Saturday, August 07, 2004

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, February 20, 1978

Monique Van Vooren was having a sit-down dinner at Premier at 9:30 and I'd said yes, I forgot that Tom Sullivan had tickets for wrestling because he'd met Dusty Rhodes the wrestler at an airport and they'd become friends. Then Fred called and said Camilla McGrath was having a cocktail party for someone, but I can't remember who.

Catherine picked me up at 7:00 and we went over to Camilla's and it was very exciting there, a whole crowd of people. The Johansen boy, David Doll, was there, he looked unhappy, I guess it's still from Cyrinda Foxe leaving him for the Aerosmith guy. And I met Stephen Graham, the Washington Post kid, and he was nutty, he was with Jane Wenner, who'd broken her leg skiing.

Tom picked us up there at 8:30 and we went over to the Garden and there were like 26,000 people there! I thought wrestling was a dead sport, I didn't know so many people went to it. Dusty Rhodes was wrestling a Japaness guy. They all wear sequins, all of them. I guess they got their style from Gorgeous George, he really influenced them. And they strip on stage. Catherine went to take pictures, but the fight was over in eight minutes. And now they're getting good-looking wrestlers. Dusty Rhodes said he'd be right out, but he didn't come out until about twenty minutes. He wore lots of jewelry, gold things, and he had dark glasses on but when he took them off it looked like he still had them on, he had huge dark rings around his eyes, and he had lots of bruises all over. We took him with us to Monique's dinner (Wrestling tickets $16).

Then we went to the Lone Star and then they wanted to go dancing. Up to Hurrah's. Dusty was a little apprehensive when he saw all the fairies and he asked for a girl. The owner got a girl from someplace behind us and fixed him up with her. Then after Hurrah's we dropped Dusty and the girl at the Sheraton, adn Catherine and Tom picked up hamburgers at the Brasserie and went to the Westbury. They dropped me off.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, February 17, 1978

Liza came to the office to have her potrait done. She was a little nervous to begin with, and then Chris Makos went over and showed her a picture of his cock that I'd taken, and that made her more nervous, but she was wearing the right makeup and all the pictures came out good.

John Lennon came by and that was exciting. He's lost weight. Rupert's working on some art thing with him. And he was sweet. He'd refused Catherine the autograph in the restaurant the other week, but Paul McCartney's picture was in the paper the other day, and when she asked him again he drew a mustache on Paul and signed it.

Meanwhile Catherine had invited two boys she met in the men's room at Studio 54 to lunch, brothers from Washington, D.C., who have a rock band called Star, they're staying at Bob Feiden of Arista Records' house. And they were whispering to each other saying, "Can you believe this? Liza Minnelli, John Lennon--she calls this work?"

Victor arrived and started screaming at some girl, calling her cheap and a whore and oh--just--all I can think of is someday he's going to get mad at me and it's going to get crazy.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, February 15, 1978

Hung over, couldn't get out of bed.

The Joan Crawford pre-auction exhibit was on from 9-12:00 at the Plaza Galleries--the second one.

When we got there, they were taking the show down, getting ready for the auction the next day. The girl at the gallery was wearing one of Joan's sweaters. Everything was for sale--there was lawyers' letters and a collection of schoolteacher letters, all the things she'd saved. I really ought to auction off some of my time capsule boxes, that would be a good thing to do in an art gallery. But I would try to make every box a little interesting. I'd throw in one of my dresses, or an old shirt, a pair of underwear--something great in each one. The Negro guys there were rotten to us, screaming not to touch things, and we left. And Bella Abzug lost to Bill Green.

We had to go up to Denise Bouche's for her party for the chairman of the Guggenheim Museum, her cousin Peter Lawson-Johnston, who's a Guggenheim (drinks $20). Bill Copley was there, he was drunk and fun. When he did that play a few months ago he hired a whore to be in it, and then he kept her on after the play, at $200 a week, to live in his house on 89th Street. And now she's taken it over. He once told me he originally furnished his place so that no woman would ever want to live there--that he wanted to make it like a bar--he left his ex-wife in their old apartment on Central Park West. But then the kind of girl he found is the kind of girl who would like to be in a place that looks like a bar--that's where a hooker would feel comfortable, so he picked the right girl. He said he's starting to be nervous about her being there, though. She's taking over and buying him funny presents and things. But he thinks it's interesting, but now he's not so sure about it. I told him I wanted to tape them fighting, and I wanted to start this weekend, but I have to go to Dallas. They don't fight in public, but he'll do it for art.

