Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine | Volume 1, No. 6 | 1970

Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, which became the blueprint for the contemporary fashion and arts magazine, was initially a black and white quarterfold called Inter/View and devoted almost solely to movies. It has the feel of a small zine; sometimes multiple reviewers covered the same film with different takes. Like the later issues, there is a strong sense of reverence and nostalgia for the golden age of Hollywood. There’s a full-page photo devoted to Busby Berklee musicals. Warhol had little to no involvement with the magazine at this time: This was before his colleagues convinced him that doing interviews for the magazine would sell lots of papers. 

Highlights from this issue include an interview with Sylvia Miles about her celebrated role in Midnight Cowboy and reviews of Fellini Satyricon, Boys in the Band, and Women in Love. As a person who loves each one of these movies, I really get a kick out of seeing how they were received upon first release.

Condition is fair: This kind of inexpensive newsprint was not made to last and is consequently extremely fragile. Several pages are split along the fold and there are other short tears here and there. Refer to photos. 

These earliest issues of Interview, pre-dating its best known format with the Richard Bernstein covers, are extremely scarce. A valuable and thoroughly entertaining cultural document.