Jon Gould

Jon Jewell Gould (born May 7, 1953 – September 17, 1986) was an American studio executive. Gould was the vice president of corporate communications for Paramount Pictures.^[1] He had a secret romance with artist Andy Warhol from 1981 to 1985. Following Gould's death from AIDS in 1986, his collection of Warhol's work was shown at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in 2004.^[2]

Jon Gould
Gould in 1982
Born	Jon Jewell Gould (1953-05-07)May 7, 1953 Amesbury, Massachusetts
Died	September 17, 1986(1986-09-17) (aged 33) Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	New England College
Occupation	Studio executive
Relatives	Nathaniel Currier (great-great uncle)

Life and career

Early life and education

Jon Jewell Gould was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts on May 7, 1953.^[3] Gould was born into a prominent Yankee family that has owned a 900-acre dairy farm and estate since the 1700s. Through his mother, Harriet Woodsom Gould, he was related to Nathaniel Currier of Currier and Ives fame.^[4] He had a twin brother, Jay Gould, who is a restaurateur and investor.^[5]

After Gould graduated from New England College in 1975, he enrolled in the publishing program at Harvard University's Harvard Radcliffe Institute.^[6]

Career

In 1977, Gould was hired by Straight Arrow Press as the East Coast sales manager for Rolling Stone and Outside magazine.^[6] In 1978, Gould joined Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Division as the director of marketing administration for the Marketing Group. In 1979, Gould became the executive assistant to Frank Mancuso, the executive vice president of distribution and marketing. When Mancuso was promoted to president of distribution, Gould remained his executive assistant.^[7] In 1980, Gould was appointed vice president of corporate communications for Paramount Pictures Corp. He specialized in marketing films such as Urban Cowboy (1980) and Flashdance (1983).^[8]

In 1983, Gould worked to get the Showtime network, owned by Paramount, the film rights to the Diana Ross concert in New York's Central Park.^[9]

Relationship with Andy Warhol

In November 1980, Gould met artist Andy Warhol at a New York gallery through a mutual friend, photographer Christopher Makos.^[10][1] Warhol was initially interested in meeting Gould so that he could get Paramount to advertise in Interview magazine.^[11][12] Warhol soon began to pursue a romantic relationship with Gould in 1981, but Gould told him that he was not gay.^[13] The two men began spending more time together, and Warhol made a silkscreen portrait of Gould in 1981.^[14]

Gould had a certain pedigree that attracted the artist, becoming the most photographed subject of Warhol's later career.^[15] As former Interview editor Bob Colacello wrote in the book Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up: "Old money, Harvard, Hollywood it was a résumé that Andy couldn't resist. And there was something else about Jon Gould that drew Andy toward him: like Jed Johnson, [Warhol's previous boyfriend] he had a twin brother named Jay."^[16] "To those of us who were working with Andy at the time, it was obvious that he was suppressing the hurt of losing Jed ... by going completely gaga over Jon Gould," Colacello wrote in an article for Air Mail.^[17]

Although Gould was Warhol's "romantic obsession," they likely did not have a sexual relationship.^[18] Warhol made an offer to give Makos a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch if he could get Gould to sleep with him.^[19] "He said, if you get me a boyfriend, I will get you the watch. So I got him the boyfriend, and I said, time to pay up. He said, well, nothing's happened yet," said Makos.^[20] Gould also told another friend that his relationship with Warhol was "asexual."^[16] As a result, he had relations with other men and frequented the gay baths.^[16]

An issue of complexity was that Gould was closeted and had not come out about his sexuality.^[5] Therefore, their intimate relationship was concealed from his family.^[8] By 1983, Gould moved into Warhol's townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he had his own bedroom.^[21][19] Because Gould valued his independence and didn't want to receive mail at Warhol's townhouse, he purchased an apartment with assistance from Warhol at the Hotel des Artistes on Manhattan's Upper West Side.^[22][19] Jay Gould recalled that when he visited his brother at Warhol's home, he asked him about the nature of their relationship: "He said there was no sexual contact, that they were just good friends."^[8]

Gould was admitted to New York Hospital with pneumonia on February 4, 1984.^[1] Although Warhol had visited him in the hospital, after his release, Warhol instructed his housekeepers to wash Gould's clothes separately from his.^[23][24]

Gould prioritized his work over Warhol and frequently took extended business trips to California for a month at a time.^[25] In an attempt to keep Gould near, Warhol gave him the cover story on Shirley MacLaine in the March 1985 issue of Interview magazine.^[26][27] Gould also had his portrait painted by Warhol's collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1985.^[28] In March 1985, Gould purchased the former home of actress Joan Hackett in Beverly Hills and did not give Warhol a key to his house.^[29] Subsequently, Gouldl sold his apartment on the West Side of Manhattan and moved to California.^[16] He gradually distanced himself from Warhol, and the two were no longer on speaking terms by the end of 1985.^[21][30][24]

Death

Gould died of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 33 in Los Angeles on September 17, 1986.^[1] Warhol's collaborator Pat Hackett noted in The Andy Warhol Diaries that at the time of his death, Gould "was down to seventy pounds and he was blind. He denied even to close friends that he had AIDS."^[31] He is buried at Bartlett Cemetery in Amesbury, Massachusetts.^[3]

Legacy

In September 2004, the exhibition "Andy Warhol: The Jon Gould Collection" was mounted at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont.^[4][32] The show consisted of 45 paintings and drawings, 20 prints, and 50 photographs taken by Warhol.^[8] Gould also had works by artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Rauschenberg, Marc Chagall, and Keith Haring.^[8]

In January 2018, Gould's alma mater New England College announced the "Jon Gould '75 Legacy Challenge."^[6] Two alumni, Jay Gould and Lex Scourby, pledged a combined $1 million towards the construction of The Rosamond Page Putnam Center for the Performing Arts.^[33] Jay Gould '75 has made his pledge for $500,000, in memory of Jon Gould and the lobby will be named in honor of him.^[6]

After his mother died in 2016, Jay Gould discovered poetry and love letters his brother and Warhol had exchanged, which his mother had kept.^[5] "We were very close, identical twins, but we never talked a lot about his sexuality ... I didn't realize the relationship was as deep as it was," he said.^[5] Jay appeared in the Netflix documentary series The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), which explored Gould's relationship with Warhol.^[34][5]