High life
Weep for Warhol
Taki
cially one as blessed as that of St Patrick's Cathedral. But there they were, pouring out of their limos while the cops held back the crowds, all of them remembering Andy Warhol, and shedding a tear or two for the departed artist, as well as for the cameras.
And what a bunch of sinners they were: Yoko Ono, Raquel Welch, Grace Jones, Bianca Jagger, Baby Jane Holzer, Liza Minnelli, even Regine, as well as Franco Zeffirelli, Calvin Klein, Peter Allen, Don Johnson, and that burnt-out case of the Sixties, Timothy Leary.
I sat at the back and watched them arrive. The deb of the decade, Cornelia Guest, in dark shades which she put on after coming inside the cathedral. The beautiful Carolina Herrera, one of the few that didn't preen and look around to see who was where. Bianca Jagger, acting like, well, Bianca always does. And a grey- haired Halston, looking as solemn as he used to in the old Studio-54 days.
Having had an extremely late outing the night before, I closed my eyes and prayed while waiting for the memorial service to begin, and I guess I must have dozed off for a minute or two. When I jarred myself awake, I looked around and for one split second I imagined I was back in Trudy Heller's circa 1968. .
After the service there was a lunch for 300 of Andy's dearests. Andy was always known for mixing the high with the low, the rich with the poor, and the healthy with the sick, and the lunch reflected his taste. There was the Texan female equivalent of Menelaus, Anne Bass, whose billionaire husband ran off last year with one of their Trojan houseguests (well, Iranian to be exact) and whose divorce settlement is reputed to be 500 million big ones, making her far more expensive than the Trojan War.
As was John Warhola, the artist's brother, with his wife Margaret and their three children, among the most dignified in the glitzy crowd, and by far the most inconspicuous. And Julian Schnabel, the artist whose paintings some mauvaises langues say are used to extract confessions in police stations all over the world once everything else has failed. (The victim's head is held immobile, and they are forced to look at Julian's paintings.) Last but certainly not least, the actor Richard Gere, dressed in a manner best described as contrived dishevelment. Looking at Gere's sartorial habits, I imagine it must take him the better part of the day to dress. No wonder he missed the service. But in my lowly opinion he's right. I know of no other trained seal with less talent, so whatever he does to attract our attention is well de- served.
I spent most of the lunch with the two Natashas, Fraser and Grenfell, and then, well Jeffrey Bernarded, I headed uptown and my old friend Avvocato Agnelli. Gian- ni was here for a week, and because of his early morning habits, I've hardly slept a wink. But it's been a great one, what with introducing Sir James Goldsmith to Nell's and then going with Cary Elwes, Justin Metcalfe and Johnson Somerset to the Leonard-Hagler fight, and seeing my choice win. That was the good news. The bad was the age of my new best friends. People in their early twenties have strong livers, and can enjoy themselves at post- fight parties. Which was hard for me to do, as I felt like Marvin Hagler.
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