Holly Woodlawn

Holly Woodlawn
Woodlawn in 2007
Born	Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl October 26, 1946 Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico
Died	December 6, 2015 (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Brain and liver cancer
Other names	Harold Ajzenberg
Occupation	Actress

Holly Woodlawn (October 26, 1946 – December 6, 2015) was a Puerto Rican actress and Warhol superstar who appeared in his movies Trash (1970) and Women in Revolt (1972). She was probably best known as the "he was a she" in Lou Reed's hit pop song "Walk on the Wild Side".

Woodlawn was born as Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, to an American soldier of German descent, and Aminta Rodriguez, a native Puerto Rican, and grew up in Miami Beach, where she came out at a young age. She adopted the name Holly from the heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and in 1969 added the surname from a sign she saw on an episode of I Love Lucy. After changing her name she began to falsely tell people she was the heiress to Woodlawn Cemetery.

In 1962, at the age of fifteen, Woodlawn left Florida heading north. She recollects that "I hocked some jewelry and ... made it all the way to Georgia, where the money ran out and ... had to hitchhike the rest of the way" to New York City.

At the age of 16, when most kids were cramming for trigonometry exams, I was turning tricks, living off the streets and wondering when my next meal was coming

she recalled in her memoir, A Low Life in High Heels.

By 1969, she had considered sex reassignment surgery, but decided against it.

She was at the Stonewall riots and was part of the rioting.

Woodlawn met Andy Warhol at the Factory, at a screening of Flesh (1968). Through him she met Jackie Curtis, who cast Woodlawn in her play Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit in the autumn of 1969.

...
Wikipedia