Sam Bronfman’s kidnappers were found innocent of the kidnapping charge today.
Brigid came to the Factory for the first time since she started her diet in August - she’s down to 190, was last seen as 260. She really looked good and everyone fussed over her, I took pictures. Barbara Allen found herself a new apartment on 77th off Fifth.
Went to La Grenouille. Isabel and Freddy Eberstadt and Mica Ertegun arrived and with them was Isabel and Freddy’s beautiful daughter, Nenna. I kept staring at her and saying how beautiful she was, and Isabel sort of kept us apart. I couldn’t figure out why they had asked me to this dinner because if I hadn’t asked to bring Bianca, there would have been just me. Mica was very sweet. She kept saying that Joe Allen was so attractive, that how could Barbara Allen leave him.
The Eberstadt daughter didn’t say anything during dinner but then she finally blurted out that she used to go to Union Square and stare up at the Factory, so that was thrilling to hear from this beautfiul girl. I told her she should come down and do interviews for Interview and she said, “Good! I need the money.” Isn’t that a great line? I mean, here Freddy’s father died and left him a whole stock brokerage company.
We said our good nights and thank-yous and I hope I remember to send flowers.
Met Bob Colacello and Fran Lebowitz, and we went down in the rain to the Biltmore Hotel to the Overseas Press Corps lunch. Bob had told them weeks ago when they invited me that I would come and just be present but that he would give the talk on Interview and they said fine. After Bob’s speech, though, they asked questions all directed at me - and I wasn’t prepared so I just said yes or no. But afterwards I regretted doing my same old shy act, when I should have used the situation for practice - I’d love to be able to talk more and give little speeches. I want to work on that.
They asked Fran only one question, why her column in Interview was called “I Cover the Waterfront,” and she said that it was because Tennessee Williams was on a talk show once and they asked him if he was a homo and he said, “Well, let’s put it this way: I cover the waterfront.” And Fran’s answer was a lead balloon, nobody laughed. In the cab downtown she said she’d rather have her appendix out than go to something like that again.
Bianca called and invited me to a screening of Silver Streak. Didn’t get home until 7:00 which was exactly when I was supposed to be at the Pierre to pick her up - she and Mick just rented a house on 72nd Street but it’s not ready to move into yet. Went over to the Loews Tower East. The movie was kind of funny. Bianca looked beautiful. Afterwards outside the theater when we couldn’t find the limo a black guy with a black scarf was pressing himself up against Bianca and he was crazy, he was saying, “You think you’re the only one with beautiful clothes in the world?”
Victor took me into the garage to show me his latest artwork - he’s making Mona Lisas wearing Halstons, and that’s really funny, so I encouraged him. Then we went to the Met in four limos. This was the biggest one of these things the museum has ever had. When Diana walked through we all kissed her. I talked to Mrs. Kaiser and got to know her. She’s about sixty but she looks forty, and she says she’s looking for a fuck. I told her it’s the wrong town, everyone’s gay, and she said she didn’t care - “they tumble well. I’ve had some good luck here.” She lives at U.N. Plaza. It turns out she’s a very good friend of Brigid’s mother, Honey Berlin. She said that when she was at their house old Dick Berlin was so senile he walked in and rushed over to the mirror and tried to shake hands with himself but she saw what he was doing and went over and was the hand for him to shake. I left right after dinner, Mrs. Kaiser dropped me.
Oh, and also at the dinner table Bianca took off her panties and passed them over to me and I faked smelling them and then tucked them in my handkerchief pocket. I still have them ;)
Freddy Eberstadt called and invited me to something at La Grenouille tomorrow night and I said that I had a date with Bianca Jagger and could I bring her and he said sure.
Left the office early to go home and dress for a formal evening. Dropped off Catherine. Walked over to Halston’s. Victor had said there was room for me at Halston’s table at the Metropolitan opening we were all going to, of Diana Vreeland’s show. When we got to Halston’s Mrs. Henry J. Kaiser - Aly - was there, she was in a blue-green Halston with emeralds, and she seemed very interested in me, and when Halston saw us getting along he suggested I take her upstairs to show her the portraits I did of him. After the trip upstairs, though, she dropped me, I guess she saw me in the light.
We were all waiting for Marisa and her new husband and Bianca and her date, Joe Eula. The acupuncture doctor they all use was there, Dr. Giller, so he’s on their party list now. Barbara Allen was there, the only one of the ladies not wearing a Halston. She had on a beautiful off-the-shoulder Christian Dior. It was from her shopping spree in Paris last month when Philip Niarchos was buying.
Marisa came and she had her hair piled up all on one side of her head like a beautiful old-time star. Bianca had her purple fox with her, the one she’s had around the past month. When Joe walked in he and Halston “shook hands” and when Halston felt what Joe put in his palm he said, “Oh, you’ve saved my life.”
