QUEENS & SUPERSTARS

Warhol films were about sexual disappointment and frustration, the way Andy sees the world.

—Viva

Billy Name: At one point, we went out to Columbia Studios to explore making a Hollywood movie with these hetero studio heads. And we get there late, with all the faggots and flaming people, wanting to do a grand scale art movie. I mean, it stopped right there. They could not comprehend what this Warhol guy was doing. It certainly was not like a Hollywood studio where, “We select you. Come in and get paid to do your stuff.” No, here is the Roman arena. You come in as the gladiator or the siren and conquer the whole thing if you can. Fine with us, if you want to be the Superstar.

Andy Warhol: I still think it’s nice to care about people. And Hollywood movies are uncaring … they’re not-real people trying to say something. We’re real people trying to say nothing.

Viva: Andy believes in winging it … The feeling that we were on to something good led us to approach this seemingly random method with contagious enthusiasm, and a deadly seriousness that we tried to hide.

Victor Bockris: The Superstars began to compete with each other. They started putting each other down. Now Viva was unlike the previous female superstars, in that she had a very biting tongue. Andy said that the thing he really loved the most were good talkers. His favorite thing of all was for a beautiful woman to talk to him in detail about her sex life, so he could experience it vicariously. His form of homosexuality was that he really would have been happier to be a girl. So Andy certainly had an interest in trading places, or becoming a woman through the woman’s openness to him. That’s a relationship that could work on all sorts of channels. That would not involve sex necessarily of the physical kind, but could be an emotional sexual relationship of a kind. I think he had very close relationships with some of these people and certainly with Viva. Viva wanted to marry him. Viva was an intelligent woman, she was no idiot, she was no crazed person. She fell in love with him. Andy was very lovable. A lot of women fell in love with him.

Viva: Do you know what my opinion is of Andy? I think he’s the Queen of Pop art. (maniacal laughter) … And Queen of the Underground.

Mary Woronov: If you hear Viva talk, she mentions everybody’s name, phone number, serial number—“Oh, remember when we went off to France, and we slept in the blah blah, and the whole blah blah, and we went on so and so’s plane.” So, obviously, I just didn’t handle it right (laughs).

* * *

We licensed footage from ‘Andy Makes A Movie,’ which documents the unfinished film ‘San Diego Surf.’ In it, Viva makes a star appearance, along with Taylor Mead, Louis Waldon, Eric Emerson, Ingrid Superstar, and a contingent of hippies picked up along the way—probably from the notorious L.A. ‘Castle’ in Los Feliz. Coming in from the beach, the cast wander aimlessly, waiting for something to happen, chain-smoking and draping damp bodies over furniture. The beach house that Warhol and Morrissey filmed in belonged to the actor Cliff Robertson, who probably had not been aware of the goings on, like many formerly proud homeowners who had been foolish enough to give their property over to filmmakers. You’d think Cliff would have known better, being in the business … Anyway, interviewer Aaron Sloan doggedly follows Viva around as she prepares for a beach scene, begging for a juicy tidbit on her relationship with her equally elusive director. He had his work cut out for him …

* * *

Interviewer Aaron Sloan (to Viva)

This kind of acting is sort of impromptu. Do you find there is probably more satisfaction, say, in working with a strong director who knows where the acting is going to go?

Viva

I have no idea, because I’ve never worked with any other director … (to Warhol) “I guess I’ll have to wear a bathing suit, right?”

Viva soaking in ‘Tub Girls,’ also starring Abigail Rosen, Alexis de la Falaise, Brigid Berlin, and Taylor Mead.

Filming of ‘Katrina Dead.’ Katrina Tollem starred with Ivy Nicholson, Kit Carson, and Rodney Kitzmiller. (Photos: Billy Name)

Sloan (to Viva)

How did you first become affiliated with Andy?

Viva

After I saw ‘I, A Man,’ I went up to Andy and demanded to be in the next movie.

Interviewer

What do you mean, demanded? Is Andy easily accessible in New York?

Viva

Well, um, we were at the same parties … I have to go to the john.

* * *

At this point, Aaron the Interviewer just about gave up. He’d tried to engage Eric Emerson, who had curled up in a lost little ball, rambling on disjointedly, and Louis Waldon was friendly enough, but just wanted to escape and go surfing. When asked if he had “ever done improvisational performing,” Waldon replied, “Every single day of my life.” Paul Morrissey scurried about, motioning silence for a take, which did not seem to appeal to anyone, so Sloan once again went after Warhol, who remained his vague, inscrutable self: “Well, we’re still just learning to use the camera. It’s only been four years. We’re still learning.” Yes, one got the distinct sense that Andy and company were all languidly trying to brush this poor guy off, which was a shame, because he was so enthusiastic, if not too knowledgeable, about the way Warhol worked.

* * *

Interviewer Aaron Sloan (to Warhol)

I want to know how you select your cast in general, how you decide, with a screen test, say, of Viva.

Andy Warhol

Huh?

Interviewer (to Viva)

Do you find that working with Andy represents a departure from the otherwise established trends in cinema today?

Viva

Yes. Well, it’s very different. It’s a lot of fun … Andy believes in improvisation.

