Viva | |
|---|---|
| Born | Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann August 23, 1938 Syracuse, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, writer |
| Years active | 1967–2010 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, including Gaby Hoffmann |
Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann (born August 23, 1938), known professionally as Viva, is an American actress, writer and former Warhol superstar. [1]
Viva was born in Syracuse, New York, the daughter of Mary Alice (née McNicholas) and Wilfred Ernest Hoffmann. [2] Hoffmann was the eldest of nine children born into a family of strict Roman Catholics. Her father was a prosperous attorney, and her parents were stalwart supporters of the Army–McCarthy hearings held to expose Communist government infiltration. The Hoffmann children were required to watch the televised proceedings. Raised in devout Catholicism, she considered becoming a nun. [3]
Viva began her career in entertainment as a model and painter. She retired from both professions, claiming that she believed painting to be a dead medium, and describing her time as a model as "...a period of my life I would rather forget." [4] She was given the name Viva by Andy Warhol before the release of her first film but later used her married last name (Auder). She appeared in several of Warhol's films and was a frequent guest at the Factory. [1]
Viva's film career began in 1967, when she began filming Ciao! Manhattan , which was not completed until 1972. Viva approached Andy Warhol about being in one of his films, on the suggestion of her friend, actress Abigail Rosen McGrath. Warhol agreed but only on the condition that Viva take off her blouse for the role. Viva responded by adhering bandaids to her breasts and visiting Warhol at The Factory. [3]
Viva appeared in many of Warhol's films. The first, Tub Girls , consists of Viva lying in a bathtub with various people of both sexes, including Brigid Berlin and Rosen McGrath. [5] She appeared in Bike Boy , a film about a motorcyclist trying to find himself; [6] and The Nude Restaurant , in which she played a waitress, opposite Taylor Mead. [7]
By far, Viva's most controversial role was in Blue Movie (1969), a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn that helped inaugurate the "porno chic" phenomenon in modern American culture. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Viva starred opposite Louis Waldon. The film consists of improvised dialogue between Viva and Waldon about a multitude of topics, including the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon, and various mundane tasks. These conversations are interrupted by the main event of the film, in which Viva and Waldon perform sexual acts in front of the camera. The film was seized by New York City Police for obscenity, and the theater manager, projectionist and ticket-seller at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre arrested for possession of obscene materials. [9]
Viva was on the phone with Andy Warhol when he was shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968. [13] Following Solanas' attempt on Warhol's life, Viva developed a close, personal friendship with Warhol's mother, Julia Warhola. Returning from the hospital, however, Warhol accused Viva of utilizing his absence to spy on his work and his mother, creating a rift in a relationship that was never repaired. Viva never saw Mrs. Warhola again after that. [7]
Viva's first starring role in a non-Warhol film was in Agnès Varda's Lions Love in 1969. The film features Viva in a ménage à trois with Gerome Ragni and James Rado. [14] On November 1, 1968, Viva appeared on The Tonight Show on an evening that was guest-hosted by Woody Allen. Four years later Allen cast her in his 1972 film Play It Again, Sam in the role of Jennifer. Blake Gopnik points out in his book Warhol: A Life as Art that she had a bit role as happening/party hostess, standing in for Warhol who was recuperating in the hospital, in John Schlesinger's film Midnight Cowboy . [15]
After she began making films for other directors she also began writing. Her first book, Superstar, was an insider's look at the Factory scene, a partly fictional autobiographical account of her time there. It was distinguished from other "tell-all" memoirs by virtue of her writing, which incorporated various stylistic effects, including the use of taped conversations. She also wrote for various publications, including The Village Voice and New York Woman . Viva incorporated the use of video tapes into her second book The Baby. These tapes were later released by her former husband, video artist Michel Auder, as Chronicles: Family Diary in three parts. She was the narrator for Carla Bley's 1971 experimental jazz composition Escalator over the Hill . Viva was one of the early pioneers in video art. During the 1970s Viva was a guest participant in Shirley Clarke's Teepee Video Space Troupe, which she formed in the early 1970s.
With former husband Michel Auder, Viva made and kept film diaries which included the birth of her first daughter, Alexandra (Alex) Auder. She was briefly engaged to the actor Anthony Herrera. [16] [17] They had one child together, the actress Gaby Hoffmann. [18] [19] Though artistically successful, Viva was never very successful financially. [3] In 1993, she was taken to housing court by the Chelsea Hotel, where she lived with her two daughters, for not paying her $920 a month rent for two years. [20] Her daughter Gaby said “We lived in a classless society. We’d spend a summer at Gore Vidal’s house in Italy, but we were on and off welfare.” [21] Viva wrote a book about her daughter titled Gaby at the Chelsea, a riff on Eloise at the Plaza , as yet unpublished. [21] Viva lives in Palm Springs, California, where she paints landscapes. [22]
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | The Nude Restaurant | The Waitress | Andy Warhol | Feature-length underground film |
| Bike Boy | Girl on couch | Andy Warhol | Drama film | |
| Tub Girls | [ data missing ] | Andy Warhol | Avant garde film | |
| 1968 | Lonesome Cowboys | Ramona D'Alvarez | Andy Warhol | |
| San Diego Surf | Susan Hoffman | |||
| The Loves of Ondine (August 1968) | Girl in Bed | |||
| 1969 | Lions Love | Viva | Agnès Varda | |
| Blue Movie | Girl in Bed | Andy Warhol | ||
| Sam's Song | Girl with the Hourglass | |||
| Midnight Cowboy | Gretel McAlbertson (the Warhol-like The Factory party giver) | Drama film | ||
| Keeping Busy | [ data missing ] | |||
| Trapianto, consunzione e morte di Franco Brocani | [ data missing ] | |||
| 1970 | Necropolis | Viva Auder (Countess Bathory) | Franco Brocani | |
| Cleopatra | Cleopatra | |||
| 1972 | Play It Again, Sam | Jennifer | ||
| Ciao! Manhattan | Diana (Vogue editor) | |||
| Cisco Pike | Merna | |||
| 1979 | New Old | [ data missing ] | ||
| Seduction of Patrick | [ data missing ] | Short film | ||
| 1980 | Flash Gordon | Cytherian Girl | ||
| 1982 | The State of Things | Kate | ||
| Forbidden Zone | Ex-queen | |||
| 1984 | Paris, Texas | Viva Auder (woman on TV) | Wim Wenders | |
| 1993 | The Man Without a Face | Mrs. Cooper | ||
| 2008 | The Feature | Viva (as a Warhol superstar) | ||
| 2010 | News From Nowhere | Viva | ||
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by the pop artist Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life, epitomizing his dictum, "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes". Warhol would simply film them, and declare them "superstars".
