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Thursday, February 25, 2021


I like the color in this unattributed photo of Don Fuller and Joe Leitel,
and I'm not generally a fan of color in vintage photos.

 

9 comments:

  1. These two handsome, hung males were not made good use of in this pic.

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  2. I have one single photograph, in rather faded colour, of Don Fuller and Joe Leitel in identical terrain, and both wearing red posing straps (as is Fuller above), dated 1957 and attributed to the Western Photography Guild. The rocky terrain of the great outdoors of Colorado would fit Don Whitman's preferred locations and the date fits the parameters of Joe Leitel's modelling career.

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    1. I have the red posing strap picture, too, and that one looks like California to me. Both of these models were known to work in the LA area, so both of them would have had to travel to Colorado for the session if Whitman did it. Would they? It does look very much like his style though.

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  3. The plot thickens. I wish I could remember which website from which I downloaded that picture but I have always been careful with the details, sometimes very inaccurate. Never having been to either California or Colorado, I bow to your better knowledge. Some models did travel. But did Whitman? I always enjoy a mystery!

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    1. I really enjoy these discussions. It is well documented, both by model accounts and by some indisputable photo locales, that some competitive bodybuilders did indeed travel to Colorado to be photographed by Don Whitman. Given his exceptional skills, that's not surprising. Whether these two did or did not, I can't say, but it seems a bit unlikely that a pair would make the journey from California together. Both men look like the bodybuilder types who would jump at the chance to be photographed by Whitman, but neither is mentioned on the competitive bodybuilding rosters of the time. Fuller, however, appeared on the cover of Vim Magazine in 1957. Leitel was an aspiring actor who eventually played a cop in two episodes of "I Dream of Jeanie." Confused yet?

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  4. I remember "I dream of Jeannie"... I see that it first aired in America in 1965, which means we got it in '66 or '67. It went out on commercial TV on Sundays as suitably innocuous family entertainment, sandwiched between the God slot and "Godfrey Wynne's Birthday Honours" (don't ask) to be enjoyed on a flickering 405 lines "idiot's lantern". By that time, I was already buying the backlisted Physique magazines and dreaming of the likes of Joe Leitel but I didn't know he eventually made it to at least the small screen. With nothing to watch on TV these days, I've been through all my WPG pictures and of the colour prints, a surprising number of the models are wearing red-to-pink posing straps but never used whips. Bruce of LA did.

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    1. I have at least half a dozen Whitman photos where he used whips as props. Actually, it looks like the same whip. Bruce was indeed known for the practice.

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  5. Yes, I realize now that I was talking complete nonsense. It just seems that none of my WPG pictures features any...

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