The girl who plyed Iris' friend was a real prostitute, she died in 1994

I heard 15, but there is very little information on her, so maybe a bit older. She was basically the person Iris was based on.

Actually just found an article it, so Schrader was not looking for prossies after all...

SCHRADER During preproduction, I headed uptown, just talking to people on the street, looking for the great white pimp, and in the middle of it all I ended up at a working girl's bar and struck up this conversation with this girl [Garth Avery] who was kind of strung out and very, very thin. Very close to this character that I wrote. I asked her to come back to the hotel — we were staying at the St. Regis because it was cheap — and told her I'd pay her, but it was not about sex. Around 7 o'clock in the morning, I slipped a note under Marty's door that said, "I'm going downstairs to have breakfast with Iris. You must join us." We watched her pour sugar on top of her jam, the way she talked, and a lot of that is in the diner scene in the movie.

FOSTER She plays the girl who stands next to me in the street in the movie. I talked to her a little bit, but they were more interested in her mannerisms, how she dressed and walked. I hated my costumes, though. At the fitting, I was sniffing back tears because I had to wear those dumb shorts, platform shoes and halter tops. It was everything I hated. I was a tomboy who wore knee socks. But I got over it.