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back to NOV. 1980: ANDY WARHOL MEETS JON GOULD

Andy Warhol Meets Jon Gould

Bob Colacello:

"Jon Gould was Vice President for Corporate Communications at Paramount Pictures... Jon seemed to have two personalities, two styles, two lives: straight and gay, preppy and flamboyant, on his own in Los Angeles and with Andy in New York. He was... awkward when he walked into a room, agile on the ski slopes and the dance floor. He was extremely proud of his old New England roots and counted Nathaniel Currier, of Currier & Ives the printmakers, as a great-great uncle. His family lived on a nine-hundred acre estate in Amesbury, Massachusetts, that had been founded by their direct ancestors circa 1620. They also owned a summer house in New Hampshire, a big classic gray clapboard facing the Atlantic, filled with wicker furniture, snapshots of family clambakes, and a collection of framed New Yorker 'summer issue' covers going back to the twenties.

Jon had graduated from New England college, where he'd concentrated both on business and the arts, including drama and dance, in June 1977. He'd spent that summmer at Harvard in the hightly selective Radcliffe Publishing Program, making many of the friends that would form the nucleus of his New York clique... Jon landed a job in the advertising department of Rolling Stone, where he caught Jann Wenner's eye by increasing move ads by 400 percent in one year. A pitch letter he wrote to Barry Diller got him the job at Paramount in 1978... and like Jed [Johnson], he had a twin brother named Jay.

Andy had cast Chris [Makos] in the Cupid role, and he advised Andy 'to go for it. Even if it's unrequited, it's good for you to let your feelings out.'

'I had to convince Jon that it was worthwhile to be with Andy,' Chris says. And Andy started convincing him [Jon] in the way he knew best, by taking him along to glamorous parties... We all went to 54... and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Andy being thrown around the dance floor like a scarecrow by Andre Leon Talley. His wig looked as if it were about to fall off, but Andy was oblivious of eveything and everyone but Jon, who stood watching from the bar.

'I wanted to show Jon I could dance,' Andy told me the next day, 'because he's the best dancer. But he just said I embarrassed him by dancing with a boy. Oh what am I going to do, Bob? You have to get to know him and tell me what to do...'

He [Warhol] desperately tried to make himself more attractive. He never wore his glasses anymore, only his bright blue contacts. He tried mascara to look prettier. He wore Cub Scout pants to look younger. He replaced his plastic shopping bag with a backpack to look more macho. He grabbed Sabrina Guinness's lipstick in an elevator one night and smudged it across his cheeks. 'Who do you think you are? Diana Vreeland?' I teased. 'It works Bob, it works!' he shouted in joy." (BC438-40)

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