Ingrid Superstar

Ingrid von Scheven, known professionally as Ingrid Superstar, was an American actress and poet best known for being a Warhol superstar in the 1960s. Described as the Eve Arden of Andy Warhol's underground films, she appeared in several films between 1965 and 1968, including Chelsea Girls (1966), **** (Four Stars) (1967), I, a Man (1967), and San Diego Surf (1968). She later fell on hard times and disappeared in December 1986.

Biography

Early life

Ingrid Superstar was born Ingrid von Scheven on Armistice Day, November 11, 1945 in Paterson, New Jersey. She was the only child of German immigrants Ewald von Scheven and Annegret von Scheven. Her family moved to Wyckoff, New Jersey when she was 8 years old. in 1963, she graduated from Ramapo Regional High School in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey after completing business courses.

After leaving home at the age of 18, she lived in Ridgewood, New Jersey before moving into a rooming house in Hackensack, New Jersey. She would frequent New York City nightclubs like the Peppermint Lounge when she was employed as a secretary.

Warhol years

In the fall of 1965, von Scheven met filmmaker Chuck Wein at a pub on 42nd Street in Manhattan and he asked her if she wanted to be in a film. Wein brought her to pop artist Andy Warhol's Factory to film reels of My Hustler. She told The Record in 1969: "I'd never even heard of Andy Warhol then. After the scene I was in was shot, I asked someone who was the man with the silver hair behind the camera was. They told me it was Andy Warhol."

Reportedly, von Scheven was chosen to "teach Edie a lesson," who had grown challenging to work with. She was considered an "ugly duckling" and a "poor man's" version of well-known Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick. Warhol superstar Gerard Malanga said, "Ingrid Superstar was a sweet girl, terribly misunderstood, made fun of, joked at, but a sincere good-hearted person, who thought of herself as a Superstar." Despite the difficulty of becoming Sedgwick's successor and the initial ridicule she received, von Scheven made a valiant effort to blend in. She would do things that the other girls wouldn't do, like give blow jobs on video, generally while nude. She embraced her new status as "Superstar" and gained popularity for her straightforward demeanor and her lighthearted sense of humor. As Warhol recalled in his memoir Popism (1980):

Ingrid was just an ordinarily nice-looking girl from Jersey with big, wide bone structure posing as a glamour figure and a party girl, and what was great was that somehow it worked. She was a riot . . . It was so funny to see her sitting there on the couch next to Edie or, later, Nico and International Velvet, putting on makeup or eyelashes exactly the way they did, trading earrings and things and beauty tips with them. It was like watching Judy Holliday, say, with Verushka.

In early 1966, von Scheven played a shopgirl who Mario Montez poisoned in Hedy, and she played Kathy in Withering Sights. With parts in six of the twelve reels of the Chelsea Girls and stage performances as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, von Scheven had gained recognition in Warhol's repertoire of superstars by the summer of 1966. She also appeared in the unreleased film The Velvet Underground Tarot Cards. In the fall of 1966, she portrayed Lady Bird Johnson, wife to Ondine's Lyndon B. Johnson in Since. She had roles in the 1967 films **** (Four Stars), I, a Man, The Loves of Ondine, and Bike Boy.

In 1968, she traveled to California with Warhol and the Factory entourage to film San Diego Surf.

Along with her skills as a comedienne in films, von Scheven also penned short prose and poetry pieces. Warhol attended her reading at the Masque nightclub on Christopher Street. Warhol regarded her poems as "good, really good, half comedy and half poetry." Her unpublished manuscript, Movie Party at the Factory: A Trip & Half, details a late-night gathering on the evening of March 26, 1966, during which several movies were screened at the Factory: "They also showed a 'stillie' of Bob Dylan in color with violet coloring over the screen. This trippy illusion is achieved by swaying a thin block of colored plastic in front of the projector. This technique is is (sic) used quite alot (sic) in Andy's underground uptight movies."

Warhol's film collaborator Paul Morrissey stated in the January 1969 issue of After Dark magazine:

The one Andy loves is Ingrid Superstar. Because Ingrid can't dissimulate. She couldn't be not Ingrid. She could be marvellous if somebody knew how to use her. She could be marvellous on the Johnny Carson show ... Well, no she couldn't either, because she'd freeze up. She can do her thing for us because she thinks we're trash. For important people—people she thinks are important—she tries to be well behaved, and comes on like she's retarded".

In 1969, von Scheven modeled clothes for buyers at luncheons and in showrooms. She also appeared in the film The Mind Blowers, directed by Harlan Renvok. They wanted her to take her clothes off for an orgy scene but she refused. "I think total nudity is a disgrace to a woman because a woman is more mysterious with her clothes on than off," said von Scheven. She added that she was comfortable being topless in Warhol's films because everyone on set knew each other and she liked to "mix nudity with comedy." In the film Midnight Cowboy , she made an appearance as an extra in a party scene with Factory members.

She hoped to have her poetry published. In 1969, she gave reading at Manhattan's St. Mark's Church,

Katherine Hepburn and Warren Beatty were her favorite movie stars. The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, and the Beatles were her favorite bands.

She lived in an apartment on East 17th Street in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan.

Later years and disappearance

After leaving the Factory, von Scheven struggled with a heroin addiction and eventually ended up working in a sweater factory in Kingston, New York. According to Warhol superstar Ultra Violet, she "ballooned up to nearly two hundred pounds, floated in and out of prostitution and drug dealing, and was at one point judged mentally disabled."

On December 7, 1986, she went out to buy cigarettes and a newspaper and vanished. "There's a clear possibility of foul play, and we are intensifying our investigation," the Kingston police said, but she was never located. She was 42 years old at the time of her disappearance.

Filmography

• My Hustler ll: My Hustler: In Apt. (1965)
• My Hustler: Ingrid (1965)
• Hedy (1966)
• Withering Sights (1966)
• Chelsea Girls (1966)* Since (1966)
• The Velvet Underground Tarot Cards (1966)
• Since (1966)
• **** (Four Stars) (1967)

• I, a Man (1967)
• The Loves of Ondine (1967)
• Bike Boy (1967)
• The Nude Restaurant (1967)
• San Diego Surf (1968)
• The Mind Blowers (1969)

External links

Ingrid Superstar on IMDb