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NEW YOUR POST TUESDAY, JUNE 4 1968

Behind the Flashy Vinyl Facade
By Jerry Tallmer

In his 38 short years, or 39, or 40, or 41, Andy Warhol has succeeded in making Andy Warhol as famous as he is invisible.
Oh, with his shocking silver-sprayed hair and his shock-effect movies and psychedelic acid-rock light shows and his Campbell Soup cans and his crowd of people he has been very visible, on the outside.
It was the carefully guarded inside Andy Warhol that each of his friends had to cling to in separate portions today as Warhol was being treated at Columbus Hospital after being shot in his studio yesterday afternoon by a woman the police say was Valeria Solanis, herself an actress in "I, a Man." one of his films.
He floated above, or through, the wildness around him with a kind of inner serenity. Yet there was always the possibility, and sometimes, even before this, the occasion of violence.
"I was stunned when I heard the news but not surprised," said a friend, the writer David Bourdon. "It seems to me he created the environment, the atmosphere, that made situation like this possible. He was very permissive about people, tolerated everything, not only sexual habits but, you know, less popular forms of activity."
Only a few months ago when "The Factory"—Warhol's studio—was located on E. 47th St., an unknown young man entered with a gun, played Russian roulette with it at everyone's head, fired off a few shots, missed, departed. 
During the whole incident, according to friends, Warhol was "just very quiet, silent." Partly as a result, The Factory was moved down to its present premises at 33 Union St. W.
Then there'd been the at the old Factory a few years ago when Andy had had a half-dozen of his paintings of Marilyn Monroe stacked one before the other. Suddenly a girl known to the group as "a part-time junkie" entered "with a revolver that nobody knew was loaded." She aimed it nicely at Marilyn's forehead and blew a hole through the six canvases.
"Andy was kind of upset," says one acquaintance, "but he didn't criticize her, didn't condemn her."
The critics have been variously receptive to Andy Warhol and his various arts. Some have been angered, some have been bored—tantamount to the same thing—and some have been immensely excited. In any event he has never stayed with any one art form for very long.
Originally a display designer and advertising artist for department stores — and a good one — he overnight in the early 1960s materialized as the crown prince of the new Pop Art dervied from comic strips and the like. Forthwith he pronounced Pop Art old hat and moved on into movies — the one form he probably will stay with for a while, if he now survives.
As soon as the hip populace began to enjoy themselves at his swirling-banshee light shows, he'd begin to say: "Change it, change it," and he'd further disjoint the disjointed media so as to make the experiencing of them yet more unendurable. 
Also there was his ever-changing stable or "family" of Pop-up glamor girls and instant movie queens stemming, in the words of Elenore Lester, who has a big Warhol piece coming out in the August is-

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[[image 1]] 
Post Photo by Boxer
Andy Warhol and friend at a recent discotheque party.

Andy Warhol Fighting for Life
Continued from Page 1
said, and Valeria admitted the shooting.
She was being arraigned today on charges of first-degree assault and possession of a dangerous weapon. If Warhol lives and she is convicted of both charges, she could draw maximum sentences of 15 and 7 years.
Police said the woman-who had appeared in Warhol's film, "I a Man" - barged into his sixth-floor studio on E. 14th St. yesterday and fired four bullets at close range. One struck Warhol in the chest. Another hit Mario Amaya, 34, a visiting art 

[[image 2]]
Post Photo by Engel
VALERIA SOLANIS
Arriving at the station.

