Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson enters Andy Warhol’s diary through two meetings in 1978: an interview arranged with Martin Scorsese and a later discussion about a poster for The Last Waltz. Across both encounters, Robertson is linked to the film’s publicity and to Warhol’s earlier association with Bob Dylan, while the proposed artwork brings an awkward question of compensation into the room.

The interview with Scorsese

Catherine Guinness and Warhol went to Martin Scorsese’s suite at the Sherry Netherland to interview Scorsese and Robertson about The Last Waltz. Robertson did not arrive until five o’clock. The visit unfolded amid film publicity and an unusually theatrical domestic scene: Scorsese had a large suite, Steven Prince—who played a gun-selling creep in Taxi Driver—was there, and the publicity representative watched the lunch from the far end of the table. Warhol compared the tableau to a movie.

Scorsese told Warhol that he was making a full-length film centered on Prince’s face as Prince told stories, and said Warhol had given him the idea. Scorsese and Robertson were also looking for a house, and Warhol suggested places they could investigate. The plans and the scale of the contemplated purchase—about $500,000—made the visit feel to Warhol like the beginning of a self-contained operation, though the diary does not say what house they ultimately chose.

A connection through Dylan

During the interview, Robertson told Warhol that he knew him from the Dylan days. Warhol then asked about an Elvis painting he had given Bob Dylan: Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, repeatedly claimed to have it. Robertson explained that Dylan had traded the painting to Grossman for a couch, preferring a small sofa at the time. The exchange turned an artwork into furniture, and Warhol treated the couch as an expensive one. The anecdote ties Robertson to Warhol’s earlier musical and artistic circles while revealing the painting’s unexpected route out of Dylan’s hands.

The poster proposal

On June 1, Robertson called Warhol to ask him to make a poster for The Last Waltz. Warhol and Fred Hughes went to the Sherry Netherland to discuss the project; Catherine Guinness joined them, treating the meeting as a birthday present. Robertson offered champagne, but the conversation followed a familiar, uncomfortable pattern: the idea was that Warhol would make the poster and it would be sold for him, while talk of money remained obscured by casual, idealistic language.

Hughes finally asked what Warhol would get from the arrangement. His intervention made the unstated business terms explicit, but the diary records no settled fee or completed poster. Robertson’s appearances therefore leave the collaboration at the point of negotiation: the artistic invitation was real, but so was Warhol’s need to clarify what the proposed exchange would actually provide.