The Loves of Ondine

Fortunate for those who celebrate Pride Month, the birthday of Ondine (Robert Olivo,1937-1989) falls within it.

Ondine was one of those legendary Warhol Superstar characters, oft mentioned in accounts of the Factory chaos of 1964 to 1968. He was one of the biggest stars of the experimental films made by Andy Warhol during those years. His pseudonym was misleading, to me, at least. The handle made me assume a cross-dresser of the Mario Montez/ Holly Woodlawn/ Candy Darling variety. I guess, because of the feminine ending, which reminds me of de Sade’sJustine. When one hears that he also worked as Edie Sedgwick’s “French maid”, one unavoidably conjures Genet’s Solange. (And as I didn’t know until I research this piece there is a fictional character named Ondine who is indeed female). But Ondine was rather unlike the drag faction among the Warholites. He was indeed very much gay, but he put out no end of male energy. He was a street hustler from Queens. He had gotten beaten up his share of times, but could also dish it out. His best known cinematic moment was when he actually slapped someone around in the movie Chelsea Girls. In spite of this rough trade reputation and his quick temper, he was also known for his charisma, his quick wit and repartee, and his propensity for outrageous and destructive pranks. And of course his huge appetite for drugs, with speed and LSD fueling his antics. Ondine had an angular and very Italian looking face, which made Michael Imperiole the perfect guy to play him in the movie I Shot Andy Warhol (1996).

Ondine had apparently been given his nickname in the mid-50s, when he emerged from the water at Jacob Riis Beach looking unearthly and spectacular. The Ondine of myth was a water sprite that made her way into an 1811 novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Jean Giraudoux based a 1938 play on it that was produced on Broadway in 1954 with Audrey Hepburn in the title role, hence its currency. (A decade later there was an Olympic race-winning sailboat called Ondine, and this was said to have been the inspiration for the name of the uptown rock club that existed from 1965 to 1967, that sponsored early performances by The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Lovin’ Spoonful, Jimi Hendrix, The Druids of Stonehenge, etc. But this was also around the time of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the Velvet Underground. With the light shows, the go-go girls, the celebrity clientele, and this shared named of Ondine, surely there must have been some confusion in some people’s minds about a connection, though apparently there wasn’t one.)

Ondine was a leader of a group of characters Mary Woronov called “the Mole People”, who did a lot of amphetamines, listened to opera (at Ondine’s instigation) and engaged in nightly parties at a series of ever-shifting locations. Some of these guys were homeless; they would just crash wherever the party happened. Ondine’s first encounter with Warhol was at one of these parties circa 1961, which apparently was morphing into an orgy. Warhol, as was his wont, remained aloof, prompting Ondine, who didn’t know who he was, to have him ejected. A few years later, Ondine and his set migrated into the Warhol orbit by way of Billy Name, who was a Mole Person, but was also one of the more useful characters in Warhol’s studio, and was in fact the guy who had set it up and decorated the walls with tin foil.

By this time Warhol had become famous and there was mutual benefit in his having an entourage. Ondine and a long list of others filled this role. They followed him around at appearances, helped him make his paintings, and starred in his movies. Ondine was known as the “Pope” of this scene. Ondine’s Warhol films included Batman Dracula (1964), Couch (1964), Raw Weekend (1964), Afternoon (1965), Restaurant (1965), Vinyl (1965), Horse (1965), Chelsea Girls (1966), Since (1966), Four Stars aka **** (1967), and The Loves of Ondine (1967).

Ondine had also been a friend of Joe Cino’s since the ’50s and was instrumental in the infusion of Warhol people into the scene at Caffe Cino. Ondine starred in at least two plays at this seminal venue, both directed by Michael Smith, who also wrote for the Village Voice: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1966, which was also filmed), and Donovan’s Johnson (1967).

Things started to go south of course. The drugs took their toll. Both Ondine and H.M. Koutoukas (more on him later today) blamed themselves for Cino’s fatal drug freak-out in spring 1967. (Cino stabbed himself and died of peritonitis. Caffe Cino did not long outlive him). Edie Sedgwick was also ghosted by Warhol for being wacked out of all the time, and she moved back to the west coast, which was particularly inconvenient for Ondine, who had been living with her at the Chelsea Hotel. In 1968, Ondine was supposed to star in his next film with Warhol, Lonesome Cowboys, but didn’t turn up at the shoot, which was out in Arizona. Warhol and Paul Morrissey made the movie without him and never cast him in any more films. But Ondine was at the center of Warhol’s A: A Novel, published by Grove Press in 1968, and consisting of Ondine’s transcribed conversations. (“A” stands for amphetamines). This and the movie The Loves of Ondine were basically the creative last hurrah of the Warhol-Ondine relationship. Warhol was shot by Valerie Solonas not long after that, and the Factory crowd pretty much dispersed, although Warhol did bring Ondine and Candy Darling with him when he went to visit Judy Garland’s casket the following year.

There were other movies. In 1970, Ondine appeared in Michael Auder‘sCleopatra with Viva, Gerard Malanga, Nico, Taylor Mead, and Ultra Violet. This was followed by Nelson Lyon’s The Telephone Book (1971) which had not only Ondine and Ultra Violet but also legit people like Jill Clayburgh,Barry Morse, and William Hickey. Even more legit (in a manner of speaking) was the horror classic Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), in which Woronov was third billed, and Ondine, Candy Darling and Tally Brown were given small roles, with heavy hitters like Patrick O’Neal and John Carradine also in the cast. He and Woronov were also in the pornographic Sugar Cookies (1973), co-written by Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman.

After this he appeared in movies made by Roger Jacoby (with whom he was involved) including, Dream Sphinx (1974), L’Amico Fried’s Glamorous Friends (1976), and Kunst Life (1976). At some point he cleaned up and got off drugs. He also acted in some off-off Broadway plays in the ’70s and ’80s (e.g. Jackie Curtis’ 1971 Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes Of The Damned (1971) and Hot Peaches’ 1984 The Last Brunch, in which he played Jesus). No doubt more lucratively he also took to the college lecture circuits, showing his old movies and talking about them. He died of AIDS related liver disease in 1989, outliving Warhol by just two years.

Last year, La Mama presented a biographical play about him by Paul Iacono called High Priest.