Pat Astley
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Pat Astley is a former English actress and porn star who grew up in the seaside town of Blackpool, England's 'The Las Vegas of the North'. While little is known about Astley's early life, by the early 1970s she had relocated to London, with a baby daughter in tow. She drifted into 'blue movies' (i.e. hardcore porn shorts intended for home 8 mm projection) made by John Jesnor Lindsay and former glamour photographer Harrison Marks. Typical of the period Lindsay's End of Term (1971), features Pat as a french maid, and opens with Timothy Blackstone going down on Pat, before he is called away, leaving her to “wank my face off", as her character puts it, with a large dildo. Pat also appeared in Marks' Nymphomania, and Doctor Sex, cast in the latter for the first, but certainly not last, time as a naughty nurse.
Lindsay also produced several softcore feature films which featured many of his porn stars as extras; this is how Pat made her 'legit' debut in 1975's I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight, a softcore comedy about a 'sex-ray' machine. Pat also worked as a model for raunchy 'men's magazines' under a variety of names, in 1976 for instance she posed as ‘German model Brigitta’ in a lesbian photo shoot for Club International (vol.5.n01), her partner in the photoshoot billed as ‘Mai’, was in fact the model/actress later to be known as Mary Millington, with whom Pat would be reunited for films and magazines. In 1977 Astley bounced back in a surprisingly mainstream role as Young Mr. Grace's Nurse in the 1976 Christmas special and 1977 season of Are You Being Served?, however, Astley never received any on-screen credit for her appearances as non-speaking actors were never credited on the show. She was replaced by Vivienne Johnson after seven episodes.
Despite this anonymity, after Are You Being Served? Pat was to become extremely popular with British sex film directors and was part of an almost repertory company of young actresses who were required to do little but run around naked in background scenes of sex films. She had 'nude walk-on' roles in Rosie Dixon – Night Nurse (1978), Adventures of a Plumber's Mate (1978), and The Stud (1978). She was allowed more screen time than usual in Queen of the Blues (1979), sharing a few scenes, again with the doomed sex symbol Mary Millington, with whom Astley had become friendly with in real life. Pat also appears (fully clothed) in No.1 of the Secret Service (1977), The World is Full of Married Men (1979) and had a small, extra-level role in a 1978 episode of The Dick Emery Show.
While many sex film actresses' careers ended with the demise of the British Sex Film era, Pat's career stretched to one further movie, the troubled horror cheapie Don't Open 'Til Christmas (1984), in which she enjoys her lengthiest screen role as a nude model, a role with an obvious semi-autobiographical touch to it. Her final scene in the film, flashing at veteran actor Edmund Purdom whilst proclaiming "I'm a professional" proved a memorable exit from cinema. Curiously she appears on the cover of the February 1978 issue of Films and Filming magazine, promoting the film Let's Get Laid (1977). While the cover would seem to suggest that Astley was the star of the film, in reality she appears in the film very briefly and isn't even billed in the end credits.
Long out of the public eye, Pat's current whereabouts are unknown, although she was last heard from working part time in a shop in her native Lancashire.
Pat appears in the following episodes of Are You Being Served?. The episodes are ordered by date of first broadcast:
- "The Father Christmas Affair" (1976)
- "Mrs. Slocombe Expects" (1977)
- "A Change Is as Good as a Rest" (1977)
- "Founder's Day" (1977)
- "The Old Order Changes" (1977)
- "Take-over" (1977)
- "It Pays to Advertise" (1977)
(The only episode from the 1977 run in which Astley did not appear was "Goodbye Mr. Grainger".)
References
"Keeping the British End Up - Four Decades of Saucy Cinema" by Simon Sheridan (Reynolds & Hearn books) Third Edition (2007)
See also
External links
- Pat in The Dick Emery Show
- (screenie)
- Review Review Pat Astley on Internet Movie Database
- come play with me publicity photo
- Pat and Suzy Mandel
- Pat in The Dick Emery Show
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