Keith Bernard Photographer Master of the Pin Up

 
"Unsung Hero of Photography" number eight hid his name, but he worked under one.  Keith Bernard was what he sold his glamor under, but his real name may have been Keith Davis.  The Glamor Photographers site says his full name was Marion Keith Davis, he was born in 1911 and passed away in 1981 still a slight mystery...but he left behind Betty Brosmer, praise the slick pin up lord.

Keith Bernard adopted the Bernard moniker from Bruno Bernard.  It worked for Bruno, after all.  Among his most notable subjects were Jayne Mansfield, and also the famous cover of Modern Man Magazine showing muscleman Joe Weider's wife Betty Brosmer.  Betty's chest to waist ratio was so magnificent, I'm not going to depress you by reporting it.  Joe is one of my personal hero figures, and not just because of Betty's figure.

Okay, I will. Betty Brosmer had an 18 inch waist.  She may still!  Take your two hands, put them together in a circle and you just about approximate Betty Brosmer's waist.  No photoshop.  The Gym.

Keith Bernard sold TWO HUNDRED MAGAZINE COVERS of Betty Brosmer.  For that alone, he is awarded the Vintage Sleaze Unsung Hero award!  His photos of Ms. Brosmer are some of the most incredible glamor photographs ever created, and if there is a library of men's magazines in a box when you get to heaven, head right to the one with Betty Brosmer done by Bernard.  Bernard has the brains to sign her to an exclusive, and he did her well.

The three (magnificent, IMHO) photographs on top, each 8 x 10, show the master at work with Patti Conley, who is ALSO quite a story.  Apparently, Ms. Conley earlier posed in bondage photographs (under far less glamorous circumstances) for somewhat demented fetish kinkster John Willie.  Don't look them up.  They look like true crime photographs and will creep you out.
 
However, if you want spend a pleasant few minutes typing Betty Brosmer into your friendly search engine, it might motivate you to get to the gym.  And yes, as far as I know, Keith whatever his name is took these all.



Three original photographs top, Keith Bernard and Pat Conley each circa 1955 Collection Jim Linderman

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Antique Folk Art Wooden Carved Doll Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Wooden Carved Doll Collection Jim Linderman

Three Legged Sack Race 1951 Snapshot Collection Jim Linderman

A lovely moment preserved in 1951.  Yes, there is a website devoted to the sack race, and I am happy here to provide their rules for the game.

Three-Legged Race:
To play you will need one burlap bag for each two-person team. The more teams racing, the more fun it is.

• Participants stand side-by-side and put leg closest to each other in the burlap bag.
• Together, they race to the finish line.
• The first team to the finish line wins.

Note: The “Three-Legged Race” can be done in relay race form, too.

Original snapshot dated on reverse 1951  Collection Jim Linderman

Carnival Shooting Gallery Target in the Shape of a Cannon

Carnival Sideshow Shooting Gallery Target in the Shape of a Cannon No Date (circa 1930?)  12" across  Collection Jim Linderman

Knit Clown Costume Leggings and Sweater Carnival Sideshow collection Jim Linderman

I don't know about you, but for me, that knitted Christmas present would be cooler if it came with matching trousers!

Anonymous Clown in Knitted Costume 1922 (Detail) Original Photograph collection Jim Linderman

See also ARCANE AMERICANA the photography book available in softcover OR Ebook for Ipad          HERE

Iron On Transfers of Pin-up Girls One Cent Each! Dizzy Designs to Decorate your Duds Vendor Display and Tear Card

Too large for my scanner, but just the right size for my 32 waist jeans.  Some Pin-up Girls for my Duds!  One Cent Each.

Pin-Up Girls Iron on Transfers Vendor Display and Tear Card circa 1940  Collection Jim Linderman

A Simple Man with Broad Shoulders Folk Art

Hand carved (barely) wooden man, no date Collection Jim Linderman

Samuel Lonnie Simmons, Photographer

A piece from the sister blog "Vintage Sleaze" 

Samuel "Lonnie" Simmons is Unsung Hero of Photography number nine.  (See them all linked below)

Time to bring another great photographer out of the dust of obscurity and racism.  Once known as "The Man Who Never Sleeps" Samuel "Lonnie" Simmons was an African-American jazzman (more than anything else) in his younger days playing with no less than American treasure Fats Waller, Hot Lips Page, Chick Webb and more.  Many more.  He recorded under his own name as well, including "I Can't Get Started" on the Parrot label (in which he played both organ and saxophone, probably at the same time.)  If you are not yet impressed with Lonnie's musical chops, his Jet Magazine obit reports he also played with Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie.  Parrot was a label which lasted only three years in the early 1950s, but some of the recordings were reissued later on Chess Records. 

