Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM

by Breanne Fahs

  Certainly, this book would still be languishing in purgatory without the institutional support I have received from Arizona State University, Duke University, and the University of Michigan. Arizona State University’s Center for Critical Inquiry and Cultural Studies provided support for photos and travel costs to conduct some of the interviews, while the Scholarship for Research and Creative Activities grant through Arizona State University funded two summer’s worth of work. Dean Elizabeth Langland’s support of my work came at just the right time—thank you! I also had the true pleasure of doing archival research at the Duke University Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture while on a Mary Lily Research Grant in the summer of 2008. Thank you to the superb archivist Kelly Wooten and to Duke for investing in, and preserving, the history of radical feminism. I am also grateful to the Dobkin Collection, particularly Sarah Funke Butler, who so generously helped me with documents and photos concerning Valerie from their collection. I owe thanks to the University of Michigan, which provided funding to visit the Andy Warhol Museum archives in Pittsburgh back in 2006 and to Matt Wrbican, lead archivist at the Warhol archives, and Greg Burchard, the rights and reproductions specialist, who provided many of the rich histories and documents about Valerie during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

  For the many striking images in this book, I owe gratitude to numerous photographers, archivists, and friends: I thank the estate of Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Howard Berman, Jennifer Bertagni, David Blackwell, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Robert Fustero, Matt Grace, Bob Gruen, Jeremiah Newton, Fred Palumbo, Christopher Payne, Drew Stevens, and Louis Zwiren.

  I have also had the great fortune of working with a number of talented students, whose energy, talent, and bravery humbles me every day. They have propelled the book along by fact-checking, taking photos, tracking down contact information, reading drafts, compiling references, thinking deeply about Valerie’s life, and providing humor and laughter amid this most tragic of stories. Love and thanks to Jennifer Bertagni, the crème de la crème, whose imprint is everywhere in this text, and whose support brought so much life and passion to the work—words cannot describe how much I have valued our many conversations about Valerie over the years. Thanks to the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality Group—the FROGS—whose extraordinary work ethic, diligence, earnestness, and passion have kept me going. I owe much to those who have worked on this text and who believed in Valerie’s story, particularly Michelle Ashley Gohr, Adrielle Munger, Kelly Trujillo, Jaqueline “Jax” Gonzalez, Kalen Brest, Denise Delgado, Jennifer Pryor, Kathleen Courter, Judith Sipes, Mitchell Call, Perla Solorzano, Michael Karger, Emily Dolan, Rose Coursey, Stephanie Robinson-Cestaro, Natali Blazevic, Yessica del Rincon, Eva Sisko, Amanda Garcia, Victoria Guinn, and Marisa Loiacono.

  I extend appreciation to my many colleagues and friends who have contributed so much to this project. Susannah Straw-Gast gave me my first copy of SCUM Manifesto at college back in 1999—thank you, thank you, thank you. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg first validated my interest in writing a book on Valerie and, in so many ways, deserves recognition for this book’s existence. Thanks to Deborah Martinson, superwoman of feminist biography—I adore you and will never have enough words with which to sing your praises. Thanks to my colleagues at Arizona State University and beyond, particularly Marlene Tromp, Monica Casper, Stephanie Fink, Elizabeth Langland, Patrick Grzanka, Mary Margaret Fonow, Michael Starcliff, Ilana Luna, Gloria Cuadraz, Valerie Kemper, Clare Croft, Leonore Tiefer, Rebecca Plante, Andrew Smiler, Virginia Braun, Michelle Tea, Rose Carlson, Jennifer Baumgardner, Michael Kimmel, and Abby Stewart.

  Thanks especially to my family, particularly my incredible mother, who dug up genealogy on Valerie, read drafts, tracked down Holy Titclamps for a Christmas present, and endured with such spirited and generous attention my many “daily briefings” in the world of Valerie research. To my sister, I love you and all the warmth you’ve shown for this project. To my cousin Chris Brown, thanks for all the laughs and for the mortician’s insights about Valerie’s death, and to my aunt Marilee Davis, I so appreciate our conversations about Our Lady of Sorrows and all the love you give to me. Sara McClelland, my simpatico friend who may very well be the most gracious person on earth, you never wavered from seeing this work as significant and reminding me why it matters. Sarah Stage and Mary Dudy, I would be lost without you and love you dearly. To my friends, near and far—especially Lori Errico-Seaman, Sean Seaman, Denise Delgado, Garyn Tsuru, Jennifer Tamir, Marcy Winokur, Steve DuBois, Devaki Ramalingam, Annika Mann, Joe Rheinhardt, Sharon Kirsch, Robert Wardy, Joanna Martori, Jan Habarth, Anne Hager, Damon Whitaker, Pat Hart, Karen Swank-Fitch, Ursula Swank, Wendy D’Andrea, Connie Hardesty, Toby Oshiro, Marc Lombardo, and David Frost—who never thought me foolish for writing a book about a feminist assassin while going up for tenure, and who never reduced the complexity and utter force of Valerie’s story, I love you all.

  Finally, with full awareness of the irony in doing so, I dedicate this book to two extraordinary men. I wrote this book for Elmer Griffin, my great teacher, for showing me the power of radical thought and how to use its transformative energy to write, read, think, and live. And for Eric Swank, for all those qualities that evade words, and for showing me what is possible.

  NOTES

  PREFACE

  1. “She was paranoid, hostile, violent and so impossible to deal with that one person I talked to insisted on being shown a copy of her death certificate before he agreed to be interviewed.” Mary Harron, letter to British Broadcasting Company, September 26, 1992, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  2. Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto (San Francisco, 1996), 28. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from the SCUM Manifesto are from this edition.

  3. Ti-Grace Atkinson, interview by Breanne Fahs, Cambridge, MA, February 1, 2008.

  4. Smith, “The History of Zines.”

  5. Valerie Solanas, letter to Ti-Grace Atkinson, June 16, 1968, Ti-Grace Atkinson personal collection, Cambridge, MA.

  6. Quote from Marmorstein, “SCUM Goddess,” 11.

  SOUNDING OFF

  1. Atkinson, interview by Fahs, February 1, 2008; the Field Boss, “15 Minutes Later”; Ti-Grace Atkinson, as quoted in Fahs, “Radical Possibilities”; Norman Mailer, as quoted in Mary Harron and Daniel Minahan, I Shot Andy Warhol, viii; Gaither, “Andy Warhol’s Feminist Nightmare”; Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9; Margo Feiden, interview by Breanne Fahs, New York, March 15, 2010.

  2. Jeremiah Newton, interview by Breanne Fahs, New York, March 14, 2010.

  3. Valerie Solanas, “Up Your Ass” (mimeograph), 1965, Andy Warhol Museum Archives, Pittsburgh, PA, 1. Other copies are currently in Margo Feiden personal collection, New York; and Ti-Grace Atkinson personal collection, Cambridge, MA.

  4. Valerie Solanas, letter to Ti-Grace Atkinson, July 5, 1968, Ti-Grace Atkinson personal collection, Cambridge, MA.

  5. Jo Freeman (aka Joreen), interview by Breanne Fahs, phone, October 14, 2010.

  6. Birth certificate, Valerie Jean Solanas. Valerie’s name was misspelled, as Valerie Jean Solanus, as was her father’s, as Louis Solanus.

  7. Quote from Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xi.

  8. Judith Martinez, as quoted in Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  9. Martinez, as quoted in Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  10. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  11. Louis Zwiren, as quoted in Smith, “To Live with a Man,” 3.

  12. Marmorstein, “SCUM Goddess,” 9.

  13. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  14. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xii.

  15. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  16. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  17. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  18. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, interview by Breanne Fahs, San Francisco, December 11, 2008.

  19. Robert Fustero, interview by Breanne Fahs, phone, September 20, 2008.

&nbs
p; 20. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  21. Peter Moritz Pickshaus, letter to Mary Harron, March 12, 1993, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  22. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  23. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  24. Robert Fustero, interview by Breanne Fahs, Silver Spring, MD, May 25, 2012.

