The original fanboy
Andy Warhol was dazzled by ‘Stars of the Silver Screen’
Long before Andy Warhol applied diamond dust to his canvases, he was starstruck by the flash and glitter of celebrity.
A young Andy Warhola and his brothers, John and Paul, escaped the Great Depression of the 1930s for a few hours by going to the movies in Oakland. On the lustrous silver screen, they saw glamour goddess Greta Garbo and the bubbly Judy Garland. Other stars who captivated the budding artist were Elizabeth Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, Kim Novak, Marlene Dietrich, Sophia Loren and Joan Crawford.
“Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen” is a visual feast. The show, which runs through Sept. 24 at The Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side, shows many of Warhol’s films, including some of the 500 shorts called screen tests.
Visitors also will see images of Warhol’s “Superstars,” including a touching portrait of Edie Sedgwick. On the sixth floor, in a separate viewing room, there are 12 stations where visitors can watch interviews with famous people that were broadcast either on MTV or a Manhattan cable channel.
Geralyn Huxley, the museum’s curator of film and video, said Warhol’s fascination with movie stars began in his boyhood and continued through 1987, the year he died. On the bedside table of his hospital room was Frank Sinatra’s autobiography.
Throughout his life, Warhol collected old issues of Photoplay magazine and sent away for autographed pictures. He bought scrapbooks of movie stars, often finding them in Chelsea flea markets in New York City. At times, friends gave him scrapbooks as gifts.
A marvelous full-length portrait of Olympic medalist Johnny Weissmuller, painted in 1930, shows him dressed in an elegant white undershirt and matching shorts. Weismuller, an Olympic medalist in 1924 in Paris and again in Amsterdam in 1928, went on to model underwear for BVD before achieving movie stardom as Tarzan in 12 films.
In a nearby display case are two artifacts: a black long-sleeved gown worn by Jean Harlow and a pair of Clark Gable’s shoes.
The dress, which Warhol kept in a manila envelope, will help you appreciate the petite figure of the 1930s bombshell, who stood 5 feet, 1 inch. The tan-and-white spectator shoes would go perfectly with Gable’s I-don’t-give-adamn attitude.
“Kay Gable [the star’s second wife] read that Warhol collected shoes and sent them in 1973,” Ms. Huxley said.
By the 1960s and ’70s, Andy Warhol was a regular at starstudded parties in New York. When Paramount Pictures marked its 60th anniversary with a party at the Museum of Modern Art, actress Gloria Swanson of “Sunset Boulevard” fame attended. She was no longer big and the pictures made that night were small, but Warhol photographed her, and she returned the favor, snapping a Polaroid of the bespectacled artist and signing it on the spot.
At the Peking Opera, Warhol met Margaret Hamilton, best known for playing the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz.” He persuaded her to come to his studio.
Warhol clearly enjoyed basking in the glow of a celebrity’s aura. In one black-and-white photo, he smiles beatifically next to dancer Ann Miller.
“He was a fan. He loved the stars. He became friends with the stars,” Ms. Huxley said.