Joe Dallesandro

Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948) is an American actor and model. A sex symbol of gay subculture in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known for starring in several underground films as a Warhol superstar.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Dallesandro began his career posing for homoerotic photographs before joining Andy Warhol's Factory and starring in Lonesome Cowboys (1968). His performance as a male prostitute in the film Flesh (1968), directed by Paul Morrissey, brought him fame. Rolling Stone magazine declared Dallesandro's subsequent lead in Trash (1970) as the "Best Film of the Year", making him a celebrity of youth culture and the sexual revolution.

Dallesandro proceeded to star in Heat (1972), Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973), and Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974). After appearing in European genre and art films for several years, he crossed into the mainstream as mobster Lucky Luciano in the 1984 film The Cotton Club. He had a career resurgence and continues to act occasionally. Dallesandro is a recipient of the 2009 honorary Teddy Award.

Early life

Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III was born on December 31, 1948 in Pensacola, Florida.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref> His father, Joseph Sr., an 18-year-old Italian-American sailor in the U.S. Navy, married his mother, Thelma Testman, who was 14 years old.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> She was 16 when she gave birth to him.<ref name=":9" /> His surname was spelled "D'Allesandro" on his birth certificate, which was a recurrence of an error from his father's military documents. Following his rise to fame, his father's name was legally changed back to D'Alessandro.<ref name=":9" />

His parents separated soon after they moved to New Jersey when he was two years old.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> His father maintained custody of him and his younger brother, Robert "Bobby" Dallesandro, but soon they ended up at Angel Guardian Home awaiting foster care.<ref name=":9" /> They were placed in the foster care of Mr. and Mrs. Gary Silano where Dallesandro attended Catholic school in Brooklyn until the family moved to North Babylon, New York.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":9" /> By the time he was five years old, his mother was serving five years in a U.S. federal penitentiary for interstate auto theft.<ref name=":9" />

After she remarried, his mother, who went by Sandy Hoyt, and her husband unsuccessfully attempted to regain custody of Dallessandro and his brother.<ref name=":0" /> Dallesandro was initially content living with his foster parents, but as he became a teenager, he reportedly began to resent them, thinking that they were preventing him from living with his father.<ref name="watson">Template:Harvnb</ref> He became aggressive and repeatedly ran away from his foster home, until his father finally relented and allowed Joe to live with him.<ref name="watson" />

At age 13, Dallesandro and his brother moved to Queens, New York, to live with their paternal grandparents and their father.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> "I was very rebellious," he recalled.<ref name=":1" /> "I hated the Queens school. They were so far behind the Long Island school that I just lost interest."<ref name=":1" /> He was expelled from school for punching the school principal.<ref name=":1" /> After this, he began hanging out with gangs and stealing cars.<ref name=":1" />

At age 15, Dallesandro drove a stolen car through the Holland Tunnel without paying the toll.<ref name=":1" /> He was stopped by a police roadblock and was shot once in the leg by police, who mistakenly thought he was armed. Dallessandro managed to escape being caught by police, but was later arrested when his father took him to the hospital for his gunshot wound. In 1964, he was sentenced to Camp Cass Rehabilitation Center for Boys in the Catskills.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In 1965, he ran away from the camp, and went to live with his father in Florida.<ref name=":1" />

Career

Early modeling career

In 1965, Dallessandro made his way to the West Coast with a friend and briefly worked at a pizza shop.<ref name=":1" /> When Dallesandro was looking for a job, someone recommended modeling.<ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was unaware that they meant nude modeling, but at the age of 16, he ended up supporting himself by modeling for Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild and Bruce Bellas (Bruce of Los Angeles).<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":10">Template:Cite book</ref> Mizer later stated that Dallesandro gave his age as 19 when he posed for him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In one sitting, Mizar took a short 8mm film and 86 photographs, some of which were published in Physique Pictorial's September 1967, January 1967, and July 1975 issues.<ref name=":10" /> The photos Bellas took were published in The Male Figure.<ref name=":10" />

Underground film career

File:Flesh (1968) Joe Dallesandro and Louis Waldon (1200 dpi).jpg

Dallesandro and Louis Waldon in Flesh (1968)

By 1967, Dallessandro had returned to New York. He was married at the age of eighteen, and he was hustling around Times Square to pay for his drug habit.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref>

He met pop artist Andy Warhol and film director Paul Morrissey while they were shooting Four Stars (1967) in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, and they cast him in the film on the spot.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> His segment in Four Stars was later included in the film The Loves of Ondine (1968).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Dallesandro began doing odd jobs at the Factory as Warhol's bodyguard and sometime actor.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" />

