One said, “I’ll take you anywhere, I’m just a housewife from out of town.” She said she was looking for a job and I told her to call Gael. Maybe she could be a driver. They took me to the West Side, and it was
great, they didn’t talk much (newspapers $6).

  Wednesday, September 10, 1986

  I have a new bodyguard, finally. Agosto’s brother, Tony. He’s going to walk me in the morning and then help around the office in the afternoon. Agosto’s upset because I guess he’ll have to be on good behavior, but they’ll never even see each other.

  And Sam’s reading Popism and he asked me who “The Duchess” was. He didn’t know. He sits next to Brigid at work all day and he didn’t have a clue it was her.

  Susan Pile called from L.A. and she was talking about how Jon Gould is in the hospital out there.

  Friday, September 12, 1986

  Paige took the Dolly Parton portrait to be taped for the Today Show, in a segment on the Neiman—Marcus catalogue.

  I’m doing the Gotti cover for Time.

  The lawsuit against the Gitano clothes company is going on. They’re the ones that were making “Interview” clothes, and even came to us wanting to do a joint ad campaign—that’s how we found out about it. To file papers it cost $30,000 and we weren’t going to do it if the bond we had to post was really high, but it was only $10,000, so we did, and then Gitano changed it to “Innerview.” And they said they were going to use block letters for their logo, but then they changed it to script letters, so then it really looked like Interview anyway, Gael said, so we continued suing.

  Saturday, September 13, 1986

  Walked downtown a little and then cabbed ($5). Sam was already there, he had to do paperwork for Fred. He showed me his high school equivalency diploma and so he really did stick with it and get it, that’s good. I worked on the Gotti drawing.

  Left at 8:00 to go to Madison Square Garden to see Elton John (tickets $40). He came out like an angel in a halo with a red wig, plus a tommy—hawk wig. And oh God, is he fat. He had on a silver—lamé caftan, but tight—a skintight caftan—and the audience loved him. People were coming up to me the whole time for autographs. This big butch guy thanked me for giving his girlfriend one and then he walked her to the bathroom and she’s so lucky, it’s so nice to have someone care about you. When they came back he thanked me again. At 10:00 Elton was still going strong but I had to leave to go to Indochine to meet Wilfredo.

  Monday, September 15, 1986

  I think Time probably wants a painting of Gotti but I did a collage because I think it’ll look more interesting, more abstract. But they probably won’t like it, they’ll probably say they wanted a canvas.

  Gerry Grinberg from North American Watches doesn’t like my design idea of hanging lots of the same watch faces off of one bracelet. You know, “multiples,” like my paintings. He says men wouldn’t buy that. They just want one watch face on a band.

  My tuxedo has moth holes in it. Now they’re in that closet, too, but I don’t want to take the clothes out of there and risk maybe spreading the larvae around. I’ll have to do a big vacuuming.

  Went to a screening at the Coronet of the new Blake Edwards movie. Behind us was Tony Bennett with his art teacher. Tony said he’s doing a portrait of Frank Sinatra.

  Tuesday, September 16, 1986

  Went to the Calvin Klein thing at Bergdorf’s. They had covered the whole fountain in Grand Army Plaza with a tent and then there was another tent, too, and it was a fashion show for Calvin’s first one—of—a—kind clothes. It was really rich. It reminded me of one of Halston’s shows, and so that was really sad. Calvin’s gone from bluejeans to couture. Fred was there and Kate Harrington.

  Paige walked me home.

  Wednesday, September 17, 1986

  Charles Rydell was at the office one day last week and he lives in Port Jervis, New York, and there was a kid also coming in from Port Jervis on the bus, and they happened to start talking about Bridgehampton and they talked for about half an hour and then the kid said, “I only know one person in Bridgehampton—Charles Rydell.” And Charles told him, “But I’m Charles Rydell.” And the kid looked at him closely and said, “Oh yes, it’s you, isn’t it.” I mean, this was so abstract. Charles comes in for French lessons once a week and he brought this kid with him to the office.

  And everybody’s talking about the Bass husband, Sid, leaving his wife for Mercedes Kellogg. And at the Calvin Klein thing I ran into the Daily News columnist Billy Norwich who said his real name was Billy Goldberg but that he’s from Norwich, Connecticut, and he said he kept calling Mercedes in Paris to try to get a comment and she wouldn’t return his calls, so finally he left a message with the desk that it was Mick Jagger, and she called him back in five seconds—“Hi, Mick! And he said, “It’s not Mick, Mercedes—it’s Billy Norwich,” and she said, “You devil, how dare you do this!” And he said, “You’re talking to the press anyway, so why not give me a tidbit.” It was “Suzy” who broke the big story. If I were Anne Bass I’d take a gun and shoot Mercedes. Can you imagine just stealing another woman’s husband?

