Pat Astley
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Pat Astley is a British actress and porn star who grew up in the seaside town of Blackpool, Britain's '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, in pursuit of fame and fortune. 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. Hyped as a 'mind-blowing orgy of Lolita lust', Lindsay's End of Term (1971) is typical of the period.
Lindsay also produced the odd softcore feature film and cast many of his porn stars as extras; this is how Astley made her 'legit' debut in 1976's I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight, a silly softcore comedy about a 'sex-ray' machine. After a few years working as a model for raunchy 'men's magazines', 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? Granted, 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? Astley became 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 with doomed sex symbol Mary Millington, with whom Astley became friendly in real life.
While many nudie actresses' career ended with the demise of the British Sex Film era, Astley'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 for all of eight seconds and isn't even billed in the end credits.
Astley 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".)
