Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948) is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Having also crossed over into mainstream roles such as mobster Lucky Luciano in the film The Cotton Club, Dallesandro was a sex symbol of gay subculture in the 1960s and 1970s, and of several American underground films. Dallesandro starred in the 1968 film Flesh as a male prostitute. The film was produced by Andy Warhol. In 1970, Rolling Stone declared Dallesandro's second starring vehicle, Trash, the "Best Film of the Year", making him a star of the youth culture, sexual revolution, and subcultural New York City art collective of the 1970s. Dallesandro also starred in 1972's Heat, another Warhol film that was conceived as a parody of the film Sunset Boulevard. Early life Joe Dallesandro was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro II, who was in the U.S. Navy. His mother, Thelma Testman, was 16 years old. By the time Joe III was five years old, his mother was serving fifteen years in a Federal Penitentiary for interstate auto theft. Dallesandro and his brother Bobby were taken to New York by their father, who worked as an electrical engineer. Both boys were eventually placed into the Angel Guardian Home in Harlem, prior to being fostered by a couple in Brooklyn. The family later moved to North Babylon, Long Island. The senior D'Allesandro would visit them about once a month at their foster parents' home. Dallesandro was initially content living with his foster parents, but later reportedly began to resent them, thinking that they were preventing him from living with his father. Dallesandro began acting out, and became aggressive. He repeatedly ran away from his foster home until his birth father finally relented and allowed Joe to live with him. At age 14, Dallesandro and his brother moved to Queens to live with their paternal grandparents and their father. At age 15, he was expelled from school for punching the school principal, who had reportedly insulted his father. After this, he began hanging out with gangs and stealing cars. In one such instance, Dallesandro panicked and smashed the stolen car he was driving through the gate of the Holland Tunnel. He was stopped by a police roadblock and was shot once in the leg by police who mistakenly thought he was armed. Dallesandro managed to escape being caught by police, but was later arrested