The Andy Warhol Diaries is a posthumously published book that compiles the personal diary entries of American artist Andy Warhol, recorded between November 1976 and shortly before his death in February 1987. Dictated to his confidante and collaborator Pat Hackett, the diaries were edited into an 807-page volume condensed from the complete 20,000-page diary Hackett maintained. The book offers an intimate account of Warhol's daily life, social world, business dealings, and artistic concerns, providing a detailed portrait of his later years and his central role in the international art, fashion, and celebrity scenes of the late 20th century. Upon its release, The Andy Warhol Diaries was an immediate commercial success and became a New York Times Best Seller.
After 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.[1] This eventually grew into The Andy Warhol Diaries.[2]
Beginning in 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 was traveling, he would call her from wherever he was or tell her what occurred on the missed days when he returned.[3] 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."[4]
For the next eleven years, Warhol documented his social life and notations of expenses. The book is filled with his observations about the personal lives and careers of his famous friends and associates. Michael Gross noted in New York magazine:
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 his manager Fred 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.[4]
Publication
In June 1987, Warner Books acquired The Andy Warhol Diaries at an auction for $1.2 million.[6] The book was published in May 1989.[7] 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.[8] Unauthorized indexes were subsequently published by Spy and Fame magazines.[9] Newer editions of the book contain an authorized index. In 2014, The Andy Warhol Diaries was reissued by Twelve for the 25th anniversary.[10]
Critical reception
The Andy Warhol Diaries was a commercial success and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for a few months.[11][12] The book caused a sensation for its "sometimes malicious and often outrageous gossip about entertainers, artists and jet setters."[13]
Many of Warhol's friends praised the book. Steve Rubell, co-founder of Studio 54 and the Palladium, said: "Everybody knew he was doing this. It's the truth, so nobody can say anything. It's making people crazy."[5] "It's his style; it's his words … A few things are absolutely accurate. Some are sort of invented, but I'd say over his observations are keen," said Paige Powell, who was the advertising director for Warhol's Interview magazine.[5] Former Interview editor Bob Colacello also stated that "some of it's true and some of it's not.[5] Warhol's former assistant Ronnie Cutrone said: "He thought [the people he wrote about] were glamorous, but he pitied them. An artist is curious. It's not meanness. it's wanting to take something apart and see how it works. For once, there's a certain integrity to Andy."[4]
However, some of Warhol's friends expressed their dissatisfaction with how they were portrayed in the book. Fashion designer Halston was reportedly "quite upset about the publication of these intimate revelations and was threatening to sue" before his death from AIDS in 1989.[14] 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.[5] Human rights activist and former actress Bianca Jagger filed a libel lawsuit for how she was portrayed in the book, but she did not blame Warhol.[15] "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."[15]
In 2008, Hackett told Glenn O'Brien in an interview for Interview: "People always ask 'What was Andy really like?' Well, read the Diaries. That's what he was like. When they came out, people focused on the gossip aspect of them, but as time goes on, I believe Andy's Diaries will be recognized as the incredible personal and historical document that they are."[16]
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