Joe Dallesandro
- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Joe Dallesandro's still hangin' . . . after battles with drug addiction
and alcohol, brushes with the law, three broken marriages and numerous
love affairs, plus the suicide of his only sibling Bob. One of the most
beautifully photographed wild guys to come out of the
Andy Warhol and
Paul Morrissey "Factory" era, the
slight and slightly androgynous Dallesandro became an improbable
pioneer of the male sexual revolution and the first film actor to be
glorified as a nude sex symbol. The Morrissey/Warhol movies were known
for their bizarre, amateur standing, yet Joe and his completely
uninhibited, walk-on-the-wild-side demeanor managed to hold an entire
underground audience captive. Joe's dangerous street mentality and raw
erotic power became a definitive turn-on to both gay and straight
audiences and his fame eventually filtered somewhat into the
mainstream.
Born humbly as Joseph Angelo D'Alessandro III in Pensacola (located on
Florida's panhandle) on New Year's Eve in 1948, his parents, Joe II and
Thelma, were teenagers when Joe was born; his father was a Navy man
stationed there and his mother had a wild streak of her own. Joe (then
age 5) and younger brother Robert were placed into a New York adoption
facility after Thelma was given a five-year prison sentence for auto
theft and the father decided he was unable to care for them alone.
Brought up in a series of foster homes, Joe became notorious for his
delinquent behavior at school -- which was often ignited by his short
stature and even shorter temper. Frequent runaways, he and his brother
eventually returned to live with their grandparents but Joe quickly
drifted towards a life of crime (thievery, burglary, etc.) via his
association with street gangs.
At 15 "Little Joe" was caught stealing a car and sentenced to a
juvenile rehab facility in New York's Catskill Mountains. During this
time he started his famous "Little Joe" tattoo body markings. He
escaped from the facility and lived a nomadic life in Mexico for a time
before returning to the US (Los Angeles), where he gained unexpected
acceptance in the California gay scene. The wanderlust teen found it
profitable to exploit his sulky good looks and smoothly-muscled
physique by posing nude for various photographers in the
mid-'60s.
Sometimes billed as "Joe Catano", Dallesandro hit many of the
underground studios in both California and New York, working most
notably for Robert Henry Mizer,
who founded the Athletic Model Guild (AMG), and Bruce Bellas, aka Bruce
of Los Angeles. A little magazine called Physique Pictorial, which was
passed off as a bodybuilding publication, was, in truth, geared heavily
toward its gay subscribers. Many were clients of Mizer, who
photographed thousands of buff young men (some even out-of-work
military servicemen) in various stages of undress from 1945-1993. Joe
became Mizer's most famous model and can be seen featured in
Thom Fitzgerald's docudrama
Beefcake (1998), which chronicles the
Mizer AMG era.
Back in New York during the summer of 1967, the 18-year-old, while
visiting a friend in Greenwich Village, was invited to sit in and watch
Andy Warhol and
Paul Morrissey shooting an
impromptu marathon movie in Warhol's building apartment. Morrissey's
camera quickly found its way toward the ambivalent, good-looking Joe
and the rest is history. Joe wound up shooting a wrestling scene with
another guy clad only in his underwear. A year later that 23-minute
footage found its way into
The Loves of Ondine (1968),
an 86-minute mishmosh of Warhol's eccentric ideas. Joe's image in his
jockey shorts was used for the primary ads in The Village Voice. The
movie, which featured his extended improvised wrestling scene, was
reviewed by Variety and Joe himself, surprisingly, received raves for
his charismatic good looks and natural acting ability, and was touted
as a possible legit performer.
Young Dallesandro instead became Morrissey's protégé. Although Joe
displayed beefcake appeal in Warhol's
Lonesome Cowboys (1968), which
was investigated by the FBI for rumors of an on-screen rape, and
San Diego Surf (1968), the only
Warhol feature film never released, it was Morrissey's film trilogy
that led to Joe's subsequent idol worship. The first,
Flesh (1968), placed Joe front-and-center
as a male hustler á la
Midnight Cowboy (1969). Intended
for female and gay audiences, Joe hit counterculture fame as the first
actor to offer extensive full-frontal nudity and the movie also managed
to filter successfully out to mainstream audiences.
