The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022) s01e03 Episode Script
A Double Life: Andy & Jon
1
[brisk violin arpeggios.]
[AI Andy.]
I went down to the office because they were making a robot of me.
[news reporter.]
Andy Warhol once said, "I want to be a machine," and now his wish is finally coming true.
Warhol is being mechanically cloned.
[electronic futuristic cello added to the violin playing.]
[AI Andy.]
I got into the chair that the robot people brought.
We had to sit around for an hour so they could study my face to see if I would make a good robot.
[music continues.]
They did the back of my head.
And they put a wig hat on me.
They put gook on and covered my ears and eyes.
They said, "Pinch me if you want to get out of it.
" It was making me sick.
It was awful.
They finally took the mold off, but then they dropped it.
And then they said they might have to do another one.
And I said, "No, you're not.
" I was thinking, "Oh, why did I agree to do this?" [electricity buzzing.]
When I was having all the fights with Jed, and he moved out, I couldn't face talking about it.
[soft piano music playing.]
But now, I don't want to be alone in this big house.
And when I see myself, I think, "How will I ever find someone?" I just have to be in love now.
[soft piano music continues.]
Or I'll go crazy.
I just have to feel something.
[opening music: "Nature Boy" by Nat King Cole.]
There was a boy A very strange enchanted boy They say he wandered very far Very far Over land and sea A little shy And sad of eye But very wise Was he The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return [distant city sounds.]
[soft piano music playing.]
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
Andy found a lot of his source material in cheap newspaper advertisements, and this comes from a classified ad section of the newspaper where it's advertising plastic surgery.
It's a woman in profile before her nose job and after.
Before and after is so big as a theme in Andy Warhol.
So, first it's very personal.
It's about his own insecurities about how he looked and his nose that might have been a little bit too thick, but then it's much bigger because it's so much about America.
There's this desire to become a real American, to go from immigrant boy Andrew Warhola to Andy Warhol.
And to absorb the culture and look like the handsome WASPy guys he wished that he could get to talk to.
[director.]
Principal among those, Jon Gould.
Yes.
Jed Johnson, Jon Gould, yes.
You know, his American ideal and his own fantasy of becoming like one of these young WASPy men and getting into that circle.
So, like many of Andy's images, it starts with something quite personal, but then it becomes universal.
It's this whole American fantasy that you can recreate yourself and become who you dreamed about.
[piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Have I told the diary I've decided to become a male model? Fred gets so overwrought.
He thinks I'm crazy to start modeling.
But it's something I want to do.
So, I ignored him.
And now I've been thinking all my problems come from feeling old.
And I'm seeing all these young kids just budding.
So, I've pinpointed the problem.
[piano music continues.]
[Marc Balet.]
I don't think Andy saw himself as a great beauty, but he liked having great beauties around him.
And I was working for two agencies at the time, for Zoli and for Ford's.
Zoli Models was the hippest modeling agency in the world.
Fashion.
[synth pop starts playing.]
[Zoli.]
I would say, of the new people that walk into this agency for an interview, the chance of them being accepted is between two and five percent.
It's a competitive field.
There's a reason some of us are successful.
A professional male model.
What is my idea of one? Work it out, 'cause I've got dreams [Marc Balet.]
I said, "You want Andy to be the model?" He said, "Yes!" We wait for a love I can feel It doesn't seem [Marc Balet.]
Who'd turn Andy Warhol down? It's too hilarious.
He was thrilled.
He was Andy Warhol, the model.
To take control [Andy.]
I became a ZOLI model and I do runway work so I won't be so nervous.
[interviewer 1.]
What's runway? Runway is when you put clothes on and you run down the runway.
Models sell an image, and the image that they sell is a creation of both the way they look and what they do with it.
It's sometimes easier said than done And wait for [male model 3.]
I would see somebody who I might think had better eyes or maybe a better smile, something that used to bug me as I'd go home and try to smile like the other model.
And it doesn't work, you have to be yourself.
you'll never know When he was a male model, he's not like the others.
He's older and he's Andy Warhol.
You can't hide who it is.
For better or worse, he stuck his neck out.
[interviewer 2.]
You're in every magazine.
You pick one up, there's Andy Warhol.
- Have you gotten paid yet? - Yes, I did get paid.
Yes.
[music fades.]
[AI Andy.]
Fred is still furious.
He said I should be getting thousands for endorsing products.
Not working for a modeling fee.
I think it's funny to be just another pretty face in the Zoli book.
I told him to lighten up.
[Andy.]
Um I'm in a modeling career right now.
And, um, I did two runway shows.
I did, um something in GQ, and uh, I hear that you have to sleep with somebody to get on the cover.
So, um I'm willing to do that.
[Marc Balet.]
I don't think he was making fun of it.
He might have been making fun of himself a little bit.
The fact that he was modeling like, "Well, I guess anyone can do it.
" [soft, dreamy music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
With the male models, all the really straight-looking models are gay.
And all the really gay-looking models are straight.
Christopher and I decided that we should tell people, despite how we look and talk, that we're not gay.
Because then they don't know what to do with you.
[Bob Colacello.]
He was definitely out there.
I think he was putting himself in a more precarious position than he had allowed himself to be in maybe since the '60s, pre-shooting.
And he didn't look good as that's also when he was getting anorexic.
People would say to me, "Andy looks really skinny," and, "Is there something wrong with him?" [Jessica Beck.]
He's very conscious of his weight.
He's actually talking about it in the diaries.
"I'm too thin.
Maybe I shouldn't be this thin.
" And it's another side of him that's kept very private.
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
I'm 115 pounds now.
I can feel my nerves creaking against my bones.
But that's not the problem.
It really isn't.
I look better thin.
[Andy.]
From the day I met you to now, you look the same.
- Yeah, people - You do look the same.
- Yeah, you do! - We can't notice the changes.
I'll take photographs of us.
- Oh no.
- You'll see the difference.
I was looking at one of you just recently.
- You look much younger.
- Because I'm much thinner now.
I think, uh I like the way I look now better than I did then.
Okay, you can lose a certain amount.
You are too thin now, if I may say.
- Since I'm a model now, I've decided - Since you're alone? - No, since I'm a model.
- Oh, go ahead.
[AI Andy.]
I guess I should try not to think so much about looks.
But I'm not thinking too much about looks.
I never do.
I like ugly people.
I really do.
And anyway, ugly people are just as hard to get as pretty people.
They don't want you either.
[Bob Colacello.]
I don't know.
Andy just wanted to be beautiful in the worst way and knew he wasn't.
And that was an ongoing pain.
[oboe plays.]
[chattering and general hubbub.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
Now for the story of another beginning and an ending, the inauguration of the new president, the departure of his predecessor.
[AI Andy.]
Bob got us invited to the inauguration.
[80s synth pop playing.]
And we went down to D.
C.
He said we were invited to the right parties.
So, I was excited.
[Bob Colacello.]
He didn't like Reagan.
He was definitely a liberal democrat.
But as much as Andy resented the fact that his guy lost, Carter, the Reagan inauguration, it was like the Super Bowl of politics.
Blue eyed, dressed for every situation [AI Andy.]
The driver picked us up at 10:00 in the morning.
He got us as close to the Capitol as he could.
I was taking pictures.
[Warren Burger.]
the Office of President of the United States.
That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.
[AI Andy.]
We had binoculars.
I focused on Rosalynn.
She looked so unhappy.
We are Americans.
- God bless you and thank you.
- [crowd applauds.]
Thank you very much.
[applause.]
[AI Andy.]
Listening to the inaugural address, you get fired up.
[fireworks exploding.]
And I felt like being a Republican.
- [crowd cheering.]
- [patriotic music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
But then when it was over and you looked around at the faces on all the Republicans, I was glad I'm a Democrat.
There really is a difference.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[Bob Colacello.]
For me, Ronald Reagan and Andy Warhol, they were two sides of the same late 20th century American coin.
Andy Warhol was the avatar of the 1960s counterculture.
He was the symbol, the icon.
He was the prophet of that, and the starting point of '80s culture is the election of Ronald Reagan.
[soft synth music playing.]
Through the '70s, Warhol was less known as an artist than as the scene maker of scene makers.
We published Andy Warhol's Interview, he was seen at every party.
But in the '80s, was he actually making art? This was an open question.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
By the '80s, Andy was considered to be from a previous era.
He made all this money, but he was still so maligned by the critics.
[camera clicks.]
From a career point of view, any artist that goes down and comes back three times are the greatest artists.
So Andy, like Muhammad Ali, went down a lot.
They're still saying he is commercial, talking shit all day long.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
What I found fascinating about Andy is that he had the ability to reinvent and rediscover himself, where he would just go, "Ah, well, I'll just move into a new generation.
" [announcer.]
It's Andy Warhol's T.
V.
We have the best parts of New York on our show tonight.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
Andy Warhol TV was an idea we talked about at night for fun, you know.
And uh, I thought we were just joking.
Andy kind of liked the chaos of, "Let's just see what will happen.
" [laughing.]
[synth pop playing.]
Andy Warhol created Wayne's World.
[laughing.]
He really did.
It was Andy Warhol's literal cable access show that was ostensibly done in his basement and he followed his muses, you know, and whatever interested him.
In many ways, I've been inspired by artists as much as by musicians.
He loved television and I think that was why he always wanted the TV show, and people would come because of him.
[synth pop continues.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
We were kind of the visual Interview.
And he says that's one of the reasons why I'm called Sting.
See? I didn't even know that.
[Vincent Fremont.]
But we also wanted to do music videos.
I'm feeling in a shaky frame of mind He created a lot of this culture that MTV was about.
And we have the rock and roll band, Duran Duran.
I think there's going to be a lot of interest, just because Andy's involved.
I think people are going to be expecting something different.
[Kenny Scharf.]
It was the perfect venue for him to take everything he was in '60s and kind of take it up into the '80s, which was about video.
We're waiting for Mr.
Warhol.
Everything was spur-of-the-moment, no plan, no thought, you know.
[frantic keyboard playing.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
It had a sense of subversion, sort of unapologetic, tons of attitude and edge.
[Betsey Johnson.]
I was real interested in the exact opposite of what I grew up with, which was real white WASP straight stuff.
So, I really liked anything sicko.
[laughs.]
[Andy.]
Mariel Hemingway is our cover story, and I interview her, and I catch her in the midst of her critical acclaim for her portrayal of a lesbian athlete in Robert Towne's Personal Best.
[Mariel Hemingway.]
They were cutting edge.
They were doing things differently.
They were experimenting in a way to make a statement, to say this is who we are, and I represent this group of humans who are not seen.
[Jim Fouratt.]
I mean, you look a certain way, you wore makeup in areas when it wasn't popular to do it.
[Marc Almond.]
