After Joe's mother went to jail, Joe and his brother Robert were put up for adoption in New York by their father, and then brought up in a series of foster homes.
Michael Ferguson released a book on Joe's films entitled LITTLE JOE, SUPERSTAR: The Films of Joe Dallesandro , it went in to reprint in 2005. It was a limited edition book.
Joe's first movie appearance was as a college wrestler in "****" aka The 24 Hour Movie (1967) directed and written by Andy Warhol.
Steve Kokker released a documentary on Joe's screen work in 1998 called Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe.
Before becoming an underground film star, Joe posed for a number of studios in California (and some in New York) that specialized in male physique photography, most notably for the Athletic Model Guild and for Bruce Bellas, aka Bruce of Los Angeles.
Joe's mother went to jail for grand larceny when he was only 5 yrs. old.
Joe was the "Little Joe" mentioned in Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side."
Joe Dallesandro: My introduction to the gay world did two things. One, [it] saved me from life in prison for murder, which is probably where I would have wound up. How? Because the gay world showed me that you didn't have to beat up every man you saw or hurt people to make a point. It gave me a whole other attitude, a calmer attitude. Two, it taught me never to be homophobic, even before there was such a term. I think because I grew up in a period, especially later on, when the people I looked up to were like...my heroes....That's what I liked about the period, that a man could say he liked both, that he appreciated both the look of a man and the look of a woman without being stereotyped.
Joe's trademark is a tattoo on his right forearm that says "Little Joe."
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