Picked up Diana Vreeland and went ot Doubles (cab $2). I talked to Norman Mailer and his schoolteacher read headed new girlfriend from Arkansas. I was at table 9 with Diana and Lee Radziwill and Peter Tufo, and one of the Toni twins. Bob was next to Gloria Swanson! She has really grey hair. I told her, "You look so beautiful." She said, "Say it again." I said, "You look so beautiful." Mrs. Vreeland was fighting with Peter Tufo. Then she started screaming and belting me, and she really hurts! And she does the same thing to Fred. She screamed at me, "You should know better than to OPEN YOUR MOUTH!" I just didn't know what to do. She beats you to a pulp. She said that she just couldn't stand to be around old people, including herself.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Sunday, January 29, 1978

Barbara Allen called and she wanted me to take her to the New York Films Critics dinner, and she sounded down in the dumps. She told me that it's really getting to her that Philip and Manuela are around. Everybody's calling Barbara and saying, "We're inviting Philip and Manuela--do you still want to be invited?" She's unhappy.

At 8:30 I went over to Halston's. Bianca was wandering around with her tits showing. Mark Shand's left town.

We cabbed up to the Iranian embassy ($2.50). Maximilian Schell was there and he'd gotten a supporting role award for Julia. I had never met him before and I was disappointed that he was fat, but he was really sweet. He said that I did great things for him in Germany, that he'd seen Flesh and that hated it and then gone back to see it again and again and loved it, and that he thought, If this is a movie, then I can make a movie too. I didn't know what to say, so I decided to give him Bianca, and they went crazy over each other from then on. I'd always heard he was a fag, but the way they were carrying on, that image was fading. And Sissy Spacek introduced me to her husband, he was very nice, and Bella Abzug's campaigner--what's her name? Shirley MacLaine told me she had the picture I did of Bella on her bureau. And John Simon was there, he was intrigued by Bianca. She had her hair in big pin curls that she said was a Nicaraguan style, but it looked Puerto Rican. S.J. Perelman was there and I wanted to talk to him because Nelson always said he's the funniest man in the world, but I didn't.

Bianca came running over and told me that for the first time she'd fallen for an older man. She said she had to leave, that she had to go home and cook dinner for Halston, and I guess I laughed out loud because I remember when Amanda Lear told me that the reason Mick's left Bianca is that she never made him a meal. When she's after somebody, though, she's a real coquette, out to prove she can do all the things. So we went back to Halston's. Maximilian let his car go, I guess he was cheap.

Stevie called and said come to the club. Victor and I had a feast in the kitchen--we made popcorn and I had orange juice and vodka. We left Bianca and Maximilian hugging and kissing in the other room. Halston took Linda and went to bed. Then we went over to Studio 54 and it was jumping.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Sunday, January 22, 1978

Sam Beard was giving a fortieth birthday party for his brother Peter in his apartment on 92nd and Park. It was an exciting party. Jackie O. and Caroline were there. Caroline asked me what I thought of totalitarianism and I couldn't pronounce it so I tried to joke about it and she said, "No, I'm serious." Mary Hemingway was there, and Jonas Mekas filmed her being a lion attacking Peter Beard.

Fred was there with Lacey Neuhaus and Stevie Rubell was there. Victor arrived in a torn T-shirt with spurs on his arms, with a present for Peter--it was something that looked like he might have found in the street or maybe used in Halston's display window, like a part of a machine. And he had a present for me, too--a used jockstrap. It was great. Barbara Allen was there with Philip Niarchos, he's in town. Ronnie and Gigi and Walter Steding were also there, and Jennifer Jakobson who doesn't seem to be with Fracois de Menil anymore. And Steve Aronson. He's a real charmer, he speaks so beautifully and wears those great clothes. Peter was very happy because all of his old girlfriends were in one room.

Then we all went over to Studio 54, and they had an elephant cake for Peter come down from the ceiling because Peter took all those great African elephant pictures. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there. I left around 2:00 just as Halston and Bianca were coming in. They were both in elephant masks, but the photographers didn't care, they're tired of Bianca. She better get out of town for a while.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, January 5, 1978

Bianca had slipped her number to Nastase at the tennis matches that afternoon and when I got to Halston's the phone was ringing and it was Nastase, and Bianca told him to come over. He arrived with a boyfriend, just one of his friends, and he was intimidated by the place--Halston was dressing the Disco Queen in a coat he'd made for her that day, and she came down the stairs and Halston was saying [imitates], "Come on, Disco Queen." He talks like baby talk. He didn't put any feathers in her hair this time. I told him he couldn't, that the newspapers wouldn't take her picture if she put one more feather in her hair.

And then Nastase's boyfriend decided not to come to Studio 54 with us, and when we got in the limo Halston was yelling at the driver because he couldn't find the black radio station, he said, "What do you mean you don't know where the black station is--you're black, aren't you?" And then the driver said he couldn't see, meaning the radio dial, and Halston said, "What do you mean you can't see, your're driving, aren't you?" and then he told me that you have to yell at the help or they don't respect you. He has over a hundred people working for him and they're all so terrified of him, they're always asking each other what kind of a mood he's in.

And I noticed something--Bianca had two blemishes on her face! She's never had a blemish! I guess she's depressed about Mick, discoing the night away. She stays out until 6:00 then gets up for her 8:00 exercise class.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, January 3, 1978

There's an article in People about my Athletes show that's on now at the Coe Kerr Gallery.

When I got home from the office I made a lot of phone calls, then walked over to Halston's to pickup Bianca, she was cooking like a Puerto Rican, and she had the whole house smelled up with onions and hamburgers, she had them out on the counter. We cabbed up to 86th Street ($2.75) and we finally hit Saturday Night Fever at the right time and were able to get in. Well, the movie was just great. That bridge thing was the best scene--and the lines were great. It's I guess the new kind of fantasy movie, you're supposed to stay where you are. The old movies were things like Dead End and you had to get out of the dead end and make it to Park Avenue and now they're telling you that it's better off to stay where you are in Brooklyn--to avoid Park Avenue because it would just make you unhappy. It's about people who would never even think about crossing the bridge, that's the fantasy. And they played up Travolta's bit solo dance number, but then at the end they made the dance number with the girl nothing, so underplayed. They were smart. And New York looked so exciting, didn't it? The Brooklyn Bridge and New York. Stevie Rubell wants to do a disco movie, but I don't think you could do another one, this one was so great. But why didn't they do it as a play first? What was this first, a short story? They should have milked it--done it as a play first and it would have run forever.

Bianca fell asleep. Somewhere in the theater we found Dr. Giller. But he had related to the movie so well that he wanted to see it again, so we left him there and went back to Halston's.

Halston and Bianca were in the kitchen together cooking, and he said he had so much energy he wanted to go dancing. He told me lots of gossip--he said that the night before when the doobell rang it was Liza Minnelli. Her life's very complicated now. Like she was walking down the street with Jack Haley her husband and they'd run into Martin Scorsese who she's now having an affair with, and Marty confronted her that she was also having an affair with Baryshnikov, and Halston said that it was all true, and he also said that Jack Haley wasn't gay. You see? I was right, I didn't think so. Halston said Jack likes Liza but that what he really goes for is big curvy blonde women. So when the doorbell rang the night before, it was Liza in a hat pulled down so nobody would recognize her, and she said to Halston, "give me every drug you've got." So he gave her a bottle of coke, a few sticks of marijuana, a Valium, four Quaaludes, and they were all wrapped in a tiny box, and then a little figure in a white hat came up on the stoop and kissed Halston, and it was Marty Scorsese, he'd been hiding around the corner, and then he and Liza went off to have their affair on all the drugs.

Then Dr. Giller arrived from his second viewing of Saturday Night Fever. Bianca had been fighting with Victor before he came, because Vicor was eating all the hamburgers she'd made and she was saying to save some for Dr. Giller. But I think she just wanted them herself--her ass has gotten really big.

The Sex Pistols arrived in the U.S. today. Punk is going to be so big. They're so smart, whoever's running their tour, because they're starting in Pittsburgh where the kids have nothing to do, so they'll go really crazy.

And Bianca loves Jed. She keeps calling the house, but he was off in connecticut with Judith Hollander and Sandy Brant for his interior decorating business.

And they wanted to go out, but Halston didn't like the way Bianca looked, so he put three feathers in her hair. Oh, and Victor had just come over to get an extra bottle of Vaseline from upstairs.