Linus Pauling, Jill Sackler, and Andy Warhol in New York, November 21, 1985. The Linus Pauling Medal for Humanitarianism was presented to Arthur Sackler that evening.
As recorded by Warhol in his diary:
Thursday, November 21, 1985
…the Sacklers were doing this thing at the Metropolitan Club and I was figuring out who to bring, and I should have brought Dr. Li, I guess, because I wound up sitting with Dr. Linus Pauling, but I brought Paige and she had a really good time…
So cabbed to the Metropolitan Club ($5). And there’s Paige sitting downstairs in the hallway. Those horrible doormen there wouldn’t let her in because she didn’t have a fur coat! …
And Dr. Pauling took my arm, he was getting an award. Upstairs I was next to Jill Sackler, across from Martha Graham, and Jill said, ‘Martha’s been dying to meet Linus Pauling for years and now she’s next to him and doesn’t know it.’
I met a man who said he invented vitamin B or C.
And Dr. Pauling was telling us that the only real killer is sugar, and then Paige and I were dumbfounded later when they brought dessert and he sat there eating all these cookies….
This brings to mind one of our favorite Pauling anecdotes, which he told in 1987, as well as one rather unfortunate photograph, which we couldn’t resist sharing below.
Usually I eat two eggs in the morning, sometimes bacon, but I happen to be lazy enough not to cook more than one thing for a meal. The last two days I was eating oxtail soup with vegetables. I don’t know what I’ll have today. Perhaps some fish. In my book [How to Live Longer and Feel Better] I say you shouldn’t eat sweet desserts, but I also quote a professor who says that this doesn’t mean that if your hostess has made this wonderful dessert you should turn it down. My wife used to say I always looked for that hostess.
Caught in the act.
