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OPERA MUSIC | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
So glamorous! | 0:00:14 | 0:00:16 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
-Hello, this is Stephen, can I help you? -Um... | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
I forget who I'm calling. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
-Who is this, please? -Um... | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
Lavine. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:30 | |
MUSIC: All Tomorrow's Parties by The Velvet Underground | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
The forgetful caller was Andy Warhol. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
The call was made from a payphone painted silver, on the silver | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
wall of his New York City studio called the Factory. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
When the Factory opened its doors in January 1964, | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
Warhol was already a famous pop art painter. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
His depictions of everyday consumer goods and Hollywood icons had | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
already jolted the art world and redefined an era. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
But in his new Factory studio, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
Warhol's creative ambitions exploded in new directions. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:13 | |
He bought a movie camera and set out to become a famous film-maker. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
OK. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:18 | |
He'd discover his very own screen stars... | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
..and even become a rock and roll producer. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
And he went to work on perhaps the most ambitious creation | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
ever to come out of the Factory... | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
..Andy Warhol himself... | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
the enigmatic superstar. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
OK. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
Yeah. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:47 | |
MUSIC: Going To A Go-Go by The Miracles | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
I'm going this way, aren't I? That's the idea. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
Warhol was called simplistic. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
-You have just copied a common item? -Yes. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
In public he was famously tight-lipped and aloof. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
But who was the real Andy Warhol? | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
Where better to look than in the private details of his daily life? | 0:02:15 | 0:02:20 | |
Based on unique access to Andy Warhol's planning diary, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
and with the involvement of his most intimate friends and Factory | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
colleagues, I'm going to experience 24 hours living on Andy time. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:34 | |
'Richard, everyone thinks that Andy was so quiet. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:45 | |
'Well, I can contradict that perfectly because he never shut up.' | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
Andy took speed, but by the handful. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
Before he went out, he put on a costume, he put on make-up, | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
like an actor going to play a role. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
'We were doing something that I consider to be very important,' | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
and that the future would recognise this. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
I'll piece together a typical day in Andy's life from the mid-1960s, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:21 | |
which in true Warhol fashion should look | 0:03:21 | 0:03:23 | |
and feel just like the real thing. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
'WABC, the station New York is listening to...' | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
In the mid-'60s, New York was the city that proverbially never slept... | 0:04:13 | 0:04:18 | |
'This is Dan Thompson, WOR-FM...' | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
..and Andy Warhol was right at home. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
The pop art painter had already made people see the commercial | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
world around them in a new way. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
Now any aspect of everyday life might be his raw material. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
It's a round-the-clock blur of activity. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
So our day with Andy starts not with an early-morning alarm clock... | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
..but in the middle of the night, with Andy working on one of his first | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
film projects, called Sleep, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
and starring his close friend, the poet John Giorno. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:58 | |
It's six hours of changing camera angles of Giorno catching Z's. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:07 | |
-What have we got here, John? -These are Tibetan Buddhist cushions. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
On the bottom pallet is the bed on which Sleep was filmed. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
It was a bed, it sort of had legs on, they were taken off years ago. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
It is quite an intimate thing to allow somebody to film you | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
when you are in a sort of vulnerable state like that. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
Well, it never crossed my mind. It's like making love to somebody. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
Andy was a very good friend, and that was what he wanted to do, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
and I was happy to be the one that was there doing that, you know. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
You have been described as lovers. Was that right, you and Andy? | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
We...we made love, we were lovers, yes. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
Why did you decide to just shoot somebody sleeping for eight hours? | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
Wh... He just said that he sleeps so soundly. You can just put... | 0:06:03 | 0:06:08 | |
He falls asleep, | 0:06:08 | 0:06:09 | |
and he left his door open in New York, which is so strange. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
You can just walk right in. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
As he slept, Warhol couldn't sleep. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:22 | |
Even if he'd wanted to. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
'In '64, Andy took speed by the handful, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
'he did something called Obedrin.' | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
For me, this is incredibly important for his work, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
because what speed did for him in those years, it made him fearless. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:39 | |
When he had these great ideas, he had the ability to do them. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:44 | |
On behalf of all your fans and the Warhol fans who are watching this, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
would it be OK for me to touch the storied bed? | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
-Oh, yes, go right ahead. -Are you sure? | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
-Do anything else that you want to. -Really? | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
It is that kind of atmosphere, isn't it? | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
Let's have a look down here, let's check it for springiness. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
-It is very firm. -Yes, there is a little give... | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
after these years, but... | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
-she's still there. -It is a very old mattress, I think it is even a horsehair. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
-You know horsehair? -Is it? -Yes. -That is old school. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:15 | |
-Well, thank you very much. -Yes. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
At around 4:30am, after Warhol completes filming Sleep, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:29 | |
he hails a taxi and heads home to his townhouse on the Upper East Side, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
where he lives with his mother. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
He makes it home just before 5am. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:40 | |
Warhol's definitely not a morning person, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
and it is his mum who usually does the shopping. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
But on rare occasions he'd stumble out of bed | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
and head to this very supermarket, where he found inspiration. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:07 | |
Art history settled on one key point about Andy Warhol, that the | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
