On June 3, 1968, artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol was shot by radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas at The Factory in New York City.
Prior to the incident, Solanas was a bit player in the Factory scene. She wrote and self-published the "SCUM Manifesto", a feminist pamphlet advocating for the eradication of men, and she appeared in the Warhol film "I, a Man". On the day of the attack, Solanas was turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. She believed he was plotting with her publisher, Maurice Girodias, to prevent her manuscript from being published. It had apparently been misplaced. Solanas was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced to three years in prison.
Background.
In 1967, radical feminist Valerie Solanas was on a quest to have her book "SCUM Manifesto" published and her script "Up Your Ass" produced. She presented "Up Your Ass" to filmmaker Andy Warhol to read. He glanced at it but found it so filthy that he believed she may be an undercover cop and that this was an entrapment. In his book "Popism" (1980), Warhol recalled:In fact, when we'd gone to Cannes with "Chelsea Girls" the year before and I'd given that interview to "Cahiers du Cinéma", it was Valerie Solanis ["sic"] I was referring to when I said, "People try to trap us sometimes. A girl called up and offered me a film script . . . and I thought the title was so wonderful, and I'm generally so friendly that I invited her to come over with it, but it was so dirty I think she must have been a lady cop. . . ."Solanas told Warhol that she needed money for her rent at the Chelsea Hotel. She accepted his invitation to appear in his film "I, a Man" (1967) for $25. In August 1967, Solanas signed a contract with publisher Maurice Girodias for $500 as an advance on the royalties he would pay for a novel she agreed to write for him. She invited Girodias to the screening of "I, a Man", but their relationship soon deteriorated when Solanas realized that he could own both "SCUM Manifesto" and "Up Your Ass" under the terms of the contract she signed. To make sense of the contract, she turned to Warhol for guidance. Warhol's lawyer Ed Katz determined that the contract had no legal standing, but Solanas refused to accept that it was invalid despite Warhol's efforts to assist her. 
Solanas then focused on putting pressure on Warhol to make a movie based on the "SCUM Manifesto" and to stage her play "Up Your Ass". She would repeatedly call Warhol's studio and managed to obtain his home phone number. She was paranoid that Warhol and Girodias had manipulated her and she became resentful. As Girodias recalled:Then she got worse and worse characterwise. She didn’t want to work on the novel she was supposed to write for me. The novel was supposed to be an autobiography, a personal confession. And she began getting extremely angry with Warhol. She felt he owed her a lot of money. But there was no contract, no written papers of any sort. I kept trying to pacify her vis-à-vis Warhol. And I am sure Warhol was doing the same when she went to complain about me. She got angry at me because I would not publish her SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto, and because she could not write that novel. She transferred the anger.Solanas requested that Warhol return the script for "Up Your Ass" that she had given him. He had left it lying around and was unable to locate it. Warhol believed it may have been thrown out while he was abroad at the Cannes Film Festival. After admitting that he had misplaced the script, she began demanding money. Solanas started threatening Girodias at his Olympia Press office and pressing him to publish "SCUM Manifesto". In January 1968, she signed a contract for him to publish the manuscript. In the months that followed, she would complain to others that Warhol and Girodias had stolen from her.
Incident.
On June 3, 1968, at approximately 4:30 p.m., Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas at his studio, The Factory, located in Manhattan, New York City, on the sixth floor of the Decker Building.
Solanas had visited the premises multiple times that day in search of Warhol. In an attempt to get rid of her, Paul Morrissey, overseer of the Factory, told her that the artist would not be present all day and she could not hang around there. At 4:15 p.m, Warhol arrived at the Factory and encountered Solanas who was waiting outside the building. Factory assistant Jed Johnson arrived at the same time with fluorescent lights from the hardware store, and the three of them entered the building together. As noted by Warhol in his book "Popism" (1980): 
It was a very hot day, and as Jed, Valerie, and I waited for the elevator. I noticed that she was wearing a fleece-lined winter coat and a high turtleneck sweater, and I thought how hot she must be—although, surprisingly, she wasn't even sweating. She was wearing pants, more like trousers (I’d never seen her in a dress), and holding a paper bag and twisting it—bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. Then I saw that there was something even more odd about her that day: when you looked close, she'd put on eye makeup and lipstick.Meanwhile, Morrissey, art critic and curator Mario Amaya, Factory photographer Billy Name, and Warhol's business manager Fred Hughes were in the studio. While Warhol was on a phone call with Warhol superstar Viva, Solanas began shooting with a .32-caliber pistol. She shot Warhol at close range, striking him once.
At first, Amaya thought the rounds were coming through the window. He then observed the revolver in her hand, which was "like one of those you see in "Dick Tracy"." Amaya received a flesh wound on his back, but he managed to get away and shut himself in the screening room. Johnson was hiding in Warhol's office, and Solanas attempted to enter, but he was holding onto the door knob from the inside, leading her to believe it was locked. Afterward, she approached the front and aimed the gun at Hughes, who pleaded, "Please! Don't shoot me! Just leave!" As she contemplated shooting him, the sound of the elevator diverted her attention. It appeared that she was about to pull the trigger when the elevator doors opened and Hughes said, "There's the elevator. Just take it!" and then she fled from the building.
