Paige Powell: if Warhol had a wife, it would have been the quirky associate publisher of interview, a favorite date and a power behind the scenes

Glenn O'Brien

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Born and bred in Portland, Oregon, Paige Powell came into Andy Warhol's life in the early '80s when she moved to New York and was hired as an advertising associate at Interview. Very quickly, Powell shot up the ranks to become associate publisher. But, more importantly, she also became one of Warhol's closest companions. It is said that Warhol often spent more time in Powell's office at the Factory than in his own. Her combination of brains and beauty, along with her outgoing personality and razor-sharp fashion sense, also made her the perfect date for Warhol, and they attended all manner of dinner parties, gallery openings, fashion shows, and movie premieres together on an almost nightly basis.

GLENN O'BRIEN: What did you learn from Andy?

PAIGE POWELL: Well, the story I like to tell is the one about the orange juice. It was a Saturday afternoon at the studio--you know, Andy liked to work seven days a week.

GO: This was on 33rd Street?

PP: This one was on 33rd Street. There was a Korean dell on Madison. So it was a hot day, and I said, "Boy, I feel like some orange juice." And Andy said, "Yeah, that sounds really good. Let's have some orange juice." So he goes, "Here's some money. Why don't you go across the street and get the oranges?" I said, "No, Andy. It's okay. It's my treat." He pulled some money out of his pocket. I said, "No, Andy. I've got it." So I went across the street, and I got a bag of oranges. I came back and I started going into the kitchen to make orange juice, and Andy said, "Hey, where are you going?" And I said, "I'm going to make the orange juice." He said, "Well, where's the receipt?" And I said, 'Andy, I got the oranges with my money. I didn't get a receipt. That's ridiculous." And then he goes, "Yeah, you always have to get a receipt." I said "Why? I mean, you can't write off oranges." Then he goes, "Yes, I can. First, I'll take a picture, and then we'll squeeze the oranges." And it was basically the still life that would make it a write-off. So that was it.

GO: Did he take a picture of the oranges?

PP: He did, yeah.

GO: Did he ever do anything with it?

PP: I doubt it. I've never seen anything. But it didn't have to be a painting for him to be able to write it off--it could just be the photograph or a Polaroid.

GO: Were you around when he would put stuff in the time capsules?

PP: He used to throw stuff in them like a garbage can.

GO: I guess they've had some incidents. They called Benjamin Liu once because his handwriting was on a box, and it was totally infested. Andy had put some pizza dough in there, so there were thousands of bugs.

PP: I remember someone put a yogurt popsicle in one of the capsules once.

GO: You were Andy's date a lot of times. What kind of date was he?

PP: He was a good date. He was better than most straight guys as a date. We would go to a lot of black-tie affairs. We'd go from work, so we'd leave late, like around 7:30 P.M. They were always formal, so sometimes, if Andy had his white tennis shoes on, he would just paint them black before we went out the door.

GO: Did you keep a change of clothes at work?

PP: I had to. I lived uptown--near Andy, actually--so I would always have something at the office that I could switch into. A lot of designers gave me really cool stuff when they stopped by the office.

GO: What was it about you that made you the person who Andy wanted to go out with night after night? I mean, aside from--

PP: My Catholic family?

GO: Aside from your beauty and intelligence.

PP: He liked those Catholic girls. You know, my father's side is Protestant, but Andy saw the Catholic, maternal side of me. I just think that a lot of it, too, is that he loved to mix business, pleasure, and everything together. I introduced him to a lot of different people, like all the dancers at New York City Ballet or these corporate people. For example, there was this condom company out of the Midwest. This was in 1984 or 1985, and no one would run condom ads--not even Cosmopolitan, a magazine that made their money off selling sex. I found out about it and called them and said, "You know what? We'll run your ad. Why don't you come in and have lunch, because maybe you might want to commission Andy to do a painting of a condom." They said, "That is really something. Yeah, maybe we could do that!" So I said, 'Andy, do you want to have lunch with these people? They have this really large condom company. They have this thing called the Double Dipper." Andy goes, "Oh, yeah, let's have lunch with them!" So they came to lunch, and I said, "We'll run your ad in Interview magazine." They said, "Oh, we can't believe it it! No one will run it!" I said, 'Andy's interested in doing this condom painting, but you need to show him what's so special about these condoms." So after lunch, these two really big, corn-fed guys pull out a bag of condoms and show them to Andy. He looks at these guys and asks, "You can use one twice?" And one guy leaned across the table and said, "If you're man enough." [both laugh] Andy just started turning red. He kind of sunk into his chair. And then they left, and Fred Hughes came into the room and said, 'Absolutely not! Andy is not painting those condom paintings!" He just raged.

