Victor Bockris
In August Pork, which had only a brief run at La Mama, was a scandalous hit in London at the Roundhouse, where David Bowie, who was just making a name for himself as the leader of the new androgynous glitter-rock movement, had seen it. The director of Pork, Anthony Ingrassia, a talented giant from the Theatre of the Ridiculous, had developed the idea of basing a play on Brigid Polk’s tape-recorded conversations with Andy. Its two acts revolved around the character of B. Marlowe, a studiously styled duplicate of Warhol, taping and snapping photos of Amanda Pork (Brigid Polk, played by Kathy Dorritie), Vulva (Viva, played by the transvestite Wayne County), and the Pepsodent Twins (based on Jed and Jey Johnson), two nude boys with pastel-powdered genitals. The cautionary notices advertising that the play had ‘explicit’ sexual content and ‘offensive’ language helped attract audiences.
Since 1966, when his first manager, David Pott, had been involved in a project to promote the Velvet Underground in Britain, David Bowie had idolized Andy Warhol for his ability to create human theatre around himself and his genius for publicity and myth-making. When he saw Pork, Bowie was impressed by the sequins, netting, tiaras and glitter of the costuming and by its gender-bender attitudes. But what impressed him the most was the enormous amount of attention, generally unfavourable, the play received in the British press.
Bowie immediately befriended Anthony Zanetta, the young actor who portrayed B. Marlowe in both London and New York, and during several meetings at David’s house and in the house in Earl’s Court, Bowie quizzed Zanetta about Warhol. What was he like? What went on at the Factory?
In September, two weeks after Pork closed, while Bowie was in New York signing an RCA contract, Zanetta arranged for him to visit the Factory. Nothing of substance was discussed. In fact the meeting was tense and uncomfortable, with Warhol saying little except that he liked Bowie’s shoes, seemingly confounded by Bowie’s song ‘Andy Warhol’, which the rock star made a point of playing for him. ‘That was great – thank you very much,’ said Andy.
‘He was very upset,’ said one observer. ‘David Bowie said it was meant to be nice. Andy thought it was horrible. “Andy Warhol looks a scream” – he wouldn’t like that because he was very sensitive about what he looked like.’
The majority of people who visited Andy in this period were made to feel uncomfortable, and Zanetta noted that Bowie threw his manager Tony de Fries a series of ‘pained’ looked during the interview. Going down in the elevator, Bowie burst into laughter, reflecting on how much he had looked forward to meeting his hero and how nothing an experience it had been. By then Andy had become a piece of art alternatively arresting and confusing viewers.
Lou Reed, who had dinner with Bowie at Max’s that night, what immensely amused by Bowie’s account of how ‘fascinating’ the meeting with Andy had been because Warhol ‘had nothing to say at all, absolutely nothing’. The Velvet Underground had once considered producing an Andy Warhol doll, he told David; when you wound it up, it did nothing at all. However, Reed was as enamoured as ever of Warhol, telling an interviewer he thought Andy was the greatest artist not just of the twentieth ‘but of any century’. After Lou Reed, David Bowie was the rocker to make the most of the association. Indeed, by the autumn of 1972 Bowie had transformed the Warhol mystique into his Ziggy Stardust stage show, and was in the process of hiring several members of the Pork cast to staff his New York office, Mainman, which would attempt a Warholian coup in the rapidly expanding international rock market.
‘In the beginning, what David Bowie did was, he saw our play group in London, hired them all for his entourage, dyed his hair, wore dresses, and became the biggest star,’ Warhol – who was always underneath his mask somewhat jealous of people who made more money that he did out of his ideas – told Truman Capote.
‘Glitter rock’ became an enormously popular musical trend. One rock critic dubbed 1972 ‘the year of the transsexual tramp’ when ‘all of sudden almost everyone in rock ‘n’ roll wanted to be – or at least suggest the possibility of being – a raging queen.’ Lou Reed’s song ‘Andy’s Chest’ credited Warhol as an inspiration, and his hit single ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ (produced by Bowie) with its caustic verses about Holly (Woodlawn), Little Joe (Dallesandro), the Sugar Plum Fairy and Jackie (Curtis) would soon be broadcasting the Factory legend over top-ten radio stations internationally.
