BRIGID
BERLIN
(aka BRIGID POLK)
to SEPTEMBER 6, 1939: BRIGID BERLIN IS BORN
Brigid Berlin (Polk)
at Max's Kansas City
(photo by Raeanne Rubinstein)
The
Chelsea Girls (1966)/(Bike Boy (1967)
Imitation of Christ (1967)/The
Loves of Ondine (1967)
The Nude Restaurant (1967)/**** (1967)Tub Girls
(1967)
Phoney (Video - 1973)/Fight (Video
- 1975)/Andy Warhol's Bad (1976)
(Brigid Berlin was also originally scheduled to be in Lonesome Cowboys)
Brigid Berlin (Polk) lives "clean and serene" (well, at least clean) in Manhattan and deals with her food addiction on a daily basis by going to a twelve step fellowship.
Brigid was the daughter of Richard Berlin who ran the Hearst empire for 52 years. She met Warhol in 1964 and was nicknamed Brigid Polk because she liked to give people "pokes" - injections of speed. She was the inspiration for Pork, Andy's play based on recorded telephone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin.
Brigid was one of the few superstars who remained a regular friend of Andy Warhol until his death. She became a permanent employee at the Factory in 1975, working at the front desk and transcribing interviews. (I11). She is the subject of the excellent documentary, Pie in the Sky
- so named because of her obsession with key lime pie.
Vincent Fremont:
"Brigid's life by the mid-1970s was at the front desk at the Factory. If a tank had rolled by and you'd ask her, 'Did a tank come by?' she'd look up completely unaware. She and Andy were like a married couple. Brigid was the one one who could fight with him that way. He would offer her a painting as a present, and she would say no, and ask for a washing machine instead. Andy and Brigid had a great relationship; they spoke on the telphone every morning. Brigid was Andy's 'B' in the 'Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)'... In the 60s and the beginning of the 70s Brigid routinely took her clothes off at Andy's Factory. Andy took a lot of pictures of her nude, especially polaroids." (UW77/8)