- Valerie Solanas
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name = Valerie Solanas
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birthname = Valerie Jean Solanas
birthdate = Birth date|1936|4|9
birthplace =Ventnor City, New Jersey
deathdate = Death date and age|1988|4|25|1936|4|9
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nationality = American
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portaldisp =Valerie Jean Solanas (
April 9 ,1936 –April 25 ,1988 ) was an Americanradical feminist writer best known for shooting the artistAndy Warhol in 1968. She wrote the "SCUM Manifesto ", an essay on patriarchal culture advocating the creation of an all-female society.Early life
Born in
Ventnor City, New Jersey to Louis Solanas and Dorothy Biondi, Solanas was regularly sexually abused by her father. Her parentsdivorce d during the 1940s, and by the age of 15 she was homeless. In spite of this, she completed high school and earned a degree inpsychology from the University of Maryland.She did nearly a year of graduate work in psychology atUniversity of Minnesota . In 1953, her son David was born. Other details of her life until 1966 are unclear, but it is believed she traveled the country as an itinerant, supporting herself bybegging andprostitution .New York City and The Factory
Solanas arrived in
Greenwich Village in 1966, where she wrote a play titled "Up Your Ass" about a man-hating prostitute and a panhandler. In 1967, she encounteredAndy Warhol outside hisstudio ,The Factory , and asked him to produce her play. Intrigued by the title, he accepted the script for review. According to Factory lore, Warhol, whose films were often shut down by the police for obscenity, thought the script was so pornographic that it must be a police trap. He never returned it to Solanas. The script was later found in the bottom of one of Warhol's lighting trunks.Warhol did give Solanas a role in a scene in his film "
I, A Man " (1968-1969). In that film, she and the film's title character (played by Tom Baker) haggle in an apartment building hallway over whether they should go into her apartment. Solanas dominates the improvised conversation, leading the bewildered actor through a dialogue about everything from "squishy asses," "men's tits," andlesbian "instinct." Ultimately, she leaves him to fend for himself, explaining "I gotta go beat my meat" as she exits the scene.During this period (the late 1960s), Solanas wrote and self-published the work for which she is best known — a call for destruction of men and men-loving women, as well as the liberation of women, called the "
SCUM Manifesto ". SCUM is generally held to be anacronym of "Society for Cutting Up Men," although this acronym does not appear in the manifesto itself. "SCUM" gained Solanas a following among some feminists.Later in 1967, Solanas began to telephone Warhol, demanding he return the script of "Up Your Ass". When Warhol admitted he had lost it, she began demanding money as payment. Warhol ignored these demands but offered her a role in "I, A Man" perhaps as compensation. In his book "", Warhol would write that before she shot him, he thought Solanas was an interesting and funny person. However, her constant hassling (bordering on
stalking ) made her difficult to deal with and ultimately drove him away.Attempted assassination of Andy Warhol
On
June 3 ,1968 , she arrived at The Factory and waited for Warhol in the lobby area. When he arrived with a couple of friends, she fired three shots from a handgun at Warhol. She then shotart critic Mario Amaya and also tried to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, but her gun jammed. Just then, the elevator arrived. Hughes suggested she take it, and she did, leaving the Factory. Warhol barely survived. He never fully recovered and for the rest of his life had to wear acorset to prevent his injuries from worsening. Years later, his wounds would still occasionally bleed after he overexerted himself.That evening, Solanas turned herself in to the
police and was charged withattempted murder and other offenses. Solanas made statements to the arresting officer and at thearraignment hearing that Warhol had "too much control" over her and that Warhol was planning to steal her work. Pleading guilty, she received a three-year sentence. Warhol refused totestify against her. The attack had a profound impact on Warhol and his art, and The Factory scene became much more tightly controlled afterwards. For the rest of his life, Warhol lived in fear that Solanas would attack him again. "It was the Cardboard Andy, not the Andy I could love and play with," said close friend and collaboratorBilly Name . "He was so sensitized you couldn't put your hand on him without him jumping. I couldn't even love him anymore, because it hurt him to touch him." [ [http://www.factorymade.org/fm/reviews.html Making the Scene: Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties by Steven Watson] , Dennis Drabelle, "Washington Post " book review, November 16, 2003.] While his friends were actively hostile towards Solanas, Warhol himself preferred not to discuss her.One of the few public pronouncements in her favor was distributed by Ben Morea, of
Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers / Black Mask fame. It was later re-printed as an appendix in the Olympia Press edition of her manifesto.It is widely believed that Solanas suffered from
paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the shooting. [ [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1432425,00.html Valerie Jean Solanas (1936-88)] "The Guardian"] [Bockris, Victor. "Warhol: The Biography". Da Capo Press (2003) ISBN 030681272X] A psychiatrist who evaluated her shortly thereafter concluded that she was "a Schizophrenic Reaction, paranoid type with marked depression and potential for acting out." [Harron and Minahan. "I Shot Andy Warhol". Grove Press (1996) ISBN 0802134912] As a result, many of her detractors derided her as a "crazed lesbian". [cite news|title='Shooting from the hip': Valerie Solanas, SCUM and the apocalyptic politics of radical feminism|last=Third|first=Amanda |date=2006-10|publisher="Hecate"]Release from prison
Feminist
Robin Morgan (later editor of "Ms." magazine) demonstrated for Solanas' release from prison.Ti-Grace Atkinson , theNew York chapter president of theNational Organization for Women (NOW), described Solanas as "the first outstanding champion ofwomen's rights ." [cite book| last=Solanas| first=Valerie| editor=| title=SCUM Manifesto (2nd edition)| publisher=AK Press| date=August 1996| id=ISBN 1-873176-44-9] Another member,Florynce Kennedy , represented Solanas at her trial, calling her "one of the most important spokeswomen of the feminist movement." [Ibid.]After her release from prison in 1971, she was regarded by some as a
martyr . When she persisted instalking Warhol and others over the telephone, however, she was arrested again. An interview with her was published in the "Village Voice " in 1977. She denied that the "SCUM Manifesto" was ever meant to be taken seriously. [cite news| last = Smith| first = Howard| title = Valerie Solanas Interview| work = "Village Voice "| pages = 32| language = English| date = July 25, 1977| accessdate=2006-12-22 ] Solanas drifted into obscurity and was in and out of mental hospitals.Death
In 1988, at the age of 52, Solanas died of
emphysema andpneumonia in a welfare hotel in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. [cite book|last=Watson|first=Steven|title=Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties|publisher=Pantheon Books|date=2003|pages=425|isbn=0-679-42372-9]
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