Mr. America of 1954 -- an immortal champion of the iron game, and our hearts!
(Just the tip of the iceberg, guys!)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Richard (Dick) DuBois
Mr. America of 1954 -- an immortal champion of the iron game, and our hearts!
(Just the tip of the iceberg, guys!)
Joao Leal Filho - beije-me toda sobre! -- part two
Brazilian muscle men -- hot today, hot 57 years ago!
This is all I have on file for Joao Leal Filho -- but I'll keep an eye out for more!
Joao Leal Filho - beije-me toda sobre! -- part one
The interesting things you can find through Google -- from "Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil" by James Naylor Green:
The publishers of "Forca e Saude" and "Musculo" even attempted international marketing of their publications by submitting a nude picture of Joao Leal Filho, the Brazilian national bodybuilding champion in 1949-50, to the United States muscle quarterly "Physique Pictorial," where it appeared in the fall 1954 issue. Leal Filho, who trained at the Forca e Saude Gym in Recife, was shown in the shower, discreetly posed to avoid exposing his genitals. For a U.S. $1.00 American readers could request a sample copy of the Brazilian publication, mailed directly from Rio de Janeiro. Although few foreigners may actually have sent off for a copy of "Forca e Saude" in order to enjoy the muscular beauty of Joao Leal Filho, the editors of these Brazilian magazines understood the publications' dual audiences. Those Brazilians who bought "Musculo" and "Forca e Saude" merely to keep up on the latest news of the national bodybuilding organization, which was headed by the editors of the magazines, may have missed the eroticism of these artistic contributions and seminude pictures, but homosexuals bought the publications for their gorgeously muscled men. The magazines offered an exciting stimulus for solitary sexuality under the cover of a sport's publication, and they were one of the few ways that isolated individuals far from Rio or Sao Paulo might have ongoing access to soft athletic porn.
Howard Heidtmann by Milo
Most of my Milo shots of Howard are nudes, so it is always nice to find a classic posing strap shot of this young stud (not that the nudes are bad - quite the contrary! - but I love to find the "legal" shots that would have been floating around back in the 50s/60s).
(Note the "tile floor" is actually squares of white paper laid down on the black backdrop.)
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Elias Tache by Karoll of Havana
Karoll of Havana was a society photographer who had a sideline in taking snaps of musclemen and sports figures in the forties and fifties. His gay work only surfaced a few years ago. According to the retail site Homobilia, Karoll died in a Castro "re-education" camp in 1983. (I can't seem to find a complete name for this classic artist.)
Most of the examples I have of Karoll's work are studio shots, making this outside pose a bit out of the ordinary. I'll post more from Karoll soon.
Kent Studios - Tomorrow's Man article photo from 1956
A cool photo that was posted at the v-m-p Yahoogroup back in 2003, with this annotation --
The back offers a few clues. It's stamped "Kent Studios" with an address in Cleveland, Ohio. More interesting are hand-written markings of "Weight gaining story, August 56 TM, Page 18". I have to assume that "TM" may be "Tomorrow's Man" magazine. I suspect the photo may have been used in production of the magazine.
Awesome beefy dude!
I don't quite "get" whatever it is he is wearing, but he sure pushes a few of my buttons! ;-)
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Vic Seipke - a Superstar forever! - part 3
Part of Bob Delmonteque's contribution to the Cult of Seipke was a series of photos taken at the James Scott Fountain in Belle Isle, Detroit. Two different magazine covers used photos from this shoot, but not the ones I have put up here. The shot of Vic in the white trunks I attribute to Delmonteque as he photographed Vic in them for yet another magazine cover.
And guess what, guys -- I'm out of time, so we'll let Vic rest here until some future date! Ciao!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Vic Seipke - a Superstar forever! - part 2
I still haven't arranged the rest of my Seipke files to weed out the dupes and inferiors scans. Too bad I couldn't do this full-time!
Here are two shots credited to the amazing Douglas of Detroit...
Vic Seipke - a Superstar forever!
Back when I had v-m-p up as a real website, the page that received the most response from visitors was the one I put together on Vic Seipke. Part of what I wrote on that page was
Vic Seipke's trademark pompadour and long, lean body have made him one of the most memorable of the competitive bodybuilders and physique models of the 1950s. His career in the sport stretched from the 1950 Mr. Michigan contest up to the 1977 Mr. America contest, when he was 45 years old! He won two major titles in his career -- the 1955 Junior Mr. America, and 1976 Masters Mr. America.
It may have been at the Mr. Michigan contest that Vic caught the eye of the man known to us only as "Spectrum." According to a blurb in the June, 1954 Physique Pictorial, Vic [was] 5' 9", 195 lbs [and] Mr. Michigan for 1951. Very active in football, soccer, basketball. Vic has a 19" neck, 48" chest, 29" waist, 26" thigh. In a 1957 Physique Pictorial, Bob Mizer wrote Spectrum [--] took the first shots of Vic when he was 19. At one time he weighed 200#, all muscle, but he deliberately cut down his thigh size to a more pleasing proportion.
Besides showcasing Vic's magazine cover appearances and the smattering of B&W Spectrum photos that I had collected over the years, I had the great pleasure of premiering scans of 26 color slides that had been hand-delivered to me by a fan of the site who lived near my then-home of Hollywood, CA. (That breakfast we had together is still a highlight of my time in LA, Mr. B!) These slides were so popular that copies of the scans as photographs started appearing on eBay not too long after (and still appear for sale there today -- I can match up the scratches).
I had always meant to continue with Vic's page at the site, with page 2 showcasing his nude work with Douglas of Detroit and Bob Delmonteque, and the third page reprinting an online article on Vic's life that had just recently appeared. I had also looked forward to replacing the bulk of the color slides with a set of re-worked pics sent in to me by a fan (Hi, J!) who took out all the scratches on the film and made them look amazingly new. Never got around to it, and now the site is gone.
Well.
For all you rabid Seipke worshipers (and there are so many of you out there!), here's an additional B&W Spectrum shot of Vic and Frank Cuva that I found after the page went online, and four of J's re-touched color slides...
early study by Bruce of LA
Judging from the style, I put this in the early 50s. Note the string around the waist and down the back, holding the pouch in place.
AMG set decoration - 50s style
Bob Mizer really got into the swing of things in the fifties, not just snapping pics of young men against a white or black backdrop but often using rear projection and props to create a total fantasy image, as these two shots will attest.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
From tiny Johnny T's do mighty Johnny T's grow...
Predating even the Scott sessions are photos of a noticeably sleeker Johnny taken by Vulcan (Anthony Guyther - a New York-based photographer) and the mysterious "Togof" (possibly one of the several aliases used by Guyther, but no one can say for certain). A bit of trivia -- for his first couple of physique magazine appearances, he was billed as "John Trenton" before becoming famous under his real name. Here's a look at a young, pensive Johnny T by Vulcan...
...and with that, I wish you all a good night!
John Tristram by Scott of London -- just can't get enough of Johnny T!
Don't you wish you had been by the seaside on this particular day?
[Thanks to Dan for these top-notch scans!]
John Tristram -- ah, my love... -- by Scott of London
John was a competitive bodybuilder from England who would move to the United States circa 1960 and settle in Southern California, where he became a favorite of AMG's Bob Mizer. Before that happened, though, he was immortalized by the infamous Tom Nicoll, aka Scott of London.
Scott squeezed his models into the tightest, shortest white shorts -- tightest, form-fittingest white sailor pants -- and possibly the world's smallest posing pouches, and got them to smile and flex their way into your heart. The leather-clad biker was also a photo-fetish of Scott's (he even spurred the motorcycle fetish in the work of Tom of Finland, when they first met).
Here are just a few shots of John, by Tom...
[Oh, how I love Johnny Tristram.... *sigh!*]
In Living Color - Luis Santiago by Lon of NY
A "sequel" to the shot posted on July 29 -- a bit of an odd expression on his face, eh? Like Lon snapped him as he was getting ready to put his "game" face on...
(I don't know what the date of 1969 in the file name is in reference to -- this sure looks like a 50s-era shot to me.)