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Daily Ncbraskan
Tuesday, February 24, 1987
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ne of pop culture's leading
icons, the inimitable Andy
Warhol, died Sunday in New
York at age 58. The artistfilm-makersuperstarpublisherself-promoter
suffered a heart attack in his
sleep after undergoing routine gall
bladder surgery at New York University
Hospital.
Warhol became a legend in the '60s
when his paintings of Campbell's Soup
cans and screenprints of Liz Taylor
and Marilyn Monroe were shown in
galleries across the world.
Harrah's
Hollywood
')
by Scott
Harrah
UNL film and English professor
Wheeler Dixon used to work with
Warhol as a camera loader. He said
Warhol's death is a great loss to those
who understood his genius.
"He was one of the primary visual
stylists of the '60s," Dixon said. "His
work is of great importance both as a
graphic designer and as a filmmaker."
Dixon said that Warhol's early films
which he worked on are perhaps
the most misunderstood. "The Chelsea
Girls," "My Hustler," "Vinyl" and
"Empire" are of particular quality,
Dixon said. Later, Paul Morrissey
started making films under the Warhol
name after the pop art legend was shot
in 1969 by a female protege who claimed
that Warhol tried to "control her life."
Morrissey's films, such as "Trash,"
"Frankenstein," and "Dracula" were
merely puerile copies of the experi
mentation Warhol pioneered.
Born Andrew Warhola, the son of
Czech immigrants, he survived three
nervous breakdowns as a child growing
up in the industrial city of McKeesport,
Pa.
He attended the Carnegie Institute
of Technology in Pittsburgh and gradu
ated with a bachelor's degree in pictor
ial design in 1949. Then he dropped the
r
final vowel from his surname and moved
to the city that would become his king
dom and his muse, New York.
The Press
With his white hair, translucent skin
and deadpan aura, he elevated his role
as an artist into fame and personal PR,
milking the media for everything.
"Say whatever you want to say about
me, but make sure you spell my name
right," he once told the press.
Fame was his forte, his world and his
prescription for sanity. He worshipped
celebrities and often took no-names
under the infamous Warhol wing so he
could turn them into stars. His most
famous Warholette was the late Edie
Sedgwick, a socialite from a wealthy
New England family who dyed her hair
the same color as Andy's, dressed in
black and became the most fasionable
neurotic since Sylvia Plath. She
made the cult film, "Ciao, Manhattan"
and committed suicide shortly after
ward. A best-selling biography was
written about her two years ago, attest
ing to the fact that those who were
embraced by Warhol were charmed for
the rest of their lives.
The Factory days
Warhol's studio, known as the Fac
tory, became a hangout in the '60s for
all of the Warhol clan, a strange
assortment of groupies, drag queens,
jet-setters and so-called "beautiful
people." Many emerged as superstars
of the underground movement, includ
ing Candy Darling, Holly Wood
lawn and Lou Reed.
Only the latter was a real man.
He created the legendary band the
Velvet Underground, which illuminated
the careers of Nico, John Cale and
others. In 1969, he founded the pheno
menally successful Interview magazine,
a monthly compendium of jet-set gos
sip, high fashion and celebrity worship.
"In the future, everyone will be fam
ous for 15 minutes," Warhol once said.
The statement became his trademark,
for Hollywood was his constant source
of fascination.
Dixon said that Warhol loved those
in the limelight because he felt that
celebrities' lives were art forms in
themselves.
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All day 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Buy 1 burger & get a 2nd one for a buck!
(Dine in orders only.)
Chesterfield's
13th & Q
Food For Thought?
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Service Personnel are eligible for a $2,000 Cash Bonus. The Air Guard
can use people with or without prior service.
The Nebraska Air Guard offers the New G.I. Bill. $140 per month
for full time students. Plus 75 state tuition assistance.
Nebraska
Air
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America's Hometown Air Force 475-4910
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Stardom as art
"People like Liz Taylor are con
stantly trying to make their lives into a
work of art," Dixon said. "And Andy
admired that tremendously."
Dixon said that many people were
afraid to take Warhol seriously because
they didn't understand his work.
Although Warhol is best known for his
pop-art interpretations of commercial
products, he also made paintings of
race riots and electric chairs that car
ried profound political connotations,
Dixon said.
Village Voice columnist Michael
Musto said in a phone interview that
Warhol's scene was the forerunner of
the now burgeoning "Downtown" art
and club culture in lower Manhattan.
The scene, which Musto describes in
his book "Downtown," is the child of
the avant-garde netherworld Warhol
thrived on back in the Factory days,
when journalists would crowd around
the place hoping to get the scoop on
the legend's latest project. Sometimes,
according to the book "Popism and the
Warhol '60s," Warhol and cohorts would
make up a mock film title or artwork
just to see how much media coverage
they would get. Such tactics induced
riducle from art critics and film mav
ens, but Warhol overlooked all the bad
press and continued to. rise into
immortality. Dixon said that Warhol's
Factory crowd and his proteges were
actually necessary elements of his
career.
"Those people gravitated toward
him," Dixon said. "He needed those
people as a support line."
Andy in real life
As a person, Dixon explained, War
hol was quite shy and self-effacing.
"He never did drugs at all, he didn't
drink, and he wasn't interested in sex,"
John BruceDaily Nebraskan
Dixon claims.
Warhol holds a unique place in Dix
on's memory because he was one of his
primary influences.
"He is the person who started me out
by putting a camera and film in my
hand," he said, then paused and
solemnly added, "I can't believe I'm
speaking about him in the past tense."
To many, Warhol was an innovator; to
others, a source of laughter and a
phony. But he was perhaps one of the
key elements of popular culture and all
that encompasses the notion of fame.
He was everything that made up the
phrase "art for art's sake." He was
shock value, hype and a constant source
of energy and conversation.
"I never have liked the thought of
death," he once said. "Because you're
never around to experience it."
He is now. Andy Warhol, your 15
minutes are up.
Courtesy of Omnibus Press '
Andy Werhcl end Lou Reed during ths Factory days. j
