Andrea Feldman

Andrea Feldman (April 1, 1948 – August 8, 1972) was an American actress and Warhol superstar. She committed suicide in 1972.

Andrea Feldman was a native New Yorker. She attended Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a high school for the performing arts. She starred in three Warhol films; Imitation of Christ, Trash and Heat. A regular in the back room of Max's Kansas City, she pioneered a performance which she called "Showtime", in which she performed a striptease on the round table, at the center of the room. She became known for her dependence on drugs, particularly amphetamines.

Feldman was featured in a 1970 documentary called Groupies, where she referred to herself by a nickname given to her by the Warhol crowd; Andrea "Whips" Feldman. She also often referred to herself as "Andrea Warhol". She was known by her friends as "Crazy Andy".

In August 1972, several days after returning from Europe, Feldman summoned several ex-boyfriends, including poet Jim Carroll, to the New York City apartment of her parents to witness what she called her "final starring role". "She left a note that said, "I'm headed for the big time. I'm on my way up there with James Dean and Marilyn Monroe"".

Feldman jumped to her death on August 8, 1972, a few days after the tenth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. Geraldine Smith, who had appeared in Flesh and was a close friend of Feldman, wrote in her obituary for The Village Voice:

Rumors spread that the note that Feldman left behind wasn't as kind as Smith's obituary implied.

Her suicide preceded the release of Warhol's Heat, in which she had a much larger role than in previous Warhol films. Feldman's performance garnered positive reviews. Judith Crist, a critic for New York magazine wrote: "The most striking performance, in large part non-performance, comes from the late Andrea Feldman, as the flat-voiced, freaked-out daughter, a mass of psychotic confusion, infantile and heart-breaking."

In 1976, Lou Reed and Jeffrey Morgan discussed Feldman.