man enjoyed Kellogg's cornflakes almost every morning of his life. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
Now, this aisle in the supermarket had an almost sacramental | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
quality for Warhol. This was the altar of the supermarket. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
It was the home of the Campbell's soup products that he painted | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
so often. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:33 | |
And he wasn't taking the mickey out of a ho-hum, everyday staple. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
On the contrary, to Warhol, this was the food of life, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
a square meal you could depend on. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
And he ate them almost every day. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
The Andy Warhol we think we know from those countless photographs | 0:08:51 | 0:08:55 | |
and reproductions is the kooky guy who took everyday household stuff, | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
Brillo Pad boxes, cans of soup, bottles of pop, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
and prodded us into seeing them in a different way. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
But there was another Warhol | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
who by the mid-'60s was determined to do everything | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
he could to demolish the boundaries between his art and his life. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
Even before Andy has had his routine breakfast of Kellogg's cornflakes... | 0:09:27 | 0:09:33 | |
the Factory is waking up. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:35 | |
And a key Factory worker has already clocked in. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
Around 10am, the studio is coming to life. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
And starting work for Warhol in 1963, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
one minimum-wage worker was intimately involved in the | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
production of virtually all the iconic silkscreens in the mid-1960s. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
This hired hand was also a poet... | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
and was considered the Factory stud. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
Meet Gerard Malanga. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
-Why can't you eat that? -Well, I have a cholesterol problem. -Oh, dear. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:24 | |
My hours have changed. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
If I'm in the country, I go to bed at 9:30. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
I get up at six, though, because the cats want to be fed. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
He was a bit tight with wages. Do you remember what you were making? | 0:10:35 | 0:10:40 | |
I do. It was embarrassing. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
1.25 an hour. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
-Does that pluck at your innards slightly? -No, not at all! | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
There were a lot of fringe benefits to the association, | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
such as plane tickets, restaurants. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
Andy took care of all of that. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:58 | |
I felt, when we were silk-screening, we were doing something that | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
I considered to be very important, and that the future would recognise this. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:06 | |
I already knew that. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:07 | |
Did you feel that your contribution was recognised, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
because you were doing a lot of the hands-on work on these silkscreens? | 0:11:10 | 0:11:15 | |
You know, a painting I silkscreened back in the '60s | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
went up for auction at Christie's last week. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
A portrait of the Mona Lisa. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
What did it go for, like, 59 million? | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
You know, I made that painting. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
'28 million to open it. 28 million. 30 million.' | 0:11:35 | 0:11:39 | |
38 million I have. 50 million. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
Sold here at 50 million. Congratulations. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
At the then minimum wage, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
23.5 hours spent silk-screening the Warhol pictures would earn | 0:11:48 | 0:11:54 | |
Gerard about 30 bucks in 1964. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
'Silk-screening with Andy was always an enjoyable situation because it was' | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
the one place where he became very honest with me, | 0:12:04 | 0:12:09 | |
very open with me. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
There was no facade there, as it were, we were there to create | 0:12:12 | 0:12:17 | |
art, to create silkscreen paintings on canvas. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
You know, I gave him ideas for... for instance, the | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
multiplication, superimposition of the Elvis paintings, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
where there would be more than one Elvis overlapping with each other. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
I said, "Let's just move the screen over a little bit | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
"and we'll get a superimposition, | 0:12:34 | 0:12:35 | |
"rather than just have a static image, one after the other." | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
And he said, "OK, we'll try that." | 0:12:38 | 0:12:39 | |
He liked that idea, and we did a number of those superimpositions. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
It is getting on for midday. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
Gerard is busy getting ink under his fingernails. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:51 | |
And Andy hasn't even left the house yet, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
and will need all the help he can get to do so. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
The youngest and arguably most important worker at the Factory | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
is about to leave his high school classroom in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
jump on a subway train and head to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:12 | |
For three years this was a daily journey from the outskirts | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
of Brooklyn to another world. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
MUSIC: I'm Waiting For The Man by The Velvet Underground | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
New York City is the art capital of the world, and | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
Joseph Freeman, AKA Little Joey, | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
is on his way to get its king out of bed. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
# I'm waiting for my man... # | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
I was essentially hired by Andy to go to his house, wake him up, | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
push him constantly to get ready | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
so that he could be at the Factory at a reasonable time. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
Joseph was a geeky 13-year-old who heard about an artist obsessed with | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
using cutting-edge tape-recording technology. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
Joseph was determined to get an interview | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
with the artist for his high school newspaper. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
With New York charm and moxie, he got through to Warhol's dealer | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
and eventually Andy himself. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
I got on the phone with Andy and I said, "Mr Warhol, I'm a big fan, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
"I want to interview you for my high school newspaper." | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
And he said, "OK, come to the Factory." | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
The interview was followed by a job offer. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
# I'm waiting for my man... # | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
-Hello? -Andy, it's me. What's pop art? | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
Joey would be surprised by some of the antics of Andy's friends. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
Brigid Berlin, AKA Brigid Polk, was a close friend | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
and confidante of the artist. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:49 | |
She liked to make breast prints, as you do. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
Minimal, conceptual. What's pop? | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
And she was also a Warhol superstar, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
who appeared in several of his films, including Chelsea Girls. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
-I'll talk to you later. Give your mother my love. -All right. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:09 | |
-If you ever see her. -Goodbye. -Bye. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