writer-editor from London. He was shot in the hip but suffered only a minor wound and was released from the hospital.
The shooting was witnessed by two Warhol assistants, Paul Morrisey and Fred Hughes, and two other persons.
Police were saying little about a possible motive, but whatever reasons Valeria might have had are apparently as murky as her own past and the underground scene she inhabited.
When she surrendered, wearing under her trenchcoat typical garb for her--a man-tailored brown leather jacket, blue jersey and khaki trousers--she told the rookie cop:
"The police are looking for me. They want me. I am a flower child. He had too much 
She Talked Freely
control over my life."
And as she freely talked to reporters during her booking, she answered a question about motive this way:
"I have a lot of very involved reasons. Read my manifesto and it will tell you what I am."
What she is, by herown admission and according to the testimony of everyone else, is a man hater. Her manifesto is entitled S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men).
In the 21-page document, Valeria outlines a program "which will eliminate through sabotage all aspects of society not relevant to women (everything), bring about the complete female takeover, eliminate the male sex and begin to create a swinging, groovy, out-of-sight female world."
An 'Emotional Cripple'
The male, she says, is a biological accident" and an "emotional cripple," and she contends that it is now possible for females to reproduce alone-and only other females, "We must begin immeditaely to do so," she urges.
Despite her tough manner and masculine clothing, most of those who know her agreed today that she is not a lesbian. "She was more of a man-hater than a woman-lover," said one woman acquaintance. "Underneath, she was really was hung up on men."
Until six months ago, she was living at the Chelsea Hotel, locale of Warhol's most widely shown film, "The Chelsea

[[image 3]]
Underground film stars Gerard Malanga and Viva wait in Columbus Hospital lobby for word on Andy Warhol's condition.
Associated Press Photos

Girls." There Valeria, a girl even the residents of that bohemian establishment regarded as eccentric, met Maurice Girodias, publisher of the Olympia Press.
"She told Girodias she was a writer," the friend said. "She had written a magazine piece and how she panhandled and she had also written this play she was peddling around. She showed her play to Girodias and told him she was working on a novel.
"He gave her a $500 advance on the novel and paid her rent (she was broke). But she also went to Andy with her manuscripts and soon she began to fear she had made a bad deal with Girodias, htat perhaps she had given him the rights to all her future writings.
Asking for Advice
"She kept coming around and asking me what to do about it. She was constantly pestering Andy for more money for the film she had done for him and then began to believe that Andy was in cahoots with Girodias.
"Andy told me recently: 'I think Valeria has gone completely off her rocker.'"
As members of Warhol's entourage waited in the Columbus Hospital lobby last night for word on his condition, they, too, discussed Valeria.
"She is a strange character," one woman said. 'She's been bothering Andy a long time, trying to get him to use the script, part of which I read and which wa so vile and filthy it turned my stomach. Andy kept turning her off, but he was just too nice a guy to give her a complete brushoff."
Ultra Violet, one of Warhol's film stars, said: "This underground movie world is a mad mad world with a lot of mad people in it. Maybe this girl, Valeria, was mad herself."
Warhol's mother, with whom he lives at 1342 Lexington Av., near 89th St., wept and talked to herself in the waiting room. Frail and suffering from a heart ailment, she was comforted by Viva, reigning queen of the Warhol flicks.
"He isn't going to die," Viva told the old woman calmly. A hospital attendant brought a wheelchair and Mrs. Warhol was taken home.
None of Valeria's acquaintances were sure just how long ago she came here from, they think, Atlantic City. And not everyone spoke ill if her.
Can Be Likeable
One man, a film-maker not in the Warhol orbit, said: "She turned out to be very warm. When she doesn't fell defensive about man, she can be a very likeable person."
Witnesses and police said the shooting occurred at about 4:20 p.m. in "The Factory," Warhol's film-making headquarters on Union Sq. U. They gave this account:
Valeria, who had paid an earlier visit while Warhol was out, stepped from the self-service elevator. She encountered Warhol-clad in a brown leather jacket, trousers and boots-and Amaya in the large room. Amaya turned away, then heard gunfire.
Heard Him Yell
"I thought it was coming through the window," he said. I thought it might be some nutty New York sniper. But then I heard Andy yell: 'Valeria, don't do it! No! No!'"
She fired, then turned and fired at Amaya, who ducked and was only grazed. "I guess it was the luckiest escape of my life," he said.
Valeria had calmly backed onto the elevator and left.

Transcription Notes:
[[image 1, photo of Andy Warhol with a friend chatting]] [[image 2, photo of Valeria Solanis]] [[image 3, photo of Gerard Malanga and Viva in hospital lobby]]