(pages flapping)
(gentle music)
(pleasant music)
I started out to go to Cuba
I landed in Miami Beach
It's not so very
far from Cuba
And oh what a
rumba they teach
(upbeat music)
[Larry] My first national
talk show started in Miami.
From the sun and fun
capital of the world,
this is "The Larry King Show."
Miami Beach fermented
everything for me.
Bunny Yeager came on my show a
few times, I interviewed her.
She was special.
(pleasant music)
How many beautiful
girls do you know
who could have been a
major model, movie star?
How many do you know would be
a photographer of pinup girls?
- She didn't really get
the credit she deserved.
- She was so far
ahead of her time.
- The work that she did
paved the way for me
to be able to do what I do now.
- In photographing herself,
she found incredible
empowerment.
- She should be woven into
the narrative of art history
because she deserved to be.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
(pleasant music continues)
(pleasant music continues)
(pleasant music continues)
(bright music)
- [Sarahjane] In the 1940s,
Bunny Yeager starts
out as a model.
- [Dian] She was photographed
by a lot of photographers,
she got into all the magazines.
But then she got an interest
in taking pictures herself.
- [Christie] She thought men
are getting paid for this,
so why shouldn't I?
- [Ed] And for whatever reason,
right from the beginning,
she was sh**ting great work.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music continues)
Bunny used to work every year
with a guy named Roy Penny.
- [Carlos] He was the
one that identified her
as the world's prettiest,
most beautiful photographer.
(upbeat music)
- [Ed] And that storyline
became the cover
of "US Camera" in 1953.
- [Sarahjane] She was
also one of the world's
hardest working photographers,
one of the world's most
successful photographers,
one of the world's most
daring photographers.
And one of the
things that I think
really is classic Bunny
is that she took it,
and she ran with it.
(upbeat music)
- [Dita] I really love the
pictures of Bunny Yeager as a
model when she was
super platinum blonde.
I love those pictures.
I think it's so important
that she was like
a bombshell pinup girl.
It really made
all the difference
in how she photographed
other people.
- [Sarahjane] There's
always been lots of
different ways to
take a photograph.
There's photographs that
are about showing you
on your best day, and
then a tiny bit better.
That's what Bunny's
photographs were.
(pleasant music)
- She could take a relatively
plain looking young woman,
and she'd get the greatest
photo she ever took in her life.
She just would transform them.
- Everything in
Bunny's photographs
was pretty much calculated.
- [Bunny] Her hair and
complexion were so delicate,
it was difficult to control
the lighting ratio in the sun.
- [Carlos] Like she said, there
was a reason to her madness.
- [Bunny] I wanted
to sh**t her this way
because in a natural setting,
she would be far
more outstanding.
- [Carlos] She will take
notes prior to assembling
a story for a photograph.
- She had incredibly
high standards,
and she worked incredibly fast.
- That's one of my favorite
things about working
with former models that
are also photographers.
They know how they
wanna be seen.
They know that they wanna
be shown in their best light
and their most beautiful,
their most sexy.
They want their flaws disguised,
they want their
assets amplified.
(pleasant music)
- [ASL Interpreter] I
remember watching my mom mimic
the face poses that she
wanted the models to have.
It was fascinating.
- If her model could arch
her back in a specific way,
she was gonna arch
her back to 110%.
- What better homework could
there be than Bunny Yeager
being a pinup model herself?
So she could say like,
"Yeah, I know that's k*lling
your back right now, yes,
I know it feels unnatural,
but we are gonna get
a beautiful shot."
That's something that not
just anybody can convey.
- [Ed] She had just
this incredible skill
for finding models,
and convincing them
to work with her.
'Cause that's, you
know, that's the key,
especially when you're
doing nude photography.
(pleasant music)
- If a man or woman walked
around a neighborhood,
knocked on a door today
and said, "Hey, hi,
I'm so and so, I
am a photographer,
would you pose nude?
They'd slam the door
and call the police?
- Look, Terry, let me
talk frankly with you.
You and I could make a
lot of money together.
- You mean by me
posing nude for you?
- What's wrong with that?
You've seen my pictures.
- But Bunny specifically
picks people
because they have a
sparkle in their eyes,
because they have something
in their personality
that she thinks
she can get across.
- Bunny always knew
how to identify
a particular face, a Bunny girl
like Bruce Weber used to say,
"I can spot a Bunny girl
in the supermarket."
- She has that
swagger, you know?
She has that life in
herself, you know?
That kind of fearless,
like, I don't care
what you think of me,
I'm just being myself.