Dallesandro starred in Lonesome Cowboys (1968), which was filmed in Arizona and then filmed San Diego Surf in California. While Warhol was recuperating from an assassination attempt in the summer of 1968, Dallesandro filmed Flesh (1968), a story of a male hustler—based on Dallesandro's experience—where he had several nude scenes. Appealing to male and female audience members, Dallesandro was the "first overtly sexualized male in the movies."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Flesh, directed by Paul Morrissey, became a crossover hit with mainstream audiences, and Dallesandro became the most popular of the Warhol stars. Warhol would later comment, "In my movies, everyone's in love with Joe Dallesandro."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The Warhol and Morrissey films did not usually have a script, so the actors improvised while the cameras were rolling.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1970, Dallesandro told After Dark: "Sometimes they yell at me and say, 'Joe, you're really messing it up. Stop trying to act,' and then I usually do a good job. But if you watch carefully you'll see that my best performing comes when I have my clothes off. When I'm dressed I really don't give very good performances, but when I am not I really do a great job."<ref name=":2" />

By 1970, Dallesandro earned a salary of $124 a week.<ref name=":1" /> After starring in Trash (1970), his underground fame began to cross over into the popular culture and he was viewed as a sex symbol.<ref name=":2" /> New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote of him: "His physique is so magnificently shaped that men as well as women become disconnected at the sight of him."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Newsday film critic Jerry Parker wrote that "Joe Dallesandro, who is a mere 21 is to Andy Warhol what Clark Gable once was to Louis B. Mayer."<ref name=":1" /> Dallesandro appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity photographers of the time: Francesco Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon.<ref name=":10" />

According to Dallesandro, Francis Ford Coppola wanted him to screen test for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972), however, the offer fell through.<ref name=":3" /> Dallesandro believed that Warhol and Morrissey deterred Coppola's entourage by telling them that Dallesandro was a drug addict and couldn't handle the script, but Morrissey stated that isn't true.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref> Morrissey added that he and Warhol would have been thrilled if Dallesandro landed a role in a major film.<ref name=":4" />

Dallesandro also starred in the films Heat (1972), Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973), and Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974), directed by Morrissey. The latter two were filmed in Rome. Morrissey recommended that Dallesandro get an agent to find more work in Europe.<ref name=":4" /> After filming was complete, Dallesandro remained in Europe and capitalized on his reputation as a cult figure in a series of exploitation films in France and Italy.<ref name=":3" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He appeared in Serge Gainsbourg's Je t'aime moi non plus (1976), which starred Gainsbourg's girlfriend, British actress Jane Birkin.

Dalessandro's career collapsed in the late 1970s as a result of his dependency on alcohol and drugs.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite book</ref> After his return to the U.S. in 1979, he resided in a trailer park close to Seattle with his estranged mother and indulged in excessive drinking.<ref name=":3" /> He relocated to Los Angeles in 1981, checked himself into a detox center, joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and worked as a limousine and taxi driver before returning to acting.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":3" />

Mainstream career

Dallesandro made several mainstream films during the 1980s and 1990s. One of his first notable roles was that of 1920s gangster Lucky Luciano in Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984). Working with manager/attorney Stann Findelle, his career enjoyed a resurgence. He had roles in the films Critical Condition (1987) opposite Richard Pryor, Sunset (1988) with Bruce Willis and James Garner, Cry-Baby (1990) with Johnny Depp, Guncrazy (1992) with Drew Barrymore, and Steven Soderbergh's 1999 film The Limey.

Dallesandro also appeared in several television shows. In 1986, he co-starred in the ABC drama series Fortune Dane. The series lasted only five episodes. He was also a regular for the first season (1987-1988) of the CBS crime drama series Wiseguy, and he appeared in three episodes of NBC's Miami Vice, and a two-hour episode of ABC's Matlock in 1990.<ref name="imdb">[https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0198072

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In 1995, Dallesandro appeared in a Calvin Klein ad campaign with model Kate Moss.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

A biography, Little Joe: Superstar by Michael Ferguson was published in 1998, and a filmed documentary, Little Joe (2009), was released with Dallesandro serving as writer and producer. His adopted daughter, Vedra Mehagian, also served as a producer of the film.Template:Citation needed

He appeared in the Dandy Warhols' official video for "You Are Killing Me" in 2016.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2018, he starred as himself in Ulli Lommel's Factory Cowboys: Working with Warhol. The film was based on Lommel's own biography and partly on Dallesandro's memories of the period during which he worked with Andy Warhol.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Personal life

Dallesandro is openly bisexual.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> He has been married three times, and has two children.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1967, at age 18, Dallesandro married his first wife, Leslie, the daughter of his father's girlfriend. Their son, Michael, was born on December 19, 1968. The marriage was dissolved in 1969.<ref name=":1" />

He met his second wife Theresa ("Terry") in the East Village, and they married in 1970.<ref name=":1" /> Their son, Joseph A. Dallesandro, Jr., was born November 14, 1970. They divorced in 1978.<ref name=":3" /> In 1987, Dallesandro was married a third time, to Kimberly ("Kim").Template:Citation needed Dallesandro has a grandson and a granddaughter by his son Michael, and a grandson by his son Joseph.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Dallesandro's younger brother Robert Dallesandro died in 1977.<ref name=":3" /> He had worked for Warhol as a chauffeur, also appeared in the films Flesh and Trash.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Semi-retired from acting as of 2009, Dallesandro managed a residential hotel building in Los Angeles.<ref name=obrien>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Awards

