The Andy Warhol Diaries

After Pop artist Andy Warhol was audited by the Internal Revenue Service in 1972, he started dictating a daily diary to his secretary Pat Hackett at The Factory to keep a better account of his deductible expenses. This eventually grew into The Andy Warhol Diaries. Beginning in November 1976, Monday through Friday, Warhol and Hackett talked by phone each morning, and he narrated the events of the previous day. Weekend entries were done the following Monday in a longer session. If he were traveling, he would call her from wherever he was or tell her what occurred on the missed days when he returned. Hackett transcribed his monologue onto a legal pad. Later in the morning, she would type it on her typewriter, which turned into 20,000 double-spaced pages of unedited entries. After Warhol's death in February 1987, Hackett reduced the diary to 1,600 pages, remarking that much of the remaining 18,400 pages consisted of "drivel." == Content ==

The diary opens on November 24, 1976, with Warhol in Vancouver at the conclusion of a trip to Seattle for the opening of the Seattle Art Museum. While on the West Coast, he noted that he attended the wedding of model Marisa Berenson and business tycoon Jim Randall in Los Angeles. Warhol then flew from Vancouver to LaGuardia Airport in East Elmhurst, Queens with socialite Catherine Guinness and his business manager Fred Hughes, returning to his Manhattan home, where he shared an early Thanksgiving dinner with his live-in boyfriend Jed Johnson. The final diary entry dates from February 17, 1987. That evening, Warhol walked the runway with jazz musician Miles Davis during a fashion show at the Tunnel nightclub in Chelsea, Manhattan. He noted that Davis gave him his address and proposed an exchange: Warhol would paint his portrait in return for ten minutes of Davis playing music for him. After returning home, Warhol called Hughes to say he was too exhausted to attend a Fendi dinner that night. He later received calls from Hughes' assistant Sam Bolton and Interview fashion editor Wilfredo Rosado before going to sleep. == Publication ==

In June 1987, Warner Books acquired The Andy Warhol Diaries at an auction for $1.2 million. The book was published in May 1989. The absence of an index drew criticism from Fame magazine publisher Steven Greenberg and nightclub impresario Steve Rubell, who were frequent subjects of the book. Newer editions of the book contain an authorized index. In 2014, The Andy Warhol Diaries was reissued by Twelve for the 25th anniversary. == Critical reception ==

The Andy Warhol Diaries was a commercial success and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for a few months. The book caused a sensation for its "sometimes malicious and often outrageous gossip about entertainers, artists and jet setters." Halston's lover Victor Hugo called the book the "Satanic Diaries" and threatened to auction off every Warhol artwork he owned: "I feel like the Central Park jogger… I've been gang-raped and beaten by a dead person and bunch of thugs that work for him. It is the most vile, disgusting piece of pulp literature I have ever read." Model Barbara Allen felt betrayed and said Warhol exaggerated things. "I don't believe Andy even wrote it," she said. "It is as if it had been fabricated by someone who had only a vague idea of what really happened. Andy was a mischievous man, but I didn't consider him to be vicious." ==Adaptation==

The book was adapted into a six-part Netflix docuseries The Andy Warhol Diaries . Written and directed by Andrew Rossi, the series premiered on March 9, 2022. ==References==