Valerie Solanas
From Academic Kids
Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 - April 26, 1988) was the author of the "shock-feminism" classic SCUM Manifesto. She is famous for her 1968 shooting of pop-artist Andy Warhol and she remains a figure closely associated with militant feminism.
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1 Solanas in popular culture |
Early life
Born in New Jersey in 1936, Solanas was, by her own report, regularly sexually abused by her father. Her parents divorced during the 1940s and by the age of 15 she was homeless. In spite of this, she managed to complete high school, and a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland.
Details of her life until 1966 are sketchy, but it is believed she traveled the country as an itinerant, supporting herself by panhandling and prostitution.
Shooting Andy Warhol
Solanas arrived in Greenwich Village in 1966 where she wrote a play entitled Up Your Ass about a man-hating prostitute and a panhandler. In 1967 she encountered Andy Warhol outside his studio (The Factory) in Manhattan and asked him to produce her play, and he was fascinated enough by the title of the play to accept the script for review. He was unimpressed by the content, however, and did not contact her again.
Warhol left for Europe shortly afterwards, and in the interim Solanas wrote and self-published the work she is best known for - the SCUM Manifesto. SCUM was short for Society for Cutting Up Men.
Later in 1967 Solanas began to telephone Warhol demanding he return the script of Up Your Ass. Warhol admitted he had lost it, at which point she began demanding money as payment. Warhol ignored these demands; however, he employed her for minor roles in two of his movies.
Solanas began to believe that her financial troubles were Warhol's fault. On June 3, 1968, she fired 3 shots at Warhol as he entered his studio. Although the first two rounds missed, her third shot sent a bullet through Warhol's left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus and right lung. She then shot art critic Mario Amaya and tried to shoot Warhol's manager Fred Hughes, but her gun jammed as the elevator arrived. Hughes suggested she take it and Solanas did so. Warhol barely survived; at one point he was pronounced dead. He never fully recovered, and had to wear a corset to prevent his injuries from worsening for the rest of his life.
Solanas reportedly considered Warhol a vampire and spray-painted her bullets silver. She experimented with wrapping them in foil, but found it made her gun jam, which coincidently happened anyway.
That evening, Solanas turned herself in to the police, and was charged with numerous offences, including attempted murder. After pleading guilty she received a three year sentence. Warhol refused to testify against her.
Release from prison
Feminist Robin Morgan demonstrated for Solanas's release from prison. Morgan later went on to edit Ms. magazine in the 1990s. Ti-Grace Atkinson, the New York chapter president of National Organization for Women (NOW), described Solanas as, "the first outstanding champion of women's rights". Another member, Florynce Kennedy, represented Solanas at her trial, calling her "one of the most important spokeswomen of the feminist movement".
After her release from prison in 1971, she was regarded by some as a martyr. She still harassed Warhol and others over the phone, prompting the police to arrest her again. Solanas drifted into obscurity (and in and out of mental hospitals). An interview with her was published in the Village Voice in 1977. During the 1980s it is believed she was living in California, supporting a drug addiction through prostitution. In 1988, at the age of 52, she died of emphysema and pneumonia, in a welfare hotel in San Francisco.
Solanas in popular culture
- In 1996, the movie I Shot Andy Warhol, based on her life, was released, starring Lili Taylor as Solanas and Jared Harris as Warhol.
- Warhol's friend Lou Reed never forgave Solanas for the attack and recorded a song, "I Believe" with John Cale, singing "I believe/I would've pulled the switch on her myself."
Selected Works
- Up Your Ass
- The SCUM Manifesto Olympia Press, London, introduction by Vivian Gornick, 1971. ISBN 0700410309
- Ibid., Phoenix Press, UK, March 1991. ISBN 0948984031
- Ibid., Verso; London, New York; introduction by Avital Ronell, 2004.
External links
- Solanas' biography (http://www.womynkind.org/valbio.htm)
- Full text of the SCUM Manifesto (http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm)
- The Prisoner of Sex by Norman Mailer. ISBN 0917657594
- I Shot Andy Warhol (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0116594/) (1996)
- Valerie Solanas Bibliography (http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Village/6982/solanas.html)de:Valerie Solanas