  25. Fustero, interview by Fahs, May 25, 2012.

  26. Fustero, interview by Fahs, May 25, 2012.

  27. Dr. Arthur Sternberg and Dr. Mannuccio Mannucci, psychological report, Elmhurst Hospital, June 26, 1968, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  28. Martinez, as quoted in Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  29. Fustero, interview, September 20, 2008; May 25, 2012.

  30. Martinez, as quoted in Michaelson, “Valerie,” 9.

  31. Martinez, as quoted in Michaelson, “Valerie,” 35.

  32. Jane Caputi, interview by Breanne Fahs, Atlanta, GA, November 15, 2009.

  33. Fustero, interview by Fahs, May 25, 2012.

  34. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  35. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  36. Linda Moran’s genealogical website (http://www.biondocella.com/showphoto.php?personID=I5&tree=Linda&ordernum=1) states that Moran was born April 8, 1951, to Edward Francis Moran and Dorothy Marie Biondo; these dates would confirm this time line.

  37. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  38. Watson, Factory Made, 35; Valerie Solanas, letter to Louis Solanas, May 23, 1970; June 29, 1967, in Breanne Fahs personal collection, Phoenix, AZ.

  39. David Blackwell, letter to Mary Harron, June 5, 1996, Andy Warhol Museum Archive, Pittsburgh, PA.

  40. Martinez, as quoted in Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  41. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  42. Martinez, as quoted in Watson, Factory Made, 36.

  43. Blackwell, letter to Mary Harron, June 5, 1996.

  44. Blackwell, letter to Mary Harron, June 5, 1996.

  45. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  46. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  47. David Blackwell, interview by Breanne Fahs, phone, November 6, 2011.

  48. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  49. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  50. Blackwell, interview by Fahs, November 6, 2011.

  51. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  52. Watson, Factory Made, 36.

  53. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  54. Martinez, “University of Maryland.”

  55. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  56. Church, Brush, and Solomon, “Traumatic Avoidance Learning.” See also Brush, “The Effects of Shock Intensity”; Brush, “On the Differences.”

  57. Solanas, SCUM Manifesto, 1.

  58. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xiii–xiv.

  59. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  60. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  61. Mary Harron, personal notes, circa 1992, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY. Harron believed that Brush was the first person she contacted who had expressed sympathy for Valerie.

  62. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xiv.

  63. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  64. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  65. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, iv.

  66. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xiii.

  67. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  68. Solanas, Diamondback.

  69. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  70. Harron, personal notes, circa 1992.

  71. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xv.

  72. Arthur Sternberg and Joseph E. Rubenstein, Elmhurst Hospital psychological report, May 28, 1969, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  73. Dick Spottiswood, interview by Mary Harron, New York, circa 1992.

  74. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xv. See also Spottiswood, interview by Harron, circa 1992.

  75. Spottiswood, interview by Harron, circa 1992.

  76. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  77. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  78. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  79. Jobey, “Solanas and Son.”

  80. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  81. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  82. Ramon Martinez, as quoted in Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 9.

  83. Watson, Factory Made, 241.

  84. Ultra Violet, notes about Valerie’s whereabouts, Ultra Violet personal collection, New York. The Library of Congress recorded that Valerie registered “Up Your Ass,” giving 79 Washington Place as her address, on June 11, 1965.

  85. Valerie Solanas, “A Young Girl’s Primer” [“For 2c: Pain, The Survival Game Gets Pretty Ugly”], Cavalier, July 1966, 38–40, 76–77.

  86. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xvii.

  87. Solanas, “A Young Girl’s Primer,” 39. Further page numbers appear in the text.

  88. Jay, Tales of a Lavender Menace, 143.

  89. Coburn, “Valerie’s Gang,” 11.

  90. Solanas, “Up Your Ass,” 6.

  91. Solomon, “Whose Soiree Now?”

  92. Solanas, “Up Your Ass,” 1–5. Further page numbers appear in the text.

  93. Billy Name was a photographer in Warhol’s inner circle. Warhol “adopted” him into the Factory. Billy hand-painted his large silver trunk, now on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after the Factory adopted the motif of the color silver.