-Hello. -Oh, hello, is that Brigid? -Yes, it is. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
-This is Stephen from the BBC. How are you? -Fine, good. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
In the spirit of those wonderful days, | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
do you mind if I record this conversation now? | 0:15:35 | 0:15:37 | |
-No, not at all. -Great, OK, we will do that. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
Start. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:43 | |
'I'll use the same model of cutting-edge recording technology | 0:15:43 | 0:15:47 | |
'favoured by Brigid and Andy in the mid-'60s... | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
'still in use amongst BBC staff today.' | 0:15:50 | 0:15:54 | |
Um, nine o'clock in the morning, the phone rings. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
"Hi, Bridge. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
"What's new?" | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
"Oh, Andy, there is nothing new. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
"It's nine o'clock in the morning!" | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
"Well... | 0:16:09 | 0:16:11 | |
"aren't there any good invitations in the book?" | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
"Andy, no, the mail hasn't come. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
"The mail won't be here until 11. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
"Oh, Andy, I met this cutest boy. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:26 | |
"He was a baseball player in Central Park." | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
"Well, Bridge, did you do it last night?" | 0:16:30 | 0:16:34 | |
And he would say, "Did he have a big dick?" | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
SHE LAUGHS | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
I did this every day. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
You couldn't have just done it by phoning him up and saying, | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
"Andy, get out of bed"? | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
And depending how fast I got here or not, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
I would run to his house or I would walk to his house. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:59 | |
# Hey, white boy | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
# What you doin' uptown? # | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
He wanted to know about your sex life. What did you think about that? | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
Well, no, he didn't. He... | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
Listen. You have this wrong. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
Because he was a great friend of mine. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
And, you know, two people can be terrific friends | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
-and they know everything about each other. -That's true. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
You said all people are the same. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
And that you want to be a machine in your paintings. Is that true? | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
Um... | 0:17:34 | 0:17:35 | |
Is it true, Brigid? | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
No, he just wishes it was all easier. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
'Can you... Listen,' | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
everyone thinks that Andy was so quiet, | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
that his reaction would be, | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
"Oh, gee," or, "How fabulous," to everything. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
And he would just listen. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
Well, I can contradict that perfectly because he never shut up! | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
MUSIC: How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) by Marvin Gaye | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
Andy would be very un-monosyllabic with Brigid for an hour or more. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:15 | |
So you would get to the Warhol place about 12.50. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
What would happen then? | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
Well, I would knock on the door and after a few minutes Andy's mom would | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
answer the door, and she usually had a couple of cats down by her legs... | 0:18:26 | 0:18:30 | |
Joey Freeman's closing in on Warhol's townhouse, | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
where he lived with his mother for 20 years and has | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
since been branded The Warhol. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
The current owner has declined to let us have a peek inside, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
so we were left to our own imagination. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
-So this is the place, right here? -This is the place. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
The door, I think, is the same door that was always here. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
And I imagine his mother to be | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
pulling back the curtain. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
This is Andy's mum, Julia, | 0:19:05 | 0:19:07 | |
making an appearance in one of her son's films | 0:19:07 | 0:19:10 | |
called Mrs Warhola, as she acts the part of herself. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
I guess there's no harm in looking through the letterbox. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
What do you think, is that an intrusion? | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
'Oh, look!' | 0:19:22 | 0:19:23 | |
Julia did give her son his bowl of cornflakes almost every morning... | 0:19:24 | 0:19:29 | |
after feeding about two dozen Siamese cats, all named Sam. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:34 | |
WOMAN SINGS IN SLAVIC | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
She got superstar treatment from her son. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
Andy produced a silkscreen portrait of her... | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
..and hired a professional recording studio to tape her singing | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
traditional Slavic folk songs. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
The Warhola family were staunch adherents of Byzantine Catholicism. | 0:19:55 | 0:20:00 | |
THEY SING A HYMN | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
Julia was the most artistic in the family. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
She sang, she did her own type of art. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
She loved doing ink drawings. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:16 | |
You know, a lot of this concern for creativity | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
and making things was passed on to Andy. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
Julia was kind of that magical input. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:28 | |
Well, I mean, most people have a sort of public self or a work self | 0:20:28 | 0:20:33 | |
and then, perhaps, they're slightly different at home. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
Maybe a bit more relaxed at home. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
But you think this was particularly pronounced in...? | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
Oh, yes, I think so. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:42 | |
I think he kept his two worlds apart - | 0:20:42 | 0:20:44 | |
his home life, his family life... | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
And that was the part that we knew him, as Uncle Andy. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
And he lived with his mother, Julia. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:53 | |
We had this wonderful kind of relationship with him there. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
..and then there was this other aspect | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
of him being a famous painter, | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
going off to this place called the Factory. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
When he went to church | 0:21:05 | 0:21:06 | |
or he said his prayers with his mother, | 0:21:06 | 0:21:08 | |
that was at home. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:09 | |
That wasn't something that the people at the Factory would know. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:13 | |
And of course, he had his crucifix above his bed that was always there. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
-And... -You say "of course" but people might be surprised by that. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
Oh, I think the crucifixes were always all over the house. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
After I was there for a little bit, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
he would come down in his jockeys. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
And it's so funny because he came down in his jockeys | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
but he had those sunglasses on and he had his wig on, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
although I never knew it was a wig back then. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
It was just a person who had thinning hair covering that up. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:46 | |
I was 13 and a little bit chunky and I had a little Beatle haircut. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
After working with him for one year, I was skinny and part of the scene. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:56 | |
You know? | 0:21:56 | 0:21:57 | |
Was that from observing what was going on | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
-or was somebody telling you, "You need to do this"? -No, no, no. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
You knew that being thin was the ideal. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
And you just did it by being so busy. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:11 | |
We'd walk onto the kerb | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
and at that time there was no traffic here at all. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
And Andy would step on the kerb and he'd go like this. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:20 | |
Why would he do that? | 0:22:20 | 0:22:21 | |
Cos that's the way that Andy hailed a cab. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
Sort of a little bit twinkling of his fingertips, like that. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:29 | |
Did it work much or not really? | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
-It did. -Oh, hang on. Here we go! -It did! And lo and behold. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
-It was a Checker cab and Andy loved Checker cabs. -OK. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:40 | |
Look at this one. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:42 | |
47th Street between 2nd and 3rd. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
A lot of times Andy would look out the window | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
and he would sort of space out and get his act together. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
You could see an actual transformation | 0:23:04 | 0:23:07 | |
-before your very eyes, as it were? -Yes, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:09 | |
he got in his cab and he would decompress. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:11 | |
He was quiet and he would look out the windows, | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
because when we got to the Factory, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
he emerged and everybody went to him. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:22 | |
Everybody had something that they wanted him to do. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
I saw that happen time and time again. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
Andy and Joey arrive at the Factory at about 1:45. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
We're on 47th Street between 2nd and 3rd. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
And the Factory would have been over there, | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
where that brick wall, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
that half brick wall is. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:44 | |
And it would have been maybe three windows wide. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
It wasn't a big building. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:50 | |
And I think there were only maybe eight floors | 0:23:50 | 0:23:53 | |
in the entire building. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
A key thrown down to the street | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
would get you into the studio freight elevator. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
-I thought maybe you'd like to see it. -Oh, I do. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:16 | |
When Warhol finally arrives at the Factory at around two | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
o'clock in the afternoon, the needs and challenges of running | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
an expanding multimedia enterprise await him. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
Has anyone important called? Was the film stock picked up at Kodak? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
Has the latest version of some Flower silk-screens arrived for Gerard? | 0:24:30 | 0:24:36 | |
Did Henry confirm for lunch? Can that press interview be pushed back? | 0:24:36 | 0:24:41 | |
And which party invite to accept this evening? | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
And while all that's going on, on Sundays the Velvet Underground, the | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
new rock group Andy was producing, would turn up for a rehearsal. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
This is the buzzing silver Factory kingdom of Andy Warhol | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
in the mid-'60s. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
Victor Bockris was a Factory regular | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
and the unauthorised biographer of Andy Warhol. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
Was there a court? | 0:25:09 | 0:25:10 | |
Yes, of course, the Factory was a court. Absolutely. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
He had his jester in Ondine. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
Ondine, who called himself the Pope, is an amphetamine head | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
known for his scathing wit and his appearances in several Warhol films. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:25 | |
He had his prime minister in Malanga. He had his manager in Billy Name. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:31 | |
Billy Name is a lighting designer who also gave | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
the Factory its distinctive silver look. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
He had his female companions. The king was always the girl of the year. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
Yes, it was a court. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
His closest artistic associates compared him to Louis XIV. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:47 | |
His presence was everything. His presence was so... | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
That's like Louis XIV. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:53 | |
Yeah, his presence was so powerful. People would die for him. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
Literally, people would die for him. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
Look at his self-portraits. This great thing like... He's very regal. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
He's a king. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
In spite of all the new initiatives, | 0:26:11 | 0:26:13 | |
the silk-screens remain at the core of Factory production. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:18 | |
Gerard's wrapping up the smallest edition of some recently | 0:26:18 | 0:26:21 | |
completed prints in the Flower series. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
It was very easy to multiply the Flower paintings | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
just like in nature. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:29 | |
He wanted... Everybody would have the opportunity to own an original | 0:26:29 | 0:26:35 | |
painting, even though it was the same as another original painting. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
So we must have silk-screened close to 100 paintings. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
But it's the new films of Warhol which are consuming his energy | 0:26:43 | 0:26:47 | |
and are starting to generate publicity, | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
albeit mostly as objects of ridicule. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
They seem kind of inhuman, the movies. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:56 | |
No, they were supposed to be just very real. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
And like it's called instant movie, instant sound. Everything is... | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
You don't cut anything out, everything is left in. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:09 | |
-But it's very machine-like. -Oh, yes. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
The camera is going on, you're sitting over here. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
Yeah, you don't have to watch the movie. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:16 | |
I mean, it takes it all by itself. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
At usually two o'clock, I met the film-maker at the Cinematheque | 0:27:24 | 0:27:29 | |
and maybe I would call Andy or Andy would call me. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:33 | |
Jonas Mekas was the Cecil B DeMille of underground | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
cinema in New York in the '60s. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:40 | |
He screened, promoted and even shot films of Andy Warhol. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:45 | |
Of course, nobody took early, first films of Andy's seriously. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:53 | |
I was the only one who was screening them. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
And Jonas gave Sleep its world premiere. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:00 | |
But I never saw Sleep from the beginning to end. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:05 | |
Well, maybe that was a blessing, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:06 | |
because some people said it was very boring. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
As boring as any painting, any modern painting, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
like Malevich's The Black Square. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:19 | |
You can say it is boring. You know? But it is a masterpiece. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:25 | |
It's a landmark in the art of painting. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
-So, you sit. -Hang on a minute, Jonas. -Now, I will tie you up to the chair! | 0:28:29 | 0:28:35 | |
For audiences, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
