The Mr. America pageant, begun in 1939, was quite popular and got a lot of attention. Publisher and promoter Joe Weider even put out a magazine of the same name, although it is doubtful that it was sanctioned by the contest. Mr. Weider knew his magazines had a big gay audience and even knowingly hired gay staff, something unheard of in the 1940s and 1950s. Today we will look at some Mr. America competition winners who went full Monty and posed frontally nude. And yes, at least one of them made the cover of Mr. Weider's eponymous magazine.
I'm reading Chapman's bio of the gorgeous, magnificent, Eugen Sandow. He organized the world's first bodybuilding competition at Royal Albert Hall in London, almost 40 years earlier than Mr. America.
ReplyDeleteWhen physique photographers he hired for his magazines were prosecuted, Weider paid for their defense in court.
ReplyDeleteWeider also had to put up with Bob Hoffman and other officials of the AAU denouncing his bodybuilding and physique magazines as perverse.
Rex in DC
Such were the times.
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