Isabelle Collin Dufresne, the French-born artist, actress and author known as Ultra Violet, the beauty among the superstars of Andy Warhol’s glory days at his studio, the Factory, died on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. She was 78 and lived in Manhattan and in Nice, France.

The death was confirmed by William Butler, a family friend. A cousin, Carole Thouvard Revol, said the cause was cancer.

In 1973, Ultra Violet had a near-death experience, for which she blamed her habits of excess in the decade before. In the 1980s, she condemned the rampant drug use, orgiastic sex and unchecked egotism at the Factory, repented for her part in it and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She worked as an artist until her death. A New York exhibition at the Dillon Gallery in Chelsea this spring, “Ultra Violet: The Studio Recreated,” featured a selection of her paintings, sculptures, prints, film and neon works. The show closed three weeks before she died.