Native New Yorker Andrea Feldman latched onto the crowd at Andy Warhol‘s Factory. She was featured in three of Warhol’s avant garde films, Imitation of Christ, Trash and Heat. Still a teenager, Andrea performed, what she called, the “Showtime,” a table-top striptease that was wildly popular among the regulars in the back room at Max’s Kansas City, the notorious Manhattan nightclub. She earned herself the nickname “Whips,” although she preferred to call herself “Andrea Warhol.” The patrons at Max’s just called her “Crazy Andy.” Like most of the crew at Max’s, she was heavily dependent on drugs, specifically amphetamines.
In August 1972, Andrea had just finished filming Heat and she felt she was on the verge of stardom. She phoned several of her former boyfriends, including poet Jim Carroll (of The Basketball Diaries and “People Who Died” fame). She asked them to meet her in front of 51 Fifth Avenue, her parent’s apartment building. While the guys waited out on the sidewalk, Andrea scribbled out this note: “I’m headed for the big time. I’m on my way up there with James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.” She grabbed a crucifix and a Bible and leaped from the fourteenth floor window to her death.
Andrea was 24 years old.