Dusty Rhodes

Dusty Rhodes is introduced in Andy Warhol’s diary through a striking contrast: a wrestler cheered before a crowd of about 26,000, then a bruised, heavily jeweled man carried from the arena into an evening of dinners and clubs. The episode captures both the theatrical spectacle of his public persona and the social awkwardness of his passage into Warhol’s nightlife circle.

The Match at Madison Square Garden

Tom Sullivan brought Andy Warhol and Catherine Guinness to Madison Square Garden to see Rhodes wrestle a Japanese opponent. Warhol had assumed wrestling was a dead sport; the enormous audience overturned that expectation. The match itself lasted only eight minutes, and Catherine Guinness went to take photographs before it was over. Warhol noticed that the wrestlers wore sequins and speculated that their style had been influenced by Gorgeous George, connecting the bout’s athletic contest to a history of performance and display.

Rhodes said he would come out soon after the match, but appeared about twenty minutes later. The delay gave Warhol a close view of a figure markedly different from the polished spectacle of the ring: Rhodes wore dark glasses and abundant gold jewelry, had bruises across his body, and showed deep dark rings around his eyes. The diary’s detailed inventory makes his battered appearance part of the evening’s spectacle, even after the wrestling had ended.

From the Arena into the Night

Warhol and his companions took Rhodes with them to Monique Van Vooren’s dinner. The group later went to the Lone Star and then to Hurrah’s, where Rhodes seemed apprehensive at the sight of the club’s gay male patrons and asked for a woman. The club’s owner found a woman and arranged for them to meet. Afterward, Rhodes and the woman were dropped off at the Sheraton; Catherine Guinness and Tom Sullivan picked up hamburgers at the Brasserie and went to the Westbury, while Warhol was dropped at home.

A Figure Between Spectacle and Social Life

The diary gives Rhodes no extended biography or account of his aims; his characterization comes instead from a compact sequence of public performance, physical detail, and social encounters. The brief match and its huge audience establish his drawing power, while the bruises and jewelry make the wrestler’s body and costume inseparable in Warhol’s description. His unease at Hurrah’s marks a change in setting and exposes a gap between the ring’s staged display and the expectations of the club. Rhodes remains a vivid guest in this one-night account: first the reason for an unexpectedly crowded arena, then a companion whose presence carries the spectacle into the city’s after-hours social world.