  Friday, September 19, 1986

  You know, I do think I started this whole bluejeans—with—a—tuxedo—jacket thing because years ago after I wore that to a few big events and was photographed, all the kids began doing it and they’re still doing it.

  Sam and I had a fight, he was mad and not speaking to me. He wants to be a big shot so he gives anybody who wants to show me portfolios appointments with me and then I get stuck looking at them and wasting all this time so Sam can act like he’s very important.

  And the MTV deal—Vincent says it’s happening, they’re sending us contracts this week, we’ll be doing half—hour weekly shows.

  Saturday, September 20, 1986

  I waited for my new bodyguard Tony but he didn’t show up. He forgot. I went myself and passed out magazines uptown. A boy picked me up and I took him into Christie’s with me, his name was O’Riley and he said he’d written a paper on me in school, but then after being so thrilled he talked about a “girlfriend” so I was let down, but I didn’t care, he was a nice kid.

  Walked all the way to the office. Called Jean Michel and he was going to a party at Madam Rosa’s, that club downtown, so went there (cab $6) and it’s a cool place—when somebody famous comes in nobody cares. Then we left to walk over to Odeon for dinner and there was this “hooker” on the street and it turned out to be Jane Holzer. She was so fat, I couldn’t believe it. She said, “We’re shooting a Lou Reed video. I’m in it.” She was in costume. I hate Lou Reed more and more, I really do, because he’s not giving us any video work. She was getting $100 for the day and she’d been working since 9:00. He wasn’t even there, he was doing his part the next day.

  Sunday, September 21, 1986

  Kenny Scharf called and said there was a party for his wife Teresa’s birthday in the park near the rowing bridge you go over to get across the lake.

  Met Stuart and went up there and finally found the party and not too many people were there, but in a few minutes suddenly everybody arrived and there were seven birthday cakes. Keith showed up and Alba Clemente was with her little girl and Maripol was there and she’s going bankrupt, there’s a sale of her stuff on Tuesday.

  Ann Magnuson was there and I like her. Nobody’s talking about her in the movies yet. I guess they’re waiting to see reactions.

  Susan Pile called and said she got a job at Twentieth Century Fox that starts in October, so she’s leaving Paramount. And the Diary can write itself on the other news from L.A., which I don’t want to talk about.

  [NOTE:Jon Gould died on September 18 at age thirty—three after “an extended illness.” He was down to seventy pounds and he was blind. He denied even to close friends that he had AIDS.]

  Stephen Sprouse called with good news—he said that he signed a deal with Andrew Cogan and that I’m responsible because he met him through me and so he wanted me to be the first to know. Isn’t that great? He’ll have his own store and a collection.

  Monday, September 22, 1986

  Tony picked me up and we went to the Liza Minnelli memorial for her father at MOMA (cab $4). Stood in the back next to Bobby De Ni
ro but I didn’t recognize him with a ponytail.

  Doug Cramer who gave me the job on Love Boat was there and he said that when I go to L.A. on December third that Shirlee Fonda would give a party for me, and I don’t know anything about this trip and I have a feeling it conflicts with something. I guess the whole place there was filled with movie stars, but they look so different in the morning. Martin Scorsese made a speech and they showed clips from The Pirate with Judy and Some Came Running and it was just great.

  Read in the papers about the woman who fell nineteen floors down an elevator shaft, and it turns out she’d come to one of Paige’s advertising lunches at the office. She worked for Chanel. She was in the elevator with her husband and another couple and it got stuck and there was nobody around so she crawled up and she fell. Can you imagine how horrible it was being in the car and knowing she was falling?

  And Sam’s still mad at me, so to teach him a lesson and make him feel he was missing out on so much glamour by being mad, when I got to the office I had Wilfredo write in my date book for every night this week: “John Travolta … Diana Ross … Warren Beatty,” but he did it all in the same handwriting, he wasn’t clever enough to vary it, so I guess Sam will realize it’s a fake. Because, see, Sam always checks my book and when he sees I’m doing something glamorous that night he plays it goody—goody all day so I’ll invite him.