| Patti Astor | |
| Birth Name: | Patricia Titchener |
| Birth Date: | 17 March 1950 |
| Birth Place: | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Hermosa Beach, California, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1976–2024 |
| Known For: | Involved in the early popularization of hip hop music, co-founder of Fun Gallery |
| Notable Works: | Played Virginia in Charles Ahearn's film, Wild Style |
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 underground No Wave 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.[1] Astor also was involved in the early popularizing of hip hop with her performance in Wild Style.
Patricia Titchener was born on March 17, 1950 and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, 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. She soon dropped out to take a leadership role in the anti-Vietnam war 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 act, A Diamond As Big As The Ritz.
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 at CBGB's, the No Wave music scene at the Mudd Club and Tier 3 (nightclub) and independent No Wave films such as Underground U.S.A. (1980) with directors such as Amos Poe, Jim Jarmusch, Charlie Ahearn and Eric Mitchell.
In 1978, she married Steven Kramer, an artist and a keyboardist for the Contortions.[2]
Astor had studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute. A queen of the downtown scene, she appeared in over a dozen experimental and low-budget No Wave 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, and artist Duncan Hannah. She also appeared in such low-budget and low-audience films as Rome '78, The Long Island Four, and Snakewoman.[3] 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 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 Whitney Museum, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Astor went on to co-found the Fun Gallery in 1981 with partner Bill Stelling.[4] [5] This tenement 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, and Futura 2000. It also gave important shows to Kenny Scharf (in 1981), Jean-Michel Basquiat (November 1982),[6] and Keith Haring (February, 1983),[7] 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 painters in the art world had subsided, and rents in the East Village were rising.
After closing Fun Gallery, Astor moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles where she acted in, wrote and produced Get Tux'd starring Ice-T (in one of his first movie roles) and Assault of the Killer Bimbos[8] awarded by People magazine "Trash Pick of The Week".
Astor died in Hermosa Beach, California on April 9, 2024, at the age of 74.[9] [10] [11]
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Unmade Beds | Jeanne Moreau | |
| 1978 | The Foreigner | Fili Harlow | |
| 1978 | Rome '78 | ||
| 1978 | Kidnapped | Uncredited | |
| 1979 | Red Italy | ||
| 1980 | Underground U.S.A. | Vickie | |
| 1980 | The Long Island Four | ||
| 1982 | Wild Style | Virginia | |
| 1987 | Forever, Lulu | Mary Anne Zlutnik | |
| 1988 | Assault of the Killer Bimbos | Poodles | |
| 2021 | Make Me Famous | Herself | |