Pelé

Pelé is presented as both an internationally recognized soccer player and a subject of celebrity image-making. In the diaries, he moves between a media office, a testimonial dinner, and a large public match; across these settings, his fame is visible not only in his sporting presence but in the photographs, portrait, and merchandise attached to his name.

Interview and Public Image

On July 13, 1977, Andy Warhol went to the Warner Communications offices at Rockefeller Plaza to see Pelé, who was being photographed for Interview. They met on the thirtieth floor, where Pelé had his own office. He remembered meeting Warhol once before at Regine's, a small but telling sign that their encounter belonged to a shared celebrity circuit rather than beginning as a formal introduction.

The office also displayed the commercial reach of Pelé’s fame: T-shirts, hats, and cartoons were being made around him. The diaries do not describe the Interview photographs themselves, but the setting links his public image to a magazine that had become a glamorous meeting place for celebrities and new faces. Pelé’s appearance there placed him within a system in which recognition could be extended through photographs and media attention as well as sport.

The Portrait and Testimonial Dinner

In September 1977, Ahmet Ertegun invited Warhol to a testimonial dinner for Pelé at The Plaza Hotel. Warhol spent much of the day trying unsuccessfully to find someone to accompany him, then arrived at the dinner after dropping off Vincent Fremont and Catherine Guinness. The portrait Warhol had made of Pelé was to be presented there, bringing his work as a painter directly into the public celebration of the soccer player.

Pelé’s parents and wife attended. Warhol described the parents warmly and noted that Pelé’s wife was white while the members of the family had varied complexions. The observation is brief and framed through Warhol’s casual attention to appearance; it offers a glimpse of his diaristic way of registering people without turning the dinner into a detailed account of Pelé’s private life.

The portrait belonged to a broader practice in which Warhol translated a sitter’s appearance through a tightly controlled photographic and printing process. He generally began with about sixty Polaroid photographs made with a Polaroid Big Shot, selected four images for conversion into positive images on eight-by-ten-inch acetates, then chose, cropped, and cosmetically altered one image. The enlarged image was screened onto canvas, where small shifts between the silkscreen and the painted areas produced the characteristic shifting effect of the portraits. The diary does not specify which steps were used for Pelé’s portrait, but its presentation shows that his likeness entered this wider practice of making celebrity identity into a reproducible artwork.

A Star on the Field

Pelé also appears in the account of a match attended by 75,000 people. He played on one side and then the other. When rain began, raincoats were handed out to VIPs; Warhol found that the weather made the occasion more exciting. The scene places Pelé at the center of a mass audience, in contrast to the closer, managed encounters of the Interview shoot and the testimonial dinner.

Together, these appearances show the different settings in which Pelé’s fame was made visible: a private office where merchandise was being produced, a formal dinner where his portrait was presented, and a crowded match where spectators watched him play. The diaries offer only brief glimpses of Pelé himself and do not develop a personal narrative for him. Instead, they record how his recognizable image moved between sport, media, and art.