Jon Gould

Jon Jewell Gould (born May 7, 1953 – September 18, 1986) was an American film executive for Paramount Pictures. He had a secret romance with artist Andy Warhol in the 1980s. Following Gould's death from AIDS, his collection of Warhol's works was shown at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont.

Life and career

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

Gould graduated from New England College in 1975. A former student in Harvard University's Harvard Radcliffe Institute in the publishing program and he was then hired by ''Rolling Stone'' as an advertiser. Afterward, he began working as Vice President of Paramount Pictures, where he specialized in marketing films such as '' Urban Cowboy'' (1980) and '' Flashdance'' (1983).

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

Gould had a certain pedigree that attracted the artist, becoming the most photographed subject of Warhol's later career. 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, arhol's previous boyfriendhe had a twin brother named Jay." "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''.

Although he is considered Warhol's last great love, their relationship was likely platonic. Warhol made an offer to give Makos a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch if he could get Gould to sleep with him. "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.

An issue of complexity was that Gould was closeted and had not come out about his sexuality. Therefore, their relationship was disguised as a friendship to family and friends. In 1982, Gould moved into Warhol's townhouse on East 66th Street in Manhattan, where he had his own room. Jay Gould said that when he visited his brother at Warhol's home he asked him about their relationship. "He said there was no sexual contact, that they were just good friends," Gould recalled. After Gould's mother died in 2019, his family discovered his romance with Warhol through letters his mother had kept.

Gould was admitted to New York Hospital with pneumonia on February 4, 1984, and later released. Although Warhol had visited him in the hospital, after his release, Warhol instructed his housekeepers to wash Gould's clothes separately from his. By 1985, Gould had moved to Los Angeles for work and purchased an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan for his visits to New York. He gradually distanced himself from Warhol and they were no longer on speaking terms by the end of the year.

In 1985, Gould had his portrait painted by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Gould died of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 33 in Los Angeles on September 18, 1986. Warhol's collaborator Pat Hackett noted in ''The Andy Warhol Diaries'' that Gould "was down to seventy pounds and he was blind. He denied even to close friends that he had AIDS."

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

In 2022, Gould's relationship with Warhol was explored in the Netflix docuseries ''The Andy Warhol Diaries''.

Legacy

In January 2018, Gould's alma mater New England College announced The "Jon Gould '75 Legacy Challenge." Two alumni, Gould's twin brother Jay Gould and Lex Scourby pledged a combined $1 Million towards the construction of The Rosamond Page Putnam Center for the Performing Arts. 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.

References

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gould, Jon
1953 births
1986 deaths
Harvard University alumni
New England College alumni
Paramount Pictures executives
Film producers from New York (state)
AIDS-related deaths in California
People from Amesbury, Massachusetts
Film producers from Massachusetts
20th-century American LGBT people
LGBT people from Massachusetts
LGBT people from New York (state)
20th-century American businesspeople
Businesspeople from New York City
LGBT film producers
American LGBT businesspeople