Tom Sullivan

Tom Sullivan emerges as a handsome, socially agile figure whose life seems to move between romantic entanglements, extravagant gestures, and the making of a film. The diaries first show him recovering from a plane crash with a badly burned hand; later, his account of that crash becomes part of the story of his character in Cocaine Cowboys. By 1980, however, the same film that had occupied his summer is associated with the diarist’s suspicion that Sullivan has run through his money and is making excuses to borrow more.

Introduction and Early Recovery

In January 1978, Sullivan was introduced through Peter Beard as a friend with a burned hand. He had been living for months in a suite at the Westbury while waiting for skin grafts after a plane crash. The injury was an immediate, visible fact of his life, but the diary does not treat him only as a patient: at lunch, he noticed that the group liked his boots, asked for everyone’s sizes, and arranged for three pairs to be sent from Georgia. The casual generosity made him memorable even as he remained in extended recovery.

The boots became a small production of their own. When they arrived at the airport, Peter Beard brought them down; Sullivan had supplied the requested sizes, although the diarist’s pair had the wrong toe shape. One of Catherine Guinness’s pairs was accidentally left inside the large shipping box after Peter removed the shoes. Sullivan’s driver went back uptown to find the discarded box and returned with it. The boots were made from elephant ears, an unusual detail that suited the social world in which Sullivan moved: practical favors arrived with an element of display.

Catherine Guinness and the Public Private Life

Sullivan’s relationship with Catherine Guinness developed amid overlapping signals of intimacy and independence. The morning after the boots were ordered, he answered Catherine’s home telephone when the diarist called. He said he was only dropping something off and seemed not to have expected to answer. When the diarist later told Catherine, she acknowledged the situation with some embarrassment. The episode offered an early glimpse of Sullivan’s presence in her private life, though it did not by itself define their relationship.

At a Valentine’s party, Sullivan and Catherine were described as having a pact that allowed each of them to go where they wished and see other people. Sullivan arrived with a very beautiful sixteen-year-old model, while Catherine attended with the diarist. The arrangement was presented as a mutual agreement, not as an exclusive courtship, and the contrast between Catherine’s company and Sullivan’s date made its terms visible in the room.

A few days later, the diaries described a more painful complication. At Regine’s, Sullivan was sad because Margaret Trudeau was keeping her distance to avoid being photographed with him while she was still married. A photographer claimed to have seen Sullivan and Margaret having sex in a balcony at Studio 54; later, Margaret came over and spoke to the diarist so she could be near Sullivan, and photographers took pictures. Catherine was unhappy because, in the diarist’s understanding, Sullivan was in love with Margaret. The episode places the relationship pact beside a less manageable attachment: private desire, Catherine’s feelings, Margaret’s marriage, and the prospect of public photographs all converged in the same social scene.

By the time of a later account at Trax, Sullivan told Catherine that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but that they should not let the relationship show in public because it would cramp his style with other women. This version sharpened the tension between a named partnership and a wish to preserve his freedom and image. The diary records Sullivan’s explanation rather than resolving what Catherine accepted or how long the arrangement lasted.

Cocaine Cowboys and the Crash Story

In August 1978, Sullivan’s focus shifted to a film being shot around Montauk. He brought a Betamax machine, and the diarist visited the production, where around twenty people were already out shooting. Sullivan was making a movie with Jack Palance, and the diarist watched rushes that included airplane shots and the band. The early impression was mixed but hopeful: Sullivan seemed capable on screen, and the band’s presence suggested that introducing it was part of what he wanted the film to accomplish.

The diarist also tried to persuade Mr. Winters to appear in the movie, bringing him an abstract Shadow painting and copies of Interview. The visit conveys the improvised network around the production, where personal calls, gifts, and social visits ran alongside filming. Sullivan’s wife, Winnie, was there too; the diarist greeted her and reconsidered an earlier impression, finding her beautiful after all.

Sullivan himself acted in the film as Destin, a singer with a band. In one scene, the diarist was assigned to take photographs without realizing that people were running off with cocaine, and was given lines despite feeling unable to act naturally. At dinner, Sullivan recounted his own history: he had burned his body in a plane crash in Colombia, after which people found him and took him to New York in a private plane. The diarist recognized that this real-life account closely resembled the character’s story. His injury, first encountered as the aftermath of a crash and a long wait for skin grafts, thus became part of the film’s narrative material.

Decline in Confidence and Later Sightings

By July 1980, the diarist was trying to avoid Sullivan’s telephone calls. He suspected that Sullivan was inventing stories about friends being hospitalized and needing small sums of money because he had run short of cash. The diarist connected this suspicion to the cost of Cocaine Cowboys, reasoning that Sullivan might have spent what he had on the film and that even a few million dollars would not last long given his lavish way of living and constant travel. These were explicitly suspicions, not verified facts; the diary records the growing distrust and the explanation the diarist constructed around it.

Sullivan remained part of the wider social landscape even when he was absent. At a later Studio 54 visit, Winnie was there without him and said he was in Hawaii. The brief report contrasts with the earlier scenes of Sullivan surrounded by Catherine, Margaret, film collaborators, and friends. Across these appearances, he is defined less by a settled biography than by a sequence of vivid circumstances: a burned hand, boots ordered for friends, complicated relationships, a film shaped by his own accident, and calls the diarist eventually wished to evade.

Narrative Role

The diaries assemble Sullivan through social encounters rather than through a continuous account of his life. His character becomes legible in gestures and contradictions: he arranges boots for others while undergoing a long recovery, calls Catherine his girlfriend while wanting discretion and access to other women, and turns a traumatic plane crash into material closely echoed by his screen role. The later suspicion about money changes the tone of his appearances, replacing the early fascination with wariness. The record leaves his ultimate circumstances unresolved, but preserves the shift in the diarist’s view from an intriguing, generous presence to someone whose calls were unwelcome.