Went down to the Players Club on Gramercy Park for a dinner for Kitty Carlisle Hart. It looked like a stag party except for Arlene Francis and Peggy Cass and Dena Kaye who came instead of her husband Danny, who had Concorde-lag, and Irene Selznick, who was the chairwoman of the evening, or whatever they call it. Peggy and Arlene are Kitty’s sidekicks from “To Tell the Truth.”
The dinner was to honor Kitty for being named the new head of the New York State Council on the Arts by Governor Carey.
My doctor, Doc Cox, was there and he took me upstairs for a tour of Edwin Booth’s bedroom and it was musty and dusty, same as in the old days.
Dinner was served and it was everything creamy I’m not supposed to eat because of my gallbladder, so the Doc was embarassed that he was seeing me eat it because it was putting a damper on a social occasion, so he told me, “I won’t look.” Met Alfred Drake who was on Broadway, that big handsome star of Carousel.
Everyone made speeches and then Kitty got up and she was the best. She was wearing black and pearls, looked very chic. She says she still wants to work a lot and I rememeber that Diana Vreeland once told me that Kitty had to “work like a nigger” because she doesn’t have that much money. The Doc dropped me off.
They’re screening Bad in California this week to try to get a distributor for it. Sue Mengers is helping us out. None of the distributors want to put up advance money.
Sent Ronnie to buy brooms. Dropped off Catherine Guinness and went home to change, then picked her up and cabbed down to 18 West 38th Street to the opening of a new club that Helen Bransford had invited us to, it’s sort of trying to be a new Reno Sweeney’s. Helen goes around with John Radziwill now. Fred thinks she’s great and that we should be nice to her. Tim Hardin was singing there.
Maxime de la Falaise was there with her new maybe-boyfriend, Craig Braun. I worked with him on the Rolling Stones album cover.
Barbara Allen was there and she’s moving into Fred’s house on 89th and Lexington for a while, because she rented her apartment on East 63rd Street to Catherine and then Catherine let her stay there but she and Catherine living in the same apartment got to be too much.
Went home and watched the news, it’s all the Gary Gilmore thing, every night they have him on saying he wants to die, he wants to die.
Went to dinner at the Iranian embassy. Not really the “embassy”, but you know what I mean - it’s where Mr. Hoveyda, their ambassador to the U.N., lives. China Machado was there and she said she’s known Ambassador Hoveyda for ten years or more from when he and her husband were in France hanging around the French filmmakers in the sixties. We talked about how horrible Avedon is, she said he gets what he wants out of a person and then drops them. I agreed and then everybody screamed at me that I do the same thing.
Pat Kennedy Lawford was there and a du Pont lady who lives next door to the embassy who said it was so nice not to have to go far for a meal and so she was late. She was wearing a black and gold dress with a jewel collar that she said always gets impounded at customs. The food was good, but the caviar only came around once.
Got into the Christmas spirit and started buying business gifts. Ran into Jean Kennedy Smith in Bloomingdale’s in the men’s shirt department. We had the same salesgirl. Cabbed to Union Square. Amos was down at the office and Ricky Clifton took pictures of him in costume as the pope.
Left to go down to the Ileana Sonnabend Gallery to the David Hockney opening. He wasn’t showing new stuff, just portfolios. Took Amos. Ran into Gerard Malanga. Gerard wrote to Fred asking why he wouldn’t let him do photography for Interview, I guess he just wants a press pass. Fred won’t have anything to do with Gerard because we’re still getting repercussions from all the fake Electric Chairs we think he did, they’re being resold and resold and each time the money involved gets bigger, so Fred isn’t about to give Gerard anything. The opening was jammed. Didn’t see David Hockney, he must’ve been in another room.
Daniela Morera, our Italian Interview correspondent, came by the office with Olivier Coquelin who invited me to Haiti for the Nima Farmanfarmian-Chris Isham wedding in January. He owns that resort there. He should be interviewed for Popism - he’s the one who owned Cheetah in the sixties, the big discotheque on Broadway and 53rd.
I don’t want to write too much this morning, I want to get over to Bloomingdale’s before it’s too crowded.
Nelson Lyon called from L.A. and told me about his Thanksgiving - Paul Morrissey had invited him to dinner at Chase Mellen’s house and then called back to disinvite him saying it was going to be “small and intimate” and that he’d made a mistake inviting anyone. As soon as Nelson hears that anything is “small and intimate” he gets paranoid he’s not invited and goes crazy to get there, so he put his mind to it and got there through someone else. It turned out to be thousands of people there so when he saw Paul he said, “Small, intimate world, isn’t it?”
Brigid Polk called and said she was down to 197. Ever since she saw herself in Bad weighing 300 pounds and went on a diet, she’s so boring to talk to - she never does anything, she never thinks anything, she just lies there in bed in her room at the George Washington Hotel and waits for the fat to roll off. I told her I’ll give her a job - that she could let some roll off around the Factory while she answers phones, but she won’t. It’s taken her thirty-nine years to lose weight and it’ll probably take her another thirty-nine years to get to work.
I was too tired to meet the Vreeland crowd for dinner. Watched twenty-five years of Lucille Ball on TV instead.
