Les Demi-Deux: Danny Fitzgerald, Richard Bennett, and the beauty of the male form

 

Link to the uncensored version

In the days before Stonewall, when gay photography was usually closeted under the guise of fitness magazines, you may have come across Demi-Gods, published by the Demi-Deux studio.  A French import?  Exotic, seductive, and maybe more legal than the American variety.

The Demi-Deux promoted the beauty of the male form itself. You don't have to pretend that you're looking for muscle-building tips.  It's ok to gaze in awe.

You may have been surprised to discover that the Demi-Deux was not a French studio.  It was the work of Danny Fitzgerald, who lived in his parents' house in Carol Gardens, Brooklyn, and his model and collaborator, Richard Bennett.

Born in 1920, Danny Fitzgerald photographed scenes of everyday life during World War II and the 1950s. Some of the subjects had their shirts off, adding masculine beauty to the scene.

 In 1958, Scranton, Pennsylvania native Richard Bennett moved to New York to become an actor/model. He sent his portfolio to Danny Fitzgerald, who invited him to do a photo shoot.  The two became lovers, and stayed together until Danny's death in 2000.

It was a new world.  Allen Ginsberg described gay men in "Howl," 1956.   Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1958, featured a gay teenager. Why not publish photos for an audience of open, out gay men?

Calling their studio Les Demi Deux, they published photos in many of the gay-closeted physique magazines of the era, such as Physique Pictorial, The Young Physique, and Muscles A Go-Go, and, beginning in 1963, their own Demi Gods.

More after the break

They published photos of such recognizeable physique stars as Ed Fury and Jerry Albanese.  Not a lot of Richard Bennett himself, as he moved into production, and sometimes took his place behind the camera.

The Demi-Deux studio folded in 1968, for reasons that are not immediately available in an internet search.  The guys returned to their first love, cityscapes and rural landscapes, with an occasional hot guy.

A retrospective of their work was published in 2013.  Used copies run for $4,000 on Amazon. 

See also:

Joe Canoli's canoli: Physique photos from the groovy 1960s

Julian Lerner: Six pack abs, some other photos, and premiere parties to movies he didn't appear in