"But when she was not in character, with some combination of purple hair, purple lipstick, trowel-heavy purple eye shadow and beet juice as cheek color..."

"... she looked like the prettiest girl at the prom — a soignée brunette with a shoulder-length bouffant, delicate features and maximum false eyelashes."

She was Ultra Violet — Isabelle Collin Dufresne — one of Warhol's "superstars." She died Saturday at the age of 78.

Here's her website.

She wrote a book: "Famous For 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol." It begins with a description of Andy Warhol's funeral — "a farewell service for the shy, near-blind, bald, gay albino from ethnic Pittsburgh who dominated the art world for two decades" and "streaked across the sky, a dazzling media meteor, who, in another time or place, could have been a Napoleon or a Hitler."

Here's an interview with her: