Private Details About Andy Warhol Prove He Was Even Stranger Than People Thought

If you live in Western society, chances are you'll recognize Andy Warhol's pop art featuring Campbell's soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. And yet, few know the gritty details behind his scandalous life. From sickness at an early age to a hoarding addiction — to a horrific attempted murder — Andy's life was a lot darker than his brightly colored prints. The details leading up to his unfortunate death shed new light on the tortured genius behind the renowned artwork.

Drop the "A"

Andy Warhol was barely a lad before complications set in. He was originally "Andrew Warhola," but he didn't drop the "a" to be artsy. "Warhola" was, in fact, an Americanized version of the Slovakian name "Varkhola," which his parents changed when they emigrated to the United States from Slovakia. Andy was born in 1929 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he developed a life-changing condition.

Dancing Disease

Young Andy was diagnosed with Sydenham’s chorea, also known as “St. Vitus’s Dance.” This made his body shake at random, like an impromptu dance... and you can imagine how the schoolkids bullied and mocked him. Andy's anxiety about his sickness bloomed into hypochondria, which would come back to haunt him later in life. To combat his fears of loosing control, Andy got creative.

The Greatest Shoeman

Despite his ailments, Andy wanted nothing more than to enter the creative world. He was thrilled when he got his first commission job at Glamour magazine drawing concept photos for high-fashion shoes. As photographer John Coplan once said, “Nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication." Working in shoes taught Andy an art medium he'd come to be iconic for.

First Pop Art

While working in shoes, Andy learned silk-screen printing, and he became obsessed with it. He printed everything from cartoons, to household objects, to famous figures like Marilyn Monroe — and it launched him into the spotlight. His "pop art" paintings were first hung as window displays for New York's Bonwit Teller Department Store in April 1961. However, some of his most famous work is padded with controversy.