Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann (born August 23, 1938), known professionally as Viva, is an American actress, writer, and artist. She is best known for being a Warhol superstar in the 1960s. Before joining Andy Warhol's Factory scene, she was a model and painter. She starred in several of Warhol's underground films, including Tub Girls (1967), The Nude Restaurant (1967), and Blue Movie (1969). She also wrote for various publications, including The Village Voice and New York Woman.
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Early life
Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann was born in Syracuse, New York, the daughter of Mary Alice (née McNicholas) and Wilfred Ernest Hoffmann. She was the eldest of nine children born into a family of strict Roman Catholics. Her father was a prosperous attorney, and her parents were stalwart supporters of the Army–McCarthy hearings held to expose Communist government infiltration. The Hoffmann children were required to watch the televised proceedings. Raised in devout Catholicism, she considered becoming a nun.
Career
Early career
Hoffmann 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." "When I got a little too Georgia O'Keeffe-y, I decided it was time to give it up. I was an excellent painter. I might even say I was the best painter," she said.
Her acting career began in 1967, when she was cast in the underground film Ciao! Manhattan, which was not completed until 1972.
Warhol years
In 1967, Hoffmann approached Andy Warhol about being in one of his films at Betsey Johnson's party. According to Warhol, they had briefly chatted a few times before this encounter. In his book Popism, Warhol recalled the night Viva approached him at the party: She had a face that was so striking you had the choice of whether to call her beautiful or ugly. I happened to love the way she looked, and I was impressed with all the references she kept dropping to literature and politics. She talked constantly, and she had the most tiresome voice I'd ever heard—it was incredible to me that one woman’ voice could convey so much tedium. She told me that she'd just done a nude scene in a movie Chuck Wein was filming, Ciao, Manhattan, and she asked me if I was planning to do a new movie soon. I told her that we were shooting another one the following day, and I gave her the address so she could show up if she wanted to. Warhol told her she'd have to take off her blouse for the role, so she adhered bandaids to her breasts before meeting him the next day. She showed up at the apartment where they were shooting Loves of Ondine, which was originally part of the film **** but subsequently released as a separate feature. By the time the film was released, she was using the name Viva—a name she adopted after spotting it on a package of paper towels. When Viva used her government name to write movie reviews for a local publication called Downtown, she gave herself rave reviews: "Viva! is a funny mix of Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, and Carole Lombard…. she combines the grace of the Thirties with the catty candor… of the Sixties…."
Warhol and the Factory crowd took a liking to Viva, and as a Warhol superstar she appeared in several other films. Tub Girls, consists of Viva lying in a bathtub with various people of both sexes, including Brigid Berlin and Rosen McGrath. She appeared in Bike Boy, a film about a motorcyclist trying to find himself; and The Nude Restaurant, in which she played a waitress, opposite Taylor Mead.
By far, Viva's most controversial role was in Blue Movie (1969), a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn that helped inaugurate the "porno chic" phenomenon in modern American culture. Viva starred opposite Louis Waldon. The film consists of improvised dialogue between Viva and Waldon about a multitude of topics, including the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon, and various mundane tasks. These conversations are interrupted by the main event of the film, in which Viva and Waldon perform sexual acts in front of the camera. The film was seized by New York City Police for obscenity, and the theater manager, projectionist and ticket-seller at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre arrested for possession of obscene materials.
Later career
Viva had a bit role in John Schlesinger's film Midnight Cowboy (1969). The part was originally intended for Warhol, who passed it on to her. She appears as a filmmaker who hosts a psychedelic party.
Viva's first starring role in a non-Warhol film was in Agnès Varda's Lions Love in 1969. The film features Viva in a ménage à trois with Gerome Ragni and James Rado. She was cast as Jennifer in Woody Allen's 1972 film Play It Again, Sam.
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.
Viva also went on to have supporting parts in films such as Richard Elfman's 1980 cult musical Forbidden Zone and Wim Wender's 1984 Independent drama Paris, Texas.
Personal life
With former husband Michel Auder, Viva made and kept film diaries which included the birth of her first daughter, Alexandra (Alex) Auder in 1971. She was briefly engaged to the actor Anthony Herrera. They had one child together, actress Gaby Hoffmann, born in 1982.
In 1993, Viva 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. Viva wrote a book about her daughter titled Gaby at the Chelsea, a riff on Eloise at the Plaza, as yet unpublished.
Viva lives in Hudson, NY, where she paints landscapes.
Books
Superstar (1970)
The Baby (1974)
Leaving the Chelsea with Egg (2017)
