Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist writer who is best known for the SCUM Manifesto, as well as the attempted murder of artist Andy Warhol.She was born in New Jersey and as a teenager had a volatile relationship with her mother and stepfather after her parents' divorce. As a consequence, she was sent to live with her grandparents. Her alcoholic grandfather physically abused her and Solanas ran away and became homeless. She came out as a lesbian in the 1950s. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Solanas relocated to Berkeley, California. There, she began writing her most notable work, the SCUM Manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."Solanas moved to New York City in the mid-1960s, working as a writer. She met Andy Warhol and asked Warhol to produce her play, Up Your Ass. She gave him her script, which she later accused him of losing and/or stealing, followed by Warhol expressing additional indifference to her play. After Solanas demanded financial compensation for the lost script, Warhol hired her to perform in his film, I, A Man, paying her $25.In 1967, Solanas began self-publishing the SCUM Manifesto. Olympia Press owner Maurice Girodias offered to publish Solanas' future writings, and she understood the contract to mean that Girodias would own her writing. Convinced that Girodias and Warhol were conspiring to steal her work, Solanas purchased a gun in the spring of 1968.On June 3, 1968, she sought out Girodias, who was gone for the weekend. She then went to The Factory, where she found Warhol. She shot at Warhol three times, with the first two shots missing and the final wounding Warhol. She also shot art critic Mario Amaya, and attempted to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, point blank, but the gun jammed. Solanas then turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded guilty to "reckless assault with intent to harm", serving a three-year prison sentence, including psychiatric hospital time. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto. She died in 1988 of pneumonia, in San Francisco.
{On the men who were interested in SCUM manifesto] "Creeps. Masochists. Probably would love me to spit on them. I wouldn't give them the pleasure.... The men want to kiss my feet and all that crap."
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I just wanted him to pay attention to me. Talking to him was like talking to a chair. [on why she shot Andy Warhol]
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"War: The male... proves to the entire world that he's a 'Man'. Since he has no compassion or ability to empathize or identify, proving his manhood is worth an endless amount of... suffering and an endless number of lives, including his own." -- from the "SCUM Manifesto," an 8-1/2 x 11, stapled, mimeographed pamphlet she sold for 50 cents in 1966.
She stated that she had shot Andy Warhol and in way of explanation offered, "He had too much control of my life."
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She was interviewed on Alan Burke's TV talk show; when she refused to censor herself, he walked off the set. The interview was never aired.
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She was buried in Virginia, near the home of her mother.
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She was released on September 1971 from the New York State Prison for Women at Bedford Hills; but was arrested again November 1971 for threatening letters and calls to various people, including Andy Warhol. In 1973 she was in and out of mental institutions; and spent eight months in South Florida State Hospital in 1975.
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Valerie, released on bail after shooting Andy Warhol, called the Factory (Warhol's studio) on Christmas Day in 1968. Andy answered the phone. She wished him a Merry Christmas and threatened to shoot him again if he didn't meet her demands which include her appearance on the Johnny Carson show, publication of the SCUM Manifesto in the Daily News and $25,000 in cash. She was locked away again, with her bail raised to $50,000 and then to $100,000. She was declared incompetent to stand trial and later pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to three years, one of which she had already served while awaiting trial.
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Died of pneumonia in a welfare hotel.
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Sentenced to New York's Matteawan State Hospital for shooting Andy Warhol. After being released, she was often homeless.
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