The Lost Warhol Tapes
Administrator
October 10, 2006
Brigid Berlin was one of the leading figures in the halcyon days of Andy Warhol’s Factory. Aside from being known as Brigid Polk, for her skillful injections of speed, or “pokes,” she also kept up on the latest in ’60s electronic gadgetry. Berlin obsessively taped conversations and was always snapping Polaroids. This intrigued Warhol, who liked the distancing effect machines introduced into social interactions and quickly made them tools of his own artistic process. Before long, it became routine for Warhol and Berlin to speak on the phone in the morning, sometimes for hours, each making a recording. Their on-tape personae evolved as they played them extemporaneously but were always a variation on a single theme: Warhol and Berlin as the married couple.
More recently, long talks with Berlin became part of Guy Pearce’s routine as he prepared for the role of Warhol in the upcoming Edie Sedgwick biopic Factory Girl. Berlin consulted on the film, and the two struck up a friendship. Pearce would lapse into character for stretches of time, then return to himself. Later, as he began to “get” the character more and more, Berlin had to ask him to stop channeling Andy because it was “too much” for her.
Upon hearing the following never-before-published transcript, from a tape dated 1970 (exhibited at John McWhinnie @ Glenn Horowitz Booksellers last fall), Berlin cracks up: “We were doing what we always did—it was all about getting a good tape.”
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