Andy's excruciatingly unhurried films were a challenge to the mind. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:41 | |
And also the buttocks. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:42 | |
Mekas once tied him to his cinema seat to make sure | 0:28:42 | 0:28:46 | |
he viewed his own film Sleep in its entirety | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
and suffered for his art like the other moviegoers. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
-Like that. -No wonder you didn't have huge audiences at your cinema club | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
if this is how you treated the patrons! | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
For Andy, lunch is usually between 2:30 and 3:30. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:11 | |
It may just be a diet pill. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
Or maybe a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity, | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
a short walk away from the Factory. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
So, what time would you expect to see Andy at your tables? | 0:29:21 | 0:29:25 | |
Well, he'd always come around 2:30, three in the afternoon. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
Who comes through the door these days? | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
Any of the top movie stars that are in New York for PR productions. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:36 | |
You know, we've got the nickname of the ice cream parlour to the stars. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:41 | |
Andy has been coming to Serendipity | 0:29:43 | 0:29:45 | |
since his days as a graphic artist back in the late '50s. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
-Oh, my goodness, look at this. -Here's our famous drink. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:54 | |
-Frozen hot chocolate. -This is nectar of the gods. -Exactly. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
So, you know, at this table, this was Andy's favourite table. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
And I would always reserve it when I saw him at the door. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:09 | |
And I would say, "Your table is ready," and he'd of course come with | 0:30:09 | 0:30:12 | |
an entourage of five or six, up to ten people. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
He would put his tape recorder here, right in the centre, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
and order food for everyone and just let people talk. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:23 | |
In the beginning, we saw him | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
after he made his rounds on Madison Avenue and Glamour magazine. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
And then we'd sit down, because lunch would be over | 0:30:29 | 0:30:31 | |
and it would be a quiet time. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:33 | |
We were just two friends talking and we discussed all | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
the things about what he should do, what he shouldn't do. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:40 | |
Or what he couldn't do. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:41 | |
That was an interesting aspect of Andy, | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
that he was not only open to ideas from his friends, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:48 | |
like yourself, and his contacts, but he almost depended on it. Do you...? | 0:30:48 | 0:30:53 | |
Yes, I agree with that, 100%. I think | 0:30:53 | 0:30:55 | |
he constantly asked people around him what he should do. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
# I'm in with the in crowd... # | 0:30:59 | 0:31:02 | |
Lunch is a time to plan an exhibition of new silk-screens, | 0:31:02 | 0:31:06 | |
or ask friends and colleagues for their ideas. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:10 | |
And Andy would get good ones at Serendipity. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:12 | |
From the early '60s, | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
Andy regularly had lunch here with his close friend Henry Geldzahler. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:22 | |
Henry was the curator of contemporary | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
There's a story which I hope you can clarify about him being here | 0:31:27 | 0:31:31 | |
with Henry Geldzahler, and Henry had a copy of the Daily News. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:36 | |
Some terrible accident had happened, | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
nearly 130 people being killed in a plane crash. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:42 | |
Do you recall that day and how it influenced art history, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
if I might put it grandly? | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
I do recall that day, because it was sensational. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
All over the paper, every paper had those headlines. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:56 | |
And they were both here discussing. I didn't stick my nose into the... | 0:31:56 | 0:32:03 | |
into the table to find out | 0:32:03 | 0:32:04 | |
but I know the newspapers were on the table. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
So maybe history was written here. I don't know. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
But their heads were together over the paper. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
Over lunch with Henry, | 0:32:15 | 0:32:16 | |
an idea was discussed which may have directly led to the powerful, | 0:32:16 | 0:32:21 | |
dark and controversial Death and Disaster series of silk-screens | 0:32:21 | 0:32:25 | |
that redefined Warhol's output in the mid-1960s. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:31 | |
-So, shall we dig in? -Let's try. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:33 | |
-After you. -In memory of Andy, it was one of his favourite... | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
-I think he'd have liked it if we did. -Of course. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
It's interesting. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:43 | |
There's a kind of marshmallowy top and then this refreshing, cold rush. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:49 | |
-Like a melting glacier in the mouth... -Exactly. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:53 | |
-..of the icy bottom, if I can put it that way. -Yes, I like your explanation. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:57 | |
After lunch, Warhol hit the nearest payphone to call the carpenter | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
he paid 365 bucks to build the wooden boxes on which he'll | 0:33:03 | 0:33:08 | |
make his now famous silk-screens of Brillo Pad boxes. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:13 | |
Andy wants another 30 boxes. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
We had to find a carpenter to make these boxes. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
They had to be lightweight. We had to paint every box. | 0:33:20 | 0:33:22 | |
But we had a silkscreen one side of a whole series of boxes. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
So it was basically five sides to a box. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
It almost seemed like a very Duchampian idea, actually, | 0:33:30 | 0:33:34 | |
to find a three-dimensional ready-made. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
And Andy was very good at executing ideas. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
The Brillo boxes were selling wholesale for 300 each | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
at Warhol's gallery. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
But a cash offer of 50 bucks on the side might also get you one. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:52 | |
Whatever it took to keep the lights on at the Factory. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
After that, Andy jumps in a cab to head back to the Factory. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
Between three and 4:30pm is prime time for filming the Screen Tests. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:12 | |
Screen Tests would translate Warhol's passion for doing | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
-portraits into real-time encounters with a movie camera. -Say cheese! | 0:34:19 | 0:34:27 | |
Can we do a cheese movie? All you have to do is say, "Cheese, cheese". | 0:34:27 | 0:34:32 | |
All right. No, the next segment could be a cheese movie. All right? | 0:34:32 | 0:34:37 | |
-What's the spirit of this one? -Just... You don't have to do anything. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
-Just what you're doing. -Can I move? -Yeah, you can move. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
But not too much. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
HIS CAMERA WHIRS INTO ACTION | 0:34:50 | 0:34:51 | |
How come your camera doesn't make any noise? | 0:34:51 | 0:34:53 | |
These silent, three-minute black and white portraits of the famous | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
and the unknown have been likened to modern-day Rembrandts, | 0:35:00 | 0:35:05 | |
with their uncanny power to reveal personality | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
while their subjects were being directed to do nothing. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
For Warhol, the Screen Tests might discover the next | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
superstar for his alternative Hollywood. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
At the same time, they were also a rite of passage for those | 0:35:24 | 0:35:28 | |
invited to be part of the Factory scene. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:31 | |
The camera on which all the Screen Tests were shot was bought by Andy and | 0:35:37 | 0:35:41 | |