Anybody who wants to do anything their own way has to be prepared to take a lot of knocks and a lot of people being very bitchy and a lot of people being very violent.
[frantic keyboard continues.]
Even though he decidedly crafted a persona which took sex out of the picture, he was able to put people that played with that space on a pedestal.
It's great to go and see somebody that really makes it and we went backstage to see his play called Torch Song Trilogy.
And he's the star of it too.
[Harvey Fierstein.]
I am gay.
I assume everyone else is until they tell me otherwise.
But that image has to be really strong because it's gotta last the audience four hours.
They can never forget what that persona is.
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
The invention of this interview journalism and then this whole phenomenon of reality TV, so much that's central to our culture, you can trace back to Andy Warhol.
[Tama Janowitz.]
He had fun every freakin' minute.
He made any artwork he wanted to create.
He went to all the places in the world he wanted to go to.
But his loneliness was profound.
He was heartbroken when him and Jed broke up.
I mean, that I think was just terrible and I don't think he even had another boyfriend after that.
[director.]
Did you ever meet Jon Gould? Who? I feel like Woodward and Bernstein.
Like, okay, this is my story and my life, You know what I mean? [Jessica Beck.]
Reading about Jon Gould was like like this whole other window had opened, and that no one talks about.
No one wants to talk about the Jon Gould story.
[soft keyboard music playing.]
When you read that very beginning courting with Jon, it happens right after Jed moves out.
[AI Andy.]
I sent roses to Jon Gould, the gay executive at Paramount Pictures that Chris introduced me to.
I want him to advertise in Interview Magazine.
[Bob Colacello.]
My take on the Jon Gould thing was like, Andy started sending roses like the day after Jed left.
He made a major U-turn between Jed and Jon Gould, all within a matter of a week.
[Vincent Fremont.]
In 1980, Jed and Andy had the break-up.
That Christmas, Andy was not himself.
And I knew how he acted normally.
He had one or two more drinks than he'd have normally had, and he just wasn't happy.
So when he meets Jon Gould, he is lonely.
He wants to have a love affair, attention.
Christopher supplied it.
Well, Andy said, "Help me find a boyfriend.
" All my friends at the time had those Rolexes and Cartier watches.
And I thought the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso watch was cool.
I wanted one, didn't have the money for it.
So I said, "You get me the watch and I'll get you the boyfriend.
" Uh, good question, who was Jon Gould? ["How I Need Your Love" by The Extremes starts playing.]
Here I stand, alone in misery [Chris Makos.]
Jon Gould was a young executive at Paramount Pictures, and Andy was lonely, and I thought, you know, this could be a nice match.
Oh my darling Oh my little darling [AI Andy.]
Went to the party for Chris Makos, and Jon Gould was there.
He tries to play it macho.
I think the roses I've been sending him at work are making him embarrassed.
So, I'd better stop.
It was like, "Okay, all you kids said that I wasn't nice to Jed.
I didn't show my emotions.
So now with Jon Gould, I'm telling him I'm in love.
I'm sending him roses every day.
" Andy really made a big impression very quickly.
"I like you.
I want to be around you.
" He would shower him with stuff.
Can't break these chains that [Jessica Beck.]
There definitely was an early interest and a very intense courting period with Jon.
But clearly Jon is pretty resistant for a while in the beginning.
[song fades out.]
[Chris Makos.]
Does it work when you walk with it? [Andy.]
Not in the movie camera.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
Jon's presentation of his sexuality was, to me, that he wasn't out yet, and as a young woman, you always know.
[laughing.]
Most people know.
I think '80 is when he met Christopher, started going to the baths and we would talk about that, and I would just go, "Ugh!" And I'm not judging it.
I'm just saying it was happening.
And I think how any one person went in and out of it would be very personal.
And I think Jon dipped in and then came out and it was like confusion, really deep confusion.
I remember he showed up at my apartment one night and he was really upset with himself.
I think he'd been over on the river.
[piano music continues.]
And he was questioning, where does this get you? I think Andy offered another lifestyle, another stability there.
[AI Andy.]
It's confusing because Jon tries to keep a straight image.
He tells me that he's not gay.
That he can't.
But, I mean [Bob Colacello.]
He also had a double life.
I mean, with certain people he was not gay.
With other people, he was gay.
[Jessica Beck.]
He operated in this world as very masculine.
He could pass as straight and Warhol was fascinated by this.
[AI Andy.]
We ran into Donald Trump, who owns the building company.
I chit-chatted with his wife and Jon chit-chatted with Trump.
I love going out with Jon because it's like going out on a real date.
He's tall and strong and I feel like he can take care of me.
And it's exciting because he acts straight.
So, I'm sure people think that he is.
[waves rippling.]
[Bob Colacello.]
Jon was from this very old WASPy family that went back to the 17th century in this little town in Massachusetts.
It was a big part of his identity.
It's a corner of America A picture from our past It's quiet towns and rolling hills Where time slows down at last The spirit of Massachusetts Is the spirit of America The spirit of the red, white, and blue The spirit of Massachusetts Is the spirit of America A beach house tour.
This is our pool.
[synth music playing.]
[Jay Gould.]
We always looked the same.
It was amazing, but I was probably more normal.
He was the coolest person around, the person everybody wanted to be.
He was the James Dean.
He was the James Dean.
[synth music continues.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
They were this family that basically is this town, the royalty of their town, and he always made his family proud.
And that was what, in a small town, from a family like that, he was supposed to do.
[Bob Colacello.]
There's this fascination with the Mayflower elite.
There's this fascination with twins, which is very pop art repetition, you know, Andy loved repetition.
And the fact that he could act straight or be half straight and half gay, that too fascinated Andy.
I thought he was kind of like a yuppie, you know, like a young professional.
It's not a put-down because that's the word, but he's a young professional.
It's kind of different, I would imagine, of what an Andy boyfriend should be like, maybe in my mind.
[Bob Colacello.]
The '80s, I think for Andy, it was a style shift, and [laughing.]
you know, he liked preppy-looking boys.
[Andy.]
The things that we did this week, we went up to Columbia University's boat house to visit Steve Kiesling, and he's an author of The Shell Game, and, uh it's an obsession on rowing.
[light orchestral music playing.]
[synth beat kicks in.]
Well, I think the party's just getting started.
[Bob Colacello.]
The preppy style was business style.
I mean, the preppy style was Brooks Brothers style.
It was a corporate style.
It was WASP style.
It's ridiculous to refer to a man as a preppy.
And none of the other terms people use, WASP, PLU, etc.
are much use either.
Well, the term WASP is White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, but it's just sort of an affiliation.
It really shouldn't be thought of in those terms.
You are if you think you are.
It's like a self-identifying thing.
[soft piano music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Everyone tells me they like my hair this new way.
I cut it every day.
It's almost a crew cut.
I'm wearing all of Jed's leftover clothes, the ones he left behind.
I'm so skinny they fit me now.
[piano music continues.]
[Andy.]
Why are they making flowers not smell anymore? [C.
Z.
Guest.]
Well, they lose that.
Let's say you gain disease resistance for a rose.
Maybe to gain that they have to lose some of the fragrance.
- [Andy.]
Oh really? - [C.
Z.
Guest.]
This is the trouble.
When you gain something, you have to sacrifice something else.
I feel very well.
- Very healthy and happy.
- Oh, that's good.
[Andy.]
You know, I saw Cornelia a couple times in New York, and she looks, wow, she looks terrific.
[AI Andy.]
Fred said I dress like the kids I hang around with now.
He likes it.
I guess the preppy look really is big because of The Preppy Handbook.
You can be a preppy because it is a mania that is sweeping the country, thanks in large part to Lisa Birnbach.
She's the editor of The Preppy Handbook, which now has sold about a million copies.
[Lisa Birnbach.]
Our language was very strong.
This is good.
This is bad.
You know, it's very, very imperative.
So, if you used The Preppy Handbook as a primer, you could get pretty far.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Bob Colacello.]
And then of course there's the whole sexuality aspect.
It was sex back in the closet, it was like you didn't talk about sex.
There's right and wrong, there's black and white.
So, this is Jon Gould.
That's his appearance in The Preppy Handbook.
Jon Gould was introduced as this great find because he was so good-looking, and he was so preppy.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
I think I know so many gay men who absolutely look like that.
And that was like classic.
I think every gay man I knew in the '70s and '80s tied their sweater around their neck.
[soft piano music continues.]
[Lisa Birnbach.]
The Preppy Handbook speaks so powerfully to the gay community, And I wonder about that.
Maybe you could explain it to me.
[director.]
In a sense, there are so many rules that maybe it's comforting on a certain level to sort of say this is a manual of how to pass.
Yes yes! I just got that.
So, I'm going to take this book and I'm going to dress like a man from a very wealthy suburb, and nobody will know.
You put on that blazer, and you're suddenly from a good family, and you're suddenly straight.
- Wow.
- [laughing.]
[Lisa Birnbach on TV.]
Well, I had fun with it.
I am a preppy, I'm legitimate, but I did mean for the book to be amusing and to make people laugh.
[Tom Brokaw.]
But some people are using it as a manual! Well, good.
That's fine with me.
I know people take it into the closet and say everything that's not in the closet, out.
It's a matter of choice how you perceive it.
[director.]
So much has changed in the last 40 years.
In reading the language of what's taboo and what's deviant feels particularly wrong.
[soft piano music continues.]
[Lisa Birnbach.]
"Sex roles for men and women are well defined, and while a bit of eccentricity may be dismissed in sartorial matters, deviation from the sexual norm is absolutely taboo.
" Whoa! Brutal.
And two of the writers were gay men.
How do you like that? Well, I'm sorry to say, this is just very much a product of its time.
I don't know if you would look at Jon Gould, and say, that's a gay guy, and that may be because he didn't want it to be known.
[Jay Gould.]
It was not generally socially acceptable to be gay.
And people suffered when people found out.
So, they tried to keep it a secret.
So, it would be almost like they were friends, not lovers, in public.
- Stop it! Come on.
- [Andy.]
Stop what? Invading my privacy.
Please.
Come on.
[dreamy music playing.]
[car engine rumbling.]
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon and I went to see the movie Excalibur about King Arthur.
I will love you always.
I will love you as my queen and as the wife of my best friend.
[AI Andy.]
The sex scenes were a little corny, but beautifully done.
I will love no other.
[AI Andy.]
He had his armor on when they were having sex and then the focus was soft.
[dreamy music continues.]
After the movie, we walked back home.
I had given Jon a rabbit puppet and he was waving at people with it.
And someone yelled, "Gay boy!" at me, and that was funny.
[Katy Dobbs.]
You know, I think Jon was initially really kind of surprised at how much he liked him as a person.
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
I cooked an early Easter dinner.
Jon brought me an Easter basket.
It was kind of plain.