Victor Hugo, Halston’s “art adviser,” called me from San Francisco because I’d told him I loved the display window he did of turkey bones at Halston’s Madison Avenue store, and now someone broke in and took the turkey bones, so he thought it was me.
Catherine called New York, to Jodie Foster’s place, to confirm the interview she and I were supposed to do that afternoon, and Jodie’s mother hedged saying Jodie was sick and maybe she couldn’t do it, but to call when we got back to town. Got back at 12:30. Dropped Catherine and Fred. Catherine called Jodie again and she said okay.
It was a beautiful day, in the sixties again. Picked up Catherine and walked over to the Pierre Hotel to meet Jodie. Said hello to lots of people who said hello to me. At the Pierre I saw a beautiful woman staring at me and it turned out to be Ingrid Bergman. While I was talking to her, Coco Brown started waving and yelling from a car. Ingrid’s I think husband came for her and then Catherine and I went into the restaurant to wait for Jodie. She came in with her mother and a guy they said they’d picked up I think in Liverpool, and I couldn’t tell if it was a bodyguard or the mother’s boyfriend. Jodie had on high boots and a hat and was really cute and we loved her.
Then we all walked over to F.A.O. Schwartz and looked at toys. Bought some for Jodie. She signed autographs. On the way back to the Pierre a guy was selling big candy canes and he gave Jodie one and me one. Went home.
Went in the carriage again. This time Frolic had his carriage out, too. He was drinking all day. He took his drinks onto the wagon with him and he was riding around drinking. Jamie took me to his aunt’s house to see a 5’ dollhouse. It was like an old-fashioned Christmas.
Then went over to the museum where an antique dealer was having a benefit for an opera school, and I really enjoyed that, they were singing an opera. They passed a hat around and Frolic gave Catherine $20 of his own money for her to drop in and I dropped in $20, too. Didn’t get to bed until around 4:00.
Went on a tour of Winterthur in the morning. Then Phyllis Wyeth got the buggy together, we had an all-American breakfast, fed Archie and Amos, then we went out for a ride. We went across the Brandywine River in it, it wasn’t so deep.
Jed went to meet Vincent and Shelly and Ronnie and Gigi at the train station. Went with Jamie to the Brandywine Museum and we were photographed and had a press conference. Went back to Jaime and Phyllis’s and there were cocktails. Mrs. Bartow who I bought the East 66th Street house from was there and she asked when I was going to sandblast it and why was I never home because it always looked dark. Carter Brown was there and Jane Holzer with Bob Denison.
Rode to the museum. I introduced Gigi as “George” - I’d told this guy she was a drag queen and he didn’t know I was kidding, he got excited - and then she said, “No, it’s Georgette,” which coincidentally is her real name - I didn’t know it. So everything was coming out right - I mean it was just what a drag queen would say, so that was funny. And the guy really liked her and she didn’t have a clue it was because he thought she was a boy.
Fred called at 8 A.M. to find out when we were leaving. Barbara Allen called and said that if we were leaving after 12:00 she would come. Cabbed to 860 Broadway to pick up some things to take. Left around 1:00. Beautiful day.
Jed somehow drove straight to the Wyeth’s door, with just one phone call for directions at a turnoff right near the place to get the last bit. Arrived around 4:00. The traffic was okay. Barbara Walters didn’t come after all.
Andrew Wyeth, Jamie’s father, was there. Frolic Weymouth was there, a neighbor - his wife who’s Andrew Wyeth’s niece had just left him for an antique dealer or something after lots of married years - he’s a du Pont - and he was depressed, so he was over for dinner. And Andrew’s two sisters, one nutty who looks like she drinks and paints.
We sat for hours and hours at dinner, it was perfect, so good. Lots of drinks. I was still so tired from all the traveling at the beginning of the week. Jed went to bed around 2:00, everyone else stayed up until around 4:00.
There was a romantic interest going on. Robin West - he’s a neighbor of the Wyeths, too, he works for the Pentagon but he’ll be losing his job soon because Carter’s coming in - he was there, and Catherine talked about the shit and piss for him and about the Anvil S&M bar, and he seemed to like that and got interested. He’s looking for a rich girl to marry, he asked me where oh where was his tub of butter on the other side of the rainbow, and I told him it could be a tub of Guinness beer if he played his cards right. He said he’d take us for a ride in an aircraft carrier before his job gets given to a Democrat.
Got up at 7 A.M. in Vancouver and cabbed to the airport. This is the end of the trip to Seattle for the Opening at the Seattle Art Museum there, then we’d gone to Los Angeles for Marisa Berenson’s wedding to Jim Randall, then to Vancouver for my Ace Gallery Show opening there. Nobody in Vancouver buys art, though—they’re not interested in painting. Catherine Guinness didn’t get edgy till the last day when she started this annoying thing the English do—asking me over and over again, “What exactly is Pop Art?” it was like the time we interviewed that blues guy Albert King for Interview, when she kept asking “What exactly is soul food?” So for two hours on the plane she tortured me. Dropped Fred off. Got home.
