Attempted assassination of Andy Warhol

Attempted assassination of Andy Warhol
Location	Decker Building at 33 Union Square W in New York, NY, U.S.
Date	June 3, 1968
Deaths	0
Injured	2
Perpetrator	Valerie Solanas
Verdict	Guilty of First-degree assault
Sentence	3 years in prison
Judge	Supreme Court Justice Gerald T. Culkin

On June 3, 1968, artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol was shot by radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas at The Factory in New York City.

Prior to the incident, Solanas was a bit player in the Factory scene. She wrote the SCUM Manifesto, a feminist pamphlet advocating for the eradication of men, and she appeared in the Warhol film I, a Man, which she self-published in 1967. On the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. She believed he was plotting with her publisher, Maurice Girodias, to prevent her manuscript from being published. It had apparently been misplaced. Solanas was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced to three years in prison.

Background

In 1967, radical feminist Valerie Solanas presented her script titled Up Your Ass to filmmaker Andy Warhol to read. He glanced at it but found it so filthy that he believed she may be an undercover cop and that this was an entrapment. In his book Popism (1980), Warhol recalled:

In fact, when we'd gone to Cannes with Chelsea Girls the year before and I'd given that interview to Cahiers du Cinéma, it was Valerie Solanis [sic] I was referring to when I said, "People try to trap us sometimes. A girl called up and offered me a film script . . . and I thought the title was so wonderful, and I'm generally so friendly that I invited her to come over with it, but it was so dirty I think she must have been a lady cop. . . ."

After Warhol returned from the Cannes Film Festival, Solanas started calling his studio, The Factory, to request the return of her script. Warhol had left it lying around and was unable to locate it. He thought it must have been thrown out while he was abroad. After he admitted that he had misplaced the script, she started demanding money. She told him that she needed money for her rent at the Chelsea Hotel. In September 1967, Solanas accepted Warhol's invitation to appear in his film I, a Man (1967) for $25.

Incident

On June 3, 1968, at approximately 4:30 p.m., Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas at his studio, The Factory. in Manhattan, New York City, on the sixth floor of the Decker Building, located at 33 Union Square West.

Solanas had visited the premises multiple times that day in search of Warhol. In an attempt to get rid of her, Paul Morrissey, the artist's collaborator, told her that the artist would not be present all day. But eventually, while walking on the sidewalk outside, she ran upon Warhol. Around the same time, Factory assistant Jed Johnson had arrived with florescent lights from the hardware store, and the three of them entered the building together. As noted by Warhol:

It was a very hot day, and as Jed, Valerie, and I waited for the elevator. I noticed that she was wearing a fleece-lined winter coat and a high turtleneck sweater, and I thought how hot she must be—although, surprisingly, she wasn't even sweating. She was wearing pants, more like trousers (I’d never seen her in a dress), and holding a paper bag and twisting it—bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. Then I saw that there was something even more odd about her that day: when you looked close, she'd put on eye makeup and lipstick.

Meanwhile, Morrissey, art critic and curator Mario Amaya, Factory photographer Billy Name, and Warhol's business manager Fred Hughes were in the studio. While Warhol was on a phone call with Warhol superstar Viva, Solanas began shooting with a .32-caliber pistol. She shot Warhol at close range, striking him once.

At first, Amaya thought the rounds were coming through the window. He then observed the revolver in her hand, which was "like one of those you see in Dick Tracy." Amaya received a flesh wound on his back,but he managed to get away and shut himself in the screening room. Johnson was hiding in Warhol's office, and Solanas attempted to enter, but he was holding onto the door knob from the inside, leading her to believe it was locked. Afterward, she approached the front and aimed the gun at Hughes, who pleaded, "Please! Don't shoot me! Just leave!" As she contemplated shooting him, the sound of the elevator diverted her attention. It appeared that she was about to pull the trigger when the elevator doors opened and Hughes said, "There's the elevator. Just take it!" and then she fled from the building.

Hughes called for the ambulance, which took over twenty minutes to arrive to the scene. The shooting occurred over a month before New York City's 911 system was put into place. When the paramedics eventually arrived, they were told that it would cost an extra $15 to sound the siren. The paramedics chose to take Warhol down six flights of stairs in a wheelchair instead of using the elevator. As Warhol and Amaya were taken to Columbus Hospital in an ambulance, Hughes and Johnson were held for questioning at the 13th Precinct police station. After Solanas turned herself in a few hours later, they were released from police custody.

Amaya was released from the hospital later that same day after suffering minor wounds. Warhol was declared clinically dead, but Dr. Giuseppe Rossi massaged his heart and revived him. He was hit by a single bullet, according to Dr. Massimo Bazzini, executive medical director of Columbus Hospital. "The bullet entered his belly on the left side," Bazzini stated as Warhol was undergoing surgery, "passing through the left chest, then the right chest, and out." He suffered damage in his lungs, esophagus, liver, spleen, and stomach. A surgical team led by Rossi operated on Warhol for six hours, giving him a 50/50 chance of life. Warhol remained in the hospital for nearly two months and was discharged on July 28, 1968.

