Saturday, May 14, 2005

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, June 24, 1980

What's happening to Richard Pryor? Are the burns getting better or worse?

Worked till 6:30. Fred went up by subway to the Mitzi Newhouse Theater where Bob Wilson's play was opening. Curious George. When I got to the theater Fred was there waiting with Katy Jones and her sister. The art-world people were there. The play had water coming from the ceiling, clocks on the walls telling you what time it was and striking. It was colored beautifully, the set's by Bob Wilson. It took at least two hours and then it was over.

The party afterwards was at Leo Castelli's. We were the first ones there. The food was good but Chris Makos said I looked fat, and then I looked over at Fred who never eats and stays looking so good, so I just had one cucumber and water, and I mixed and mingled.

The knowles boy, the star of the play, sounds so normal when you talk to him you wouldn't know he's autistic. He answers whatever question you ask, but I guess the problem is he never says anything if you don't ask him. I talked to Jennifer Jacobson about Mr. Ballato dying. he was in his eighties. He workd at the restaurant till the last minute, he loved the business so much.

Fred tried to get katy Jones to leave butt she's after Bob Wilson so she didn't want to. We all waited for Bob wilson so we could go in his limo. Richard Weisman was there with Patti LuPone and she was thrilled when I introduced her to Bob Wilson. She got a Tony, and she was asking me what she should do with her career and I told her to hang on and stay with Evita for as long as she could because she was the only big star on Broadway and she would become swo huge from it. She said yes, that I was right.

Bob Wilson kept going to the bathroom a lot and coming back depressed. He dropped me and Katy. And as I was getting out fo the car he was saying things like, "Take hold of my hand." And after wards I pieced it together, that when he was saying words like, "do you think--do you think--" that he was wanting to know if I thought he was using Christopher Knowles, exploiting him by starring him in plays because he's autistic. Got home at 2:00.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Saturday, June 21, 1980

A lady from Arizona--someone Edmund Gaultney had arranged--was coming to the office about a portrait (cab $5). She turned out to be a beautiful girl and she brought her one-year-old baby. The baby gave us a really hard time. Babies are so hard to photograph, they never sit still and they're teething or something so they're scrunching up their mouths and they're so cranky and I just hate them. Then Edmund called from Arizona and said that we should do the baby alone, but by then it was over--I'd only done the baby with the mother and the mother alone.

Dropped Rupert ($5). I glued myself and went to meet Alan Wanzenberg and Stephen Webster, Friends of Jed's. We went to Inagiku. I've been having too much wine laterly os I stuck to Perrier and had some raw fish. Alan's an architect working for I.M. Pei. And the other kid's a lawyer and I gave him the job of contesting our tax assessment because the taxes went from $400 to $12,000 when they combined both Bowery buidlings together which they had no right to do, and the place is just a dumpo so I don't know why it's that's high.

Then we went for a nightcap at Trader Vic's ($25). The headwaiter invited me to his sculpture exhibiton next week. Got home about 1:30.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, May 22, 1980

A tall skinny Japanese boy came to interview me, and he was cute, he was so nervous, just shaking he said he was meeting the star of his life. He's from Studio Voice, the Japanese Interview. He brought me a T-Shirt.

I was reworking Lynn Wyatt's portrait. Sent flowers to Sharon Hammond and Cornelia Sharpe.

Gael Malkenson Said she's getting married this saturday. In a Catholic church. but she always says things that I don't know if they're true. Worked till 7:00. A kooky girl followed me to Park Avenue when I left, she was like one of those kooky girls you meet when you first come to New York. Dropped Rupert ($4) and got home around 8:00.

I looked through my things for something for Marisol for her birthday and finally decided to give her a little painting, but when I went to pick Victor up he wanted it, so I gave it to him. We went down to Chanterelle in Soho, that restaurant that everybody raves about and says how small it is and how hard to get into. Well, it wasn't so small, it looked big, really. and the food was just okay, it wasn't so hot. Marisol kept saying this was the first party she ever gave, and Halston assured her it was really great. The first person i talked to was Ruth Kligman, and she's now a born-again Christian. And she was different. Very nice and calm, but then I began telling her about Gerry Ayers's movie The Painter that he was writing for Jack Nicholson, and then she was more like her old nervous self. She said, "Should--do you think I should call Jack?" And "Do you think my lawyer should call Gerry Ayers?" and I said, "it's only a fiction thing he's writing! Relax. After he does that, artists stories will be more popular and you can really sell your book Love Affair, for a movie." Ruth said maybe she could get Nick Nolte to play Jackson Pollock. And she explained that when you're born-again you just get a clean slate wipeout, that nothing you did before counts. So it's just like confession, that's all it is except you can go to confession every day and I guess you can only be born again once.

John Cage was there and Merce Cunningham and Louise Nevelson who came at the end of the dinner but had a special place saved for her. George Segal and his wife. Joe Brainard. It was nice to see him again after all these years, but I didn't get to talk to him much, really.