Jon brought his dirty laundry to wash while he visited.
I told him I have a nice clean washing machine.
I gave him a tour of the whole house to impress him and I was hinting like crazy that it could all be his.
That there was a room with his name on it.
[Katy Dobbs.]
Jon always felt like he got a crash course in so many things quickly with Andy.
His small world just blew open, you know.
Who's the most New York person you can think of? Who else knows everybody? Who else can go anywhere? Andy Warhol.
It was, uh, seductive.
It was definitely seductive.
[disco dance music kicking in.]
Let's go.
Come on, we have to go.
It's late.
["Steal Away" by Robbie Dupree playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon Gould called and said he was waiting for Christopher to come pick him up to go to Cape Cod.
I'm so ready, I can't believe it.
Come on and hold me Just like you told me Then show me What I want to know [Andy.]
Oh, it's so beautiful! Why don't we steal away Why don't we steal away Into the night - [song fades out.]
- [plane humming.]
[Chris Makos.]
Jonny! You're not three feet away.
Hey! The point of going there was to cement the relationship between Jon and Andy, and we thought it'd be fun to get away and go on a small weekend together.
Jon's relationship with Andy, and the four of us doing things together, we were just four guys hanging out.
And Andy was just one of the guys and I think that was something that he really appreciated as I don't think he had that experience too much in his life.
And we really all felt that it was just kind of fun.
- [Jon Gould.]
Knock, knock! - [Andy.]
Who's there? - Orange.
- [Andy.]
Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say apple again? [dreamy guitar music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Peter took us to his house and he gave us a tour of the place.
And we got room assignments.
[chattering.]
Then Peter and Christopher took us around to show us the town.
[radio music mix playing.]
then you softly leave And it's me you need to show How deep is your love? How deep is your love? I really mean to learn [Andy.]
I want it on camera, come on, Jon! 'Cause we're living In a world of fools Breaking us down When they all should let us be [AI Andy.]
And then Vincent and Shelly finally arrived.
We belong to you and me [Shelly Fremont.]
See how much better it looks? Let's go for a ride! Jon's brother has a car like this.
It's the exact car, yeah.
- [Vincent Fremont.]
So it must be perfect.
- It's perfect.
[AI Andy.]
I saw this big boat on the water that was half painted, and it was so pretty and such a nutty boat and it looked like we could have a party on it.
How deep is your love? I really mean to learn [AI Andy.]
And Jon wore the set of pearls I gave him that go down to the ground and it looked sort of beautiful on him.
He looked like a deep-sea fisherman.
When they all should let us be We belong to you and me [Andy.]
Here's Mildred's.
The chowder house.
[AI Andy.]
Peter bought chowder at Mildred's Chowder House in Hyannis, which they say is the best chowder place in all of New England, and we all ate fried clams and fried fish and lots of ketchup and milkshakes and Frappes.
- Chowder.
- "Chowdah.
" [AI Andy.]
And then we fed the swans and the ducks with Wonder Bread that Christopher bought.
Come on! [Jon Gould.]
You always have to dip it in the water first.
[dreamy electric guitar music playing.]
[Andy.]
Oh, this is so great! Oh, give me a piece of bread.
[Shelly Fremont.]
Duckies! [AI Andy.]
Then we drove home.
- Where? We're home? - [Andy.]
Uh-huh, we're here.
[woman screams.]
- Hi! - Hi! - Hi! - [Andy.]
What're you both doing? We're taking a bath so we can get ready for the lobster dinner! - We've been rudely interrupted here! - [laughing.]
[Peter Wise.]
The thing that I remember about those days and those kind of things was the intimacy of the gathering.
Everybody already was sort of leaving their public personas at the door when they would enter into these smaller things.
If it's a Paramount film, it's the best show in town! [Peter Wise.]
Andy used to call me up, after he'd gotten home at night and say, "Oh, it's so good to take my Andy suit off.
" They call me a fool For falling in love with you They call me a fool To think that you care [Andy.]
You guys have the same haircut, I just realized that! - [friend.]
I could scream! - Aww! Go on, kiss it, kiss my finger.
Make it better, come on.
- [friend.]
Kiss the bread! - [friend.]
Make it good bread.
Oh my God! You missed all the action! [AI Andy.]
Peter and I went into another room to talk and while we were doing that, we heard all this commotion in the background.
And when we went in, there was a big water pistol fight.
[rock and roll music playing.]
Shelly and Jon were winning.
They were sneaks.
[rock and roll music intensifies.]
Then Christopher slapped Jon right in the face.
It was so dramatic.
We just couldn't believe it.
And Jon just stood there taking it.
But he said it didn't hurt.
And he thought it was all in fun.
And he told me that he has to win at everything.
And that if he wants it, he gets it.
And if he doesn't want it, he doesn't care.
But he has to decide he wants it.
When Christopher slapped him, I think he really liked it.
I think he really does want to get slapped.
[music crescendos and cuts.]
And then it all calmed down.
"But he has to decide he wants it, and then that's all he wants.
" "When Chris slapped him, I think Jon really liked it.
" [sighs.]
Do you see how complicated and intricate this is? [laughs.]
"I think he really does want to get slapped.
And then it all calmed down.
" I mean, this sounds like it's something more out of a Fire Island diary story than something out of real life.
Andy was a master of creativity and I guess in his relationship with Jon here and there, he had to create tension and excitement.
And for sure this is tension and excitement and creativity.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Jessica Beck.]
That idea of tension around intimacy is something that I read in the work throughout all of his career.
And so that tension isn't just about desiring Jon's body or desiring this younger man in his life, it's more complex for Warhol, there's a tension around Warhol's religion, his faith, his lived experience as a gay man wanting to be seen as normal, wanting to be seen with this man who can pass.
[Peter Wise.]
Andy and Jon stayed up in just one bedroom, and my parents had Republican beds, uh separated by a night table, and when I went up to make the beds after they left, they'd gotten rid of the night table and smooshed the beds together.
I thought that was sweet.
Oh, I that I really have no idea.
I mean, that I don't know.
[Bob Colacello.]
The Jon Gould relationship was Andy trying so hard to believe he was capable of love or that he could have an actual real relationship that was not just sexual or not just asexual but was like, romantic, emotional, and hopefully sexual too.
But the sexual part, I always feel, as a journalist, you never really know about.
Hi! Here we are! [soft piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon called his family in Amesbury, and he said his grandfather had had a stroke.
So instead of going back with us to New York, he wanted us to drop him off in Amesbury.
Took the plane ride back from Hyannis to LaGuardia.
And all of a sudden the plane actually really did flip over.
And I didn't care if we would have killed ourselves because I was so unhappy.
I thought that this trip would bring some progress with Jon, but it didn't.
Oh, but from now on I can't talk personally about Jon to the diary because when I told him I did, he got mad and told me not ever to do it again, that if I ever put anything personal about him in the diary, he'd stop seeing me.
So, from now on, it'll be just the business angle in the diary.
He'll just be the person that works for Paramount Pictures.
[dreamy harp music playing.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
I remember him telling me he wanted to make movies really early on and then got promotions and became a movie producer.
He couldn't have landed a more important job.
His world like ratcheted up, just pow! I think his salary went up 5,000%, and he got this amazing office.
[Rob Lowe.]
The movies made at Paramount speak for themselves.
I mean, that was an incredible, incredible run.
[dreamy harp music continues and intensifies.]
[music softens.]
[director.]
In the diaries, Andy talks about how he couldn't refer to Jon and their personal life after a point, as Jon was in the closet and was afraid.
And so he starts using the word Paramount as a code to refer to Jon.
[soft, upbeat piano music playing.]
[Peter Wise.]
Yeah, that's true.
It became difficult for Jon to be what Andy wanted him to be.
Not so much because Jon didn't want it, I don't think, but more because Jon really was driven professionally and he did view this whole thing as something he couldn't get more than a certain level involved in because it would start affecting his career.
[piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon said he'd call me, and he didn't, which was mean.
I don't know what to do.
["Lookin' For Love" by Johnny Lee plays.]
Playing a fools game, hoping to win [AI Andy.]
I watched Urban Cowboy and John Travolta just dances so beautifully.
and losin' again I was lookin' for love In all the wrong places Lookin' for love in too many faces Searchin' their eyes Lookin' for traces Of what I'm dreaming of [AI Andy.]
It was a Paramount movie.
So that made me think more about Jon.
I'll bless the day I discover another heart [AI Andy.]
And I felt worse.
Lookin' for love [AI Andy.]
I cried myself to sleep.
[soft piano music plays.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
It was just like a melodrama because it's what he put into it that made it so devastating for him because he was afraid of getting old.
[soft piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon was back in town, and he made plans to go away.
So, I guess my whole relationship has fallen apart.
I have to pull myself together and go on.
I have to get a whole new philosophy.
[Chris Makos.]
During that period I remember Andy was a bit off, not fully there sometimes, preoccupied, in the background.
But, I mean, life had to go on outside of their relationship.
[upbeat electric guitar music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Chris is just a perfect friend for me.
He's everything I've ever wanted.
He's pushy, but then he's not pushy and he's a child.
And he goes off to sex parties and comes back with his pipes cleaned.
He makes me feel young.
[Chris Makos.]
People often ask me, "Did you have sex with Andy Warhol?" I get that question so many times.
The answer is no.
This is Christopher Makos.
He's I work for Interview Magazine, Andy's magazine.
[Chris Makos.]
It's a particularly creative period.
It's like, let's bury ourselves in projects to forget the boyfriend.
[upbeat electric guitar music continues.]
The seminal collaboration between Andy and I was the Altered Image series.
- [Chris Makos.]
How does that feel? - [Andy.]
That feels good.
[Chris Makos.]
This was inspired by the Marcel Duchamp/Man Ray collaboration called Rrose Sélavy.
[Andy.]
Man Ray was this wonderful person and he was really cute.
Man Ray.
I can see you through eyelashes, Christopher.
God, must be hard to be a girl.
I know, not for all the money in the world.
[Chris Makos.]
Oh, this is great, Andy.
[Chris Makos.]
The idea of altering someone's image and the idea of Andy opening up his heart to Jon Gould.
These pictures allowed him to be much more open and much more free than he ever was.
Basically, it was about accessing his heart.
[piano music playing.]
[Benjamin Liu.]
In my times with Andy, I never forget that he is actually a homosexual man who came to New York in the '50s and I can't imagine what that's like.
I mean, his idols were Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote.
I mean, he idolized those people, and those were gay men who wrote very important masterpieces.
But some of the characters were actually gay men as a woman character.
Why are you afraid of the truth?! Truth?! [Benjamin Liu.]
I think Andy probably had read them well and understood it, you know, the code language behind it.
You'll just have to pay a retoucher in there, Christopher.
- You should get an airbrush.
