Andy Warhol’s ‘Disposable’ Superstars

Beyond the distance, the story reminds us a lot another bonfire of the vanitiesin which Andy Warhol’s muses burned, whom he called “Superstars”. In fact, the artist revered Capote. Although he was initially the object of his scorn, he eventually succumbed, more because of his fame than his charisma, and he even invited him to the famous black and white ball held at the Plaza Hotel in 1966. Whether to imitate him or not, Warhol also surrounded himself with an entourage of women. These are the protagonists of the book “Warhol’s Muses”, by Laurence Leamer (Cantico Editions).

Although, like Capote’s “swans,” Warhol’s superstars were the key to entry the most exclusive circles of upscale neighborhoodsbut not all of them came from the Big Apple elite. They were less glamorous, more extravagant and “underground”. The story (spoiler) ended like the dawn rosary: ​​drug addicts, mental health problems and even deaths. Capote’s “swans” and Warhol’s superstars were “to use and throw away’like simple handkerchiefs. celebrity huntersboth They collected them as toys or trophies. While they served them, they were their muses, but when they no longer needed them, they shamelessly got rid of them.

Warhol went further than the author of “In Cold Blood”. I gave them a new name“branding” them as if they were livestock, so that everyone knew they were their property. He served as his assistant Gerard Malanga as a lure to hunt their “victims”. The bait, transforming them into protagonists of their films and propelling them to stardom. But these underground films They were far from the glitz of Hollywood: wild parties, drugs and unbridled sex They roamed freely in every corner of the money Factory. All played a crucial role in making this sickly child from Pittsburgh, who dreamed of Hollywood stars, the most famous contemporary artist in the world. He manipulated them at will and she let them be destroyed without damaging her platinum hair. They they paid a terrible price: They fell into a well from which they could not escape to recover their lives.

Leamer recounts in the book the lives of ten of Warhol’s superstars: “They weren’t just his ‘Superstars,’ they were his artistic muses. They helped transform the Pittsburg-born son of Eastern European immigrants into international artist Andy Warhol. They were interesting and complex, they lived dramatic lives», warns the author. The Chelsea Hotel housed some of them. To tell their biographies, he mainly used a very valuable source: the transcriptions of numerous 3,400 cassettes which the artist bequeathed to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York and are now in the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. He recorded his entire life starting in 1965, apparently without the knowledge of the people who appear in it.

One of his muses was Jane Holzer. His nickname, “Baby Jeanne”. The daughter of a Palm Beach property tycoon, she was 23 when she met Warhol at the family’s luxury Park Avenue apartment at a party attended by Mick Jagger and photographer David Bailey, one of the architects of Swinging London. She was blonde, attractive and charismatic, an unconventional woman with a bohemian soul. She appeared in several Warhol films, but “never felt comfortable among drug addicts and eccentrics.” She ended up being replaced by her new superstar, Eddie Sedgwickperhaps the artist’s most beloved. “I was fascinated by her, I loved her,” Leamer says.

His real name was Edith Minturn. The writer defines her in the book as a “thin, ethereal image, androgynouswith big eyes, heavily made up, mesmerizing, witty, irreverent, charismaticwho danced like no other, a tireless party animal. He belonged to American high society. But there was a history of mental problems in her family: her father, her brothers… She was bulimic. She studied art at Harvard, she was a sculptor, but she wanted to be a model. The camera loved him. She wore short hair, tights, fur coats and long earrings. He imposed his style. She wasted money, lived out of control (she suffered severe burns when her bedroom full of candles caught fire), and found herself immersed in a drug spiral: heroin, amphetamines… He died at the age of 28. It is said that Warhol, when he discovered it, didn’t even flinch.

Isabelle Collin-Dufresne was baptized as ‘Ultraviolet’. She wore dyed purple hair, purple dresses and was said to carry a beetroot in her purse and rub it on her lips and cheeks. He was a Dalí lover. “She had an aristocratic bearing, an enigmatic aura,” Leamer says of her. Rich, art collector, dreamed of Hollywood. Christa Päffgen (a statuesque, blonde, 1.80 German woman) was a model and actress whom Warhol saw in Fellini’s “La dolce vita,” where she had a supporting role, and he was fascinated by her. Known as Nicholas (by Greek director Nico Papatakis), her dream has always been to become a singer. Among his conquests, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Alain Delonwith whom he had a son, Ari, not recognized by the actor… Despite the reluctance of Lou Reed (he saw her as a talentless impostor), he joined the group The Velvet Underground. At 49, while in Ibiza, he went out by bike to buy marijuana. He fell and hit his head. He died shortly afterwards.

Brigid Berlin, “the Duchess” She was the daughter of Richard E. Berlin, president of the Hearst Corporation. They lived on Fifth Avenue. She had a complicated life: eating problems, alcoholic, addicted to amphetamines… She died in 2020. Ingrid von Scheven, “Ingrid Superstar”was a special case. He did not belong to high society. Coming from a poor family and suffering from mental problems, Warhol “signed” her to get back at Edie when she abandoned him for Bob Dylan, whom Warhol despised. “I considered him a talentless crook,” Leamer writes. He wanted to “make” a clone of Edie.

Marie Woronovart student, brunette, pretty, muscular, was “christened” “Mary Might”, but she refused to have a new name. Susan Bottomly“International Velvet”, was 17 years old when he entered as Warhol’s “superstar”. His mother was of noble blood and his father was an assistant attorney in Massachusetts. Susan Mary Hoffmann, “Viva”budding model artist, intelligent, witty, uninhibited… Coming from a deeply religious family, one of her brothers tried to rape her, another brutally beat her.

Warhol’s last superstar was James Slatterythe only trans superstar, named as ‘Darling candy’. He was bullied at school. Obsessed with movie stars, he swore that one day he would be rich and famous. She worked as a prostitute and intrigued the artist. Lived fiercely and died of cancer at age 29.

“They deserve to be remembered for the women they were, fascinating figures of a daring era,” Leamer says in the book’s prologue. They were the muses of his films. But Warhol had other superstars, some of the most famous women of the 20th century, whom he portrayed obsessively: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy…In 1968, another woman, Valerie Solanasa schizophrenic feminist, shot Warhol. It didn’t kill him, but that day he started to die little by little.