Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

pudding) and generally perverse gallivanting across
sets designed to resemble the Warhol Factory and
its habitués’ primary hangout, the back room of
Max’s Kansas City. Each vignette concluded with a
fade to black and the amplified sound of a busy
signal. Pork received a favorable New York Times
review, but to the great relief of Berlin’s mother, the
well-connected Upper East Side socialite Honey
Berlin, it closed after just two weeks. (Honey Berlin
gave Warhol her own review, according to legend.
She screamed at him: “You’re nothing but a fucking
faggot. Fuck your fucking Factory!”)
That might have been the end of Pork had it not
coincided with Warhol’s first career retrospective,
which was about to travel from the Whitney Museum
in Manhattan to the Tate Museum in London. In an
effort to promote the exhibit, enterprising English
producers offered Pork’s director and cast a spot at
the Roundhouse, the West End venue where David
had supported the Who with Feathers and first met
Angie. Pork opened on August 2, 1971, and
immediately polarized the local media. It was
impossible to be a well-connected Londoner without
having some knowledge or opinion on the
production. It was either a revolutionary piece of art
or a blight on the nation, straight from the gutters of
Manhattan. To the red-top scandal sheets, the cast
of Pork was like Christmas in August: priceless
copy. “They fanned the flames,” Zanetta said. Cast
member Geri Miller (who can be seen in the Warhol
film Flesh) exposed her breasts in front of the Queen