  94. Warner, “‘Scummy’ Acts,’” 52–55. For a thorough treatment of the specifics of the chronology of the “Up Your Ass” copies, and for an exposition of why Andy’s losing Valerie’s copy did not result in the shooting per se, see 50–64. The following institutions possess or have possessed copies of “Up Your Ass”: Hofstra University (copy acquired in 1971), the University of Virginia (acquired between 1964 and 1977), Indiana University (acquisition date unknown), and the University of Arizona (acquired in 2003 but now lost).

  95. Valerie Solanas, letter to Andy Warhol, February 9, 1966, Andy Warhol Museum Archives, Pittsburgh, PA.

  96. Up Your Ass ran at the George Coates Theater in San Francisco, January 12–April 8, 2000, and then traveled to PS 122 in New York, February 7–25, 2001, returning to San Francisco, January 18–21, 2001.

  97. Solomon, “Whose Soiree Now?” 64.

  98. Solanas, “A Young Girl’s Primer,” 38–39.

  99. Harron and Minahan, introduction to I Shot Andy Warhol, xvii.

  100. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  101. Fustero, interview by Fahs, September 20, 2008.

  102. Marmorstein, “SCUM Goddess,” 9.

  103. Marmorstein, “SCUM Goddess,” 9.

  SHOOTING

  1. Fahs, “Radical Possibilities,” 591–92.

  2. Smith, “The Shot That Shattered the Velvet Underground.”

  3. Rowe, “Just Read My Manifesto.” See also Fahs, “Radical Possibilities,” 591.

  4. Mary Harron, notes for I Shot Andy Warhol, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  5. Valerie Solanas, “SCUM flier meeting announcement,” May 23, 1967, Andy Warhol Museum Archive, Pittsburgh, PA.

  6. Solanas, SCUM Manifesto, 1. (Further page numbers appear in the text.)

  7. Ronell, “Deviant Payback,” 16–17.

  8. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  9. Solanas, “SCUM flier meeting announcement.”

  10. Solanas, SCUM Manifesto, 39.

  11. Anne Koedt, interview by Mary Harron, New York, circa 1992.

  12. Michaelson, “Valerie.”

  13. Archibald, “Inventory/How to Join the Men’s Auxiliary.” The ad was reproduced in Fictional States, no. 18 (Summer 2005).

  14. Atkinson
, interview by Fahs, February 1, 2008.

  15. Chase, “The Twig Benders,” 3.

  16. Atkinson, interview by Fahs, February 1, 2008.

  17. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  18. Dominic, Queen of Peace Room, 56.

  19. Newton, script notes for Mary Harron, 1994. Later, when Candy was asked about the Andy Warhol shooting, she said, “Valerie shouldn’t be judged by us for what she did.” She adamantly refused to criticize Valerie’s attack against Warhol, even though Candy herself loved him. See Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  20. “English” Pat may also have gone by the name Ingrid Phorn. When Mary Harron’s research and film assistants tried to find her in the early 1990s, no one had seen or heard from her in quite some time. See Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  21. Unidentified acquaintance, as quoted in Smith, “The Shot That Shattered the Velvet Underground.”

  22. Guiles, Loner at the Ball, 301.

  23. Jeremiah Newton, letter to Mary Harron, June 25, 1993, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.

  24. Newton, letter to Mary Harron, June 25, 1993.

  25. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  26. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  27. Newton, letter to Mary Harron, June 25, 1993.

  28. Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  29. Warner, “‘Scummy Acts,’” 208.

  30. Watson, Factory Made, 352. See also Newton, interview by Fahs, March 14, 2010.

  31. Newton, letter to Harron, June 25, 1993.

  32. Jeremiah Newton, letter to Mary Harron, undated, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY. Daniel Burke, Alan Burke’s son, relayed to Diane Tucker, a researcher at the British Broadcasting Corporation, that no tape of this show exists any longer: “I could find nothing else that I felt was what you were looking for. Most video from the 60’s and early 70’s was on two inch tape. The cost of keeping tapes from that period was apparently so expensive that it was the practice of many broadcasters to reuse the tapes if there was no plan to rebroadcast them.” Daniel Burke, letter to Diane Tucker, September 9, 1993, Mary Harron personal collection, Brooklyn, NY.