Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro appears in the diaries not through a continuous account of his life, but through sharply focused references that show how his screen identity was discussed, observed, and connected to the people around him. The entries place him both within debates over who makes a star and within the everyday social world surrounding his films and family.

Screen Image and Authorship

In a conversation about Martin Scorsese’s filmmaking, Julia Scorsese described a process in which scenes could be rehearsed and recorded, then reshaped during filming. She also recalled that the original story for New York, New York sent De Niro’s character into the record business. The anecdote presents his role as part of a film whose story could change in production, rather than as a fixed element independent of the director’s process.

Julia also argued that Martin Scorsese had created De Niro and Harvey Keitel as screen presences. Warhol countered that audiences were drawn to them as new faces. The disagreement reveals two ways of describing stardom: as something a director cultivates, and as the appeal of performers who arrive with the freshness of discovery. The diary records the exchange without resolving the tension.

Family and a Film Screening

At a screening of New York, New York at the Ziegfeld, Warhol went with Catherine Guinness and her brother. He liked the film and considered it one of Liza Minnelli’s best, while finding a song by De Niro’s wife, Diahnne Abbott, beautiful but out of place in the movie. His response distinguishes the song’s appeal from its narrative function: admiration for the performance did not, in his view, make it belong in the film.

Diahnne Abbott in Interview

Warhol’s account of an Interview dinner with Abbott at Quo Vadis centers on Bob Colacello’s questioning. Colacello repeatedly framed his questions around race and Abbott’s experience as a Black woman married to De Niro. Later, at Elaine’s, the questioning continued, extending into politics; Warhol’s account conveys his impression that Colacello kept returning to race as the lens for nearly every subject. The episode records the interview’s awkwardness without establishing De Niro’s own views or participation.

A Star Discussed from the Sidelines

Across these entries, De Niro is chiefly present through other people’s descriptions: Julia Scorsese’s account of directorial creation, Warhol’s judgment of a film and Abbott’s performance, and the questions posed to Abbott about her marriage. That indirectness is significant to the portrait the diaries provide. De Niro is recognizable as a major screen figure, yet the narrative’s attention falls on how his image is made and talked about by directors, family, interviewers, and viewers.