Saturday, May 21, 2005

ORIGINAL ENTRY: August, August 28, 1980

Somebody's been calling every morning about 7:00 and letting it ring three times and hanging up. and it's on this line--the line that not too many people know about. I picked it up once, but I usually don't. Isn't that peculiar?

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, August 14, 1980

Got to the office and the Secret Service guys were everywhere, all over the block. I gave them Interviews. Then I remembered the Mondale kid, that I'd invited. Liz Carpenter was there, a camp, she had her hair Bo Derek-style, just beads in it. She wanted me to give an art education lecture to the Secretary of Education.

I forgot to say that I keep running into the Robb girl, the LBJ daughter, the tall one. Lynda Bird. She could be a raving beauty but she doesn't want to be, I guess, because she wears glasses and a funny hairdo.

Liz Carpenter brought about eight people. Nancy Dickerson was there. And Wilson Kidde brought his friend from Princeton, Matt Salinger, the son of J.D. Salinger, who we've been trying to get for Interview but he turned us down. He said it would just get too complicated to give an interview and it was just easier not to. he's really good-looking.

And William Blair called and couldn't come to lunch and said that his father din't want him to be in Interview and we can't understand it. Lunch was for Pat Ast, and we stuck her next to the Salinger boy so she had a good time. I gave a speech and I gave out Philosophy books. I told thme I didn't believe in art, tht I believed in photography. Oatsie Charles was there and she gave me a Mondale scarf. And little William Mondale was cute, he stayed through the whole thing. I asked him about the Secret Service and he said they cramp his style. He's so pretty.

Rupert came up and I did some drawing and paintings. Hans Mayer called from Germany and I have to do one of the portraits over.

Bob picked up the phone and called California and to tell them I'd agreed to do a poster of Reagan just because of some offhand kidding comment I made and how I'm having nightmares that I'll get pushed into really doing one. Those things get so tricky. Bob gets so crazy wanting to be an inside Republican.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, August 6, 1980

It was my birthday but I hadn't slept all night so at 7 A.M. I took a sleeping pill, but it acted more like an up. I really feel like an old-timer this time. I can't believe I'm so old becasue that means (laughs) that Brigid's old too. It's too abstract. I can't even squish a roach anymore because it's just like a life, like living. I glued myself together and wanted to walk. Got a lot of phonecalls about my birthday. Todd Brassner called and I told him to come down and bring me a present, but he didn't. Victor Hugo sent orchids with beautiful ribbons. From Renny, that must be a very chick place.

I had an appointment with Chris Makos at 860 (cab $5.50). Then the kids kept coming by. Curley brought me a piece of junk, an airplance light. I asked him to stay for lunch.

Richard Weisman called to say he was coming down. I said I was going to 65 Irving for lunch, and to meet us there. We went over, ten of us. Pingle--the Princess Ineegorg Schleswig Holstein--came, who works at Interview now. She's related to Queen Elizabeth. And Brigid came. We were having Pina coladas and then strawberry daiquiris and then Richard had the idea to have blueberry daiquiris. it was fun.

Rupert gave me 300 ties. Robert Hayes gave me a silver set of Elvis records, every record he ever made. Mimi Trujillo brought two dresses to show me and Victor made her give them to me, they're great. Then I had to go to the theater. Halston sent a signing telegram that had three people singing it. They were awful. They're trying to be in show business and I asked them not to exaggerate it and to sing it quietly. Halston sent a big cake in the shape of a show and it must have been the best cake because Brigid ate all of it.

I glued and was late but then Susan Johnson was even later and I screamed at her. Stephen was already inside on the aisle when w got there. Annie was wonderful (cab $6). It was packed. You'd never think there was a recession. Standing room. The audience loved it, mostly old people. I was trying to keep awake. Afterwrds we went backstage. I din't see Alice Ghostley. I went to school with her husband.

We got a dumpy limo outside to go to Mr. Chow's. Mr. and Mrs. Chow greeted us. I didn't want to sign the guest book there because I wanted to do it with my own pen the next time. Tina chow wished me happy birthday. We had champagne. Robin Williams came in and said hello, I asked him to join us but he said he was at the bar with someone, that he'd see. With some lady friend. and then I remembered that somebody told me he met a girl the day he married his wife and that they've been having an affair ever since. Anyway, he didn't come back. He had a short-sleeved shirt on and his are so hairy, that's how Susan recognized him. I hope Popeye is a hit for him because his TV show just died. Stephen invited a girl to join us for dinner, a sculptress who lives down near Rupert. She made a sculpture out of a napkin as a present for me, but then we didn't notice when the waiter took it away. Stephen was nervous and he almost started drinking. We dropped hiim on 57th and Second, then I dropped Susan (cab $5).

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, July 22, 1980

I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think aobut it like that, it is great, it's so American. But they never talk about Reagan's divorce. I thought you weren't supposed to be able to get elected president if you were divorced.

Worked till 7:30, dropped Rupert off (cab $5). Whitney Tower called and said hee wanted to talk about some movie ideas and he invited me for drinks. The rain had started. And then my bell rang and it was Whitney and Averil and Rachel Ward. I'd put the dogs to bed and that woke them up. I left the kids outside on the doorstep in the rain while I got myself together and then we walked to Le Relais. John Samuels was at the bar, he was going off to Suzie Frankfurt's for dinner--she was giving a dinner for John's father and his boyfriend.