- [Chris Makos.]
I like it vérité.
How do you like the Faye Dunaway look? Did you see that? I love the cover of People.
She looks great on there.
Did you see the movie? - You should see the movie.
- I intend to.
[AI Andy.]
Paramount was having a screening of Mommie Dearest.
Oh, this movie affected me so much.
What's happening to me? Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to?! Because I am not one of your fans! [AI Andy.]
I think I identified with Joan is what it is.
[screaming and crashing.]
Mommy! [AI Andy.]
Oh God, I feel like I did when I first came to New York.
I'm going through all the same things.
Being afraid to live alone.
Oh, what should I do? [Chris Makos.]
He was preoccupied with Jon and artists can't really separate their personal life from their artistic life, I don't think.
[soft piano music playing.]
Are they drag photos? It's so tricky to talk about.
- [Andy.]
That's the look.
- Is it? - That's the look, that's it.
- Yeah, definitely.
[camera shuttering.]
[Chris Makos.]
I think he was ready to experience a sense of empowerment.
We were playing with identity.
[camera shuttering and winding.]
And sometimes I think he might have been channeling some of his collectors.
Maybe Nan Kempner, D.
D.
Ryan, Betsy Bloomingdale.
[Chris Makos.]
Do something really elegant with your hands, Andy.
[Jessica Beck.]
It's really his fantasy.
It's wanting to be glamorous, wanting to be powerful.
I think there was a real fascination with female beauty, almost in an envious way.
It's good enough.
It will be good enough for her.
[Jessica Beck.]
Warhol is making his way in New York at a moment when gender politics, how women are presenting in the world, is changing.
[interviewer 3.]
You attract lots of people at the Factory who are in your films, no? The people we use aren't really drag queens.
Because, uh drag queens are people who just sort of dress up for, oh, you know, like eight hours a day or something like that.
And the kind of people we really use are people who think they, uh are really girls and stuff.
So that's sort of different.
- They're exploiting you! You know it! - But I want to do it myself! What are you anyway? A he or a she? I'm young.
I want to be loved.
You've been loved.
You've been loved by me, your own brother.
[Jessica Beck.]
Thinking of his relationship to drag throughout all his work is fascinating.
And then even the Ladies and Gentlemen paintings that he does, there is a specific request for that commission, for a number of canvases, and he almost doubles that.
[Bob Colacello.]
Anselmino presented the idea of this drag queen series, but he said he didn't want beautiful, polished drag queens who actually, like Candy Darling, passed as women.
He said, you know, he wanted these boys that had heavy beards coming through the make-up, you know, five o'clock shadows, um that, like, didn't quite pull it off.
And Andy was like, "Well, Bob has a heavy beard.
" And I was like, "Andy, I'm not doing this, forget it.
" And, maybe I had a couple of vodkas at lunch, I don't really remember.
But I made an attempt to be the subject of this series.
[disco music starting up.]
I was lucky enough to do the make-up for Ladies and Gentlemen.
I had done Bob Colacello, that was the first prototype.
[Chris Makos.]
So, Bob puts on one wig, Andy gets him up against the wall and is trying to make him more effeminate.
Well, Bob just can't it's just not working.
I think it's cute.
[laughs.]
And there's Andy directing.
[Bob Colacello.]
I have no regrets, and I'm not embarrassed by it but it was so unsuccessful, Andy said, "I just can't use this.
" [Chris Makos.]
Between Bob and Andy, they decide, "We gotta get out and go get some real drag queens as opposed to Bob.
" He felt Vincent and I could go get the girls at the Gilded Grape.
[upbeat soul music playing.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
The Gilded Grape was genuinely seedy, but in the good sense.
It could be a little rough trade, a little this, a little that.
That's where the real people were, and Andy wanted real people.
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
I think he was fascinated by them because they were self-invented people, like he was, and they were walking works of art.
[Vincent Fremont.]
I don't remember if we said they were going to be photographed by Andy Warhol, maybe some of them didn't know, but Andy made them feel comfortable and get the shots that he wanted, and plus, for an hour's worth of work or whatever, you got some money.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
In terms of Ladies and Gentlemen, they are colored trans folk mostly and they're paid $50-100 to pose for Warhol to take Polaroids.
And then he makes these paintings.
Now the commission for the paintings was going to pay him about a million dollars and so he's using folks he found outside of the Factory because those folks are probably not going to come back and ask him for payment, or more money when those paintings get sold.
Ladies and Gentlemen as a series, you know, one way to read it is that it's exploitative.
Uh another way to read it is that it's a kind of celebration, but that sort of begs the question, who's throwing the party? You know? So, it's an interesting question about appropriation because I feel like to just say he appropriated their image is to imagine that these trans women had no agency at all, but it doesn't erase the sort of unequal economics of it or the imbalance in power, you know? Well, I love Andy, but I just don't trust him.
[crew member.]
Why? Why? Because he has power.
The burden is on us.
But I wouldn't Normal films, uh, the burden is more on the director.
And I mean, if you're doing a scene and you don't feel well that day, or you can't think of anything to say, it's just too bad.
Maybe you won't do another scene.
[Gigi Williams.]
In a way, he was a puppeteer.
He could get you to do just about anything.
He's the puppeteer and we're all marionettes and that's why he got shot.
Because some people thought that he should have paid them more, that they made him instead of him making them.
I think the burden is just as much on Andy as it is on anyone else, if not more so.
Because that's the name that's mentioned more often.
And if that makes it a burden, well just think how much of a burden it is for the name.
[Glenn Ligon.]
Outside of that, I really do think when people like Marsha P.
Johnson were coming in to sit for him, for the photographs, I think he was feeling it, you know.
I think he was feeling self-invented lives in front of him, people who've really given up a lot to be who they were, and I think that was inspiring for him.
Andy walking on the wild side through these characters that were around him.
I mean, that series functions, I think, on a variety of levels.
It's the most colorful series at that time that Warhol's involved with.
And just the sheer number of paintings in multiple sizes and collages.
But they remain anonymous.
And then it turns out in particular, that one of them is Marsha P.
Johnson.
It's a complicated series without a doubt, but it's a truly creative use of color and shape and form.
[Vincent Fremont.]
I think that series of paintings is so painterly and so full of emotion.
And it wasn't well received.
The paintings disappeared for years.
We had them and I couldn't sell them.
And I said this is one of the most important series that Andy did.
To me, they're really interesting portraits of people in the world Andy was walking through.
[piano music playing.]
[Jessica Beck.]
I think there was a real fascination with people that lived in the world and that kind of freedom to express themselves in that way that Warhol never fully let himself live, in that way.
Take me Into his arms just to break me I've arms of my own [interviewer 4.]
Andy, tell me about that musical.
[Andy.]
You're gonna be in love with this boy.
Oh, that sounds like fun already.
The boy decides to take a trip to Florida.
Florida? Get a good tan in Florida.
- He takes a bus.
- Uh-huh.
And at each bus stop he shaves his legs and puts on a pair of girl's shoes.
And by the time he gets to Florida, he's a girl.
[Chris Makos.]
With enough work, you can make anybody look like anybody, I'm convinced.
[train horn blaring.]
[song kicks in.]
[AI Andy.]
Bob and I went down to Washington, D.
C.
to interview Nancy Reagan for the cover of Interview.
[Bob Colacello.]
I thought it would be a good idea to put Nancy Reagan on our Christmas cover in 1981.
She hadn't really been on the cover of any magazines.
Probably because she was a Republican and to get her together with Andy Warhol is certainly bizarre and interesting.
[AI Andy.]
We were early getting to the White House.
We got in and then Nancy Reagan came in and we were in the same room.
[Bob Colacello.]
It turned out that the combination of Nancy Reagan and Andy Warhol was a little too bizarre for both of them actually.
They were like oil and water.
[AI Andy.]
I took four pictures.
Bob warned me that I couldn't ask her any sex questions.
And I just couldn't believe him.
I mean, did he think I was going to sit there and ask her how often they do it? We talked about drug rehab, and it was boring.
She could have done something really great for the interview, but she didn't.
I got madder and madder thinking about it.
[Glenn Ligon.]
You know, he did the famous poster that was for McGovern.
You know, "Vote McGovern" and the image of Richard Nixon looking like Frankenstein, but Warhol was like a corporation.
He made donations on both sides.
Republicans buy paintings too, you know? [Marc Balet.]
You know, my job wasn't an editor.
I'd have never put this on the cover.
Bob wanted to do it.
I wasn't going to quit over a Nancy Reagan cover.
I just thought you know what an asshole.
[Bob Colacello.]
He didn't like Nancy Reagan, but he understood that by putting Nancy Reagan on the cover, that was such an unexpected thing for Interview that even though a lot of art world people got mad at him and me for doing that, he was used to them being mad at him.
We did get Newsweek.
We did get Time.
We got a lot of coverage.
[AI Andy.]
Bob and I got a cab to the airport.
But Chris Makos is having his show for Altered Images out in California.
And it's going to have his photographs of me in drag.
So just when we finally get Mrs.
Reagan for the cover, these pictures are going to be publicized.
Time and Newsweek will probably pick it up.
And my whole reputation will be ruined.
[fax machine clicking and whirring.]
And then I saw a telex from Jon Gould and it was a really nice note.
He's back in New York.
And then I felt great.
[upbeat music playing.]
I met up with Jon and we had a serious talk.
He was in his running suit, and he apologized for not calling.
[soft piano music playing.]
But he said maybe we could work things out.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[soft piano music continues.]
I decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at home two days early.
I told Jon and Christopher and Peter to come at 8:00.
Peter makes the best pumpkin pie.
We overate.
And we played Christmas tapes.
It was fascination [AI Andy.]
Then we went upstairs and Chris pushed all the furniture around.
And we played charades.
I still want Jon to move in Just a passing glance because then we'd see what happens from there.
romance And I might have gone on my way [AI Andy.]
And then around 10:30 we decided to go to Studio 54.
It was fascination ["Fascination" by Nat King Cole morphs into dance music.]
[AI Andy.]
I watched Jon go out there and jump and bounce and I thought, well, I can do that too.
And then I went on the dance floor and danced every dance.
[dance music playing.]
And the reason I've now just begun to dance is because I finally realized that nobody really notices you.
It's one thing I've picked up from Jon So, now I'll be dancing.
Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance [AI Andy.]
And then I heard that Jed was there.
So, I guess Jed saw me dancing too.
He could have gotten me dancing all those years.
That's something he could have done for me.
And then I danced with Pat.
And I just never knew I could do it before.
Ooh, what a treat, feels so sweet Ahh, that body heat When I'm dancin' with my baby Drives me crazy Makes me hazy Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing
[AI Andy.]
I went down to the office because they were making a robot of me.
[news reporter.]