Marisol looks good for fifty. She made the birthday cake in the afternoon and it was really just beautiful--beautiful marzipan figures, beautiful beautiful figures fucking, and she gave me one and Halston one and they were like little jewels.

We told marisol she shouldn't tell her age because people would never know and she said she thought they already knew because it's always in all the catalogues and I told her people don't read the catalogues, and she said (laughs) well that then only the forty people or so that were there at dinner would know.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, May 19, 1980

I watched the Today Show and saw the volcano erupting. The man at the volano who wouldn't come down must have been killed, they couldn't find him.

Gerry Ayres called and he's writing a movie called Painting--he wrote Jodie Foster's movie, Foxes. he's the studio person that brought us out to Hollywood in '69. And he wanted to meet Henry Geldzahler. And so I made a lunch with Henry for Wednesday.

I met Bob in front of his house and we walked to the Plaza for the J O B Ball--Just One Break--and we'd missed the cocktail hour. All the old bags came out for this. Nan Kempner was there with Jerry Zipkin. Robyn's mother was very sweet. She and Bob chatted, they're having the same problem--somebody is signing them up for all these magazine subscriptions and they keep coming in the mail. I sat next to Mrs. Tony Curtis. And so I said, "Oh, I wish I was home watching Tony Curtis on Moviola." And she said yers, that she liked Tony a lot but that they were just breaking up. They'd been married twelve years. She was nice.

Sharon Hammond was there with her new beau, Lord Sondes. She's gained five or six pounds and she was porking it up. And the lord has a potbelly, too. I couldn't believe it when I saw her eat a whole roll. I took it away from her.

All the old presidetns of the ball got up there, Sao and Chessy Patcevitch and Sharon's mother Mrs. Long and nan and jean Tailer and a couple of other heavy-duty ladies. They gave door prizes.

Then Bob and I went to Linda Stein's party for our agent Joan Hyler. When we got to the party one of the photographers told me, "You're the biggest one here," so that's always a letdown. Paul Morrissey was there with his two nieces adn Susan Blond and Sylvia Miles, adn Sylvia said, "You've got to hear my songs," and I said, "Oh, yeah, I can't wait." and she said, "You don't have to--I've got them right here in my bag." so I had Linda Stein put them on the record player and they sounded good to me but there were eight different record people there and they didn't react. And then Linda came over to Paul and said, "Oh, listen, I mean, you're the only person here who realize dthat I'm wearing emerald earrings adn have Regency furniture and Lliqaue, and if it wasn't for you telling them, they would think it was junk. So thank you."

Legs mcNeil who started Punk magazine was there.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, April 14, 1980

Went out on the street with some Interviews and I was curious to see if people were still recognizing me all the time from the 20/20 TV show, but they weren't. So this means that TV makes you famous for one day and then it fades. Passed out Interviews, wandered, and took a couple of cabs but was shocked out of my mind--the fare increase was in effect (cabs $4.05, $5.05). It really does seem to be a lot more. I'm just going to tip a small amount from now on and not even worry about it. I guess I'll have to walk to work. Halfway to work. Eventually got to Union Square.

We were having lunch for Henry Geldzahler. The eighty Popisms finally arrived from Harcourt Brace in the morning and I gave them out to everybody, but I'm going to be more stingy with them now, with inflation. Nenry wanted to take me out to photograph the tree for the city poster, but just as we were having lunch it started to rain.

Oh, and i forgot to say that during lunch Fred came in and told me there was a roommate of Steve Rubell's from prison there who wanted to see me, and I said no! I mean, why would Fred even come and tell me that? Why would I want to talk to somebody like that? And Fred said that he thought I should see him, so I went out there, and this absolute creep is saying things like, "Steve says he can't talk on the phone because it's bugged"--like I talk to him, anyway, right? And he said, "Steve wants an Italian dinner." So Bob finally said, "Well, what're you here for?" and the guy said he wanted money to buy the Italian food for Steve. So Bob gave him $20 and he said, "That's not enough." so Henry gave him another $20 and I had to pay them both back later ($40). But he was just shaking us down. And after he left I screamed at Fred for being so stupid, he should have just gotten rid of him. I mean, Fred must have stayed out all night and not had his brains right or something.

Then we went up to Polly Bergen's apartment on Park Avenue (cab $3.50). This was the Academy Awards party. We were just in one TV room and we didn't see all the others. Ex-Mayor Wagner and his wife Phyllis who used to be married to Bennett Cerf were there, and the Helen Gurley Browns.

And Dustin Won. Poor Bette Midler didn't, and she gave that part everything she had, right down to the last fart.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, April 10, 1980

They were going to film me for another ABC show, Omnibus--they're reviving it--and the car was picking me up at 10:00.

