Viva (actress)

Viva (born Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann; August 23, 1938) is an American actress, writer and former Warhol superstar.^[1]

Life and career

Viva was born in

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

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.

Personal life

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]

Filmography

Books

• Superstar (1970)
• The Baby (1974)

References