Andy Warhol died in 1987. The man folks heard at 1967 lectures on Pop Artwork and thought was Andy Warhol died on Wednesday at his dwelling in Woodstock, N.Y.
His title was Allen Midgette, and he was an actor recruited by Warhol to impersonate him on a lecture tour, in one of many odder episodes of Warhol’s era-defining profession.
Mr. Midgette, his hair painted and powdered silver-white and his face lined with pale make-up, handed himself off as Warhol at a number of faculties with Warhol’s blessing, fielding questions after showings of Warhol movies, although hardly ever answering them with something particular. Whether or not the stunt was a easy prank or a bit of Warholian efficiency artwork commenting on id and media manipulation has been debated ever since.
Mr. Midgette died of cardiopulmonary illness, stated Raymond Foye, an arts author and curator who additionally was his well being care proxy. He was 82.
Mr. Midgette pulled off his impersonation at a time when Warhol’s fame had begun to unfold past New York Metropolis however when, to most of America, he was nonetheless extra of a imprecise idea than a recognizable character. That aided Mr. Midgette when he launched into a tour billed as illustrated lectures on “Pop Artwork in Motion,” particularly when it got here to answering these viewers questions.
“The one factor I knew about Andy was, you could possibly reply any query any method you preferred and it might be tremendous,” he stated in an interview Mr. Foye carried out for a problem of Gagosian Quarterly final yr. “It won’t have been the identical factor he would say, however it might make as a lot sense.”
Reporters for the coed newspaper on the College of Utah, The Each day Chronicle, had been apparently the primary to substantiate that the person who had spoken to a big crowd there in October 1967 was not Warhol. Mr. Midgette’s look had left many within the viewers disgruntled, some artwork college members had been suspicious, and some weeks later when a photographer from New York who knew Warhol was on campus and was proven images of the speaker, he’s stated to have remarked: “That’s not Warhol. He’s too younger and too handsome.”
In January 1968, The Chronicle ran an article bearing the headline “Phony Warhol Suspected, Movie Reveals Hoax on U.” Just a few days later, The Eugene Register-Guard (Mr. not-Warhol had additionally appeared on the College of Oregon in that city) acquired Warhol to confess the ruse and clarify it, type of.
“He was higher than I’m,” the artist stated. “He was what the folks anticipated. They preferred him higher than they’d have me.”
A minor furor resulted as soon as the deception had been uncovered, with among the establishments miffed in regards to the speaker payment they’d paid. Mr. Midgette, not less than, drew some perception from the episode, noting that even folks he encountered on the lecture tour who had met the true Warhol had been taken in.
“It made me notice how, in life, folks simply presume a variety of issues,” he advised Mr. Foye. “Simply since you’ve met Andy twice, does it imply you keep in mind precisely how he appeared, and the way he would look underneath totally different circumstances? If you happen to’re being advised it’s Andy and everybody else is accepting it, you’ll go together with that. It reveals you the way folks simply aren’t very interested by what’s in entrance of them.”
Allen Joseph Midgett — he added an E to the household title later — was born on Feb. 2, 1939, in Camden, N.J. His father, Jarvis Midgett, was a ship captain with the Military Corps of Engineers and later a harbor grasp in North Carolina, and his mom, Dorothy (Jones) Midgett, was a homemaker.
As a younger man he lived in New York and studied performing, “although courses solely taught him to be extra neurotic about performing,” a 2006 profile within the journal Chronogram stated. He auditioned for the function of Tony within the 1961 movie model of “West Facet Story,” in line with that article, however ended up as an additional.
He lived in Italy for a time and acted in a number of motion pictures there, together with Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Grim Reaper” (1962, the director’s first function) and “Earlier than the Revolution” (1964). By 1965 he was again in New York and dealing at Arthur, the Manhattan discothèque, which is the place, that yr, he met Warhol, who had seen him in “Earlier than the Revolution” and invited him to make movies with him. Mr. Midgette turned a part of the scene on the Manufacturing facility, Warhol’s studio, though he advised Chronogram that he had not been as immersed in it as a few of Warhol’s superstars.
In early 1967, he stated, Paul Morrissey, Warhol’s assistant and filmmaking collaborator, approached him with a request: Would he go to the Rochester Institute of Expertise the subsequent day and faux to be Warhol at a displaying of one in all his movies? The $600 Mr. Morrissey provided sealed the deal.
“I knew Andy properly sufficient to know I didn’t have to fret about speaking an excessive amount of, as a result of he didn’t,” Mr. Midgette stated. “And I knew I might cope with folks far more simply than he might, as a result of I did.”
Mr. Morrissey accompanied him to assist preserve the ruse on monitor. The deception went over properly sufficient that Mr. Midgette was then booked for a four-stop tour of Western faculties: the College of Utah, the College of Oregon, the College of Montana in Missoula and Linfield School (now Linfield College) in McMinnville, Ore.
In Montana, college students gave him a tour of native residences and studio areas and tried to speak him into transferring there. In Eugene, college students requested him to autograph their draft playing cards. The Register-Guard reported that after that look, enrollment in a category on underground movies on the college had jumped to 350 from 65.
Mr. Midgette additionally appeared in Warhol movies, together with “The Nude Restaurant” (1967) and “Lonesome Cowboys” (1968). And he continued to don the Warhol disguise sometimes, even enjoying Warhol in a 1991 Italian film, “Suffocating Warmth.” His performing profession, although, was restricted. In his later years he made artworks of assorted sorts.
Mr. Midgette is survived by a sister, Sylvia Taylor. A brother, Jarvis, died at 20 of a soccer harm.
Though Mr. Midgette generally made use of his fame as Warhol’s double, within the Chronogram interview he expressed ambivalence about his best-known function.
“I helped Andy grow to be acknowledged,” he stated, “however he helped me to stay unrecognized.”
Alain Delaqueriere contributed analysis.