In February 2009, Dallesandro received a special Teddy Award at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, an honor recognizing those filmmakers and artists who have contributed to the further acceptance of LGBT people, culture, and artistic vision.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In popular culture

• In Lou Reed's song, "Walk on the Wild Side", about the characters Reed knew from Warhol's studio, The Factory, the verse about Dallesandro used his nickname, Little Joe.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Dallesandro claimed to be the model in the Andy Warhol photograph of a man's crotch on the Grammy-nominated cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers (1971).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> He explained to biographer Michael Ferguson, "It was just out of a collection of junk photos that Andy pulled from. He didn't pull it out for the design or anything, it was just the first one he got that he felt was the right shape to fit what he wanted to use for the fly;" the first editions of that album cover physically incorporated a functional metal zipper fly into the photo.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref> However, Craig Braun, who designed the album, is sure it was not Dallesandro on the cover.<ref name=":7" /> Makeup artist Corey Tippin claimed that he is the model on the cover, but it is generally believed to have been Warhol's lover Jed Johnson.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":42">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• The 1980s British band The Smiths used a still photograph of Dallesandro from the film Flesh as the cover of their eponymous debut album.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Norwegian pop band Briskeby had a 2005 single called "Joe Dallesandro".<ref name=Briskeby>Template:Cite news</ref>

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1967	Four Stars	College Wrestler	Alternative title: The 24 Hour Movie
1968	San Diego Surf	Joe
1968	The Loves of Ondine	College Wrestler	Segment from Four Stars
1968	Flesh	Joe, The Hustler	Alternative title: Andy Warhol's Flesh
1968	Lonesome Cowboys	Joe "Little Joe"	Alternative title: Ramona and Julian
1970	Trash	Joe Smith	Alternative title: Andy Warhol's Trash
1972	Heat	Joey Davis
1973	Andy Warhol's Frankenstein	Nicholas, The Stableboy	Alternative title: Flesh for Frankenstein
1974	Blood for Dracula	Mario Balato, The Servant	Alternative title: Andy Warhol's Dracula
1974	The Gardener	Carl, The Gardener	Alternative titles: Garden of Death, Seeds of Evil
1975	The Climber	Aldo, The Climber	Alternative title: L'ambizioso
1975	Black Moon	Brother Lily
1975	Savage Three	Ovidio Mainardi	Alternative title: Fango bollente
1975	Season for Assassins	Pierro Giaranaldi	Alternative title: Il tempo degli assassini
1976	Je t'aime moi non plus	Krassky	Alternative title: I Love You, I Don't or I Love You ... Neither Do I
1976	The Margin	Sigismond	Alternative title: The Streetwalker
1976	Born Winner	Pericle	Alternative title: L'ultima volta
1977	A Simple Heart	Théodore	Alternative title: Un cuore semplice
1978	Safari Rally	Joe Massi	Alternative title: 6000 km di paura
1978	Killer Nun	Dr. Patrick Roland	Alternative titles: Suor Omicidi Deadly Habits
1980	Madness	Joe Brezzi	Alternative title: Vacanze per un massacro
1981	Merry-Go-Round	Ben
1982	Queen Lear	Joseph Kunz, The Father
1984	The Cotton Club	Charlie "Lucky" Luciano
1984	Miami Vice	Vinnie DeMarco	Episode: "One Eyed Jack"
1986	Fortune Dane	Tommy "Perfect Tommy" Nicautri	5 episodes
1987	Critical Condition	Stucky
1987	Miami Vice	Alfredo Giulinni	Episode: "Down for the Count: Part 2"
1987	Wiseguy	Paul "Pat The Cat" Patrice	5 episodes
1988	Sunset	"Dutch" Kieffer
1988	The Hitchhiker	Gerard	Episode: "Fashion Exchange"
1988	Double Revenge	Joe Halsey
1989	The Hollywood Detective	Eddie Northcott	Television movie
1990	Matlock	Bobby Boyd	2 episodes
1990	Almost an Angel	Bank Hood Leader
1990	Cry-Baby	Mr. Hackett
1991	Inside Out	Richard	Segment: "The Diaries"
1991	Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue	Jules
1992	Guncrazy	Rooney
1992	Love Is Like That	The Boss
1994	Sugar Hill	Tony Adamo
1995	Theodore Rex	Rogan	Direct-to-video release
1998	L.A. Without a Map	Michael
1999	The Limey	John "Uncle John", The Hitman	Credited as Joe Dallessandro
2000	Beefcake	Cameos, old footage
2002	Pacino Is Missing	Sal Colletti
2008	3 Stories About Evil	Jean Maries	Short film
2022	Babylon	Charlie the Photographer
2023	24 Hour Sunset	Himself	Documentary

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Template:Official website (archived)
• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0198072

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• The New York Times profile
• "Joe Dallesandro Home Movies" video