Courtesy Athleticmodelguild.com

While in San Francisco to attend the 2006 GayVN Awards, I accepted an invitation from Dennis Bell to visit the Athletic Model Guild. Founded by Bob Mizer in 1945, AMG is the longest continually operating adult male studio in gayporn history.

Mizer himself was an astonishing personality. As a precocious teenager, he and his friends would attend parties thrown by older gay men, delighting their hosts by taking off all their clothes. He began keeping a diary at the age of 17, writing in it nearly every day for the remainder of his life. That diary today encompasses many volumes and makes fascinating reading. Written in extra-large lettering on the very first page, it says: "Bob Mizer ... The Boy ... The Thinker ... The ...?"

Mizer was as handsome as he was precocious and he became a model himself before finding his life's ambition as the man behind the camera. Today, Mizer may best be known as the man who published Physique Pictorial, the definitive homoerotic publication for gay men, over the years 1951-1990.

Mizer died in 1992, largely unremembered, leaving his estate to Wayne Stanley, who sold it to current owner Dennis Bell in 2004. Dennis and I spoke about his acquisition of AMG, the resumption of film production and his vision for the company.


How did your purchase of AMG come about? I purchased AMG in December 2004; our first year back as a regular business in 2005 was the 60th anniversary of the studio. I photographed for Falcon starting in 1993, eventually leaving to create a series of vintage gay erotic membership websites. This led me to learn of the possibility of purchasing the Mizer estate. I called Wayne Stanley. We had dinner (I made a Brazilian dish, never realizing at the time what role that country would play in the regrowth of AMG!) and I showed him my work. Wayne and I hit it off immediately, and he told me that very night that I was the one he wanted to carry the torch.

How many vintage photos or negatives are in the AMG archives? To the best of my knowledge, Bob shot about 500,000 4x5 black and white images; 350,000 color slides; 150,000 other formats (large format, stereoviews, etc. - for a total of one million. He recorded 2500 Beta videotapes in the 1980s, about three hours each, and 3000 films (in all formats, 35 mm, 16mm, 8mm) were edited and released. There is other work that was never edited or released. We figure that about 10,000 models passed in front of his lenses throughout his life.

When did Bob Mizer take his first erotic photo? His last? Although Bob started AMG in December 1945, his diaries indicate he was learning photography and lighting as early as 1942. He mentions riding his bicycle to the studio in Santa Monica every day, where he had an apartment. We know he posed nude and was quite good looking then. He approached bodybuilders at Muscle Beach, and took photos of them and the acrobatic athletes there.

There are many rumors about the hardcore images he took in his mother's attic, where he had a sexual space and pinned hundreds of photos to the ceiling - he would just lie there on the cot and look at them. They were lost after Bob died and the property was cleaned up and sold.

Bob had been videotaping his photo sessions throughout the 1980s, and in the estate I found several tapes and rolls of film that came from those very last sessions in March and April 1992. Bob died May 12, 1992.

What are your long-range plans for a museum, archive or research facility? Basically, the Bob Mizer work would become the core of a foundation to preserve the works of vintage physique photographers. Bob's work has yet to be completely archived and preserved properly, a chore that will take years. When we move into our new office, I'd love to have a museum gallery to display the props and other unusual items we have.

Other than the AMG Brasil line of titles that you direct yourself, what releases are planned for 2007 from Mizer's work? In February we released two new titles in the AMG Film Classics brand. These are both nude titles filmed in the 1970s and have been remastered from the original film negatives and include hundreds of images, as do all Film Classics titles. AMG was always about the photos first!

Nude Posing Film Classics: Caliente features a compilation of Bob's Latin models. Nude Wrestling Film Classics: Smackdown features great AMG models like Tico Patterson and Buddy Houston and was the predecessor to the great "Wrestling Live" series of VHS tapes Bob created in the 1980s.

Coming later in 2007 is another installment of Story Film Classics, works from the 1950s-70s, with a DVD extra of some great material that came up from the cutting room floor. Bob saved everything he cut out of the films, and when he filmed the models pissing or their dicks were exposed in the posing strap era, this footage was saved in little boxes - hundreds of them. There is some great stuff there. Also, we'll see another Hardcore Film Classics DVD, more work that Bob never said he filmed ... but now we know otherwise!