Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives

MARY WORONOV CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE

December 10 – December 21

December 10-21, 2025

Artist, writer, and actress Mary Woronov is, quite simply, a national treasure. During the course of her six-decade long career, Woronov has been a Warhol superstar; a dancer in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia concerts; a star of “Theatre of the Ridiculous” plays such as John Vaccaro’s “Conquest of the Universe”, Ronald Tavel’s “Kitchenette” and “Vinyl”, and others; a favorite of producer Roger Corman (for whom she delivered her immortal performance as the tyrannical Principal Togar in ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL) and director Paul Bartel (DEATH RACE 2000, EATING RAOUL); and a ubiquitous and always indelible presence in dozens upon dozens of often outrageous B-movies and independent films from the 1970s to the present day.

Woronov initially embarked on a career as an artist, studying at Cornell University. But her fellow Cornell student Gerard Malanga soon inducted her into Warhol’s Factory, where she became a key part of the scene there in the wake of Edie Sedgwick’s fall from Factory grace. An invaluable part of NYC underground culture throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, thanks to her work with Warhol and in experimental theater, Woronov gradually began appearing in more mainstream plays and films, including her first collaborations with Corman and Bartel. In 1979, she relocated to Los Angeles, where she worked prolifically in film and television, while also continuing to paint. In more recent years, she has turned to writing as well, publishing a memoir about her Warhol years (“Swimming Underground”), a novel, and a short story collection.

Whether in underground films, comedies, horror movies, or other unapologetically disreputable fare, Woronov has graced every film she’s appeared in with her regal presence, irreducible intelligence, playful subversion of gender stereotypes, and gleefully theatrical performance style. This retrospective celebrates her extraordinary film career, a body of work like no one else’s.

Special thanks to Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); Bret Berg (American Genre Film Archive); Rebecca Cleman & Karl McCool (Electronic Arts Intermix); P David Ebersole; Brian Fox (Criterion Pictures); Matt Gray (The Andy Warhol Museum); Lisa Janssen; Mark Johnson (Harvard Film Archive); and Edda Manriquez (Academy Film Archive).

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