Andy Warhol once said, "I want to be a machine," and now his wish is finally coming true.
Warhol is being mechanically cloned.
[electronic futuristic cello added to the violin playing.]
[AI Andy.]
I got into the chair that the robot people brought.
We had to sit around for an hour so they could study my face to see if I would make a good robot.
[music continues.]
They did the back of my head.
And they put a wig hat on me.
They put gook on and covered my ears and eyes.
They said, "Pinch me if you want to get out of it.
" It was making me sick.
It was awful.
They finally took the mold off, but then they dropped it.
And then they said they might have to do another one.
And I said, "No, you're not.
" I was thinking, "Oh, why did I agree to do this?" [electricity buzzing.]
When I was having all the fights with Jed, and he moved out, I couldn't face talking about it.
[soft piano music playing.]
But now, I don't want to be alone in this big house.
And when I see myself, I think, "How will I ever find someone?" I just have to be in love now.
[soft piano music continues.]
Or I'll go crazy.
I just have to feel something.
[opening music: "Nature Boy" by Nat King Cole.]
There was a boy A very strange enchanted boy They say he wandered very far Very far Over land and sea A little shy And sad of eye But very wise Was he The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return [distant city sounds.]
[soft piano music playing.]
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
Andy found a lot of his source material in cheap newspaper advertisements, and this comes from a classified ad section of the newspaper where it's advertising plastic surgery.
It's a woman in profile before her nose job and after.
Before and after is so big as a theme in Andy Warhol.
So, first it's very personal.
It's about his own insecurities about how he looked and his nose that might have been a little bit too thick, but then it's much bigger because it's so much about America.
There's this desire to become a real American, to go from immigrant boy Andrew Warhola to Andy Warhol.
And to absorb the culture and look like the handsome WASPy guys he wished that he could get to talk to.
[director.]
Principal among those, Jon Gould.
Yes.
Jed Johnson, Jon Gould, yes.
You know, his American ideal and his own fantasy of becoming like one of these young WASPy men and getting into that circle.
So, like many of Andy's images, it starts with something quite personal, but then it becomes universal.
It's this whole American fantasy that you can recreate yourself and become who you dreamed about.
[piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Have I told the diary I've decided to become a male model? Fred gets so overwrought.
He thinks I'm crazy to start modeling.
But it's something I want to do.
So, I ignored him.
And now I've been thinking all my problems come from feeling old.
And I'm seeing all these young kids just budding.
So, I've pinpointed the problem.
[piano music continues.]
[Marc Balet.]
I don't think Andy saw himself as a great beauty, but he liked having great beauties around him.
And I was working for two agencies at the time, for Zoli and for Ford's.
Zoli Models was the hippest modeling agency in the world.
Fashion.
[synth pop starts playing.]
[Zoli.]
I would say, of the new people that walk into this agency for an interview, the chance of them being accepted is between two and five percent.
It's a competitive field.
There's a reason some of us are successful.
A professional male model.
What is my idea of one? Work it out, 'cause I've got dreams [Marc Balet.]
I said, "You want Andy to be the model?" He said, "Yes!" We wait for a love I can feel It doesn't seem [Marc Balet.]
Who'd turn Andy Warhol down? It's too hilarious.
He was thrilled.
He was Andy Warhol, the model.
To take control [Andy.]
I became a ZOLI model and I do runway work so I won't be so nervous.
[interviewer 1.]
What's runway? Runway is when you put clothes on and you run down the runway.
Models sell an image, and the image that they sell is a creation of both the way they look and what they do with it.
It's sometimes easier said than done And wait for [male model 3.]
I would see somebody who I might think had better eyes or maybe a better smile, something that used to bug me as I'd go home and try to smile like the other model.
And it doesn't work, you have to be yourself.
you'll never know When he was a male model, he's not like the others.
He's older and he's Andy Warhol.
You can't hide who it is.
For better or worse, he stuck his neck out.
[interviewer 2.]
You're in every magazine.
You pick one up, there's Andy Warhol.
- Have you gotten paid yet? - Yes, I did get paid.
Yes.
[music fades.]
[AI Andy.]
Fred is still furious.
He said I should be getting thousands for endorsing products.
Not working for a modeling fee.
I think it's funny to be just another pretty face in the Zoli book.
I told him to lighten up.
[Andy.]
Um I'm in a modeling career right now.
And, um, I did two runway shows.
I did, um something in GQ, and uh, I hear that you have to sleep with somebody to get on the cover.
So, um I'm willing to do that.
[Marc Balet.]
I don't think he was making fun of it.
He might have been making fun of himself a little bit.
The fact that he was modeling like, "Well, I guess anyone can do it.
" [soft, dreamy music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
With the male models, all the really straight-looking models are gay.
And all the really gay-looking models are straight.
Christopher and I decided that we should tell people, despite how we look and talk, that we're not gay.
Because then they don't know what to do with you.
[Bob Colacello.]
He was definitely out there.
I think he was putting himself in a more precarious position than he had allowed himself to be in maybe since the '60s, pre-shooting.
And he didn't look good as that's also when he was getting anorexic.
People would say to me, "Andy looks really skinny," and, "Is there something wrong with him?" [Jessica Beck.]
He's very conscious of his weight.
He's actually talking about it in the diaries.
"I'm too thin.
Maybe I shouldn't be this thin.
" And it's another side of him that's kept very private.
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
I'm 115 pounds now.
I can feel my nerves creaking against my bones.
But that's not the problem.
It really isn't.
I look better thin.
[Andy.]
From the day I met you to now, you look the same.
- Yeah, people - You do look the same.
- Yeah, you do! - We can't notice the changes.
I'll take photographs of us.
- Oh no.
- You'll see the difference.
I was looking at one of you just recently.
- You look much younger.
- Because I'm much thinner now.
I think, uh I like the way I look now better than I did then.
Okay, you can lose a certain amount.
You are too thin now, if I may say.
- Since I'm a model now, I've decided - Since you're alone? - No, since I'm a model.
- Oh, go ahead.
[AI Andy.]
I guess I should try not to think so much about looks.
But I'm not thinking too much about looks.
I never do.
I like ugly people.
I really do.
And anyway, ugly people are just as hard to get as pretty people.
They don't want you either.
[Bob Colacello.]
I don't know.
Andy just wanted to be beautiful in the worst way and knew he wasn't.
And that was an ongoing pain.
[oboe plays.]
[chattering and general hubbub.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
Now for the story of another beginning and an ending, the inauguration of the new president, the departure of his predecessor.
[AI Andy.]
Bob got us invited to the inauguration.
[80s synth pop playing.]
And we went down to D.
C.
He said we were invited to the right parties.
So, I was excited.
[Bob Colacello.]
He didn't like Reagan.
He was definitely a liberal democrat.
But as much as Andy resented the fact that his guy lost, Carter, the Reagan inauguration, it was like the Super Bowl of politics.
Blue eyed, dressed for every situation [AI Andy.]
The driver picked us up at 10:00 in the morning.
He got us as close to the Capitol as he could.
I was taking pictures.
[Warren Burger.]
the Office of President of the United States.
That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.
[AI Andy.]
We had binoculars.
I focused on Rosalynn.
She looked so unhappy.
We are Americans.
- God bless you and thank you.
- [crowd applauds.]
Thank you very much.
[applause.]
[AI Andy.]
Listening to the inaugural address, you get fired up.
[fireworks exploding.]
And I felt like being a Republican.
- [crowd cheering.]
- [patriotic music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
But then when it was over and you looked around at the faces on all the Republicans, I was glad I'm a Democrat.
There really is a difference.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[Bob Colacello.]
For me, Ronald Reagan and Andy Warhol, they were two sides of the same late 20th century American coin.
Andy Warhol was the avatar of the 1960s counterculture.
He was the symbol, the icon.
He was the prophet of that, and the starting point of '80s culture is the election of Ronald Reagan.
[soft synth music playing.]
Through the '70s, Warhol was less known as an artist than as the scene maker of scene makers.
We published Andy Warhol's Interview, he was seen at every party.
But in the '80s, was he actually making art? This was an open question.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
By the '80s, Andy was considered to be from a previous era.
He made all this money, but he was still so maligned by the critics.
[camera clicks.]
From a career point of view, any artist that goes down and comes back three times are the greatest artists.
So Andy, like Muhammad Ali, went down a lot.
They're still saying he is commercial, talking shit all day long.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
What I found fascinating about Andy is that he had the ability to reinvent and rediscover himself, where he would just go, "Ah, well, I'll just move into a new generation.
" [announcer.]
It's Andy Warhol's T.
V.
We have the best parts of New York on our show tonight.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
Andy Warhol TV was an idea we talked about at night for fun, you know.
And uh, I thought we were just joking.
Andy kind of liked the chaos of, "Let's just see what will happen.
" [laughing.]
[synth pop playing.]
Andy Warhol created Wayne's World.
[laughing.]
He really did.
It was Andy Warhol's literal cable access show that was ostensibly done in his basement and he followed his muses, you know, and whatever interested him.
In many ways, I've been inspired by artists as much as by musicians.
He loved television and I think that was why he always wanted the TV show, and people would come because of him.
[synth pop continues.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
We were kind of the visual Interview.
And he says that's one of the reasons why I'm called Sting.
See? I didn't even know that.
[Vincent Fremont.]
But we also wanted to do music videos.
I'm feeling in a shaky frame of mind He created a lot of this culture that MTV was about.
And we have the rock and roll band, Duran Duran.
I think there's going to be a lot of interest, just because Andy's involved.
I think people are going to be expecting something different.
[Kenny Scharf.]
It was the perfect venue for him to take everything he was in '60s and kind of take it up into the '80s, which was about video.
We're waiting for Mr.
Warhol.
Everything was spur-of-the-moment, no plan, no thought, you know.
[frantic keyboard playing.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
It had a sense of subversion, sort of unapologetic, tons of attitude and edge.
[Betsey Johnson.]
I was real interested in the exact opposite of what I grew up with, which was real white WASP straight stuff.
So, I really liked anything sicko.
[laughs.]
[Andy.]
Mariel Hemingway is our cover story, and I interview her, and I catch her in the midst of her critical acclaim for her portrayal of a lesbian athlete in Robert Towne's Personal Best.
[Mariel Hemingway.]
They were cutting edge.
They were doing things differently.
They were experimenting in a way to make a statement, to say this is who we are, and I represent this group of humans who are not seen.
[Jim Fouratt.]
I mean, you look a certain way, you wore makeup in areas when it wasn't popular to do it.
[Marc Almond.]
Anybody who wants to do anything their own way has to be prepared to take a lot of knocks and a lot of people being very bitchy and a lot of people being very violent.
[frantic keyboard continues.]
Even though he decidedly crafted a persona which took sex out of the picture, he was able to put people that played with that space on a pedestal.
It's great to go and see somebody that really makes it and we went backstage to see his play called Torch Song Trilogy.
And he's the star of it too.
[Harvey Fierstein.]
I am gay.
I assume everyone else is until they tell me otherwise.
But that image has to be really strong because it's gotta last the audience four hours.
They can never forget what that persona is.
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
The invention of this interview journalism and then this whole phenomenon of reality TV, so much that's central to our culture, you can trace back to Andy Warhol.
[Tama Janowitz.]
He had fun every freakin' minute.
He made any artwork he wanted to create.
He went to all the places in the world he wanted to go to.
But his loneliness was profound.
He was heartbroken when him and Jed broke up.
I mean, that I think was just terrible and I don't think he even had another boyfriend after that.
[director.]
Did you ever meet Jon Gould? Who? I feel like Woodward and Bernstein.
Like, okay, this is my story and my life, You know what I mean? [Jessica Beck.]
Reading about Jon Gould was like like this whole other window had opened, and that no one talks about.
No one wants to talk about the Jon Gould story.
[soft keyboard music playing.]
When you read that very beginning courting with Jon, it happens right after Jed moves out.
[AI Andy.]
I sent roses to Jon Gould, the gay executive at Paramount Pictures that Chris introduced me to.
I want him to advertise in Interview Magazine.
[Bob Colacello.]
My take on the Jon Gould thing was like, Andy started sending roses like the day after Jed left.
He made a major U-turn between Jed and Jon Gould, all within a matter of a week.
[Vincent Fremont.]
In 1980, Jed and Andy had the break-up.
That Christmas, Andy was not himself.
And I knew how he acted normally.
He had one or two more drinks than he'd have normally had, and he just wasn't happy.
So when he meets Jon Gould, he is lonely.
He wants to have a love affair, attention.
Christopher supplied it.
Well, Andy said, "Help me find a boyfriend.
" All my friends at the time had those Rolexes and Cartier watches.
And I thought the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso watch was cool.
I wanted one, didn't have the money for it.
So I said, "You get me the watch and I'll get you the boyfriend.
" Uh, good question, who was Jon Gould? ["How I Need Your Love" by The Extremes starts playing.]
Here I stand, alone in misery [Chris Makos.]
Jon Gould was a young executive at Paramount Pictures, and Andy was lonely, and I thought, you know, this could be a nice match.
Oh my darling Oh my little darling [AI Andy.]
Went to the party for Chris Makos, and Jon Gould was there.
He tries to play it macho.
I think the roses I've been sending him at work are making him embarrassed.
So, I'd better stop.
It was like, "Okay, all you kids said that I wasn't nice to Jed.
I didn't show my emotions.
So now with Jon Gould, I'm telling him I'm in love.
I'm sending him roses every day.
" Andy really made a big impression very quickly.
"I like you.
I want to be around you.
" He would shower him with stuff.
Can't break these chains that [Jessica Beck.]
There definitely was an early interest and a very intense courting period with Jon.
But clearly Jon is pretty resistant for a while in the beginning.
[song fades out.]
[Chris Makos.]
Does it work when you walk with it? [Andy.]
Not in the movie camera.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
Jon's presentation of his sexuality was, to me, that he wasn't out yet, and as a young woman, you always know.
[laughing.]
Most people know.
I think '80 is when he met Christopher, started going to the baths and we would talk about that, and I would just go, "Ugh!" And I'm not judging it.
I'm just saying it was happening.
And I think how any one person went in and out of it would be very personal.
And I think Jon dipped in and then came out and it was like confusion, really deep confusion.
I remember he showed up at my apartment one night and he was really upset with himself.
I think he'd been over on the river.
[piano music continues.]
And he was questioning, where does this get you? I think Andy offered another lifestyle, another stability there.
[AI Andy.]
It's confusing because Jon tries to keep a straight image.
He tells me that he's not gay.
That he can't.
But, I mean [Bob Colacello.]
He also had a double life.
I mean, with certain people he was not gay.
With other people, he was gay.
[Jessica Beck.]
He operated in this world as very masculine.
He could pass as straight and Warhol was fascinated by this.
[AI Andy.]
We ran into Donald Trump, who owns the building company.
I chit-chatted with his wife and Jon chit-chatted with Trump.
I love going out with Jon because it's like going out on a real date.
He's tall and strong and I feel like he can take care of me.
And it's exciting because he acts straight.
So, I'm sure people think that he is.
[waves rippling.]
[Bob Colacello.]
Jon was from this very old WASPy family that went back to the 17th century in this little town in Massachusetts.
It was a big part of his identity.
It's a corner of America A picture from our past It's quiet towns and rolling hills Where time slows down at last The spirit of Massachusetts Is the spirit of America The spirit of the red, white, and blue The spirit of Massachusetts Is the spirit of America A beach house tour.
This is our pool.
[synth music playing.]
[Jay Gould.]
We always looked the same.
It was amazing, but I was probably more normal.
He was the coolest person around, the person everybody wanted to be.
He was the James Dean.
He was the James Dean.
[synth music continues.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
They were this family that basically is this town, the royalty of their town, and he always made his family proud.
And that was what, in a small town, from a family like that, he was supposed to do.
[Bob Colacello.]
There's this fascination with the Mayflower elite.
There's this fascination with twins, which is very pop art repetition, you know, Andy loved repetition.
And the fact that he could act straight or be half straight and half gay, that too fascinated Andy.
I thought he was kind of like a yuppie, you know, like a young professional.
It's not a put-down because that's the word, but he's a young professional.
It's kind of different, I would imagine, of what an Andy boyfriend should be like, maybe in my mind.
[Bob Colacello.]
The '80s, I think for Andy, it was a style shift, and [laughing.]
you know, he liked preppy-looking boys.
[Andy.]
The things that we did this week, we went up to Columbia University's boat house to visit Steve Kiesling, and he's an author of The Shell Game, and, uh it's an obsession on rowing.
[light orchestral music playing.]
[synth beat kicks in.]
Well, I think the party's just getting started.
[Bob Colacello.]
The preppy style was business style.
I mean, the preppy style was Brooks Brothers style.
It was a corporate style.
It was WASP style.
It's ridiculous to refer to a man as a preppy.
And none of the other terms people use, WASP, PLU, etc.
are much use either.
Well, the term WASP is White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, but it's just sort of an affiliation.
It really shouldn't be thought of in those terms.
You are if you think you are.
It's like a self-identifying thing.
[soft piano music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Everyone tells me they like my hair this new way.
I cut it every day.
It's almost a crew cut.
I'm wearing all of Jed's leftover clothes, the ones he left behind.
I'm so skinny they fit me now.
[piano music continues.]
[Andy.]
Why are they making flowers not smell anymore? [C.
Z.
Guest.]
Well, they lose that.
Let's say you gain disease resistance for a rose.
Maybe to gain that they have to lose some of the fragrance.
- [Andy.]
Oh really? - [C.
Z.
Guest.]
This is the trouble.
When you gain something, you have to sacrifice something else.
I feel very well.
- Very healthy and happy.
- Oh, that's good.
[Andy.]
You know, I saw Cornelia a couple times in New York, and she looks, wow, she looks terrific.
[AI Andy.]
Fred said I dress like the kids I hang around with now.
He likes it.
I guess the preppy look really is big because of The Preppy Handbook.
You can be a preppy because it is a mania that is sweeping the country, thanks in large part to Lisa Birnbach.
She's the editor of The Preppy Handbook, which now has sold about a million copies.
[Lisa Birnbach.]
Our language was very strong.
This is good.
This is bad.
You know, it's very, very imperative.
So, if you used The Preppy Handbook as a primer, you could get pretty far.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Bob Colacello.]
And then of course there's the whole sexuality aspect.
It was sex back in the closet, it was like you didn't talk about sex.
There's right and wrong, there's black and white.
So, this is Jon Gould.
That's his appearance in The Preppy Handbook.
Jon Gould was introduced as this great find because he was so good-looking, and he was so preppy.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
I think I know so many gay men who absolutely look like that.
And that was like classic.
I think every gay man I knew in the '70s and '80s tied their sweater around their neck.
[soft piano music continues.]
[Lisa Birnbach.]
The Preppy Handbook speaks so powerfully to the gay community, And I wonder about that.
Maybe you could explain it to me.
[director.]
In a sense, there are so many rules that maybe it's comforting on a certain level to sort of say this is a manual of how to pass.
Yes yes! I just got that.
So, I'm going to take this book and I'm going to dress like a man from a very wealthy suburb, and nobody will know.
You put on that blazer, and you're suddenly from a good family, and you're suddenly straight.
- Wow.
- [laughing.]
[Lisa Birnbach on TV.]
Well, I had fun with it.
I am a preppy, I'm legitimate, but I did mean for the book to be amusing and to make people laugh.
[Tom Brokaw.]
But some people are using it as a manual! Well, good.
That's fine with me.
I know people take it into the closet and say everything that's not in the closet, out.
It's a matter of choice how you perceive it.
[director.]
So much has changed in the last 40 years.
In reading the language of what's taboo and what's deviant feels particularly wrong.
[soft piano music continues.]
[Lisa Birnbach.]
"Sex roles for men and women are well defined, and while a bit of eccentricity may be dismissed in sartorial matters, deviation from the sexual norm is absolutely taboo.
" Whoa! Brutal.
And two of the writers were gay men.
How do you like that? Well, I'm sorry to say, this is just very much a product of its time.
I don't know if you would look at Jon Gould, and say, that's a gay guy, and that may be because he didn't want it to be known.
[Jay Gould.]
It was not generally socially acceptable to be gay.
And people suffered when people found out.
So, they tried to keep it a secret.
So, it would be almost like they were friends, not lovers, in public.
- Stop it! Come on.
- [Andy.]
Stop what? Invading my privacy.
Please.
Come on.
[dreamy music playing.]
[car engine rumbling.]
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon and I went to see the movie Excalibur about King Arthur.
I will love you always.
I will love you as my queen and as the wife of my best friend.
[AI Andy.]
The sex scenes were a little corny, but beautifully done.
I will love no other.
[AI Andy.]
He had his armor on when they were having sex and then the focus was soft.
[dreamy music continues.]
After the movie, we walked back home.
I had given Jon a rabbit puppet and he was waving at people with it.
And someone yelled, "Gay boy!" at me, and that was funny.
[Katy Dobbs.]
You know, I think Jon was initially really kind of surprised at how much he liked him as a person.
[dreamy music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
I cooked an early Easter dinner.
Jon brought me an Easter basket.
It was kind of plain.
Jon brought his dirty laundry to wash while he visited.
I told him I have a nice clean washing machine.
I gave him a tour of the whole house to impress him and I was hinting like crazy that it could all be his.
That there was a room with his name on it.
