Athletic Model Guild
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The Athletic Model Guild, or AMG, was founded by gay pornography pioneer 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, with a wink, as “art” photographs. Mizer began his business by taking pictures of men that he knew, both gay and straight. His subjects would often pose for pictures, which, while ostensibly were meant to illustrate fitness tips and the like, were clearly produced and published as homoerotic material.
A majority of the early AMG films and photos were ambiguously sexual in nature. The formula consisted of images (moving and still) of young men doing bodybuilding poses, or perhaps wrestling in pairs. Often the setup or “plot” of these shoots was fairly absurd and just served to provide a rather “thin” legal pretext for the display of the male physique.
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, 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.
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 The Athletic Model Guild might be familiar with. Others included Ed Fury and Glenn Corbett of 77 Sunset Strip. Bodybuilder action movie star, and now 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 of 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 is once again thriving and 2008 will mark its 63rd anniversary. 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 erotic films shot on location in Brazil, that feature the same youthful models and joyful spirit of life that Mizer once loved.
