Andy Warhol’s Rise to Success
The early years of Pop Art’s grandee
Andy Warhol never considered himself very interesting.
In 1967, the artist agreed to take a cross-country college lecture tour, only to send an impersonator in his place. A young actor named Allen Midgette, who travelled instead of Warhol, wore silver hairspray and acted the part by chewing a lot of gum — “because Andy did.”
After the hoax was revealed, Warhol justified himself by claiming, “I don’t really have much to say… They liked him better than they would have me.”
Two years before, when Warhol appeared on the Merv Griffin show in 1965, he remained almost entirely mute throughout his five-minute appearance. When he mumbled a single-word response to one question, the studio audience broke into applause.
Much of this was an intentional pretense, a feigned vacuousness that disguised a keen and fertile imagination. When visiting his London gallery in the early 1980s, for instance, asked by an interviewer what had prompted his latest round of self-portraits, Warhol replied, “I ran out of ideas.” His expression was bemused, almost incredulous, that he might be asked such a direct, face-value question about his less-than-face-value art.
