Warhol Superstar Dies

French-born, Manhattan-based artist and performer Isabelle Collin Dufresne, aka Ultra Violet, has passed away at the age of 78 after a battle with cancer, The New York Times reports.

Ultra Violet, who also kept a home in Nice, France, was a fixture of Andy Warhol's Factory scene, quickly earning a place as one of his "superstars" of the late 1960s and early 1970s -- the people who came to embody the incendiary artist's philosophy about fame and fifteen minutes. Earlier in her career, she was a collaborator and lover of the iconic surrealist Salvador Dali.

Her time at the centre of the Factory whirlwind lasted from 1965 to 1974, during which time she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and starred in more than a dozen films, including I, A Man, Midnight Cowboy and Savages.

Born in La Tronche, France, on September 6, 1935, Ultra Violet remained an active participant in the artistic community, working steadily until her death. Her most recent exhibition, Ultra Violet: The Studio Recreated, was held at New York's Dillon Gallery, closing only three weeks before the artist passed away.

By the 1980s, following a near-death experience in 1973, the star had renounced the hard-partying lifestyle endemic in the Factory crowd and became a born-again Christian, joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She released a tell-all memoir, Famous For 15 Minutes: My Years With Andy Warhol, in 1988, in which she spoke of her rediscovery of faith and condemned the person she was during the years of Factory excess.

Regardless of her later piety, however, Ultra Violet's legacy remains that of the luminous soul whose unflickering vibrance and light enraptured the hearts and minds of those who surrounded her.