The Omnibus people arrived at the office at 7:30, they'd worked it all out with Vincent the day before. This was a show on Carly Simon getting her portrait painted by me and by Larry Rivers and by Marisol. I'd said that I wouldn't do one more thing without being paid, and Vincent worked out a contract with them--Carly was going to pay for most of it.

I was in the limo alone, and we went down the West Side Highway. I had a camera with me because I've decided to take pictures everywhere I go to prove that I really do go to all these places every day. The windows of the car were black so to do it I had to roll them down. A few people on the West Side Highway said, "Hi, Andy." Then we got off the highway at 23rd Street and this black kid said, "You filthy white rich person, all you think about is money." And there were a few of them, and I got scared. Fred told me later that I should have screamed back. "All you think about is money! And mugging to get it." and they kept following the car. It scared me so much.

I got to the office and they wired me and sent the car back for Carly Simon.

Carly was too nervous to come up until we sent some wine down to the car. Then she came up and was sociable. We made her put on lipstick and then after we worked she was hungry and we sent to Brownies for health sandwiches adn she loved that. I taped it all (Brownies $8.30, $23.44). And then Ara Gallant came with Susan Strasberg and she twisted Bob's arm to interview her, she's just written a book.

At 6:00 Jodie Foster came to 860. She looked beautiful. With her mother. She and her mother are a team. It's like a marriage--Jodie's the father. She's very intelligent and she's gotten into all the colleges she applied to except she hears from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton on Monday. In case she goes to Harvard we were telling her about John Samuels and how cute he is, but I don't kow what type she'd like because she dresses really like a boy--all in Brooks Brothers.

While we were there Brigid called the restaurant to say that the 20/20 segment on me had just been on TV and she said it was great. Hugh Downs narrated it. And Brigid's so critical of me, so I awas relieved. I mean, if even she couldn't find anything wrong with it, it must've been okay.

They're selling Kitty Miller's everything. Christie's is. I mean, her used underwear, her used potholders, everything. She has (laughs) three unused Halston shirts. and she's got a few Revillon furs that cost $80,000 that'll probably go for $3,000. Furs have no resale value... I know killing animals to make coats is sad, but look, even when you think about killing cows to eat they're so big and beautiful and everything's alive--the plants are screaming.

I'm still weighing 140, I don't understand it, I'm not eating that much, my metabolism must be changed. I should be 136. But now I'm eating the nuts and chocolate and things that I'm not supposed to eat because of my gallbladder, because I think the gallblader pills are helping so that I can eat them. But I'm getting fat so for that reason I'll have to stop.

Walter Steding is performing at the Squat Theater on 23rd Street--that theater where they did that thing called "Andy Warhol's Last Tape."

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Saturday, March 15, 1980

Farrah Fawcett called and said she was on her way down to Union Square, and she arrived in half an hour with Ryan O'Neal. They looked at her portrait and I didn't think Farrah liked it, but then she studied them for about half an hour and finally said she loved it. I had Bob come down because i thought he could talk them into doing a cover, and she said she would. And she looked pretty, her hair was all washed, and she looked very very ince. She's sweet. So then they left and I stayed alone with Rupert. Dropped him off ($4). Then glued myslef together because i was invited to Prince Abudi's dinner for Marion Javits.

His place was just around the corner, at 10 East 68th Street, and as I'm walking in, in comes Ultra Violet, wearing the same dress from the sixties, with the same gold coins, and I said, "Gee, Ultra, you shouldn't do that--it might have been a camp when a gold coin was worth $35 but now they're, you know, worth $775 apiece, so you should be careful." But she said she's had to sell most of the good ones, she was just wearing her pesos, very heavy pesos. And it was really fun seeing her again, I kept asking her, "Well, who invited you, how did you get here?" I think she's a good friend of Marion's. I have a funny feeling that maybe she services people or something, I have a funny feeling that maybe that's it--like when there's a guy, an older guy maybe, she'll go out with him or something. But she was fun. I spent the whole evening with her because it was a really awful party. Abudi was very quiet. Although he's a Saudi Arabian prince he didn't have any young princesses there, so it was just all the people I know, like Sam Green and Kenny and marion's boyfriend who makes holograms, And she likes him. I don't see what she sees in him, but he's the mistress. What would you call a guy who a woman sees? A "lover?" A gigo--no, a lover, I guess.

And who else was there? Oh, the Bulgaris came, but I didn't get a chance to talk to them, because Ultra Violet went to the cariar dish and she said it smelled like a tin and then Kenny Lane came over and said it was the best caviar you could buy, so then she decided to eat half a pound of it. And she said she was going to write her memoir. Oh! And she finally told me how she got sick. It was all over Ruscha, the artist, Ed Ruscha. She had fallen madly in love with him too in love with him, she let her whole nervous system fall apart. And that's when she was eating a piece of gold everyday--somebody told her that Indian people eat gold or something like that, ad it ate a hole in her stomach.

And now Ruscha doesn't have the wife but it's not the same. And she's looking for another young somebody. It ended up we were there until 3:00.