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Valerie Solanas

1936-1988 US, Ventnor City, New Jersey

A.k.a. Valerie Jean Solanas

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) was an American radical feminist writer, best known as an author of SCUM Manifesto (1967). Solanas graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland. Afterwards, she relocated to Berkeley and started working on her manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex". In the mid-1960s, Solanas moved to New York City where she met Andy Warhol and asked him to produce her play Up Your Ass. Later she accused Warhol of losing or stealing the script while he denied any involvement and insisted on being completely uninterested. After she demanded financial compensation for the lost text, Warhol agrees to pay $25 for performing in his film I, A Man. Convinced that Warhol may be conspiring to steal her work, Solanas purchased a gun. On June 3rd 1968 she shot Warhol three times at The Factory, missing twice but striking him with a third bullet, which went through both lungs, spleen, stomach, liver, and esophagus. Warhol was taken to a hospital and underwent a 5-hour surgery. Valerie Solanas turned herself in the same day and confessed to the shooting. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. After undergoing the psychiatric evaluation, Solanas was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia. After being released from the New York State Prison for Women in 1971, she continued stalking Warhol and people from his camp over the phone, which led to a new arrest and several institutionalizations. The attack had a profound impact on Warhol and his personality, who spent the rest of his life in fear that Solanas would attack him again. In 1988, Solanas died of pneumonia at the age of 52.

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