The Understudy

A previously untold and eye-opening story about the influential friendship between two undisputed icons of American culture—Andy Warhol and Arnold Schwarzenegger—that explores the complexities and seductions of celebrity. New York City, 1976. On an unseasonably warm February evening, a giddy crowd of art world luminaries, literati, and celebrities, including Andy Warhol, gathered at the Whitney Museum of American Art to attend a special one-night event: Articulate Muscle: The Male Body as Art. Crowding into the fourth-floor gallery, they had come to see the then largely-unknown twenty-eight-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders on display. That night would spark a friendship that would help propel Schwarzenegger to stardom and highlight Warhol’s unmatchable talent as a cultural mentor and power broker. In this groundbreaking work of cultural history and criticism, acclaimed visual artist and critic Liz Linden chronicles the relationship between these two ambitious and influential figures. The Understudy follows Schwarzenegger and Warhol through the playful, hedonistic, culture-shifting art and social scenes of late 1970s New York, from bacchanalian afternoons at the Factory to star-studded dinners at Elaine’s to wild parties at Studio 54. Ever the eager and willing student, Arnold learned from Andy the power of being famous as he followed the artist into the hallowed worlds of the cultural elite. The two would influence popular culture and each other in profound and lasting ways. Vividly recreating the raucous, glittering, and uninhibited culture of the 70s, The Understudy takes us into the world of the many larger-than-life figures who made it legendary: Grace Jones, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jackie O, Bob Colacello, Elaine Kaufman, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, President Jimmy Carter, Fran Lebowitz, among many more.