Morrissey's second feature, Trash (1970),
was anointed a "masterpiece" and "best film of the year" by none other
than Rolling Stone magazine. In it Little Joe plays a heroin junkie
living in New York squalor with girlfriend
Holly Woodlawn (Warhol's well-known
transvestite actress). The last of Morrissey's trilogy,
Heat (1972) takes place in the vicinity of
L.A.'s Sunset
Boulevard with a long, pony-tailed Joe as a cold-hearted ex-child star
who beds down everyone, including seamy "Midnight Cowboy" actress
Sylvia Miles
and her lesbian daughter, in order to resuscitate his long-dormant
career. This attention led to Joe's making the cover of Rolling Stone
in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity
photographers of the time, including
Francesco Scavullo, and
Richard Avedon. Singer/songwriter
Lou Reed utilized Little Joe's identity in his
pop hit "Walk on the Wild Side". In Europe Morrisey's films were
praised even more, while Dallesandro was placed on an erotic pedestal.
Acting pay was practically non-existent so Dallesandro, now a husband
(to wife Leslie, who was the daughter of one of his dad's girlfriends)
and father (their son Michael), received "Factory" pay by answering
phones, checking in and checking out film prints, acting as a
projectionist, handling security and even running the building's
elevator. Morrissey's hot trilogy was followed by the European cult
films
Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
and Blood for Dracula (1974),
both eclectic X-rated blood spillers and ultimate cult items.
Tired of being just a gear in the Factory machinery, Joe stayed on in
Europe after filming the two 1974 gorefests and decided to see if his
Warhol Superstar status could trigger foreign box-office career a la
the recently transported Clint Eastwood
and Charles Bronson. Joe made 18 feature
films overseas throughout the rest of the 1970s. They were a mixture of
styles: the sex-farce
One Woman's Lover (1974); the gritty,
grimy crime yarn The Climber (1975)
["The Climber"];
_Louis Malle's adult
version of Alice in Wonderland, Black Moon (1975);
La marge (1976) ["The Streetwalker"]
co-starring softcore erotica star
Sylvia Kristel; the sexually taunting
Madness (1980)
as a car thief-turned hostage taker;
Jacques Rivette's surrealistic
Merry-Go-Round (1980);
Tapage nocturne (1979)
["Nocturnal Uproar"] as a self-absorbed actor; and
Queen Lear (1982), a Franco-Swiss
co-production in which he plays a bisexual.
The best of Joe's European films, and his personal favorite, is the
sexually-charged
Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)
["I Love You, I Don't"],
Serge Gainsbourg's film wherein he
plays a gay garbage truck driver who has the hots for a very boyish
café waitress Jane Birkin (Gainsbourg's wife
at the time).
Returning to the States in 1980, Joe's work became more erratic than
erotic, but some of his roles have earned a bit of attention. More
noteworthy was his gangster
Lucky Luciano in
Francis Ford Coppola"s
The Cotton Club (1984); another
gangster in the Bruce Willis starrer
Sunset (1988); his religious zealot in
John Waters' mainstream
Cry-Baby (1990); his psychotic
paratrooper in Private War (1988);
his trailer park scum who lusts after 'Drew Barrymore' in
Guncrazy (1992); his sleazy photographer
in _L.A.
Without A Map (1998)_,
and his brain-damaged hit man in
Steven Soderbergh's
The Limey (1999). On TV he made
standard guest appearances on such popular shows as
Miami Vice (1984),
Wiseguy (1987) and
Matlock (1986).
