- Born
- Nicknames
- Penny Arcade
- Mary Might
- Height5′ 11¼″ (1.81 m)
- Mary Woronov was born on December 8, 1943, at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. A surgeon's stepdaughter, she was raised 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, For Love or Murder (1970), Deathouse (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.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
- SpousesFred Whitehead(June 28, 1976 - ?) (divorced)Theodore Gershuny(1970 - 1973) (divorced)
- ParentsCarol EschholzVictor Woronov
- Childhood sweetheart of folk singer/filmmaker Harry Chapin.
- Best known by the public for her role as Mary Bland in the black comedy Eating Raoul (1982).
- Auditioned for the role of Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager (1995).
- Interviewed in the book "Invasion of the B-Girls" by Jewel Shepard.
- Woronov played the mother of the character played by Mike Muir (of the hardcore punk group Suicidal Tendencies) in the 1982 video 'Institutionalized'. She later appeared in the band's music video for the song "Possessed To Skate" (1987).
- I knew what was art and what was shit. But sometimes the shit was more interesting.
- I'm thrilled to be a cult queen. Cult movie fans are good people. It isn't fair to denigrate them for having no taste or for liking weird films because they're twisted. Actually, the fans have better taste than the general audience. They like movies for very special reasons. And they're immensely loyal and understanding.
- [on Andy Warhol] I was interested in art, and he was an artist. I did not think of it as acting. They had just started doing what's now called "performance art", then they were called "happenings". I thought of it in that way. I was an object that was being used, not an actress giving a performance. He went for that. That's why everybody thinks of all of us that were in the films as being freaks.
- It's great that the fans think I'm sexy. But I'm not a traditional sex symbol by any means. I don't have big boobs, an hourglass figure and bubbly blonde hair. In fact, I hardly have any boobs at all.
- Once upon a time, I thought I would become a star. It took me six months to realize that wasn't going to happen. Eventually, I knew that I would never become a star -- but I would make a lot of films and I would earn little bits of money here and there, which would support me.
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