Arrest and legal proceedings

Around 8 p.m. on the same day of the attack, Solanas turned herself into a policeman at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 47th Street near Times Square. She told authorities that Warhol "had too much control over my life." While being booked at the 13th Precinct, she told reporters to read the S.C.U.M. manifesto. "That'll tell you what I am a what I stand for," she added.

Solanas showed no remorse before a Judge David Getzoff in Criminal Court the next day. "I have nothing to regret. I feel sorry for nothing. He was going to do something to which would have ruined me," she said. She added that there were reports that "I shot him because he wouldn't produce my play. It was for the opposite reason. He has a legal claim on my work." She was arraigned on a "weapons charge and two counts of attempted murder," and she was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for psychiatric examination.

On June 28, 1968, a grand jury indicated Solanas in the attempted murder of Warhol. In August 1968, she was declared "incompetent" to stand trial because of insanity and committed to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After some time, she was transferred back to Matteawan, and in December 1968, a friend posted her $10,000 bail.

On Christmas 1968, Solanas called Warhol while she was out on bail to coerce him into purchasing a screenplay she had written for a movie. The police were contacted which led to her arrest in January 1969. Solanas was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic and spent six months in psychiatric detention. She was held at the New York Women's House of Detention in Manhattan until May 1969, and then she was transferred to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and to Bellevue Hospital for further psychiatric testings.

On June 9, 1969, Solanas pleaded guilty to first-degree assault, she stated "I didn't intend to kill him ... I just wanted him to pay attention to me. Talking to him was like talking to a chair." She was sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Gerald T. Culkin to serve up to three years at the State Prison for Women at Bedford Hills, New York with credit for time previously served. Soon after, she was sent to Matteawan to serve the remainder of her sentence. According to reports, Warhol was taken aback by the "light" sentence she received when he was contacted for comment.

Aftermath

The National Organization for Women and other mainstream feminist organizations were divided on whether to support or condemn Solanas after she shot Warhol. Her supporters, such as author Ti-Grace Atkinson and attorney Flo Kennedy, formed the foundation of radical feminism and portrayed Solanas as "a symbol of female rage." The day after the attack, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, which further enmeshed the shooting in a broader story about gun violence.

Warhol gifted Dr. Giuseppe Rossi, the doctor who saved his life, a $1,000 check and complete set of 10 Campbell’s Soup II screenprints. The check bounced but Rossi kept the valuable prints. After Rossi died in 2016, his family sold the prints at Christie's in New York. They sold in a range from $16,250 to $37,500.

The shooting had a profound impact on Warhol and his art, and following his recovery, Warhol concentrated on turning the Factory into a business enterprise as regulations tightened. Jed Johnson, who became Warhol's live-in boyfriend and aided in his recovery, installed a Dutch door and built a wall around the elevator so that guests would be buzzed in. 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 collaborator Billy Name. "He was so sensitized you couldn't put your hand on him without him jumping."

In the article "The Return of Andy Warhol," published in the November 10, 1968, issue of The New York Times Magazine, Warhol reflected on the shooting: "Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. I don't know what anything is about. Like I don't even know whether or not I'm really alive or—whether I died. It's sad. Like I can't say hello or goodbye to people. Life is like a dream."

In a 1969 interview with Newsday, Warhol said "I don't dislike her. I don't dislike anyone. It wasn't her fault ... She wasn't responsible for what she did." He later recalled in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975):

"Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television—you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."

Although Warhol survived the attack, it is said that the injuries he sustained accelerated his demise. For the remainder of his life, Warhol experienced physical effects, such as needing to wear a surgical corset to keep his bowels in place. He died following gallbladder surgery in 1987.

In 1971, Solanas escaped from Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and was recommitted months before she was released from prison. Later that year, Solanas was arrested and charged with aggravated assault for threatening Barney Rosset, editor of Evergreen Review. Solanas underwent psychological testing and was certified as mentally ill. Years later, she spent some time as the editor of the biweekly feminist magazine Majority Report. She spent her last years in destitute and died in poverty in 1988.

In pop culture

The song "Andy's Chest" by rock musician Lou Reed is inspired by the attempted assassination of Andy Warhol. He first recorded the song in 1969 with his band the Velvet Underground. He recorded a solo version for his 1972 album Transformer.

The attack is the basis for the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol directed by Mary Harron. The film stars Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas and Jared Harris as Andy Warhol.

The 2017 episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag" from the television series American Horror Story is inspired by the attack. Solanas is portrayed by Lena Dunham and Warhol by Evan Peters.

Further reading

• Gopnik, Blake (2020). Warhol. New York: Ecco. ISBN 978-0-06-229839-3.