Ondine (actor)

Robert Olivo (June 16, 1937 – August 28, 1989), better known by his stage name Ondine, was an American actor. He is best known for appearing in a series of films in the mid-1960s by Andy Warhol, whom he claimed to have met in 1961 at an orgy: "I was at an orgy, and he [Warhol] was, ah, this great presence in the back of the room. And this orgy was run by a friend of mine, and, so, I said to this person, 'Would you please mind throwing that thing [Warhol] out of here?' And that thing was thrown out of there, and when he came up to me the next time, he said to me, 'Nobody has ever thrown me out of a party.' He said, 'You know? Don't you know who I am?' And I said, 'Well, I don't give a good flying fuck who you are. You just weren't there. You weren't involved...'"

Ondine was the focus of Warhol's book, a, A Novel, based on transcripts of Ondine and others. He appeared in films made by his lover, Roger Jacoby, Dream Sphinx Opera, L'Amico Fried's Glamorous Friends, and Kunst Life.

In later years, he supported himself by showing Warhol films and delivering a lecture on his days as a Warhol superstar on the college circuit. He died of AIDS-related liver disease in Queens, New York in 1989, aged 52. He was portrayed in the film I Shot Andy Warhol by Michael Imperioli.

Filmography

 * Batman Dracula (1964)
 * Couch (1964)
 * Raw Weekend (1964)
 * Afternoon (1965)
 * Restaurant (1965)
 * Vinyl (1965)
 * Horse (1965)
 * Chelsea Girls (1966)
 * Since (1966)
 * Four Stars aka **** (1967)
 * The Loves of Ondine (1967)
 * Dream Sphinx Opera (1972)
 * Sugar Cookies (1973)
 * Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)
 * Kunst Life (1975)
 * L'Amico Fried's Glamorous Friends (1976)

Quotes about Ondine

 * "You can't enjoy what he's doing to your psychology if you're so weak that you become paranoid, and there are people who tend to do that. Otherwise, if you had any intellectual integrity at all, you would just feel his love, and you would enjoy it like it was better than a theater performance because it was really live." — Billy Name