The Tragic Story of Valerie Solanas – The Writer Andy Warhol Ignored and Her Schizophrenia

The Tragic Story of Valerie Solanas – The Writer Andy Warhol Ignored & Her Schizophrenia She wrote a play, a manifesto and hundreds of letters, and the world remembers her for one sentence. This is the tragic story of Valerie Solanas, the writer who shot Andy Warhol in 1968 and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia only weeks later. Born in Ventnor City, New Jersey in 1936, Valerie gave birth twice before she turned seventeen, earned a degree in psychology, and hosted her own call-in radio show in college. In New York, she lived by her wits and hauled an old typewriter from one cheap hotel to the next. She sent her play to Andy Warhol, and he lost it. As her letters grew more paranoid, no one stepped in, and on June 3, 1968, she walked into his studio with a gun. What followed was twenty years of hospitals, prisons and streets, in a country that was emptying its mental hospitals. One play. One lost script. One sentence. In this video, we look at the woman behind the headline, the illness that shaped the rest of her life, and the play that was found only after she was gone. Tragic Secrets brings you the hidden stories of real people whose lives were kept quiet, told halfway, or never told at all. Subscribe for the next story. Full Series: [   • Tragic Secrets | Tragic Stories  ] 00:00 The Woman Behind One Sentence 00:36 A Name Wrong From the First Page 04:24 The Voice on the Radio 07:53 The Play She Sent to Andy Warhol 12:58 June 3, 1968 17:02 Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenia 22:38 Phoenix: The Woman in the Intersection 24:15 The Last Room at the Bristol 26:45 The Play in the Silver Trunk Sources: Breanne Fahs, Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM (and Shot Andy Warhol) (2014) Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties (1980) Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto (1967) #tragicstories #valeriesolanas #andywarhol #biographydocumentary #historydocumentary #TragicSecrets