Mary Woronov

Short Biography

Mary Woronov was born on December 8, 1943, at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida (some sources cite New York as her birthplace). She was raised by her mother, Carol (Eschholz), and her stepfather, Victor D. Woronov, a surgeon, who adopted her. She grew up in Brooklyn Heights and attended Cornell University as a sculpting major. After a class trip to Andy Warhol 's Silver Factory, she joined Warhol's entourage and starred in a number of his underground films and appeared as a go-go dancer in the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows. She left the Factory in the late 1960s and, after recovering from a heavy methamphetamine addiction, spent two years in Europe with a friend; during this time, Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, and with the altered Factory dynamic, "there was nothing to go back to." She supported herself with work in off-Broadway and off-off- Broadway theater, then "got scared and got married" to director/producer Theodore Gershuny. She appeared in three of his films, Kemek (1970), Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), and Sugar Cookies (1973). After the marriage broke up, Woronov moved to Los Angeles at the invitation of friend Paul Bartel, where she appeared on the daytime soap Somerset (1970) and had a memorable role in Bartel's Death Race 2000 (1975). Her best and most famous role came in 1982, with the part of Mary Bland in Bartel's black comedy Eating Raoul (1982). A major cult figure as an actress, she is also an accomplished painter and writer, having published three books--Wake for the Angels: Paintings and Stories, the autobiography Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory, and the novel Snake.