[Katy Dobbs.]
Jon always felt like he got a crash course in so many things quickly with Andy.
His small world just blew open, you know.
Who's the most New York person you can think of? Who else knows everybody? Who else can go anywhere? Andy Warhol.
It was, uh, seductive.
It was definitely seductive.
[disco dance music kicking in.]
Let's go.
Come on, we have to go.
It's late.
["Steal Away" by Robbie Dupree playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon Gould called and said he was waiting for Christopher to come pick him up to go to Cape Cod.
I'm so ready, I can't believe it.
Come on and hold me Just like you told me Then show me What I want to know [Andy.]
Oh, it's so beautiful! Why don't we steal away Why don't we steal away Into the night - [song fades out.]
- [plane humming.]
[Chris Makos.]
Jonny! You're not three feet away.
Hey! The point of going there was to cement the relationship between Jon and Andy, and we thought it'd be fun to get away and go on a small weekend together.
Jon's relationship with Andy, and the four of us doing things together, we were just four guys hanging out.
And Andy was just one of the guys and I think that was something that he really appreciated as I don't think he had that experience too much in his life.
And we really all felt that it was just kind of fun.
- [Jon Gould.]
Knock, knock! - [Andy.]
Who's there? - Orange.
- [Andy.]
Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say apple again? [dreamy guitar music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Peter took us to his house and he gave us a tour of the place.
And we got room assignments.
[chattering.]
Then Peter and Christopher took us around to show us the town.
[radio music mix playing.]
then you softly leave And it's me you need to show How deep is your love? How deep is your love? I really mean to learn [Andy.]
I want it on camera, come on, Jon! 'Cause we're living In a world of fools Breaking us down When they all should let us be [AI Andy.]
And then Vincent and Shelly finally arrived.
We belong to you and me [Shelly Fremont.]
See how much better it looks? Let's go for a ride! Jon's brother has a car like this.
It's the exact car, yeah.
- [Vincent Fremont.]
So it must be perfect.
- It's perfect.
[AI Andy.]
I saw this big boat on the water that was half painted, and it was so pretty and such a nutty boat and it looked like we could have a party on it.
How deep is your love? I really mean to learn [AI Andy.]
And Jon wore the set of pearls I gave him that go down to the ground and it looked sort of beautiful on him.
He looked like a deep-sea fisherman.
When they all should let us be We belong to you and me [Andy.]
Here's Mildred's.
The chowder house.
[AI Andy.]
Peter bought chowder at Mildred's Chowder House in Hyannis, which they say is the best chowder place in all of New England, and we all ate fried clams and fried fish and lots of ketchup and milkshakes and Frappes.
- Chowder.
- "Chowdah.
" [AI Andy.]
And then we fed the swans and the ducks with Wonder Bread that Christopher bought.
Come on! [Jon Gould.]
You always have to dip it in the water first.
[dreamy electric guitar music playing.]
[Andy.]
Oh, this is so great! Oh, give me a piece of bread.
[Shelly Fremont.]
Duckies! [AI Andy.]
Then we drove home.
- Where? We're home? - [Andy.]
Uh-huh, we're here.
[woman screams.]
- Hi! - Hi! - Hi! - [Andy.]
What're you both doing? We're taking a bath so we can get ready for the lobster dinner! - We've been rudely interrupted here! - [laughing.]
[Peter Wise.]
The thing that I remember about those days and those kind of things was the intimacy of the gathering.
Everybody already was sort of leaving their public personas at the door when they would enter into these smaller things.
If it's a Paramount film, it's the best show in town! [Peter Wise.]
Andy used to call me up, after he'd gotten home at night and say, "Oh, it's so good to take my Andy suit off.
" They call me a fool For falling in love with you They call me a fool To think that you care [Andy.]
You guys have the same haircut, I just realized that! - [friend.]
I could scream! - Aww! Go on, kiss it, kiss my finger.
Make it better, come on.
- [friend.]
Kiss the bread! - [friend.]
Make it good bread.
Oh my God! You missed all the action! [AI Andy.]
Peter and I went into another room to talk and while we were doing that, we heard all this commotion in the background.
And when we went in, there was a big water pistol fight.
[rock and roll music playing.]
Shelly and Jon were winning.
They were sneaks.
[rock and roll music intensifies.]
Then Christopher slapped Jon right in the face.
It was so dramatic.
We just couldn't believe it.
And Jon just stood there taking it.
But he said it didn't hurt.
And he thought it was all in fun.
And he told me that he has to win at everything.
And that if he wants it, he gets it.
And if he doesn't want it, he doesn't care.
But he has to decide he wants it.
When Christopher slapped him, I think he really liked it.
I think he really does want to get slapped.
[music crescendos and cuts.]
And then it all calmed down.
"But he has to decide he wants it, and then that's all he wants.
" "When Chris slapped him, I think Jon really liked it.
" [sighs.]
Do you see how complicated and intricate this is? [laughs.]
"I think he really does want to get slapped.
And then it all calmed down.
" I mean, this sounds like it's something more out of a Fire Island diary story than something out of real life.
Andy was a master of creativity and I guess in his relationship with Jon here and there, he had to create tension and excitement.
And for sure this is tension and excitement and creativity.
[soft piano music playing.]
[Jessica Beck.]
That idea of tension around intimacy is something that I read in the work throughout all of his career.
And so that tension isn't just about desiring Jon's body or desiring this younger man in his life, it's more complex for Warhol, there's a tension around Warhol's religion, his faith, his lived experience as a gay man wanting to be seen as normal, wanting to be seen with this man who can pass.
[Peter Wise.]
Andy and Jon stayed up in just one bedroom, and my parents had Republican beds, uh separated by a night table, and when I went up to make the beds after they left, they'd gotten rid of the night table and smooshed the beds together.
I thought that was sweet.
Oh, I that I really have no idea.
I mean, that I don't know.
[Bob Colacello.]
The Jon Gould relationship was Andy trying so hard to believe he was capable of love or that he could have an actual real relationship that was not just sexual or not just asexual but was like, romantic, emotional, and hopefully sexual too.
But the sexual part, I always feel, as a journalist, you never really know about.
Hi! Here we are! [soft piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon called his family in Amesbury, and he said his grandfather had had a stroke.
So instead of going back with us to New York, he wanted us to drop him off in Amesbury.
Took the plane ride back from Hyannis to LaGuardia.
And all of a sudden the plane actually really did flip over.
And I didn't care if we would have killed ourselves because I was so unhappy.
I thought that this trip would bring some progress with Jon, but it didn't.
Oh, but from now on I can't talk personally about Jon to the diary because when I told him I did, he got mad and told me not ever to do it again, that if I ever put anything personal about him in the diary, he'd stop seeing me.
So, from now on, it'll be just the business angle in the diary.
He'll just be the person that works for Paramount Pictures.
[dreamy harp music playing.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[Katy Dobbs.]
I remember him telling me he wanted to make movies really early on and then got promotions and became a movie producer.
He couldn't have landed a more important job.
His world like ratcheted up, just pow! I think his salary went up 5,000%, and he got this amazing office.
[Rob Lowe.]
The movies made at Paramount speak for themselves.
I mean, that was an incredible, incredible run.
[dreamy harp music continues and intensifies.]
[music softens.]
[director.]
In the diaries, Andy talks about how he couldn't refer to Jon and their personal life after a point, as Jon was in the closet and was afraid.
And so he starts using the word Paramount as a code to refer to Jon.
[soft, upbeat piano music playing.]
[Peter Wise.]
Yeah, that's true.
It became difficult for Jon to be what Andy wanted him to be.
Not so much because Jon didn't want it, I don't think, but more because Jon really was driven professionally and he did view this whole thing as something he couldn't get more than a certain level involved in because it would start affecting his career.
[piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon said he'd call me, and he didn't, which was mean.
I don't know what to do.
["Lookin' For Love" by Johnny Lee plays.]
Playing a fools game, hoping to win [AI Andy.]
I watched Urban Cowboy and John Travolta just dances so beautifully.
and losin' again I was lookin' for love In all the wrong places Lookin' for love in too many faces Searchin' their eyes Lookin' for traces Of what I'm dreaming of [AI Andy.]
It was a Paramount movie.
So that made me think more about Jon.
I'll bless the day I discover another heart [AI Andy.]
And I felt worse.
Lookin' for love [AI Andy.]
I cried myself to sleep.
[soft piano music plays.]
[camera clicks and whirs.]
It was just like a melodrama because it's what he put into it that made it so devastating for him because he was afraid of getting old.
[soft piano music continues.]
[AI Andy.]
Jon was back in town, and he made plans to go away.
So, I guess my whole relationship has fallen apart.
I have to pull myself together and go on.
I have to get a whole new philosophy.
[Chris Makos.]
During that period I remember Andy was a bit off, not fully there sometimes, preoccupied, in the background.
But, I mean, life had to go on outside of their relationship.
[upbeat electric guitar music playing.]
[AI Andy.]
Chris is just a perfect friend for me.
He's everything I've ever wanted.
He's pushy, but then he's not pushy and he's a child.
And he goes off to sex parties and comes back with his pipes cleaned.
He makes me feel young.
[Chris Makos.]
People often ask me, "Did you have sex with Andy Warhol?" I get that question so many times.
The answer is no.
This is Christopher Makos.
He's I work for Interview Magazine, Andy's magazine.
[Chris Makos.]
It's a particularly creative period.
It's like, let's bury ourselves in projects to forget the boyfriend.
[upbeat electric guitar music continues.]
The seminal collaboration between Andy and I was the Altered Image series.
- [Chris Makos.]
How does that feel? - [Andy.]
That feels good.
[Chris Makos.]
This was inspired by the Marcel Duchamp/Man Ray collaboration called Rrose Sélavy.
[Andy.]
Man Ray was this wonderful person and he was really cute.
Man Ray.
I can see you through eyelashes, Christopher.
God, must be hard to be a girl.
I know, not for all the money in the world.
[Chris Makos.]
Oh, this is great, Andy.
[Chris Makos.]
The idea of altering someone's image and the idea of Andy opening up his heart to Jon Gould.
These pictures allowed him to be much more open and much more free than he ever was.
Basically, it was about accessing his heart.
[piano music playing.]
[Benjamin Liu.]
In my times with Andy, I never forget that he is actually a homosexual man who came to New York in the '50s and I can't imagine what that's like.
I mean, his idols were Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote.
I mean, he idolized those people, and those were gay men who wrote very important masterpieces.
But some of the characters were actually gay men as a woman character.
Why are you afraid of the truth?! Truth?! [Benjamin Liu.]
I think Andy probably had read them well and understood it, you know, the code language behind it.
You'll just have to pay a retoucher in there, Christopher.
- You should get an airbrush.
- [Chris Makos.]