Gerard at a shop called Peerless, since bought out by Willoughby's. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:46 | |
Willoughby's still has some vintage camera equipment in stock. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:53 | |
-..two or three locations. Right? -How are you doing? -Good afternoon. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
What can we get for you? | 0:35:57 | 0:35:58 | |
Well, we were curious about this early model Bolex. | 0:35:58 | 0:36:02 | |
The Bolex purchased in the winter of '63 was | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
the beginning of the end of one Warhol era and the start of another. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
How long is it since you've handled one of these, Gerard? Years? | 0:36:10 | 0:36:14 | |
-I would say... 1968. -Is that right? -Yeah. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:19 | |
-And then you'd put it on a tripod, would you? -No, no, hand-held. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:23 | |
-Hand-held always. -You could... We put it on the tripod for the Screen Tests. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:29 | |
Do you recall, now, how many Screen Tests you did? | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
-We did somewhere between 480 and 500. -Gosh. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:38 | |
It's nice. It's...kind of... | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
I haven't held one of these in a long time, actually. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
Yeah, oh, I see you are looking at it through this viewfinder. All right. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
-I see! -I like it. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
An afternoon Screen Test transformed an uptown housewife whom | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
Warhol met near Bloomingdale's into one of his first superstars. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
-Oh, my God, I love that blouse! -Which one? -And I love that... This one. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:12 | |
-It's so pretty. -It's like a hoodie. A see-through hoodie. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
Yeah, but it's beautiful. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:16 | |
And I love this pink and the flowers. Yum. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
That would be great for me at Palm Beach. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
-We did lots of Screen Tests. Oh, gosh, I guess I did 11. -11? | 0:37:24 | 0:37:30 | |
-That's a lot. -And what were you doing while the camera was rolling? | 0:37:30 | 0:37:35 | |
Oh, he'd tell me things like, "Don't blink". | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
You try not to blink for three minutes. It's really hard. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:41 | |
So you had a great look. That's partly what he liked about you. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:50 | |
What did you get out of it? Why were you associating with him? | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
Well, I don't know. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
What I got out of it was not being a bored housewife. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:59 | |
What about Andy's habit of making somebody a superstar | 0:38:03 | 0:38:07 | |
and then they were yesterday's plaything? | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
You know, that really isn't how it worked, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:13 | |
because everybody remained a superstar. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
-It just depended what you did with your life, you know? -I see. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:19 | |
MUSIC: Baby Love by The Supremes | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
Bibbe Hansen had her chance encounter with Warhol | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
while she was in a diner with her dad, who happened to know Andy. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
Suddenly I felt these eyes peering at me | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
and Andy leaned over the table and said, "And you? | 0:38:36 | 0:38:42 | |
"What do you do?" | 0:38:42 | 0:38:43 | |
And my father leapt up, very proudly, and said, "I just sprung her from jail!" | 0:38:45 | 0:38:51 | |
"Thanks, Dad(!)" | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
Warhol was eager to hear more about this young delinquent | 0:38:54 | 0:38:58 | |
and her stories of truancy, shoplifting, drugs and prison. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
So, far from you being this kind of innocent that the Factory exploited, | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
you'd have been amongst the toughest cookies in there, probably, | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
-even at 14, wouldn't you? -Yes, I would think so. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
I mean, it was on a par, certainly. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:16 | |
Sure enough, she received a Screen Test invite from Andy. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
I instantly knew that it was a vetting process. I mean, I got it. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:31 | |
Bibbe would end up co-starring in a Warhol film about prison, | 0:39:31 | 0:39:35 | |
with his newest Factory superstar, Edie Sedgwick. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:40 | |
She told me the best, most black eyeliner that you could get. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:44 | |
And I stole her one. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:48 | |
She also taught me how to put on false eyelashes. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
And I would give her drugs. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
This bright new charismatic personality was | 0:39:54 | 0:39:57 | |
considered by Warhol a possible dream ticket to the real Hollywood. | 0:39:57 | 0:40:03 | |
It's a mid-afternoon fashion shoot for British photographer | 0:40:11 | 0:40:15 | |
David McCabe. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:17 | |
His rooftop assignment is to photograph the newest Factory | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
superstar, Edie Sedgwick. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:23 | |
Warhol has tagged along with Edie. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
On a whim, I just asked Andy, "Jump up on the ladder with Edie," | 0:40:27 | 0:40:31 | |
and just took that one shot with the Empire State Building behind him. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:36 | |
Warhol's presence steals the show and creates an iconic image | 0:40:39 | 0:40:44 | |
of the impresario and his new star that helped define the Warhol era. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:49 | |
It's one of many iconic images by McCabe that defined the times. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:57 | |
Andy had already met McCabe, knew his work and decided to hire him | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
in 1964 to follow and photograph a year in his life and art. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:10 | |
It was such a pivotal, pivotal time. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
McCabe documented the changing scene at the Factory and Warhol's | 0:41:13 | 0:41:18 | |
star-studded encounters. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:20 | |
It was crucial to the image-conscious Andy that McCabe | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
was on hand to capture his encounters with the famous, | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
wherever and whenever they occurred. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
When he received my contact sheets, he would pore over them | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
with a magnifying glass. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
And after the year was over, what Andy was doing, actually, | 0:41:49 | 0:41:53 | |
was trying to figure out what kind of an image he should be projecting. | 0:41:53 | 0:42:00 | |
From the beginning, he was very kind of open, and I actually took | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
photographs of him laughing and being a regular guy. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
He had turned into the Andy that we now know, the quiet, | 0:42:15 | 0:42:21 | |
mysterious Andy. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:22 | |
I mean, now everybody has, you know, they've got the paparazzi, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
they've got their own photographers. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
They curate their own brands, | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
-to use a couple of terrible modern coinages, don't they? -Exactly. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
-But he was perhaps the first. -I think so. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
He really transformed himself. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:48 | |
He transformed himself physically, he transformed himself emotionally, | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
by not allowing emotions to interfere with his work. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
He transformed himself, you know, deeply | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
and to become really one of the great beauties in the world. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:02 | |
Andy Warhol... | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
There are photographs of Andy Warhol that are just, like, | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
incredibly beautiful. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:07 | |
But close friends of Warhol knew that the image he worked | 0:43:10 | 0:43:14 | |
around the clock to create and maintain was just that - | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
an image. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:19 | |
