Today is a special day.I've casually discovered that this gentleman i was talking to turns out to be the english cousin of this genius of the sixties american avantgarde and he invites me to join him for a drink and talk about all things Warhol/Heliczer/La Monte Young etc etc.This is when my job really gratifies me.
Piero Heliczer
Actor: June 20, 1937 - Rome, Italy
From All Movie Guide: Piero Heliczer was a key figure in the underground film movement in New York of the 1960s. Born in Italy, he initially broke into films after winning a talent contest at the age of four for the "most typical-looking Italian child."
Heliczer played under the name of
Pier Giorgio Heliczer in the two least-known commercial Italian films, typecast as the "cute fascist kid" during World War II. Tragically, when he was only seven years old, his father, a resistance fighter, was executed by Nazis allied with Mussolini. According to
Heliczer's own account, he worked as an extra in
Vittorio de Sica's masterwork Ladri di Biciclette (
The Bicycle Thief, 1948), although this has yet to be verified.
Heliczer's mother was not fond of Italian neorealism and its depiction of impoverished and dirty children, and decided to immigrate to the United States with her son sometime in the late '40s rather than attempt to further his career as a child actor.
Heliczer graduated from high school in the top of his class and entered Harvard in 1955. He dropped out after two years and moved to Paris, where he established his imprint The Dead Language Press, mostly publishing his own literary works, but ultimately printing those of other authors, including Anselm Hollo,
Gregory Corso, and The Beautiful Book of filmmaker
Jack Smith.
Heliczer's poetry was published with a fair amount of frequency in a variety of journals beside his own through about 1970.
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