Athletic Model Guild & Bob Mizer

 The Athletic Model Guild, or AMG, was founded by Bob Mizer in December 1945. During those post-war years, United States censorship laws allowed women, but not men, to appear in various states of undress in what were referred to as “art photographs". Mizer began his business by taking pictures of men that he knew. His subjects would often pose for pictures which illustrated fitness tips and the like, but were also viewed as homoerotic material.

The formula used by AMG consisted of images (moving and still) of young men doing bodybuilding poses, or perhaps wrestling in pairs.

Mizer did appear in court to face several charges over the years, including obscenity, drug use, and prostitution. Allegedly, Mizer's AMG models would sometimes make a little extra money “renting” themselves out as "gay for pay' hustlers, but Mizer argued vigorously that it was not his business what they did on their own time. Despite some legal setbacks, AMG survived its many trials.

The AMG material (sold in the form of photographic prints, a magazine and short films) slowly evolved over time - from altered images where the male genitalia were “painted” over to photographic prints where the models wore extremely skimpy posing straps and then finally (as the changing laws allowed) to full nudity. He used his magazine, Physique Pictorial which featured other artists such as Tom of Finland, as means of advertising his material.

Several bodybuilders and actors of the day got their start posing for Mizer and his friends at AMG. It is estimated that he shot over 10,000 men throughout the course of his career. Andy Warhol's protégé Joe Dallesandro, who later worked for Calvin Klein, was one of the many AMG models that even those not acquainted with Athletic Model Guild might be familiar with. Others included Ed Fury and Glenn Corbett of 77 Sunset Strip, and Susan Hayward and Alan Ladd. Bodybuilder and former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger posed for AMG under Mizer in 1975.

The 1998 movie Beefcake, directed by Thom Fitzgerald, combines documentary footage with fictional dramatizations in an attempt to tell the story of Mizer and AMG.

After Bob Mizer’s death in May 1992, Wayne Stanley, a friend and legal advisor, tended to his archives. In 2004 the company and its archives were sold to physique photographer Dennis Bell.

Under Dennis Bell's reins, Athletic Model Guild continues to operate. The legacy material from Bob Mizer's archives that was once feared lost to time is being organized and digitally remastered. This new material is branded under AMG FILM CLASSICS. New DVD releases contain full length films, as well as never-before-seen film clips and behind the scenes footage as extras. Along with its primary mission of preserving the history and legacy of Bob Mizer and AMG, the company continues to produce new original movies that keep the AMG spirit alive in the present. In his own style, Bell launched the highly acclaimed brand AMG Brasil, a new line of films shot on location in Brazil, that feature the same youthful models and "joyful spirit" of life that Mizer once loved.

Bob Mizer

Robert Henry Mizer (March 27, 1922 – May 12, 1992), known as Bob Mizer, was an American photographer and filmmaker who was known for pushing societal boundaries in his work. Bob Mizer’s' earliest photographs appeared in 1942, in both color and black and white, but his career was catapulted into infamy in 1947 when he was convicted of the unlawful distribution of obscene material through the US mail. The material in question was a series of black and white photographs, taken by Mizer, of young bodybuilders wearing what were known as posing straps — a precursor to the G-string. He would serve a nine-month prison sentence at a work camp in Saugus, California for what now seems tame. At the time, however, the mere suggestion of male nudity was not only frowned upon, but also illegal.

In spite of societal expectations and pressure from law enforcement, Mizer would go on to build a veritable empire on his beefcake photographs and films. He established the influential studio, the Athletic Model Guild (AMG) in 1945 with one or more heretofore unidentified partners, but by the time he published the first issue of Physique Pictorial he was operating the studio on his own. With assistance from his mother, Delia, and his brother, Joe, he would go on to photograph thousands of men, building a collection that includes nearly one million different images and thousands of films and videotapes.

Despite all of the trouble that he faced, Mizer continued on in the pursuit of his vision, influencing artists as varied as Robert Mapplethorpe, David Hockney, and Gore Vidal. Examples of his work are now held by esteemed educational and cultural institutions the world over, and can be found in various books, galleries, and private art collections.

In 1999 Beefcake, a docu-drama directed by Thom Fitzgerald, was produced, inspired by a picture book by F. Valentine Hooven III (published by Taschen).