Photos by Richard Avedon

Candy Darling and Eric Emerson at La MaMa (1970s) by Anton Perich

Rene Ricard, Susan Bottomly, Eric Emerson, Mary Woronov, Andy Warhol, Ronnie Cutrone, Paul Morrissey, Edie Sedgwick, 1965–67.

Released on this day (5 May 1969) at New York’s Garrick Cinema: Andy Warhol’s joyous, freewheeling homoerotic X-rated Western parody Lonesome Cowboys (tagline: “Definitely not for the young-uns!”). I vividly recall seeing this one at an impressionable age at London’s legendary much-missed grindhouse sleaze pit Scala Cinema in the early nineties. (I say “sleaze pit” with love). I caught many Warhol films there (including Couch (1964), My Hustler (1965) and Chelsea Girls (1966)) and the pattern was consistent: the theatre would start full, there would be a steady drip of walkouts who couldn’t cope with Warhol’s “challenging” pacing and filmmaking choices, and by the bitter end there was just a handful of hardcore attendees left. I for one found Warhol’s underground pop art cinema entrancing (and sexy as hell). I haven’t seen Lonesome Cowboy in decades, but I remember it featuring Warhol’s most beauteous leading men (Joe Dallesandro, Louis Waldon, Eric Emerson and Tom Hompertz), a glorious moment of Dallesandro (in tight white jeans) go-go dancing with Taylor Mead, and a long, meandering monologue from Viva.  

Eric Emerson by Chris Stein, 1974.

Heat (1972) // dir. Paul Morrissey