He thought himself ugly. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:21 | |
But when you saw Andy naked - he looked like a beautiful boy. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
I'd say, "Andy, don't you look at yourself in the mirror? You're beautiful." | 0:43:25 | 0:43:30 | |
And then on this beautiful body sat the Andy Warhol head | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
with the wig! | 0:43:34 | 0:43:36 | |
And he, of course, he had a big dick... | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
A... Quite a big dick. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:43 | |
At around 4.30 in the afternoon, Andy playfully heads to a | 0:43:45 | 0:43:49 | |
Times Square photo booth a few blocks from the Factory, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:53 | |
to take some self-portraits his way - | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
fast, cheap and easy. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 | |
In spite of anxieties about his looks, | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
Andy never met a photo booth he didn't like. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:05 | |
So, in the spirit of Andy, I'm getting made up | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
for my close-up. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:11 | |
John Richardson, the biographer of Picasso, | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
who knew Warhol, said this about him, | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
"He hid his blotchy looks behind a smokescreen of windswept wigs, | 0:44:16 | 0:44:21 | |
"unevenly dyed eyebrows, heavy layers of calamine | 0:44:21 | 0:44:25 | |
"and Harpo Marx mutism." | 0:44:25 | 0:44:26 | |
Of course, I don't really need this, I'm a natural English rose, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
but thanks anyway. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:33 | |
By the mid '60s Andy often turned up at photo booths with a | 0:44:33 | 0:44:37 | |
roll of quarters, to shoot himself or for a growing franchise | 0:44:37 | 0:44:42 | |
of commissioned portraits. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:43 | |
Here she is - what a beauty. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
Guaranteed to get your photos in two and a half minutes, folks. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:51 | |
None of that hanging about for three minutes. | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
I like the instructions here - | 0:45:01 | 0:45:03 | |
Number three - "Attempt to look good." | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
It's as if they knew I was coming, "Attempt to look good." | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
And number four - "Have a drink. Your photos will be delivered | 0:45:09 | 0:45:12 | |
"in four to five minutes." | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
That's service. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:16 | |
OPERATIC SINGING | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
The photo booth was used by Warhol for his first | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
commissioned portrait of the collector Ethel Scull in 1963. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:36 | |
I thought, "Where are we going?" | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
"Just down to 42nd Street and Broadway." | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
I said, "What are we going to do there?" | 0:45:40 | 0:45:42 | |
He says, "I'm going to take pictures of you." | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
I said, "For what?" He said, "For the portrait." | 0:45:45 | 0:45:48 | |
I said, "In those things?" I said, "My God, I'll look terrible." | 0:45:48 | 0:45:52 | |
He said, "Don't worry." And he took out - | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
he had coins, about 100 worth of silver coins. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
And he said, "We'll take the high key and the low key, | 0:45:58 | 0:46:01 | |
"and I'll push you inside and you watch the little red light." | 0:46:01 | 0:46:05 | |
By the mid-'60s, photo booth portraits were an important | 0:46:05 | 0:46:09 | |
source of income for Warhol. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:11 | |
Ethel paid 700 for hers - | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
adjusted for inflation - 6,000. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
The photo booth helped pay the costs of running the Factory, | 0:46:18 | 0:46:22 | |
one quarter at a time. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:24 | |
Before Andy, the photo booth was a largely functional place, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
to get your ID or your passport sorted out. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:34 | |
After all, not every family had its own camera in those days. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
But it was small wonder that Warhol saw the potential for art | 0:46:37 | 0:46:41 | |
in this extraordinary space. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
On the one hand, it threw forward to the selfie | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
that we're obsessed with and deluged by today. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:50 | |
On the other hand, though, the photo booth, the confines, | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
the screen, the darkness, recalled nothing so much as | 0:46:54 | 0:46:58 | |
the confessional of his Catholic upbringing. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:00 | |
In anticipation of the evening's activities, | 0:47:04 | 0:47:07 | |
between six and seven o'clock Warhol would make a quick | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
round trip to his townhouse to "get glued." | 0:47:10 | 0:47:14 | |
Getting glued was his expression for wig and make-up management. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:19 | |
He'd also put on a fresh splash of his favourite cologne - | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
Eau de Savage. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
BRIGID: I didn't want to be with Andy at night, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:27 | |
I'd been with him all day. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
I'd look at the clock, and I'd say, | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
"I'm getting out of here." | 0:47:33 | 0:47:36 | |
He'd look closely down at his watch - | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
with his eyes one inch away from the face of the watch. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:44 | |
And he'd say, "Brig, why are you leaving? | 0:47:44 | 0:47:50 | |
"The fun is just beginning." | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
The favourite time of the day was at the beginning of the evening, | 0:47:58 | 0:48:02 | |
like, at seven o'clock, because that was the beginning of the night, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
whatever party it was. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
From seven o'clock at night to four in the morning | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
is peak partying time for Warhol and his entourage - | 0:48:10 | 0:48:14 | |
almost nightly. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
The evening circuit might begin at an uptown gallery opening... | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
..then move on to a fashion banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:27 | |
Sometimes Andy would get invited to a very, you know, | 0:48:27 | 0:48:30 | |
exclusive dinner somewhere! | 0:48:30 | 0:48:32 | |
Warhol was the best possible guest for any self-respecting | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
New York host or hostess. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
It might be some museum patrons enjoying a light snack at the | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
St Regis Hotel. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:44 | |
Warhol once said he'd go to the opening of anything - | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
even a toilet seat. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:51 | |
Andy had to show up, Andy had to tap-dance for his supper. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:58 | |
And he had to hobnob with the rich and famous. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
Andy wanted to have some kind of power. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
He wanted to possess a certain kind of power... | 0:49:05 | 0:49:08 | |
..possessing a power that could manipulate the media, | 0:49:09 | 0:49:13 | |
or possessing a power where he... he could make money. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:18 | |
But it almost always ends up with Andy holding court, | 0:49:18 | 0:49:22 | |
and his entourage falling apart at the seams | 0:49:22 | 0:49:25 | |
at Max's Kansas City in the wee small hours of the morning. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:30 | |
Andy enjoyed himself, and he did stay out late sometimes. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
But it wasn't something that he wanted to do all the time - | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
it could be a bit tiring. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:37 | |
As a complete change of pace from all-night partying, | 0:49:44 | 0:49:48 | |
Warhol would occasionally use the slot from seven at night | 0:49:48 | 0:49:51 | |
to four in the morning to make a movie. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:53 | |
In 1964, Andy bought himself a new Auricon film camera. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:02 | |
It held much larger reels of film than the old Bolex, | 0:50:04 | 0:50:08 | |
and it could record sound. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
But Warhol's first film with his new sound camera | 0:50:12 | 0:50:15 | |
wasn't going to have a soundtrack at all. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
