Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Having also crossed over into mainstream roles like mobster Lucky Luciano in The Cotton Club, Dallesandro is generally considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century, as well as a sex symbol of gay subculture.
He rose to fame for starring in a series of films produced by Andy Warhol in the late '60s and early '70s. Trash in 1970 was proclaimed "The Best Film of the Year" by Rolling Stone. This partnership made him a star of youth culture, the sexual revolution, and the subcultural New York City art collective of the 1970s.
Lou Reed's (#Bi2) song "Walk on the Wildside" described various characters he had met at Warhol's factory, including famously referring to Dallesandro as "Little Joe."
Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City is the place where they said:
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side
After finishing Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, both in 1974, he chose to stay in Europe and made a series of films in France and Italy. He returned to the U.S. in the 1980s and went on to work in more mainstream films, including playing Lucky Luciano in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984).
Joe Dallesandro is openly bi.