Valerie Solanas Biography

Valerie Solanas shot the artist Andy Warhol in a fit of crazed anger on June 3, 1968. A radical feminist and sometime acquaintance of Warhol, Solanas had previously written the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, an outlandish tract which begins “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.” Warhol recovered and Solanas was sentenced to three years in jail for assault. She later spent time in various mental hospitals. Solanas was the subject of the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol.