Valerie Solanas

This week, we are talking about a case that is pretty infamous, but I feel like the actual details of what happened and why they happened have slowly been fading from the public zeitgeist over the last 50 years.

This week, we are going to be talking about a woman named Valerie Solanas.

And that name may or may not sound familiar, and how she attempted to carry out an assassination against one of the biggest stars of the 1960s, Andy Warhol.

Now, I am sure you have probably heard of Andy Warhol.

But several hours later, she approached a police officer in the Times Square area and surrendered.

By the following morning, newspapers were reporting that one of the most prominent figures in American contemporary art had been shot in his own studio.

Now, while Warhol remained hospitalized and investigators were beginning to establish the circumstances of the attack, the woman who surrendered was identified as Valerie Solanas.

She was a writer who had previously appeared in one of Warhol's films.

Because nobody had any reason to suspect that the woman they just let into the factory was going to commit such an act.

Everyone there knew Valerie Solanas.

They may not have liked her or thought much about her, but they knew her.

When she came in, factory member Fred Hughes joked with her, asking if she was still writing dirty books.

Then, just like that, the elevator arrived and she was off.

There is the immediate aftermath of what happened next, and then there is the long, drawn-out what happened next.

because Valerie Solanas's shooting of Andy Warhol brought the celebrity and violence present in Warhol's art of the 1960s into his own life.

In surviving it, Warhol's body, his relationships, and his working world were forever altered, helping to produce the guarded businessman that would become his most enduring public identity.

So, some good news finally.

June 3rd, radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol at his New York studio, The Factory.

He survives after a five-hour operation.

June 5th, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Sr., who I just mentioned, happens.

You know, I mean, there was a...

Oh, I haven't given it to you yet, have I? The Scum Manifesto was given to me by Valerie Solanas, who shot Andy in the lift one day, and I've promised it to Wayne.

He hasn't got it yet, but he'll get it.

LAUGHTER

But I think it was just to really give the sense you gave up a lot in leaving New York.

I mean, you and Aki really were better down there.

I should say with Valerie Solanas, the Scum Manifesto, Scum, of course, stood for the Society for Cutting Up Men.

She was a radical feminist.

And what actually, e- eventually it turned out in the making of the film, this was actually happening when Warhol got, you know, there was that assassination attempt or murder attempt or whatever you wanna call it, where someone shot...

Mm

... shot Andy Warhol.