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in Manhattan, New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Gabrielle Mary Antonia Hoffmann is an American actress. She made her film debut in Field of Dreams (1989) and found success as a child actress acting in Uncle Buck (1989), This Is My Life (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and then later as a teenager with Now and Then (1995), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Volcano (1997), All I Wanna Do (1998), and 200 Cigarettes (1999).
Trash is a 1970 American drama film directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Warhol superstars Joe Dallesandro, Holly Woodlawn and Jane Forth. The film features graphic scenes of intravenous drug use, sex, and frontal nudity.
Flesh is a 1968 American film directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Joe Dallesandro as a hustler working on the streets of New York City. It highlights various Warhol superstars, in addition to being the film debuts of both Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling. Also appearing are Geraldine Smith as Joe's wife and Patti D'Arbanville as her lover.
Blue Movie is a 1969 American erotic film written, produced and directed by Andy Warhol. It is the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States, and is regarded as a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984). The film stars Warhol superstars Viva and Louis Waldon.
Lonesome Cowboys is a 1968 American Western film directed by Andy Warhol and written and produced by Paul Morrissey. The film is a satire of Hollywood Westerns, and was initially screened in November 1968 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won the Best Film Award. On May 5, 1969, it was shown for initial viewings at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in New York City.
Isabelle Collin Dufresne, known professionally as Ultra Violet, was a French-American artist, author, and both a colleague of Andy Warhol and one of his so-called Superstars. Earlier in her career, she worked for and studied with surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Dufresne lived and worked in New York City, and also had a studio in Nice, France.
Michel Auder is a French and American photographer and filmmaker. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American pornography, in which sexually explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. This American period, which subsequently spread internationally, and that began before the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969, started on June 12, 1969, with the theatrical release of the film Blue Movie directed by Andy Warhol, and, somewhat later, with the release of the 1970 film Mona produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both influenced the making of films such as 1972's Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace and directed by Gerard Damiano, Behind the Green Door starring Marilyn Chambers and directed by the Mitchell brothers, 1973's The Devil in Miss Jones also by Damiano, and 1976's The Opening of Misty Beethoven by Radley Metzger, the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age, according to award-winning author Toni Bentley. According to Andy Warhol, his Blue Movie film was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released in 1972, three years after Blue Movie was shown in theaters.
The Feature is a collaboration between filmmakers Michel Auder and Andrew Neel. Using a collection of videos that Auder had created over the previous 40 years, in combination with original present-day footage of Auder shot by Neel, the two filmmakers made a feature-length film loosely based on the story of Auder's life.
Julia Warhola was the mother of the American artist Andy Warhol. She was an artist in her own right and provided the calligraphy to her son's artwork.
Jed Johnson was an American interior designer and film director. TheNew York Times hailed Johnson as "one of the most celebrated interior designers of our time."
La Dolce Viva is a landmark article written in 1968 by Barbara Goldsmith about Viva, a model and actress in Andy Warhol's movies. It was published in New York Magazine in the magazine's inaugural year; the profile and the accompanying nude photographs by Diane Arbus, depicted Viva as penniless, promiscuous, and addicted to drugs, caused a scandal that nearly scuttled the new publication. Although the photographs by Arbus are best known, the article's opening photograph, in which Viva is seated and fully clothed on a stool, was taken by Lee Kraft and had previously run in the American edition of Vogue.
San Diego Surf is a 1968 feature film directed by Andy Warhol. The film stars Viva, Taylor Mead, Joe Dallesandro, Ingrid Superstar, Tom Hompertz, Eric Emerson, Nawana Davis, Michael Boosin, and Louis Waldon.
Louis Waldon was an American film actor, whose career spanned nearly 45 years. He was born in Modesto, California.
The Garrick Cinema was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Andy Warhol debuted many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played here nightly for 6 months in 1967.
Aphrodesia's Diary is an American-French pornographic film shot in 1979 — primarily in New York but also in Paris — and released in 1983. It was directed by French pornographer Gérard Kikoïne and co-produced by Radley Metzger, who may have served as an advisor but is not credited.
Alexandra Auder is an American actress and yoga instructor.
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