Margaret Trudeau

Margaret Trudeau is a recurring figure in Andy Warhol’s social and professional orbit, appearing as an interview subject, party guest, and focus of public attention. The diary does not offer a continuous biography or her own account of events; instead, it records brief encounters in which her celebrity is registered through interviews, cameras, fashion, gossip, and the reactions of people around her. Over time, these glimpses connect the polished visibility of public appearances with more unsettled reports about her private relationships.

Identity and Place in the Diaries

Margaret’s presence is first legible through the social reach of Interview and Warhol’s circle. In November 1977, she attended a dinner at the Iranian embassy, where Ambassador Amir Abbas Hoveyda had arranged for a Polaroid portrait of Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Margaret arrived with Barry Landau, who had gained entry by presenting himself as Warhol’s closest friend. The diary places her among film and political figures rather than in a separate political setting: Bella Abzug and her husband were also there, as was Shirley MacLaine, and Milos Forman discussed a possible film role with Margaret. The proposed part, as Evelyn Nesbit in Ragtime, came with a nude-performance condition; she was considering it. The episode shows her moving easily through a room where diplomatic hospitality, entertainment, and career possibilities overlapped.

Margaret’s importance to the diary also reflects Interview’s larger role. The magazine’s growing circulation and celebrity appeal made it a steady source of new faces and encounters for Warhol. His work increasingly involved interviewing prominent people as well as photographing them, and Margaret became one of those subjects. The diary does not establish the publication history of her interview, but it records the meeting itself as a successful conversation and follows her visibility beyond the editorial setting.

Interview and the Making of a Public Image

In January 1978, Warhol and Bob Colacello met Margaret at Quo Vadis for an Interview conversation. She spoke about her large family, including her many sisters, and about hitchhiking in Morocco in 1969. She also recounted an encounter at dinner with Richard Nixon: after not speaking to her for most of the meal, he turned to tell her about the sex life of a panda. At one point she asked for the tape recorder to be turned off before sharing the story, distinguishing what she was willing to offer for the interview from what she preferred to disclose off tape. The account presents her as an engaging conversationalist who could direct the terms of what became recordable material.

Her public image was not confined to the interview table. At a party at Studio 54 for Francesco Scavullo, Margaret danced while photographers crowded around her. Warhol had been told there would be only one photographer, but he counted between twenty and fifty. When a cake shaped like a camera was brought out for Scavullo, the photographers continued to concentrate on Margaret instead. The contrast is telling: even a celebration built around a photographer and a camera-shaped centerpiece could be overtaken by the person attracting the lenses. Margaret’s attention-drawing presence is recorded as an observable feature of the event, not as proof of what she thought about the attention.

Social Encounters and Career Possibilities

Margaret’s appearances also connect her to Warhol’s overlapping circles of artists, editors, and entertainers. In April 1978, Tom Sullivan brought her to an Academy Awards party at Studio 54 hosted by Warhol and Truman Capote for Polaroid. The diary’s focus is largely on the headaches of putting Warhol’s name on the invitations, including an invitation addressed to himself that arrived at the office, but Margaret’s presence with Tom places her within the evening’s network of established guests and hosts.

At Richard Weisman’s party in November 1977, Margaret was there with two Canadian friends. The diary records Warhol advising her to return to her husband and enter politics, and says she was pleased to hear that suggestion. This is a small but revealing exchange: public speculation about her next direction coexisted with the diary’s casual treatment of her as someone whose personal and professional future could be discussed among acquaintances. It does not establish that she adopted the advice or pursued politics as a result.

Her public persona also appears through others’ descriptions of clothing and attention. During the 1978 Interview conversation, Margaret said that she had been placed on a worst-dressed list and that photographers tended to pursue her wherever she went, regardless of who else was present. The later party scene at Studio 54 gives that reported experience a concrete counterpart: the cameras followed her even when the occasion offered another intended subject.

Relationships, Rumor, and Later Reports

The diary’s account of Margaret’s relationships changes in tone across its entries, from hearsay to a more definite report in the press. In June 1978, Warhol noted a rumor that she had run off with Jack Nicholson, qualifying it with uncertainty rather than presenting it as established fact. At a dinner in June 1981, Margaret was again in Warhol’s company, this time after he invited Jon Gould to meet her. Richard Weisman had called to say she was in town; she arrived with Bruce Nevins, while Bianca Jagger was also present. The diary describes the gathering as a social evening and records Warhol’s opinion of Margaret’s appearance, a reminder that his account often frames women through the scrutiny of looks and weight.

By the beginning of 1982, the report had become more explicit but remained mediated by publicity. Warhol noted that a newspaper had discussed Margaret’s affair with Jack Nicholson and that her new book described her relationship with Tom Sullivan, whom the diary identifies as having died, without mentioning his death. The entry does not supply the circumstances of that relationship or explain the book’s omission. Its significance lies in the contrast between what the newspaper and book chose to foreground and what Warhol considered left unsaid. Margaret’s life reaches the reader through these uneven channels—conversation, rumor, social observation, and published accounts—rather than through a settled or complete narrative.

Narrative Role and Significance

Margaret is not presented as the subject of a single, resolved storyline. Her appearances accumulate instead as a record of how celebrity circulates: she is interviewed, photographed, discussed as a possible performer, linked to prominent companions, and described in newspapers and a book. The diary’s recurring attention to cameras and appearance is especially important. Her own report that photographers pursued her is echoed by the party where they largely ignored the event’s other attractions to focus on her.

At the same time, the entries expose the limits of this record. Warhol’s perspective can be sharp about the mechanics of attention, yet it also reduces complex relationships to quick judgments, gossip, and observations about appearance. Margaret’s candid interview stories and her request to take part of the conversation off tape suggest a distinction between public visibility and what she chose to disclose. The result is a portrait built from fragments: vivid in its scenes of access and attention, but incomplete by design, with Margaret’s own account present only in the portions the diary records.