Patricia Titchener (March 17, 1950 – April 9, 2024), known by her stage name Patti Astor, was an American performer who was a key actress in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

underground

No Wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

films of the late-1970s. Astor was a key player in the East Village art scene of the early-1980s as she co-founded the instrumental contemporary art gallery, Fun Gallery. Astor also was involved in the early popularizing of

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

with her performance in '' Wild Style''.

Biography

Early life and career

Patricia Titchener was born on March 17, 1950 and raised in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, where she was a charter member of the Cincinnati Civic Ballet. Her adventurous spirit however took her to New York City at the age of eighteen (in 1968) to attend

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

. She soon dropped out to take a leadership role in the

anti-Vietnam war Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1965 with demonstrations against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States in the war. Over the next several years, these demonstrations grew ...

group SDS ( Students for a Democratic Society). She spent two and a half years as a young revolutionary. At the end of that war she traveled the United States and Europe with her

contemporary dance Contemporary dance is a genre of Concert dance, dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly stron ...

act, ''A Diamond As Big As The Ritz''.

Music

Returning to New York City in 1975, Astor was in the midst of the storm in New York's legendary East Village, from

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in the East Village, Manhattan, East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for ''Cou ...

's, the

music scene at the Mudd Club and Tier 3 (nightclub) and independent

films such as '' Underground U.S.A.'' (1980) with directors such as Amos Poe,

Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch ( ; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent film, independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as ''Stranger Than Paradise'' ...

, Charlie Ahearn and Eric Mitchell. In 1978, she married Steven Kramer, an artist and a keyboardist for the Contortions.

Actress

Astor had studied acting at the

Lee Strasberg Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American acting coach and actor. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed ...

Institute. A queen of the downtown scene, she appeared in over a dozen experimental and low-budget

films. Her entry into this genre was Amos Poe's underground '' Unmade Beds'' (1976), a black and white 16 mm remake of Godard's ''Breathless'' which she acted in alongside filmmaker Eric Mitchell, Blondie singer

Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble, July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie (band), Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1 ...

, and artist Duncan Hannah. She also appeared in such low-budget and low-audience films as ''Rome '78'', ''The Long Island Four'', and ''Snakewoman''. Perhaps the best remembered of these was Eric Mitchell's ''Underground U.S.A'' (1980), in which she starred in alongside poet Rene Ricard. Her best known role was as Virginia, the roving reporter, in Charlie Ahearn's legendary

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

epic, '' Wild Style''. Virginia in ''Wild Style'' is a blonde bombshell who encounters the rap and graffiti culture uptown, and introduces it to the downtown art world; a role Patti went on to perform in real life with Fun Gallery. Her No Wave films are in the permanent collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, the Whitney Museum, and the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...

Gallery owner

Astor went on to co-found the Fun Gallery in 1981 with partner Bill Stelling. This

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, E ...

storefront gallery, was the first of the 1980s East Village galleries, and specialized in showing graffiti artists, like Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Zephyr, Dondi,

Lady Pink Lady Pink, born Sandra Fabara (born 1964), is an Ecuadorian-born American graffiti and mural artist, active in New York City. Early life Fabara was born in Ambato, Ecuador in 1964, and moved to the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York wh ...

, and Futura 2000. It also gave important shows to Kenny Scharf (in 1981),

Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti ...

(November 1982), and

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the Graffiti in New York City, New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual l ...

(February, 1983), artists with a street background who showed elsewhere. For a while the mix of worlds was unique, with the FUN crew of downtown artists and hipsters, beat-boys, rock, movie and rap stars mixing with both neighborhood kids and the official art world: museum directors, art historians and uptown art collectors. The gallery closed in 1985, by which time many other East Village galleries had opened, the interest in

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

painters in the art world had subsided, and rents in the East Village were rising.

Later life and death

After closing Fun Gallery, Astor moved to

Hollywood, Los Angeles Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a List of districts and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, neighborhood and district in the Central Los Angeles, central region of Los Angeles County, California, within the city of Los Angeles. ...

where she acted in, wrote and produced ''Get Tux'd'' starring

Ice-T Tracy Lauren Marrow (born February 16, 1958), known professionally as Ice-T (or Ice T), is an American rapper and actor. He is active in both hip hop music, hip hop and heavy metal music, heavy metal. Ice-T began his career as an underground r ...

(in one of his first movie roles) and '' Assault of the Killer Bimbos'' awarded by

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

magazine "Trash Pick of The Week". Astor died in Hermosa Beach, California on April 9, 2024, at the age of 74.

Bibliography

* “The True Story of Patti Astor” in Johnny Walker, Janette Beckman, Patti Astor, Peter Beste, ''No Sleep 'til Brooklyn'' Perseus Distribution Services. . * Dan Cameron, Liza Kirwin, Alan W. Moore, Penny Arcade, Patti Astor. ''East Village USA'' New Museum of Contemporary Art, 0915557886.

Filmography

References

External links

Interview with Patti Astor
at149st.com. Accessed April 11, 2024. * * * promotional clip (8:40) for documentary "Patti Astor's FUN Gallery", Robert David Films Inc. {{DEFAULTSORT:Astor, Patti 1950 births 2024 deaths American film actresses 20th-century American actresses Actresses from Cincinnati Actresses from New York City Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni Barnard College alumni 21st-century American women