The Teddy Award, an honor recognizing those filmmakers and artists who
have contributed to the further acceptance of LGBT lifestyles, culture,
and artistic vision, was awarded to Joe in February of 2009. A
biography, "Little Joe: Superstar" by Michael Ferguson was released
earlier in 2001 and a filmed documentary,
Little Joe (2009), has been released
with Joe serving as writer and producer. The thrice-married and
divorced actor has two sons, Michael and Joe, Jr. Glimpsed here and
there these days, he later managed a hotel in the Hollywood area.
and alcohol, brushes with the law, three broken marriages and numerous
love affairs, plus the suicide of his only sibling Bob. One of the most
beautifully photographed wild guys to come out of the
Andy Warhol and
Paul Morrissey "Factory" era, the
slight and slightly androgynous Dallesandro became an improbable
pioneer of the male sexual revolution and the first film actor to be
glorified as a nude sex symbol. The Morrissey/Warhol movies were known
for their bizarre, amateur standing, yet Joe and his completely
uninhibited, walk-on-the-wild-side demeanor managed to hold an entire
underground audience captive. Joe's dangerous street mentality and raw
erotic power became a definitive turn-on to both gay and straight
audiences and his fame eventually filtered somewhat into the
mainstream.
Born humbly as Joseph Angelo D'Alessandro III in Pensacola (located on
Florida's panhandle) on New Year's Eve in 1948, his parents, Joe II and
Thelma, were teenagers when Joe was born; his father was a Navy man
stationed there and his mother had a wild streak of her own. Joe (then
age 5) and younger brother Robert were placed into a New York adoption
facility after Thelma was given a five-year prison sentence for auto
theft and the father decided he was unable to care for them alone.
Brought up in a series of foster homes, Joe became notorious for his
delinquent behavior at school -- which was often ignited by his short
stature and even shorter temper. Frequent runaways, he and his brother
eventually returned to live with their grandparents but Joe quickly
drifted towards a life of crime (thievery, burglary, etc.) via his
association with street gangs.
At 15 "Little Joe" was caught stealing a car and sentenced to a
juvenile rehab facility in New York's Catskill Mountains. During this
time he started his famous "Little Joe" tattoo body markings. He
escaped from the facility and lived a nomadic life in Mexico for a time
before returning to the US (Los Angeles), where he gained unexpected
acceptance in the California gay scene. The wanderlust teen found it
profitable to exploit his sulky good looks and smoothly-muscled
physique by posing nude for various photographers in the
mid-'60s.
Sometimes billed as "Joe Catano", Dallesandro hit many of the
underground studios in both California and New York, working most
notably for Robert Henry Mizer,
who founded the Athletic Model Guild (AMG), and Bruce Bellas, aka Bruce
of Los Angeles. A little magazine called Physique Pictorial, which was
passed off as a bodybuilding publication, was, in truth, geared heavily
toward its gay subscribers. Many were clients of Mizer, who
photographed thousands of buff young men (some even out-of-work
military servicemen) in various stages of undress from 1945-1993. Joe
became Mizer's most famous model and can be seen featured in
Thom Fitzgerald's docudrama
Beefcake (1998), which chronicles the
Mizer AMG era.
Back in New York during the summer of 1967, the 18-year-old, while
visiting a friend in Greenwich Village, was invited to sit in and watch
Andy Warhol and
Paul Morrissey shooting an
impromptu marathon movie in Warhol's building apartment. Morrissey's
camera quickly found its way toward the ambivalent, good-looking Joe
and the rest is history. Joe wound up shooting a wrestling scene with
another guy clad only in his underwear. A year later that 23-minute
footage found its way into
The Loves of Ondine (1968),
an 86-minute mishmosh of Warhol's eccentric ideas. Joe's image in his
jockey shorts was used for the primary ads in The Village Voice. The
movie, which featured his extended improvised wrestling scene, was
reviewed by Variety and Joe himself, surprisingly, received raves for
his charismatic good looks and natural acting ability, and was touted
as a possible legit performer.
Young Dallesandro instead became Morrissey's protégé. Although Joe
displayed beefcake appeal in Warhol's
Lonesome Cowboys (1968), which
was investigated by the FBI for rumors of an on-screen rape, and
San Diego Surf (1968), the only
Warhol feature film never released, it was Morrissey's film trilogy
that led to Joe's subsequent idol worship. The first,
Flesh (1968), placed Joe front-and-center
as a male hustler á la
Midnight Cowboy (1969). Intended
for female and gay audiences, Joe hit counterculture fame as the first
actor to offer extensive full-frontal nudity and the movie also managed
to filter successfully out to mainstream audiences.
