Having It Both Ways

Bio-films about two of this century’s most influential artists-- Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol --won’t be true to life when it comes to their gay/bisexual private lives.

Dali, the late Spanish surrealist, was involved in a much-publicized marriage to the much older Gala, but was widely reported to be bisexual. But he will be depicted as heterosexual in the soon-to-shoot “Dali,” starring Lorenzo Quinn, son of Anthony.

“It’s tough to be honest about someone who wasn’t himself honest,” Quinn said from Rome. “Dali did marry, and we deal with it. . . . As for what kind of marriage it really was, that’s for (print) biographers to tell. Movies have a set formula, where they try to attract mainstream audiences by going mainstream (with their subjects).”

Meanwhile, the Warhol project--which is still being written--will focus on his life in the fast lane and will downplay his sex life. Admitted a spokesman for Munich’s Geria Films: “The dilemma is that it will be a non-gay film, but with a subject who was gay, though not always actively so.”

Added the spokesman: “We have to wait and see how the shooting script reads. . . . One does not wish to keep audiences away.”

Warhol, who never denied being gay--and never married--claimed he was celibate in his later years.