Whitney invited me to the Adirondacks. They were up there over the weekend and they said Mick was there diapering a baby and they said he was an expert at it, that Bianca never did it, and he said he'd done Jade all the time.

Oh, and the best thing was the thank-you notes that Jerry Hall sent for her birthday presents. I got one and Jed got the exact same one and Averil got the exact saome one. It's in this little baby handwriting and on flowered notepaper and it says the exact same thing on all of them, line for line, space for space, word for word. (laughs) I should call up everybody who gave her a present and collect the notes from them and make a book out of it. That would be funny, wouldn't it?

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Saturday, July 12, 1980--Monte Carlo

Ran into Sylvester Stallone who cut his beard and looks great. He just flew in from Budapest with his wife, and I told him I wanted to do his portrait over again without the beard because he looks so handsome. And so he was going to comee up about 6:00 so I could rephotograph him.

Then I ran into him again, on the beach, and all the people on the beach were taking pictures of him. He looked so great without clothes on, he's pencil-thin, he looks like a muscleman, like Mr. America with small biceps, and I told him not ot ever put any more weight on again. but he was saying he had to because he had to do Rocky III and so I told him to do a fat suit. And so we left to go back to the hotel to refresh ourselves and wait for him to come. Then I glued myself together because it was time to get ready to go down to the opening of the show in the lobby. I was ready before anyone else so I decided I might as well go down and work, so I got downstairs about five minutes after 7:00 and Pam Combemale and Freddy Woolworth were standing there greeting people and I was next in line and I shook hands with everybody coming in, like a receiving line. They would introduce me and there were all these old bags, I mean, the oldest people in the world. and then Jamie came down and he was next to me and we went down the line and in it was Raymond Loewy! The guy who designed the Lucky Strike cigarette package and everything else! I was just so thrilled to meet him that I just jumped up and down and asked him if I could take his picture. And he was great. And then the old bags, there were just so many of them I couldn't believe it. I think we got some portraits to do so that's great. Then Stallone came all in white, and he looked really beautiful, and then Iris Love and Liz Smith came, and Liz said it was the chic-est party opening they'd ever been to.

Mary Richardson came and Kerry Kennedy and Mona Christiansen and a cute little girl Vick, who's the daughter of Frank Gifford. Mona told a story of how Garbo picked her up on Madison Avenue a couple of weeks ago and took her home for tea, but then, she said nothing happened, they just compared face jaw-lines. I don't believe her but it was fun to hear. Mona was feeling up all the girls, really feeling them up.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, July 4, 1980

Cab to meet Debbie Harry at 7:30 at her and Chris Stein's apartment at 200 West 58th Street. The Penthouse. It took an hour to get there because everybody was merging into Central Park for the fireworks later at 9:00. The traffic was really bad (cab $4). When we got there Chris and Victor Bockris had their tapes on. Debbie has beautiful eyes.

Debbie had worked all day trying to find an interesting place to have dinner, and (laughs) she did. We went up to 119th Street and Morningside Drive to that restaurant with the big view. The food was as good as La Cote Basque. I don't know how people up there can afford it, though, because it's so expensive. maybe doctors adn professors.

But first we had drinks at Debbie's. She's gotten really rich from the Vandebilt jeans ad and they're going to buy a building. Chris wants to rent an apartment on the Lower East Side to give interviews in because they don't want to spoil their low-life image, and Debbie will have to give interviews there, too. I think he's really going to do it. But if you saw their apartment--and he's saying he doesn't want people to know how (laughs) well they live. It's so junky. It seems like one room made into eighteen rooms. Maybe it used to be a storage floor. There are at least 100 gold records on the wall, I don't know why there's so many--oh maybe duplicates, I guess. But there's a good doorman.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Saturday, June 28, 1980

I called Bob to see if the interview with Paloma Picasso was on--it was, Lester Persky was going to do it at Quo Vadis. and Paloma really likes Patti LuPone, so we called to see if there was still a table for us at her show at Les Mouches.

I walked over to Quo Vadis. I was there first, then Bob arrived, then Lester and Paloma. i was on my diet so I just had melon and arugual, but the chicken that Bob and Paloma split looked good. What the restaurants do with the meat that's left like on the backbond? Do they throw it oug or do they use it to make hash?

Lester interviewed Paloma and she's great, she just tells everything. And she said that we could do the end portion of the interview at the MOMA Picasso exhibit with her and she'll talk while we walk through. After dinner we went to Un Deux Trois, the place on 44th Street that's supposed to be like La Coupole.

Then it was too early to go to Bonds. So we went to Les Mouches. And they made Bob pay.

Bob still hated Patti LyPone, but not quite as much. I f she had come over and said, "Oh Bob, you're the editor of Interview!" he would have loved her. I'm the same way, though, I guess. and Ron Duguay was there. At first he wasn't interested in Patti--these athletes all just like the same blonde types all the time--but I told him, "She really wants you and she's great." And afterwards she came and sat whim him. Patti's funny, she does these sophiticated songs and then she gets nervous so she sticks out her tongue like Donald Duck or something. I like her, I thinnk she's great.