Interviewer

How specifically, say in ‘Nude Restaurant,’ do you figure that your approach works?

Andy Warhol

Uh, well, ‘Nude Restaurant’ was just part of the ‘Twenty-Five Hour Movie.’ I mean nothing very much, aaahhh … happens.

* * *

Yup, nothing much sure does happen, and plenty of it, but in ‘Nude Restaurant’ it’s all so fly-on-the-wall hilarious that it doesn’t matter. Thrilled to find a Warhol film that I could watch all the way through without falling asleep, I assembled a selection of scenes for our series. My once patient producer Patrick Nagle showed up in the editing room waving a fistful of bills and threatening imminent financial disaster. So much for artistic freedom. Anyway, in the footage that I did get to license from the Warhol Museum, Viva’s topless waitress rambles on in her aristocratic drawl, sounding like a demented Katherine Hepburn mouthing lines from a Tennessee Williams play as she recalls life with her dysfunctional family. Seated next to her, nodding out on Quaaludes, Taylor Mead agrees with everything, occasionally picking his nose and yawning. Later, Viva tries to get the amorous attention of Allen Midgette, who just wants a sandwich, extra mayo, hold the sarcasm …

Viva (to Allen)

“I don’t have all day.”

Allen Midgette: The first ‘Nude Restaurant’ actually happened. But, it wasn’t the way I had envisioned it of course, which I expected from Andy. At that point I was living with Robert Thurman, who had just gotten out of a Tibetan monastery. And he said, “Don’t worry about it Allen, just be a calm center.” So that movie went down, and then after that, they redid the film, and gave the lead to Viva. I don’t mind; I’ll just take some more LSD and watch what’s going on here …

Andy Warhol: Well, we were trying to make an anti-war movie, and made it into a ‘nudie’ so more people would be able see it.

Taylor Mead: Paul said ‘Nude Restaurant’ was no good. “Taylor was on drugs and being very slow” and all this, but it was a beautiful film. Then we made ‘Imitation of Christ’ which in my opinion was the excavation of Taylor Mead. See, Paul wasn’t involved in ‘Nude Restaurant,’ but in ‘Imitation of Christ’ he was, and they were two wonderful films but never shown. I am buried alive, you know …

Allen Midgette, center, takes orders (hold the pickle) in the first ‘Nude Restaurant.’

Andy directs co-stars Taylor and Viva in the revised ‘Nude Restaurant.’ (Photos: Billy Name)

* * *

… Taylor had a point. ‘Imitation of Christ,’ which also starred Ondine and Brigid Berlin as a couple whose son wanted to wear a dress to school, was pulled by Warhol after only one screening—even though Jonas Mekas had just proclaimed him “the Victor Hugo of cinema.” A month later, Warhol did the same with ‘The 24 Hour Movie.’ The actors were outraged. A year’s work buried, and with it the promise of stardom. Or ‘stardoom,’ according to Allen Midgette …

Allen Midgette: There were other movies made from the first ‘Nude Restaurant.’ I got put in jail (entitled ‘Allen in Jail,’ filmed in 1966, not to be confused with ‘Jail,’ which featured Allen, Ondine and Ingrid Superstar). They used what is now Jonas Mekas’ Film Anthology. They’d been given the property, but it was still a prison. I was in a cell and Ondine came in, telling me that he was my lawyer. I said, “I don’t need a lawyer.” And he said, “Don’t you want to get out of here?” I said, “No.” Let’s face it, you could be in a little box and be free, or you could be supposedly free and be a prisoner, it doesn’t really matter. There was a window with bars I could put my feet in and hang from, or I would stand on my head, naked.

‘Leee’ Black Childers: In those days, when things were much safer, you would just walk into the Factory, and there would be people taking pills in various states of undress. At the same time there would be a serious art critic from Germany there to look at Andy’s silk screens. There was this big mixture of total trash off the streets— Holly Woodlawn, wearing an old curtain she found in a garbage can, just wrapped around her, and of course Brigid Berlin, only we didn’t know she was rich. Then there would be people like Jackie (Curtis) who didn’t have a pot to pee in.

* * *

Leee and his outrageous roommates would become regulars when toward the end of the Silver Factory Warhol began to introduce more transvestites into the combustible mix of actors, superstars, singers, socialites, con artists and bottom feeders. The over-the-top ‘damsels’ and their dramas brought a welcome touch of levity to what was increasingly becoming a fractious and bickering Family. Warhol’s and Morrissey’s new triumvirate of Superstars, Jackie, Holly, and Candy, simply wanted to dress up, have fun, and maybe get famous along the way. But in truth, life was a lot harsher for ‘Les Girls,’ whose major way of making ends meet entailed giving blow jobs in the aptly named Meatpacking District, or ‘Meat Market.’ The residual whiffs from hanging animal carcasses, the reek of blood coagulating in the cobblestoned streets, must have given many of their male clients indelible olfactory memories for the rest of their days.

Taylor Mead, exuberant in ‘Imitation of Christ,’ shot in the Meatpacking District, circa 1967. (Photos: Billy Name)

Andy filming ‘Imitation of Christ’