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Andy Warhol News Archive - March 2006

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THE ANDY WARHOL FILM CATALOGUE RAISONNE

There are two free events in New York in April 2006 to coincide with the publication of the first volume of the Andy Warhol film catalogue raisonné - Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne, Volume One - which is out now. A screening of a selection of Warhol's Screen Tests will take place April 11, 2006 at 5:30 pm at the Pratt Film Society, Pratt Institute, Higgins Hall Auditorium, 61 St. James Place at Lafayette Ave in Brooklyn (www.pratt.edu/directions). The author of the catalogue raisonné, Callie Angell, will discuss the films and sign books after the presentation. On April 20th another book signing will take place at the Rizzoli Bookstore, 31 W. 57th Street in Manhattan from 5:30 to 7:00 pm.

More than ten years of research has gone into this book and it shows. It's amazing. The main chapter - a Screen Tests A-Z - is a veritable who's who of the 1960s with biographical information on all the cultural heavyweights, drug addicts, poets, artists and beauties that were the subjects of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests - many of whom also appeared in Warhol's longer films. Do you want to know more information about Warhol's first cross-dressing superstar, Mario Montez? You will find it here. Do you want to know the name of the actor who appeared in Andy Warhol's Blow Job? You will find it here. Do you want to know about Andy Warhol's early boyfriends? You will find them here. A whole chapter is devoted to Warhol's serial film portraiture of his then boyfriend Philip Fagan. The idea was to film Fagan every day for a period of six months creating a film portrait lasting fourteen hours - however since Fagan and Warhol split up after three months, there are 107 Screen Tests of Fagan shot over a period of 96 days.

The Fagan text is followed by a chapter devoted to Warhol's conceptual series - compilations of Screen Tests such as Fifty Fantastics and Fifty Personalities, The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women and The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys (which includes a discussion of Warhol's Thirteen Most Wanted Men mural at the 1964 World's Fair). A further chapter is devoted to background reels, including information on the Velvet Underground and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The Appendices in the book include "Screen Tests/A Diary" - an examination of Gerard Malanga's collaborative book with Andy Warhol - as well as a "Screen Test Chronology," a guide to the preserved Screen Tests and color reproductions of various Screen Test personalities including Edie Sedgwick and Patrick Tilden Close. Most of the photographs in this book have never been published before.

Even if you are not a particular fan of Warhol's Screen Tests, this book has so much information on the Warhol era that it is indispensable for anyone with an interest in the cultural history of the 1960s. It is the best book on the Warhol era published in the last ten years. Highly recommended.

Billy Name:

"Callie Angell's expert Volume 1 of the Warhol film catalog raisonné (Screen Tests) is a must for all libraries as the most authentic reference manual for this oeuvre. All information is from direct viewing of the films and interviews with actual participants. it is therefore the primary source for this series of Warhol film art. The publication is beautiful and the illustrations, actual stills from the actual films, are exciting. The text and essays are chock full of technical info on the making of the series, social notes included. a must have for all serious Warhol sources. Abrams and the Whitney Museum of American Art did a fine job; it's a historical documentary publication in the art world."

PAUL MORRISSEY TO PRODUCE NEW CANDY DARLING FILM

A new documentary on Warhol star Candy Darling is currently in production, with Paul Morrissey as Executive Producer. Director of the film is James Rasin. Rasin, a graduate of Tufts University in Massachusetts, co-wrote Somebody's Sins - a script about Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith and also co-directed The Burning Ghat - a film about Beat author Herbert Huncke who was a friend of Rasin's.

Candy Darling's friend, Jeremiah Newton, who co-authored My Face For The World To See: The Diaries, Letters and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar, is co-producing the documentary with Gill Holland. Newton is looking for artists who knew Candy or were influenced by her and is also seeking photos and videos of her as well as contact with any friends of the late superstar. He can be contacted at jay.newton@nyu.edu.

WERE YOU IN CIAO MANHATTAN?

The Alleghan County Historical Society in Michigan is in the process of creating a display devoted to the film, Ciao! Manhattan, in their old county jail which is now home to the Old Jail Museum. Scenes from Ciao! Manhattan were shot in one of the cell blocks and they are seeking any Ciao! Manhattan memorabilia and/or contact from individuals who were either in the film or were involved in the making of it - or anyone else who may have information about it. Please contact Tom Fleming, President of the Alleghan County Historical Society at email address trf2916@btc-bci.com, by telephone: (269) 673-440, or by snail mail to Alleghan County Historical Society, 2916 102nd Ave., Allegan, MI 49010.

Tom was actually present during the filming of Ciao! Manhattan. He was a deputy sheriff at the time and it was his duty to escort Paul America to the second floor cell block across the street from the jail that he was housed in.

David Weisman (Co-Director of Ciao! Manhattan):

"Ciao! Manhattan was conceived as a 35mm black-and-white feature that would essentially chronicle our own lifestyle as fabulously hip young midtown scenesters. Edie Sedgwick and Paul America (Warhol's My Hustler) would play lead roles along with the Factory and Max's Kansas City regulars Baby Jane Holzer, Viva and Brigid 'Polk' Berlin... The film was an ambitious experiment... The money came and went and so did our cast. Paul America disappeared halfway through production... Over a year later, in late 1968, we found Paul America in an upstate Michigan prison, facing twenty years to life on an obscure marijuana charge. We shot a sequence in his actual jail cell, which we naively thought would finish the film. Instead, we had inadvertently created a new dimension of reality." (from the DVD booklet).

MISHA SEDGWICK

New York actress Misha Sedgwick is not the niece of Edie Sedgwick as she has previously claimed. Her real name is Misha Moore. Misha appeared in the off-Broadway play Andy and Edie which opened in New York on May 3, 2004 and was written and co-produced by Peter Braunstein. Braunstein's original website for Andy and Edie can be found at:
here.

Jonathan Sedgwick (Edie's brother):

"Misha admitted to my daughter, the real niece, that (in her words) 'I'm only VERY distantly related to her (Edie), even though I have the same last name... I think he (Peter Braunstein) started the rumor and people just picked up on it because my last name is the same. I played her in an off-broadway play and some gossip papers in NY thought I was closely related... which started the whole thing... but I'm not.'"

In addition to her role in Andy and Edie, Misha also appeared in The Dead Life, a film directed by Warhol star Ivy Nicholson and Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (2005) with a cast that included Mario Van Peebles and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

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