I like it vérité.
How do you like the Faye Dunaway look? Did you see that? I love the cover of People.
She looks great on there.
Did you see the movie? - You should see the movie.
- I intend to.
[AI Andy.]
Paramount was having a screening of Mommie Dearest.
Oh, this movie affected me so much.
What's happening to me? Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to?! Because I am not one of your fans! [AI Andy.]
I think I identified with Joan is what it is.
[screaming and crashing.]
Mommy! [AI Andy.]
Oh God, I feel like I did when I first came to New York.
I'm going through all the same things.
Being afraid to live alone.
Oh, what should I do? [Chris Makos.]
He was preoccupied with Jon and artists can't really separate their personal life from their artistic life, I don't think.
[soft piano music playing.]
Are they drag photos? It's so tricky to talk about.
- [Andy.]
That's the look.
- Is it? - That's the look, that's it.
- Yeah, definitely.
[camera shuttering.]
[Chris Makos.]
I think he was ready to experience a sense of empowerment.
We were playing with identity.
[camera shuttering and winding.]
And sometimes I think he might have been channeling some of his collectors.
Maybe Nan Kempner, D.
D.
Ryan, Betsy Bloomingdale.
[Chris Makos.]
Do something really elegant with your hands, Andy.
[Jessica Beck.]
It's really his fantasy.
It's wanting to be glamorous, wanting to be powerful.
I think there was a real fascination with female beauty, almost in an envious way.
It's good enough.
It will be good enough for her.
[Jessica Beck.]
Warhol is making his way in New York at a moment when gender politics, how women are presenting in the world, is changing.
[interviewer 3.]
You attract lots of people at the Factory who are in your films, no? The people we use aren't really drag queens.
Because, uh drag queens are people who just sort of dress up for, oh, you know, like eight hours a day or something like that.
And the kind of people we really use are people who think they, uh are really girls and stuff.
So that's sort of different.
- They're exploiting you! You know it! - But I want to do it myself! What are you anyway? A he or a she? I'm young.
I want to be loved.
You've been loved.
You've been loved by me, your own brother.
[Jessica Beck.]
Thinking of his relationship to drag throughout all his work is fascinating.
And then even the Ladies and Gentlemen paintings that he does, there is a specific request for that commission, for a number of canvases, and he almost doubles that.
[Bob Colacello.]
Anselmino presented the idea of this drag queen series, but he said he didn't want beautiful, polished drag queens who actually, like Candy Darling, passed as women.
He said, you know, he wanted these boys that had heavy beards coming through the make-up, you know, five o'clock shadows, um that, like, didn't quite pull it off.
And Andy was like, "Well, Bob has a heavy beard.
" And I was like, "Andy, I'm not doing this, forget it.
" And, maybe I had a couple of vodkas at lunch, I don't really remember.
But I made an attempt to be the subject of this series.
[disco music starting up.]
I was lucky enough to do the make-up for Ladies and Gentlemen.
I had done Bob Colacello, that was the first prototype.
[Chris Makos.]
So, Bob puts on one wig, Andy gets him up against the wall and is trying to make him more effeminate.
Well, Bob just can't it's just not working.
I think it's cute.
[laughs.]
And there's Andy directing.
[Bob Colacello.]
I have no regrets, and I'm not embarrassed by it but it was so unsuccessful, Andy said, "I just can't use this.
" [Chris Makos.]
Between Bob and Andy, they decide, "We gotta get out and go get some real drag queens as opposed to Bob.
" He felt Vincent and I could go get the girls at the Gilded Grape.
[upbeat soul music playing.]
[Vincent Fremont.]
The Gilded Grape was genuinely seedy, but in the good sense.
It could be a little rough trade, a little this, a little that.
That's where the real people were, and Andy wanted real people.
[Jeffrey Deitch.]
I think he was fascinated by them because they were self-invented people, like he was, and they were walking works of art.
[Vincent Fremont.]
I don't remember if we said they were going to be photographed by Andy Warhol, maybe some of them didn't know, but Andy made them feel comfortable and get the shots that he wanted, and plus, for an hour's worth of work or whatever, you got some money.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
In terms of Ladies and Gentlemen, they are colored trans folk mostly and they're paid $50-100 to pose for Warhol to take Polaroids.
And then he makes these paintings.
Now the commission for the paintings was going to pay him about a million dollars and so he's using folks he found outside of the Factory because those folks are probably not going to come back and ask him for payment, or more money when those paintings get sold.
Ladies and Gentlemen as a series, you know, one way to read it is that it's exploitative.
Uh another way to read it is that it's a kind of celebration, but that sort of begs the question, who's throwing the party? You know? So, it's an interesting question about appropriation because I feel like to just say he appropriated their image is to imagine that these trans women had no agency at all, but it doesn't erase the sort of unequal economics of it or the imbalance in power, you know? Well, I love Andy, but I just don't trust him.
[crew member.]
Why? Why? Because he has power.
The burden is on us.
But I wouldn't Normal films, uh, the burden is more on the director.
And I mean, if you're doing a scene and you don't feel well that day, or you can't think of anything to say, it's just too bad.
Maybe you won't do another scene.
[Gigi Williams.]
In a way, he was a puppeteer.
He could get you to do just about anything.
He's the puppeteer and we're all marionettes and that's why he got shot.
Because some people thought that he should have paid them more, that they made him instead of him making them.
I think the burden is just as much on Andy as it is on anyone else, if not more so.
Because that's the name that's mentioned more often.
And if that makes it a burden, well just think how much of a burden it is for the name.
[Glenn Ligon.]
Outside of that, I really do think when people like Marsha P.
Johnson were coming in to sit for him, for the photographs, I think he was feeling it, you know.
I think he was feeling self-invented lives in front of him, people who've really given up a lot to be who they were, and I think that was inspiring for him.
Andy walking on the wild side through these characters that were around him.
I mean, that series functions, I think, on a variety of levels.
It's the most colorful series at that time that Warhol's involved with.
And just the sheer number of paintings in multiple sizes and collages.
But they remain anonymous.
And then it turns out in particular, that one of them is Marsha P.
Johnson.
It's a complicated series without a doubt, but it's a truly creative use of color and shape and form.
[Vincent Fremont.]
I think that series of paintings is so painterly and so full of emotion.
And it wasn't well received.
The paintings disappeared for years.
We had them and I couldn't sell them.
And I said this is one of the most important series that Andy did.
To me, they're really interesting portraits of people in the world Andy was walking through.
[piano music playing.]
[Jessica Beck.]
I think there was a real fascination with people that lived in the world and that kind of freedom to express themselves in that way that Warhol never fully let himself live, in that way.
Take me Into his arms just to break me I've arms of my own [interviewer 4.]
Andy, tell me about that musical.
[Andy.]
You're gonna be in love with this boy.
Oh, that sounds like fun already.
The boy decides to take a trip to Florida.
Florida? Get a good tan in Florida.
- He takes a bus.
- Uh-huh.
And at each bus stop he shaves his legs and puts on a pair of girl's shoes.
And by the time he gets to Florida, he's a girl.
[Chris Makos.]
With enough work, you can make anybody look like anybody, I'm convinced.
[train horn blaring.]
[song kicks in.]
[AI Andy.]
Bob and I went down to Washington, D.
C.
to interview Nancy Reagan for the cover of Interview.
[Bob Colacello.]
I thought it would be a good idea to put Nancy Reagan on our Christmas cover in 1981.
She hadn't really been on the cover of any magazines.
Probably because she was a Republican and to get her together with Andy Warhol is certainly bizarre and interesting.
[AI Andy.]
We were early getting to the White House.
We got in and then Nancy Reagan came in and we were in the same room.
[Bob Colacello.]
It turned out that the combination of Nancy Reagan and Andy Warhol was a little too bizarre for both of them actually.
They were like oil and water.
[AI Andy.]
I took four pictures.
Bob warned me that I couldn't ask her any sex questions.
And I just couldn't believe him.
I mean, did he think I was going to sit there and ask her how often they do it? We talked about drug rehab, and it was boring.
She could have done something really great for the interview, but she didn't.
I got madder and madder thinking about it.
[Glenn Ligon.]
You know, he did the famous poster that was for McGovern.
You know, "Vote McGovern" and the image of Richard Nixon looking like Frankenstein, but Warhol was like a corporation.
He made donations on both sides.
Republicans buy paintings too, you know? [Marc Balet.]
You know, my job wasn't an editor.
I'd have never put this on the cover.
Bob wanted to do it.
I wasn't going to quit over a Nancy Reagan cover.
I just thought you know what an asshole.
[Bob Colacello.]
He didn't like Nancy Reagan, but he understood that by putting Nancy Reagan on the cover, that was such an unexpected thing for Interview that even though a lot of art world people got mad at him and me for doing that, he was used to them being mad at him.
We did get Newsweek.
We did get Time.
We got a lot of coverage.
[AI Andy.]
Bob and I got a cab to the airport.
But Chris Makos is having his show for Altered Images out in California.
And it's going to have his photographs of me in drag.
So just when we finally get Mrs.
Reagan for the cover, these pictures are going to be publicized.
Time and Newsweek will probably pick it up.
And my whole reputation will be ruined.
[fax machine clicking and whirring.]
And then I saw a telex from Jon Gould and it was a really nice note.
He's back in New York.
And then I felt great.
[upbeat music playing.]
I met up with Jon and we had a serious talk.
He was in his running suit, and he apologized for not calling.
[soft piano music playing.]
But he said maybe we could work things out.
[camera clicks and whirs.]
[soft piano music continues.]
I decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at home two days early.
I told Jon and Christopher and Peter to come at 8:00.
Peter makes the best pumpkin pie.
We overate.
And we played Christmas tapes.
It was fascination [AI Andy.]
Then we went upstairs and Chris pushed all the furniture around.
And we played charades.
I still want Jon to move in Just a passing glance because then we'd see what happens from there.
romance And I might have gone on my way [AI Andy.]
And then around 10:30 we decided to go to Studio 54.
It was fascination ["Fascination" by Nat King Cole morphs into dance music.]
[AI Andy.]
I watched Jon go out there and jump and bounce and I thought, well, I can do that too.
And then I went on the dance floor and danced every dance.
[dance music playing.]
And the reason I've now just begun to dance is because I finally realized that nobody really notices you.
It's one thing I've picked up from Jon So, now I'll be dancing.
Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance [AI Andy.]
And then I heard that Jed was there.
So, I guess Jed saw me dancing too.
He could have gotten me dancing all those years.
That's something he could have done for me.
And then I danced with Pat.
And I just never knew I could do it before.
Ooh, what a treat, feels so sweet Ahh, that body heat When I'm dancin' with my baby Drives me crazy Makes me hazy Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on, keep on Dance, dance, dance, dance Keep on dancing