Patricia "Pat" Hartley (born November 19, 1945) is an African American Hungarian actress, filmmaker, and producer. She became associated with Pop artist Andy Warhol's Factory in the mid-1960s, appearing in several of his underground films, including Prison (1965), and My Hustler II (1965). She subsequently appeared in the films Ciao! Manhattan (1972), Rainbow Bridge (1972), and Absolute Beginners (1986).
In the 1980s, Hartley and her husband, filmmaker Dick Fontaine, founded Grapevine Pictures in New York City. They produced the documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982) and Art Blakey: The Jazz Messenger (1988). Hartley has also directed, choreographed, and written music videos for musicians including Afrika Bambaataa, Johnny Rotten, and Keith LeBlanc.
Life and career Pat Hartley was born in New York City in 1945. She had initially planned to attend Hunter College, but after failing her high school classes, she was instead scheduled to attend evening classes. During the summer, Hartley and a friend began spending time in Greenwich Village, where they encountered filmmaker Chuck Wein at the Right Bank and later at bars and clubs including Stanley's Bar and the Dom. Wein subsequently introduced Hartley to Pop artist Andy Warhol at the Factory in 1965.
Her early experiences in Greenwich Village and the sexual openness she encountered there meant that the atmosphere at the Factory did not initially shock her. She later recalled the Factory as a place where people came to pursue their own interests and described the environment as one in which she felt that "a lot of things were going to happen." Hartley had wanted to become a film actress and the Factory provided an opportunity to pursue that ambition.
Hartley also appeared in Discotheque, a short film filmed at The Scene in New York on August 17, 1965. The cast included Hartley, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Henry Geldzahler, Roger Trudeau, and Wein.
Hartley filmed a Screen Test at the Factory in the fall of 1965, and subsequently appeared in two other Warhol films that year. Hartley appeared in Prison alongside Bibbe Hansen, Edie Sedgwick, and Dorothy Dean. She also appeared in My Hustler II (Ingrid in Apartment), a continuation of Warhol's My Hustler. The film featured Hartley alongside Paul America, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name, Rene Ricard, and others.
Hartley's presence at the Factory was notable in the context of Warhol's predominantly white circle of performers. She was among a small number of Black performers who appeared in his films during the 1960s, alongside figures including Dorothy Dean, Abigail Rosen, Rufus Collins, and Donyale Luna.
Hartley continued working in film outside Warhol's productions. She appeared in Ciao! Manhattan, the semi-fictional film centered on Sedgwick. Production began in 1967.
In 1971, Hartley starred in Wein's Rainbow Bridge with her friend, musician Jimi Hendrix. The film following Hartley, a model who travels from San Diego, California, to an occult center on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
Hartley's career increasingly shifted toward documentary filmmaking. She collaborated with British documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine, whom she later married, and the two established Grapevine Pictures in New York in the early 1980s. The company specialized in documentary, music, and original drama productions.
Their first major collaboration was I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982), a documentary following writer and activist James Baldwin as he revisited places associated with the civil rights movement approximately two decades after the events. The film takes Baldwin to locations including Birmingham, Selma, Atlanta, St. Augustine, and Newark, where he reflects on the movement and its aftermath. Hartley's collaboration with Baldwin developed from her meeting him while she was living in London.
Hartley and Fontaine subsequently made Art Blakey: The Jazz Messenger (1988), a documentary portrait of jazz drummer and bandleader Art Blakey. The film includes interviews and performances involving Blakey and musicians associated with the Jazz Messengers, including Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, and Wayne Shorter.
Hartley later appeared in Julien Temple's musical film Absolute Beginners (1986).
References
External links