Piero Heliczer

Piero Heliczer (1937–1993) was an Italian-American poet, publisher and underground filmmaker. Born in Rome and raised in New York, he was a child actor in Italian cinema before becoming a central figure in the 1960s New York underground, closely associated with Andy Warhol's Factory, Jack Smith, Angus MacLise, Gerard Malanga and the early Velvet Underground — who performed at his earliest multimedia film events, before their association with Warhol, in 1965.

He founded the Dead Language Press in New York, publishing work by Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg and other Beat and post-Beat writers in handmade editions.