The irony is we shot a sound movie without sound. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:22 | |
We made a silent movie with a sound movie camera. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
Tonight, at around 6:30, Andy and five co-conspirators, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
including Henry Geldzahler, Gerard Malanga, Jonas Mekas, | 0:50:30 | 0:50:34 | |
and Jonas's protege John Palmer, jump into taxis, | 0:50:34 | 0:50:38 | |
with camera, tripod and about 50 kilos of raw film stock, | 0:50:38 | 0:50:43 | |
and head to a friend's office | 0:50:43 | 0:50:45 | |
with an unobstructed view of New York City's most iconic building. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:49 | |
John Palmer suggested the idea for this evening's new film - | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
and Andy was running with it. | 0:50:53 | 0:50:55 | |
Tonight, they'll gleefully subvert the fundamental rules | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
and expectations of movie-making, and make underground film-making history. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:06 | |
Tonight, they'll shoot the film Empire. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
It's the Memorial Day holiday weekend, when everything | 0:51:14 | 0:51:17 | |
in Manhattan is shut tight... | 0:51:17 | 0:51:19 | |
..including the office building from which Empire was originally shot. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
This is the window from which the original was filmed. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
The unobstructed view, though, is history. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
Gerard and I are determined to recapture one of the most | 0:51:34 | 0:51:37 | |
eventful moments in the film. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
All our hopes are now pinned to this location. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:43 | |
I'm told it has a rooftop garden, with an excellent view | 0:51:43 | 0:51:47 | |
of the Empire State Building. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:48 | |
Well, it's an excellent location. Only two things are missing - | 0:51:56 | 0:52:00 | |
the garden and that unobstructed view of the building we're | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
here to film. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:04 | |
Poor Gerard is nearing exhaustion, the jaws of defeat are | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
beginning to tighten around us. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
In the depths of despair, with time running out, | 0:52:21 | 0:52:24 | |
we receive a promising tip-off about a nearby building. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:28 | |
Now, that's a view. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:51 | |
I set up the camera and I framed it and called Andy and said, | 0:52:53 | 0:53:00 | |
"Take a look, is this what you want?" | 0:53:00 | 0:53:03 | |
And Andy said, "Roll it." | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
And with that command, one of the most notorious and | 0:53:09 | 0:53:12 | |
controversial films of the underground era | 0:53:12 | 0:53:15 | |
was off and rolling. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
It went and it went and it went and it went... | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
With a running time of eight hours and five minutes, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
Empire provokes ridicule amongst many who haven't viewed | 0:53:24 | 0:53:27 | |
a second of it, | 0:53:27 | 0:53:28 | |
and pot smoking amongst those who try and view it all. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:31 | |
Thing is, we're not doing drugs cos it was Henry Romney's office | 0:53:34 | 0:53:37 | |
at the Rockefeller Foundation, so we were clean, we were squeaky clean. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:41 | |
After one hour and maybe a half, suddenly the lights go on. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:50 | |
What an event! What a fantastic event like... | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
..when lights went on on the Empire State Building. | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
'As luck would have it, tonight's the night | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
'when the lights of the Empire State Building are red, white and blue. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
'What could be more pop than that? | 0:54:16 | 0:54:18 | |
'To help kill time, Gerard took verbatim notes of some | 0:54:22 | 0:54:26 | |
'of the historic late-night banter.' | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
Jonas Mekas - "Did you know that the Empire State Building sways?" | 0:54:34 | 0:54:38 | |
Andy - "Henry, what is the meaning of action?" | 0:54:38 | 0:54:42 | |
Henry - "Action is the absence of inaction." | 0:54:42 | 0:54:45 | |
John - "The lack of action in the last three 1,200-foot rolls | 0:54:47 | 0:54:51 | |
"is alarming." | 0:54:51 | 0:54:52 | |
John - "This is the strangest shooting session I've ever been in." | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
Andy - "The Empire State Building is a star." | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
And at some point, Andy said, "Maybe we've had enough." | 0:55:04 | 0:55:08 | |
And that's where it ended, like, eight hours later. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
But you know, sometimes Andy would prefer to avoid parties | 0:55:16 | 0:55:19 | |
and late-night film-making, just to stay at home and watch | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
his favourite TV comedy - I Dream Of Jeannie. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
Andy says, "OK." | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
I'd say, "Andy, what are you watching?" | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
He said, "Oh, Brig, I love I Dream Of Jeannie. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:39 | |
"I just love it." | 0:55:39 | 0:55:41 | |
Uh, Jeannie? | 0:55:41 | 0:55:43 | |
Jeannie, bedtime. Bong time. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
-You are going to bed so early, master? -Oh, yes. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
Yeah, I got a rough day tomorrow. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
Andy says, "Why can't we get to Hollywood?" | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
We used to sit in his tent and drink wine with him. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:58 | |
And I'd say, "Andy, we are never going to get to Hollywood. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
"Because you don't believe in a beginning... | 0:56:03 | 0:56:08 | |
"a middle...or an end." | 0:56:08 | 0:56:11 | |
CANNED LAUGHTER | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
But Andy Warhol didn't really need to go to Hollywood, | 0:56:17 | 0:56:20 | |
his fame had already eclipsed most Hollywood A-listers. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
He once said, "A whole day of life is like a whole day of television." | 0:56:24 | 0:56:29 | |
And Warhol lived his own life as if it was his | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
very own hit series, in which Andy Warhol was producer, | 0:56:32 | 0:56:37 | |
director, publicist and, of course, star. | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
MUSIC: I'll Be Your Mirror by The Velvet Underground | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
# I'll be your mirror Reflect what you are... # | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
On our last day of filming in New York City, | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
something extraordinary happened at three minutes to midnight | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
at the eternal flame of pop consumerism, | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
known as Times Square. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:57 | |
It was as if Andy was magically out there, and had | 0:57:00 | 0:57:03 | |
decided to help give an ending to our made-for-TV movie about him. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
All at once, Andy Warhol's Screen Tests ignited upon | 0:57:09 | 0:57:13 | |
Times Square billboards. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:15 | |
Edie Sedgwick, Nico - the singer of The Velvet Underground... | 0:57:17 | 0:57:23 | |
He had a vision of the future in some weird way. | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
I think that's what creativity is. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
Andy's whole life is based on an intuition of what's going to | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
happen...next. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:34 | |
And being in front of it and making it happen. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:37 | |
I think Andy Warhol is the... his best creation. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:45 | |
In his lifetime, some thought Warhol came from another planet. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:54 | |
In fact, he hailed from somewhere equally exotic - the future. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:58 | |
And as we endlessly post on social media, | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
consume celebrity culture, | 0:58:04 | 0:58:06 | |
or even take a selfie - we're living on Andy time. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:11 | |
# I'll be your mirror... # | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
Half a century on from the amphetamine-fuelled, | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
sleep-deprived, superstar-obsessed creative frenzy of | 0:58:18 | 0:58:22 | |
the Factory days, and Andy Warhol day hasn't really ended. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:28 | |
# I'll be your mirror | 0:58:31 | 0:58:33 | |
# I'll be your mirror | 0:58:33 | 0:58:37 | |
# I'll be your mirror | 0:58:37 | 0:58:41 | |
# I'll be your mirror | 0:58:41 | 0:58:46 | |
# I'll be your mirror... # | 0:58:46 | 0:58:49 |