Hughes called for the ambulance, which took over twenty minutes to arrive at the scene. The shooting occurred over a month before New York City's 911 system was put into place. When the paramedics eventually arrived, they were told that it would cost an extra $15 to sound the siren. The paramedics chose to take Warhol down six flights of stairs in a wheelchair instead of using the elevator. As Warhol and Amaya were taken to Columbus Hospital in an ambulance, Hughes and Johnson were held for questioning at the 13th Precinct police station. They were released from police custody once Solanas surrendered to authorities later that evening. Amaya was discharged from the hospital that same day after treatment for a minor back wound. Warhol superstars such as Ultra Violet, Viva, Louis Waldon, Ivy Nicholson, Billy Name, and Jay Johnson, as well as art dealers Leo Castelli and Ivan Karp, gathered at the hospital to await word on Warhol's condition. 
Warhol was declared clinically dead, but Dr. Giuseppe Rossi massaged his heart and revived him. He was hit by a single bullet, according to Dr. Massimo Bazzini, executive medical director of Columbus Hospital. "The bullet entered his belly on the left side," Bazzini stated as Warhol was undergoing surgery, "passing through the left chest, then the right chest, and out." He suffered damage in his lungs, esophagus, liver, spleen, and stomach. A surgical team led by Rossi operated on Warhol for six hours, giving him a 50/50 chance of life. Warhol remained on the critical list in intensive care for over a week. Only his mother, Julia Warhola, and his brothers, Paul Warhola and John Warhola, were allowed to see him; however, soon Jed Johnson, who would become Warhol's live-in boyfriend, was permitted to see him. After nearly two months, Warhol was discharged from the hospital on July 28, 1968.
Arrest and legal proceedings.
Around 8 p.m. on the same day of the attack, Solanas turned herself into a policeman at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 47th Street near Times Square. Solanas told authorities she shot Warhol because "I am a flower child. He had too much control over my life." While being booked at the 13th Precinct, she told reporters to read her "SCUM Manifesto". "That'll tell you what I am a what I stand for," she added.
Solanas showed no remorse before Judge David Getzoff in Criminal Court on June 4, 1968. "I have nothing to regret. I feel sorry for nothing. He was going to do something to me which would have ruined me," she said. She added that there were reports that "I shot him because he wouldn't produce my play. It was for the opposite reason. He has a legal claim on my work." Solanas was arraigned on a "weapons charge and two counts of attempted murder." Judge Getzoff intended to quickly conduct a preliminary "psychoing" on Solanas "in view of the defendant's conduct," but no psychiatrist was present. She was then ordered to be detained overnight without bail pending another hearing the following day. Solanas was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for a psychiatric examination to ascertain if she should have further testing. Subsequently, she underwent psychiatric tests at Elmhurst General Hospital in Queens.
Publisher Maurice Girodias summoned Irving Younger, a lawyer and a professor at New York University, and Donald S. Engel, another attorney, to represent Solanas but she rejected their assistance. Additionally, she refused to accept legal representation from by a court-appointed Legal Aid Society lawyer. "I don't want anybody to represent me. I could beat this thing myself," Solanas said in court. However, she was represented by civil rights activist and radical feminist Florynce "Flo" Kennedy.
On June 28, 1968, a grand jury indicted Solanas in the attempted murder of Warhol. In August 1968, she was declared "incompetent" to stand trial because of insanity and committed to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After some time, she was transferred back to Matteawan, and in December 1968, a friend posted her $10,000 bail.
In September 1968, it was reported that Warhol had decided not to press charges against Solanas.
In December 1968, Warhol called the police when Solanas called him on Christmas Eve to coerce him into purchasing a screenplay she had written for a movie. She also made threats to Girodias, Barney Rosset, Howard Hughes, and Robert Sarnoff of NBC, which led to her arrest on January 9, 1969.
Solanas was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and spent six months in psychiatric detention. She was held at the New York Women's House of Detention in Manhattan until May 1969, and then she was transferred to Elmhurst General Hospital and Bellevue Hospital for further psychiatric tests.
On June 9, 1969, Solanas pleaded guilty to first-degree assault, she stated "I didn't intend to kill him ... I just wanted him to pay attention to me. Talking to him was like talking to a chair." She was sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Gerald T. Culkin to serve up to three years at the State Prison for Women at Bedford Hills, New York with credit for time previously served. Soon after, she was sent to Matteawan to serve the remainder of her sentence. According to reports, Warhol was taken aback by the "light" sentence she received when he was contacted for comment. 
Aftermath.
The National Organization for Women and other mainstream feminist organizations were divided on whether to support or condemn Solanas after she shot Warhol. Her supporters, such as author Ti-Grace Atkinson and attorney Flo Kennedy, formed the foundation of radical feminism and portrayed Solanas as "a symbol of female rage." The day after the attack, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, which further enmeshed the