Valerie Solanas - New York City and The Factory

New York City and The Factory

In the mid 1960s Solanas moved to New York City where she supported herself through begging and prostitution. In 1965 she wrote two works: an autobiographical short story called "A Young Girl's Primer on How to Attain the Leisure Class", and a play titled Up Your Ass about a young prostitute. The short story was published in Cavalier magazine in July 1966. Up Your Ass remains unpublished.

In 1967, Solanas encountered Andy Warhol outside his studio, The Factory, and asked him to produce her play. He accepted the script for review and told Solanas that it was "well typed" and promised to read it. According to Factory lore, Warhol, whose films were often shut down by the police for obscenity, thought the script was so pornographic that it must have been a police trap. Solanas contacted Warhol about the script, and was told that he had lost it. He also jokingly offered her a job at the Factory as a typist. Insulted, Solanas demanded money for the lost manuscript. Instead, Warhol paid her $25 to appear in his film, I, A Man.

In her role in I, A Man, she leaves the film's title character (played by Tom Baker) to fend for himself, explaining "I gotta go beat my meat" as she exits the scene. Solanas was satisfied with her experience working with Warhol and her performance in the film, and brought Maurice Girodias to see the film. Girodias described her as being "very relaxed and friendly with Warhol." Solanas also had a nonspeaking role in Warhol's film Bikeboy, in 1967.

Read more about this topic:  Valerie Solanas

Famous quotes containing the words york, city and/or factory:

    New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The city mouse lives in a house;—
    The garden mouse lives in a bower,
    Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)

    Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)