I was discovered by Andy Warhol at the Ritz in Paris when I was a teenager. “You’re a star,” he said and soon after he became one of my mentors.
No one knew more about promotion than Andy. He was all about publicity and fame, which is why he started Interview Magazine. We both loved to gossip, we loved movie stars, and we had a passion for parties. He gave me my first job as an editor for Interview Magazine where we got invited to more parties and interviewed big stars.
Andy always thought of art as a business. He would go around the parties selling portraits, which now would go for almost one hundred times the price. He taught me early that art can be a great investment, showing more value than the stock market over the years.
Of all the people I have learned from, including Warhol, I learned about promotion. If you have a great idea and nobody knows it, what good is that? Andy Warhol was a master at getting out a message, and in the end, that is what I ended up doing.