Glenn Bishop was one of the most popular vintage nude male physique models despite his full-frontal nude images only becoming widely available just after he retired from the business.
Glenn Bishop took up bodybuilding as a teenager and launched his modelling career while still in high school. He first appeared in Tomorrow’s Man, the most conservative of the early physique magazines. In the fifties, physique magazines did not feature nudity. Models wore posing swimsuits or posing pouches. At most, they might pose nude exiting the shower with a towel protecting their modesty.
The magazines also carefully avoided any hint that they were intended for a gay audience. My goodness golly gosh no!
Physique magazines supposedly existed to help young men improve their musculature by studying the images within. Well, no doubt many readers gave one bicep a good workout!💦
So physique magazines maintained a certain respectability. Famed bodybuilding champions posed for the mags and many of the models used their own names.
However, there was a secret side to the business. Many photographers also sold full-frontal nude versions of the pics in physique magazines, usually by male/mail order. Some even traversed the country — discreet travelling roadshows of male nudity.
NSFW! Click Here: Glenn Bishop, full-frontal nude.
At 18, Glenn Bishop started college. He wanted to become a chiropractor.
He also launched into business with his high school friend Richard Alan. Richard was also a bodybuilder and a physique model and the pair had previously posed together for swimsuit shots.
Now, they launched their own Michigan Models Studio in their hometown of Grand Haven. They sold images of themselves and local bodybuilder mates to magazines and through the post.
NSFW! Click Here: Richard Alen full-frontal nude.
Glenn and Richard took inspiration from another model of their acquaintance. Bodybuilder and physique model Bob Delmonteque substantially increased his income when he stopped posing for other photographers and started selling his own pics. He also photographed other bodybuilders. In one early ad, Bob requested that bodybuilders who “wish to be exploited in picture stories” contact his studio.
Bob Delmonteque reputedly paid Glenn the then unheard-of sum of $500 for a day’s modelling. The photos taken after Glenn’s 18th birthday included full-frontal nude shots but those remained unpublished at the time.
NSFW! Click Here: Bob Delmonteque full frontal nude with an unknown male model.
Glenn Bishop and Richard Alan went their separate ways after a couple of years and Glenn’s wife took over photographing her husband. Glenn had married, disappointing the many physique magazine readers who assumed he and Richard Alan were a couple.
Body Beautiful Magazine announced the news.
“The Broken Hearts chapter of the Glenn Bishop Fan Club will sponsor a mass drowning at Fire Island.”
The mention of Fire Island, already a popular gay destination in the mid-fifties, was an unusually forthright acknowledgement of the magazine’s main readership.
Glenn continued to promote his photos. He told readers that he was paying his way through college and supporting his young family through his modelling. However, some sources hint at a wealthy admirer also helping out.
By the mid-sixties, Glenn graduated college as Dr Glenn Bishop and set up a chiropractic practice. He announced his retirement from modelling at the age of thirty in Young Physique Magazine. He wished his fans “the best of good luck.”
Glenn Bishop’s full-frontal nudes
NSFW! Click Here: Glenn Bishop full-frontal nude.
But then, a relaxation in the laws concerning published nudity saw the emergence of previously hidden nudes of the popular model. Magazines appeared that openly catered to gay men and featured full-frontal nude models.
Both Glenn Bishop and Ricard Alan, friend and former fellow model, spoke out publicly against what they characterised as pornography.
Glenn Bishop wrote an unmistakably homophobic letter to Drum Magazine.
“Your purpose and magazine is of the lowest order and should be taken out of circulation. This country has enough trouble without crack-pots like yourself trying to promote abnormal sex ideas. Can’t you find something more worthwhile to do in your life rather than cater to queers?”
It seems now, the rantings of an extremely ungrateful man. Glenn Bishop and Richard Alan no doubt knew who their customers were during their careers as physique models. But now they bit the hands that fed them for so long.
With hindsight, it’s perhaps possible to feel sympathy for the pair.
The sudden emergence of their nude photos in openly gay publications laid bare that they had, at the very least, pandered to the lust of gay men wanting to see their nude bodies. The respectability previously afforded physique modelling disappeared.
Many young people do things to get on in life they’d prefer never became public. Glenn and Richard had moved on from nude modelling to respectability and saw that suddenly snatched away from them. C’est la vie.
Also: NSFW! Actor and nude physique model John Hamill.
NSFW! The vintage nude bodybuilders of Lon of New York.
For the latest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) news in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
No Comment