However, though Simmons performed up until the last, suffering a fatal stroke while performing AT AGE 80 according to Euguene Chadbourne, it is his work as a photographer of interest here.

Photographer too?  I'm getting a little tired of learning about astounding talented people no one taught me about in school.  

So Lonnie, or Samuel, is called "a free-lance photographer" in passing in the few places you might find information about him. 

Born in Charleston, South Carolina Actually, in Mt. Pleasant, an isolated pocket in the low-country coast, yet another of those plantation- era places near where slaves landed.  A bridge to Mount Pleasant was built in 1928.  Wiki lists one Darius Rucker as coming from the city, he being "Hootie" of the Blowfish… but they omit Mr. Simmons.   

Lonnie's father was a blacksmith who went back nearly to slave days, passing at the age of 82 in 1955.  Lonnie's father was just one notable blacksmith named Simmons from the Charleston area.  On his father's passing, Lonnie went back to Mt. Pleasant to bring his mother back to Chicago with him, and it was her first plane airplane ride.  His appearance at the funeral was notable enough for the local paper to interview him, where Simmons is reported to have "gradually drifted into take pictures for newspapers and magazines" and that he maintains his own darkroom in his Chicago home.  The headline reads "Mt. Pleasant Negro Musician Becomes Press Photographer" and adds a few more musical giants among his playing partners.

It was not unusual for Mr. Simmons to leap from the bandstand with his camera to capture events, including crimes.  A one-man forerunner of the surveillance camera, his pictures were used by the Chicago Police for evidence and he earned honorary membership in the Chicago Patrolman's Association.  Much of his photography was taken at the legendary Chicago Club De Lisa (which I wrote about earlier) and I now believe the photograph below was taken by Mr. Simmons in his "spare time" as picture maker who roamed the club supporting his income with snapshots. 

The extraordinary dance photos shown here were Lonnie's.  Scarce not only because they show the "Black and Tan" nightclub era (an era not generally regarded as worthy of documentation at the time by most photographers) but also because, I assume, most of Mr. Simmons photographs have not been exhibited.  It would be pretty safe to guess the originals are lost.  We can hope a relative finds this post, digs them out and produces the coffee-table book he earned but no one made.

Somebody has some, as Mr. Simmon's photographs were apparently used in the 1995 documentary PROMISED LAND narrated by Morgan Freeman for the History Channel  which while acclaimed was forgotten.  You can read about it HERE where people keep asking why it isn't available on DVD…one of whom writes "It is a shame that this great work of truth has been overlooked."  Par for the course.  The documentary is about the migration of southern African-Americans to Chicago.  Lonnie Simmons was one of them, and fortunately he was around with his camera.

Samuel "Lonnie" Simmons photographs appear in Ebony, Jet, The Chicago Defender, The Pittsburgh Courier, The Crusader and Cabaret (a magazine which documented burlesque in the 1950s and from where the photographs above were taken) and I suspect others once considered unsavory race and pinup magazines from the 1950s on.  The portrait of the young musician is from the Charleston Jazz Initiative at the School of the Arts, College of Charleston, South Carolina.  Jet Magazine recognized Lonnie's talents and skills…as well as using his photographs (including the astounding picture of a dancer flying above a drummer, which I have cribbed but credited) they also reported on his adventures, including being bitten by an eel and having his instruments stolen HERE.

PHOTOGRAPH OF SAMUEL LONNIE SIMMONS Charleston Jazz Initiative Archives

PARROT RECORD LABEL HERE 

Original Club DeLisa Photograph and Sleeve collection Jim Linderman 

UNSUNG HEROES OF PHOTOGRAPHY is a series on Vintage Sleaze the Blog by Jim Linderman.  Previous profiles include Art Messick George Boardman Danny Rouzer  Russ Meyer  Wil Blanche  Benno Friedman  and Bunny Yeager  

JIM LINDERMAN BOOKS AND AFFORDABLE EBOOKS ARE AVAILABLE HERE ON BLURB

Big Burlwood Bonker Primitive Folk Art

A hefty masher made of burl. 