GO: I seem to remember that there were a lot of blind dates going on with you guys. Who was fixing up whom? Were you fixing Andy up and he was fixing you up?

PP: The blind dates actually started because Andy crashed a blind date that I had. Andy didn't like it when I was going out with guys. He would try to sabotage it.

GO: Was he jealous or just being a father figure?

PP: I think it was more that he was jealous and causing trouble. This friend of mine was a producer in L.A. I wasn't dating anyone seriously at the time, so she said, "There's this guy who is coming to New York. I really want you to go out with him." I said okay. We were going to go to the Odeon for dinner. Then Andy came by and said, "Well, what are you doing for dinner tonight, Paige?" I said, "Oh, Andy, I have a date." He goes, "Ohhh. Who's the date with?" I said, "Well, it's a blind date." "Oh, where is he from?" "He's from Hollywood." "Oh, you have a Hollywood date!" "Yeah, he's a producer in Hollywood." "Oh, a film producer in Hollywood. Well, what's his name?" And he was going on and on. Then Jeff Slonim came by, and he was saying that Tama [Janowitz] had broken up with someone. So I said, "You know what? Give Tama a call and tell her that I'm going out on a blind date, and she can just join in. I'm sure the guy will be happy to have two blind dates." Jeff called her, and because he asked Tama, he came as well. Then Andy found out about it and asked if he could come to the blind date, too. So I get to the Odeon, and here's this guy waiting for me, and all of the sudden, there is Tama, and then there's Jeff Slonim, and then Andy brought, like, four or five guys. There were, like, 10 people at the table on this blind date. The guy was really cool--well, he was cool with the situation but he was really uncool. He had a gold chain on, and his shirt was kind of open. I was so grateful that everyone was there. Andy said, "This was so much fun! I had such a good time! Let's make it a business thing. It'll be a business blind date. It'll be under the umbrella of business but it's always just going to be us introducing each other to all of these other people."

GO: And it would be deductible.

PP: Yeah, it would totally be deductible. [laughs] So we had this blind-date club. We did this frequently, like, twice a week because Andy thought it was so much fun.

GO: Would Andy quiz you after your dates?

PP: He would quiz me while I was on the dates! He would somehow manage to call. There was this concert pianist named Christopher O'Riley who had a town house in Brooklyn. It was a Sunday, and I was going out with him, and Andy found out and was calling Christopher up at his place in Brooklyn. I mean, this was before cell phones. He would figure out a way to call into a restaurant or he would just find out through moles where I was. He was funny.

GO: Did he always pay when you went out?

PP: Yeah, he did.

GO: I think a lot of people thought that Andy was cheap, but he was really generous.

PP: He really was. He had a good insurance program for the full-time workers at the office. He would say to me, "The most important thing for me is to be able to keep everybody working." He really took that seriously and made sure that his art was selling. But then the magazine started doing well, and he was really proud of that, too, because it was so accessible. His paintings became expensive, but the magazine was so egalitarian--he could walk down the street and just hand out copies to people. It made him feel good. He could give things away and, of course, hopefully inspire somebody to buy an ad. But, yeah, I think he was incredibly generous.

GO: Andy used to say, "You should be on the cover of Interview" as a ... not as a pickup line, but--

PP: Come on, it was a pickup line! He wouldn't necessarily say "on the cover," but there'd be some cute boy, and he'd say, "Oh, we'll put you in the magazine. Call Paige tomorrow." And, nine times out of 10, they would call.

GO: What do you think is the biggest misconception about Andy?

PP: That he was shy. I mean, he was a comedian. I would laugh so hard around him that I would start crying. He'd pick on things. He was incredibly talkative and hilarious. He also never really drank. Michel Roux was the CEO of Carillon Imports, which had Absolut Vodka and Bombay Gin and we would have dinner with him sometimes. He was a big advertiser for the magazine. And Michel would say, "Have you tried Absolut Citron?" And Andy would go, "Yes, it's a great cologne."

COPYRIGHT 2008 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning