Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol

Relying on memory, diaries, tapes, recorded phone calls and interviews, as well as on printed matter, Dufresne (aka Ultra Violet), assisted by freelancer Black, tells about her experiences as an Andy Warhol Queen of Pop. After recalling briefly her schoolgirl days in France, she describes her affairs with John Graham, Salvador Dali and Edward Rusche, her carryings-on in New York society, bizarre happenings at Warhol's famous loft, The Factory, her impressions of Edie Sedgwick, Viva and Norman Mailer, the making of light-shows and stupefyingly dull movies, Warhol's fascination with celebrities and his desire to become a male Marilyn Monroe. Trying to account for Warhol's attractiveness and the fact that he remained famous for 25 years, not just 15 minutes, she cites his enigmatic quality, his insistence on taking the mystery out of art, and his treatment of everyone with the same compelling immediacy. Yet she also sees the pre-1968 artist, sorcerer, conjuror and diabolist succeeded by the businessman, money-man and accumulator of his later years. Like Warhol's film Chelsea Girls , this book may be regarded as ``half Bosch and half bosh.'' Photos. (Nov.)