Morrissey's second feature, Trash (1970),
was anointed a "masterpiece" and "best film of the year" by none other
than Rolling Stone magazine. In it Little Joe plays a heroin junkie
living in New York squalor with girlfriend
Holly Woodlawn (Warhol's well-known
transvestite actress). The last of Morrissey's trilogy,
Heat (1972) takes place in the vicinity of
L.A.'s Sunset
Boulevard with a long, pony-tailed Joe as a cold-hearted ex-child star
who beds down everyone, including seamy "Midnight Cowboy" actress
Sylvia Miles
and her lesbian daughter, in order to resuscitate his long-dormant
career. This attention led to Joe's making the cover of Rolling Stone
in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity
photographers of the time, including
Francesco Scavullo, and
Richard Avedon. Singer/songwriter
Lou Reed utilized Little Joe's identity in his
pop hit "Walk on the Wild Side". In Europe Morrisey's films were
praised even more, while Dallesandro was placed on an erotic pedestal.
Acting pay was practically non-existent so Dallesandro, now a husband
(to wife Leslie, who was the daughter of one of his dad's girlfriends)
and father (their son Michael), received "Factory" pay by answering
phones, checking in and checking out film prints, acting as a
projectionist, handling security and even running the building's
elevator. Morrissey's hot trilogy was followed by the European cult
films
Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
and Blood for Dracula (1974),
both eclectic X-rated blood spillers and ultimate cult items.
Tired of being just a gear in the Factory machinery, Joe stayed on in
Europe after filming the two 1974 gorefests and decided to see if his
Warhol Superstar status could trigger foreign box-office career a la
the recently transported Clint Eastwood
and Charles Bronson. Joe made 18 feature
films overseas throughout the rest of the 1970s. They were a mixture of
styles: the sex-farce
One Woman's Lover (1974); the gritty,
grimy crime yarn The Climber (1975)
["The Climber"];
_Louis Malle's adult
version of Alice in Wonderland, Black Moon (1975);
La marge (1976) ["The Streetwalker"]
co-starring softcore erotica star
Sylvia Kristel; the sexually taunting
Madness (1980)
as a car thief-turned hostage taker;
Jacques Rivette's surrealistic
Merry-Go-Round (1980);
Tapage nocturne (1979)
["Nocturnal Uproar"] as a self-absorbed actor; and
Queen Lear (1982), a Franco-Swiss
co-production in which he plays a bisexual.
The best of Joe's European films, and his personal favorite, is the
sexually-charged
Je t'aime moi non plus (1976)
["I Love You, I Don't"],
Serge Gainsbourg's film wherein he
plays a gay garbage truck driver who has the hots for a very boyish
café waitress Jane Birkin (Gainsbourg's wife
at the time).
Returning to the States in 1980, Joe's work became more erratic than
erotic, but some of his roles have earned a bit of attention. More
noteworthy was his gangster
Lucky Luciano in
Francis Ford Coppola"s
The Cotton Club (1984); another
gangster in the Bruce Willis starrer
Sunset (1988); his religious zealot in
John Waters' mainstream
Cry-Baby (1990); his psychotic
paratrooper in Private War (1988);
his trailer park scum who lusts after 'Drew Barrymore' in
Guncrazy (1992); his sleazy photographer
in _L.A.
Without A Map (1998)_,
and his brain-damaged hit man in
Steven Soderbergh's
The Limey (1999). On TV he made
standard guest appearances on such popular shows as
Miami Vice (1984),
Wiseguy (1987) and
Matlock (1986).
The Teddy Award, an honor recognizing those filmmakers and artists who
have contributed to the further acceptance of LGBT lifestyles, culture,
and artistic vision, was awarded to Joe in February of 2009. A
biography, "Little Joe: Superstar" by Michael Ferguson was released
earlier in 2001 and a filmed documentary,
Little Joe (2009), has been released
with Joe serving as writer and producer. The thrice-married and
divorced actor has two sons, Michael and Joe, Jr. Glimpsed here and
there these days, he later managed a hotel in the Hollywood area.