Since 1966, when his first manager, David Pott, had been involved in a project to promote the Velvet Underground in Britain, David Bowie had idolized Andy Warhol for his ability to create human theatre around himself and his genius for publicity and myth-making. When he saw Pork, Bowie was impressed by the sequins, netting, tiaras and glitter of the costuming and by its gender-bender attitudes. But what impressed him the most was the enormous amount of attention, generally unfavourable, the play received in the British press.
Bowie immediately befriended Anthony Zanetta, the young actor who portrayed B. Marlowe in both London and New York, and during several meetings at David’s house and in the house in Earl’s Court, Bowie quizzed Zanetta about Warhol. What was he like? What went on at the Factory?
In September, two weeks after Pork closed, while Bowie was in New York signing an RCA contract, Zanetta arranged for him to visit the Factory. Nothing of substance was discussed. In fact the meeting was tense and uncomfortable, with Warhol saying little except that he liked Bowie’s shoes, seemingly confounded by Bowie’s song ‘Andy Warhol’, which the rock star made a point of playing for him. ‘That was great – thank you very much,’ said Andy.
‘He was very upset,’ said one observer. ‘David Bowie said it was meant to be nice. Andy thought it was horrible. “Andy Warhol looks a scream” – he wouldn’t like that because he was very sensitive about what he looked like.’
The majority of people who visited Andy in this period were made to feel uncomfortable, and Zanetta noted that Bowie threw his manager Tony de Fries a series of ‘pained’ looked during the interview. Going down in the elevator, Bowie burst into laughter, reflecting on how much he had looked forward to meeting his hero and how nothing an experience it had been. By then Andy had become a piece of art alternatively arresting and confusing viewers.
Lou Reed, who had dinner with Bowie at Max’s that night, what immensely amused by Bowie’s account of how ‘fascinating’ the meeting with Andy had been because Warhol ‘had nothing to say at all, absolutely nothing’. The Velvet Underground had once considered producing an Andy Warhol doll, he told David; when you wound it up, it did nothing at all. However, Reed was as enamoured as ever of Warhol, telling an interviewer he thought Andy was the greatest artist not just of the twentieth ‘but of any century’. After Lou Reed, David Bowie was the rocker to make the most of the association. Indeed, by the autumn of 1972 Bowie had transformed the Warhol mystique into his Ziggy Stardust stage show, and was in the process of hiring several members of the Pork cast to staff his New York office, Mainman, which would attempt a Warholian coup in the rapidly expanding international rock market.
‘In the beginning, what David Bowie did was, he saw our play group in London, hired them all for his entourage, dyed his hair, wore dresses, and became the biggest star,’ Warhol – who was always underneath his mask somewhat jealous of people who made more money that he did out of his ideas – told Truman Capote.
‘Glitter rock’ became an enormously popular musical trend. One rock critic dubbed 1972 ‘the year of the transsexual tramp’ when ‘all of sudden almost everyone in rock ‘n’ roll wanted to be – or at least suggest the possibility of being – a raging queen.’ Lou Reed’s song ‘Andy’s Chest’ credited Warhol as an inspiration, and his hit single ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ (produced by Bowie) with its caustic verses about Holly (Woodlawn), Little Joe (Dallesandro), the Sugar Plum Fairy and Jackie (Curtis) would soon be broadcasting the Factory legend over top-ten radio stations internationally.
Interestingly, the book later mentions that Andy Warhol was seen “at Bowie’s sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in September” and that “David Bowie also visited the Factory occasionally, but his sense of stardom was so great that he knew he and Warhol would never see eye to eye.”
(I'm not entirely sure where this thread should go, so let's just say that it's free to be moved if required.)
