Dorothy Podber | |
|---|---|
 Podber in 2007 | |
| Born | (1932-08-15)August 15, 1932 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | February 9, 2008(2008-02-09) (aged 75) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Performance artist |
Dorothy Podber (September 15, 1932 – February 9, 2008) was an Americanperformance artist andtrickster who shot a bullet through a stack of fourAndy Warhol paintings ofMarilyn Monroe which were then famous as theShot Marilyns.
Born inthe Bronx to a mother who had tried repeatedly to abort her and to a father who worked for theJewish mobsterDutch Schultz, Podber was later remembered as a disruptive influence by classmates from West Walton High School.[1]
A wild child of theNew York City art scene in the 1950s and 1960s, she helped to run the Nonagon Gallery which dealt with artists like a youngYoko Ono and held on jazz concerts byCharles Mingus, among the crowd that includedAllen Ginsberg,Billy Name, andJasper Johns. However, her greatest fame—and notoriety—came from being a muse and collaborator with more prominent artists.
Podber and herGreat Dane went toThe Factory one day in 1964 whereAndy Warhol was working. Spotting a stack of four silk screenMarilyn Monroe paintings, she asked Warhol if she could shoot them and he said yes, assuming she intended to take a photo. Podber doffed her pair of black gloves, withdrew a smallrevolver from her purse, and fired a shot into the paintings, striking Marilyn "right between the eyes," said witnessBilly Name. Podber was banned from the studio for life. Warhol attempted to repair the bullet marks, but the permanent damage made the four paintings far more valuable than other Marilyns. They became sensational and are still known asThe Shot Marilyns, and two of them are among themost expensive paintings ever sold.
Podber reveled in her bad-girl reputation. In an interview in 2006, she said:
I've been bad all my life. Playing dirty tricks on people is my specialty.[2]
Dorothy Podber organized bizarre experiences with performance artistRay Johnson, who called her "sort of a terrorist". In one instance, for example, they insisted a person invite them over only to enter the home and immediately use the host'srecord player to play a track of peoplestuttering, a record created forspeech therapy that was uncomfortable in other settings. During a "dead animal phase" they gave people gifts each with a compartment containing surprise, often arat painted gold.
When funds were low, she found unorthodox ways of making money, engaging schemes as diverse as running an illegal abortion referral service to dispatching maids to doctors' offices to steal narcotics from their drug cabinets. The latter pursuit let to her being charged withgrand larceny in 1963, and she went to jail for lack of the $1000 bail.[3] Podber did paperwork forB'nai Brith long enough to pick itssafe and use its contents on her own check-counterfeiting machine. Her attitude to these enterprises bordered on indifference. "I never worked much," she reputedly said.[4]
She was married three times, never having children, and enjoyed numerous casual liaisons. Her last husband was Lester Schwartz who had a long-term relationship with actor/directorJulian Beck.[4] Podber citedbisexuality as something she and Schwartz shared before he died in 1986.[1] One boyfriend was a banker with whom she only had sexual intercourse on the banknote-strewn floor of his firm's vault.
Dorothy Podber died in her Manhattan apartment on February 9, 2008, from natural causes, aged 75.
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