Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher.

In 1954, Herko attended a staging of Giselle and became fascinated with the Russian lead Igor Youskevitch.

[1] He studied classical ballet under Valentina Pereyaslavec and took additional dance classes with Merce Cunningham and James Waring.

He was a member of the Judson Dance Theater, contributing two pieces to the group's inaugural concert on July 6, 1962.

He performed in Frank O'Hara's Love's Labor and several of Andy Warhol's early films, including Haircut (No.

Herko was associated with a group of habitués to Warhol's Silver Factory on 47th Street including Ondine, Rotten Rita, and Billy Name.

Nicknamed "mole people" on account of their intensive speed usage and subterranean habits — "mole because they were known to be tunneling towards some greater insanity that no one but this inner circle was aware of"[2] — members of this group performed their manias and drug routines in a life/art blurring spectacle in crash pads and stages throughout the city.

Herko was a close friend of Diane di Prima, who writes of him in her biography Recollections of my Life as a Woman.

Freddie had an antique wall sconce with a mirror, the kind that used to hold a candle, and he lit the taper he had placed in it.

It had to be great.”[7] On October 27, 1964, Johnny Dodd saw Herko wildly dancing on the counter at Joe's Dinette in Greenwich Village.

On the floor in his room, there was a book by Mary Renault, open at the page where the king leaps into the sea, where the ritual to renew the world is described.