Richard Gere

Richard Gere’s place in Andy Warhol’s diary is defined by a persistent mismatch: his films and celebrity made him valuable to Interview, but his willingness to participate in the magazine was uncertain, and his manner could seem to change from one setting to the next. Repeated meetings trace the effort to bring a prominent actor into Warhol’s orbit, while showing how the diary measures public persona against the impressions formed at lunches, parties, screenings, and interviews.

A sought-after Interview subject

In January 1980, Warhol saw American Gigolo at a screening presented by Interview in the Gulf + Western building. He praised Gere’s performance and noted that the film’s closing scene, in which Gere’s character throws a pimp from a balcony, unfolds against three of Warhol’s Torsos posters. The posters did not merely decorate the scene: their presence made Warhol’s own work part of the film’s visual environment, linking the actor’s screen image to the art and magazine worlds that occupied the diary.

Gere also appeared at Interview’s lunch in March 1980 with his girlfriend, Silvinha. The gathering brought together people from different parts of Warhol’s social and professional circle, among them Swedish guests and a pool player who resisted the prospect of modeling. Amina, a model writing a play, had repeatedly asked when Gere would arrive; once he did, he did not pay attention to her, and she turned elsewhere. The small episode records the pull of his presence without turning the lunch into a simple account of universal admiration: people anticipated him, but his arrival did not necessarily produce the attention they hoped for.

By 1976, Interview had become a glamorous publication whose celebrity covers and interviews drew people who wanted to appear in it. Warhol’s characteristic promise had shifted from offering a place in a movie to offering a place in the magazine. Within that context, Gere was both a recognizable star and a potential cover subject. The magazine’s interest in him would recur even when access proved difficult, making the distance between celebrity appeal and cooperation part of his story in the diary.

Social encounters and private impressions

At a party hosted by Diane von Furstenberg, Gere accompanied Silvinha, although Warhol understood that he had not been invited as a guest in his own right. Warhol observed him behaving like a host and described him as insecure as well as likable. That mixed appraisal complicates the image of an actor whose public presence might otherwise seem self-assured: in Warhol’s account, Gere could assume the social role of host while also appearing unsettled.

The same party brought together Silvinha, Gere, and a crowded group of acquaintances. Silvinha spoke about wanting to introduce Gere to art galleries, and Warhol registered the contrast between her interest in widening his horizons and the uncertainty surrounding their relationship. The diary presents this information as an overheard social exchange, not as a definitive account of Gere’s feelings. Its significance lies in the way the gathering makes the couple’s public appearance and private uncertainty coexist in the same scene.

Warhol encountered Gere again at a lunch in June 1980, with Silvinha and other guests. The occasion was less a formal interview than another point in the network of meals and introductions through which Interview and its associates moved. These recurring social settings matter because Warhol’s picture of Gere did not come from a single profile: it accumulated through observation, reports about the magazine, and repeated attempts to engage him.

Screen roles and the making of a public image

In September 1982, Warhol learned that Gere had appeared on a new Rolling Stone cover and complained to Interview that this was why Gere had turned the magazine down. The rejection irritated him enough to color his response to Gere’s work: after watching Mr. Goodbar, he said he hated Gere for refusing Interview, yet acknowledged that Gere was very good in the film. The contradiction is central to the diary’s portrait. Warhol could resent the actor’s unavailability and still recognize the force of his performance.

In May 1983, Warhol watched Breathless and found Gere’s casting strange, imagining that an actor such as Matt Dillon might have better matched the film’s James Dean-like quality. He associated the movie with an existential mood that, in his view, no longer felt modern, and noted its old-fashioned quality. This response is not simply a judgment of Gere’s acting; it shows Warhol comparing the performer with the cultural image and cinematic tradition he believed the film invoked.

The following July, Warhol and Maura Moynihan went to Astoria Studios to interview Gere while he was making The Cotton Club. They were apprehensive about the conversation, and the interview proved difficult. Gere watched older films connected to his roles and borrowed details from them, a practice Warhol noticed as part of his preparation. But Gere was uncooperative during the interview and gave an inaccurate account of his first film, which Warhol recognized. The one substantial personal detail he offered concerned his time filming in Mexico: while not working, he had been hospitalized with dysentery and connected to an IV, returning to work when disconnected. The episode left Warhol with a portrait of an actor who studied cinematic precedent closely but offered little straightforward access to himself.

Refusal, reconsideration, and later encounters

Interview’s efforts to secure Gere continued. In May 1983, Warhol noted that Gere had not returned the magazine’s calls about appearing on its cover and concluded that he was not a friend. That judgment followed the earlier rejection and shows how professional access could be interpreted in personal terms within Warhol’s diary. The distinction was unstable: Gere remained a valued subject even as his silence became evidence, to Warhol, of distance.

The commercial result reinforced the magazine’s interest. In October 1983, Warhol believed that the Richard Gere issue was Interview’s biggest seller yet, despite his view that the interview inside was poor. He concluded that readers’ desire to read about a person could matter more than the quality of the conversation. Gere’s draw as a celebrity therefore survived the very problem that had troubled Warhol: the magazine could benefit from his name and image even when the resulting interview disappointed its publisher.

At a dinner in November 1983, Gere arrived with Silvinha wearing a small hat and mustache associated with his look in The Cotton Club. He complained that newspapers never got things right and said he had come because he wanted to meet Keith Haring. Gere also discussed buying art. In the course of the evening, he described having thrown a Warhol painting into a fireplace after receiving it through Jean-Michel Basquiat; the painting had first served Basquiat as a surface on which to write down Gere’s phone number. Warhol then admitted that the material depicted was his own, though it had actually come from Victor Hugo. The story brought Gere’s screen persona, art collecting, and an irreverent encounter with Warhol’s work into one exchange. It also offered a sharp counterpoint to the earlier frustration over Gere’s refusal: he might decline the magazine, yet still enter Warhol’s circle through artists, paintings, and social occasions.

In March 1984, Gere came to lunch with Matt Dillon and Vic Ramos. Jean-Michel Basquiat joined them because Dillon had mentioned Basquiat’s art in an interview he had done with Interview. The meeting’s purpose remained unclear to Warhol for much of the meal, but it placed Gere within a gathering organized around the movement between film and art. Across these episodes, Gere is neither a consistently accessible friend nor merely a distant celebrity. He is a recurring figure whose performances attract Warhol, whose refusals provoke irritation, and whose appearances repeatedly expose the unstable boundary between a star’s public image and the private person the magazine hopes to reach.