Some of the Darling Saxaphone Four Women Saxophone Players collection Jim Linderman

Well, I have three of the four.  The Darling "Saxaphone" Four also performed as the Four Harmony Maids and were managed by Eva Darling.  

Original 8 x 10 Press Photographs circa 1920   collection Jim Linderman

Shotgun Wedding (with Pistol) collection Jim Linderman

Shotgun Wedding with Pistol Circa 1900  Collection Jim Linderman

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Have you Seen Freddie Cunningham Boy Wonder ? Nope RPPC collection Jim Linderman

Sorry, no.  Only in this card.

Freddie Cunningham The Boy Wonder Unexcelled High Wire Artist circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman Books and Ebooks available HERE

A Tiny House Cabin for a Folk Art Collection and Studio

A Tiny House for Folk Art
 
Moving to Michigan and wanting a backyard barn for a modest folk art collection, studio and man-cave, I commissioned the fine folks at Mast Barns to create one for me.

The tiny house is 10" x 18" and features a tin roof, skylight and transom windows, a loft bed, double hung windows with screens and a  pre-hung locking door.  The house is wired for light, and as winter is approaching, a small space heater works fine.  I will add a small air-conditioner in the spring. 

A four inch base of stone insures level positioning.
 
The Inside is fully insulated and lined with 3/4" plywood. 

Rudimentary shelves were installed for display, and all floor objects move under the loft providing room for a queen-sized air mattress for guests (the loft is large enough for one)

What is left to do?  Wood putty finishing for seams and additional painting.  A folding desk which will drop down when not in use.  Molding and baseboard.  The roof joints will be left exposed.

This shack is far more substantial than a large percentage of the world has to live in, and many here use similar, if less decorative houses for hunting cabins.

For those of you who would like to live cheap and off the grid, the Tiny House Listings website provides an opportunity to browse similar little cabins already made. 

Super Small Head Superman MIcrocephalic Mexican Superman Toy Doll

My best guess is a most inept Superman from Mexico.  Kryptonite in the Womb?

Old Iron Legs John F. Stahl walks and walks and walks and walks and walks

"Old Iron Legs" John Stahl stops walking long enough for a portrait.   Stahl poses right in the middle of Stahl highway, the railroad tracks.  He used them, but he didn't ride the rails.  Old Iron Legs walked.  Epic walks. 

John Stahl was born in 1882 Ohio but spent most of his working days selling stamps in the San Francisco Post Office.  When he retired, worried about his health, he took to walking.  This was apparently in the 1940s, as the earliest mention of one of his walks was a massive hike from the Panama Canal to Austin Texas in 1940.  3,500 miles.  He took a boat down, but walked back.

In 1949 he was seen in El Paso, Texas.

In 1960 he was stopped briefly by a reporter in Alabama during a six-month stroll to say "when a man retires he should have a hobby of some sort - walking is a good hobby."

Two years later Mr. Stahl turn up at the Seattle World's Fair, having walked 900 miles from San Francisco.  That walk was sponsored by a beer company, and when he arrived he kissed a girl, danced a little jig,  picked up a thousand dollar check and presumably kept walking. 
 
Original Photograph of John F. Stahl, signed on reverse and dated April 23, 1949 Balboa, Arizona.  Collection Jim Linderman

Thanks to J.J. Cromer
 
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Spectacular Circus Banners Hanging in 1963 At the Circus in Black and White (and Color) #34 collection Jim Linderman

A group of exceptional circus banners in a pair of 1963 snapshots of the Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus.  Folks often think the glory days of the circus banner was long gone by then, but these look pretty good.  A real phantasmagoria!  Note matronly visitors standing near the entrance.  

Pair of original snapshot photographs dated 1963  Collection Jim Linderman


AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE is a occasional feature on Dull Tool Dim Bulb. This is number 34 in the series.

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Farm Boy in Yellow Hat Yard Art

Yellow Hat Farm Boy No Date Yard Sculpture collection Jim Linderman

Hot Banjo from Michigan! Hootchie Cootchie Banjo PIcker 1936 Collection Jim Linderman

Click to see the Banjo Cutie collection Jim Linderman

A Michigan man plucks his pin up painted banjo in 1936.  Original Snapshot collection Jim Linderman.  See Also OLD TIMEY MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHS the forthcoming book HERE.