- I won the scholarship
to Cornett Model Agency,
and that's how I
started modeling
for Burdines in the tea room.
I modeled for Emilio Pucci,
who's very famous
now, he's dead, but...
I think we got
something like $25,
or $30 for a fashion show,
and like $12 for the fitting.
You had to go, you know, before
and fit into your clothes.
My first sh**t with Bunny,
I was living on
Rivo Alto Island,
and I think we went
somewhere in my neighborhood.
- [Interviewer] Did you
feel like when you did that,
it was a brave thing to do?
- No, I thought it was
just earning money.
(pleasant music)
- Depending on your looks
for a living is intimidating.
I wouldn't be caught dead
going out to get the
mail without my makeup.
I enjoyed getting the
paycheck every time,
and it was very much needed.
I was supporting my
mother and myself,
and had a household
to take care of.
- I've looked at a lot of
pinup photography in my life,
and the thing that I've
noticed about the photos
Bunny Yeager took of her models
is that you see so much
of their personality.
- There's something
inherently female
about the way that she
looks at her subjects,
and you can feel it
reflected back at you,
because the models, they don't
look as much like objects.
- She's a friend and you
see that in the pictures,
the way that the women
really trusted her,
and were hungry for a
friendship, you know?
(pleasant music)
- A lot of these models
in a million years
wouldn't have worked
with a male photographer.
- People really responded to
her, she had a big personality,
and she made people feel like
they were a part of her world
as soon as they came in.
(upbeat music)
- She knew how to pose,
and she knew just
how you were feeling.
If you felt awkward or
something, she'd say,
"Well, relax just a little
bit and try this or try that."
You just felt like you were
with a girlfriend, actually.
- That was fun,
and I think I looked
like I was having fun.
She was easy to work
for in that way,
talking to you and making you
laugh and putting you at ease.
Bunny was unique in the sense
that she was doing, well,
cheesecake photography.
I mean, a lot of those pictures,
for the 50s, we're
talking risque.
She always seemed to
wanna pull it down
a little bit on the side, or...
Compared to now, they look
like, you know, Mickey Mouse.
(pleasant music)
I don't really remember this
picture at all looking at it.
There was a chalks
on a sea plane,
but I do remember Bunny was
very creative finding locations.
(bright music)
- So the 1950s gives us
both this virginal view
of the woman as
domestic goddess,
but also this kind of
wellspring of teenage rebellion.
For women like Bunny Yeager,
for women like Marilyn Monroe,
you find that they're
really willing
to put themselves out there,
and exploit and explore
that friction, that space.
- My name is Christy Strong,
and I'm the granddaughter
of Maria Stinger, who was one
of Bunny Yeager's best friends
and biggest models
back in the day.
(pleasant music)
Maria was known as
being Miami's Marilyn.
She won Marilyn Monroe
lookalike contests,
she was in calendars, she was
on the cover of magazines.
Bunny was really the
one that blew her up.
And what she loved about Maria
is that Maria had no fear.
(pleasant music)
- [Sarahjane] Maria
Stinger was a handful,
Maria Stinger was
Bunny's best friend.
Maria Stinger had a smile that
could get anyone in trouble.
- One of my favorite set
of photos that bunny took
of my grandmother
was at Africa USA,
which at the time in Miami
was this safari theme park.
(pleasant music)
There's no fear in my
grandmother's eyes.
She looks gorgeous, they're
having a wonderful time.
Those were the first
set of pictures
that Bunny professionally sold.
(pleasant music)
- I did know Maria
Stinger a little bit.
I remember us going over
to their house one time
and me playing
with her daughters.
- [ASL Interpreter]
I do remember meeting
one of the models,
Maria Stinger.
I didn't know who she was at
that time or what her name is,
but she was always
very good to me.
- When I was in my early
teens, I started to ask
more questions about
who my grandmother was.
(upbeat music)
My family was kind
of almost afraid
of what they would find
if they dug too deeply
into my grandmother's
life and work.
My grandmother was
basically an exhibitionist.
Bunny talks about how she didn't
have a lot of women friends
back in the day.
She used to like to tease
my grandmother and say,
"Maria, just, you know,
take off your shirt."
"Come on, you know you want to."
And then inevitably, she'd
always take off her shirt.
Really, it was this like fun,
playful dynamic
they had together.
(upbeat music)
(pleasant music)
I saw the capercaillie
play today
- I think you can see
how daring Bunny Yeager
was as a photographer
from her earliest days
by the locations
she was choosing.
She would photograph
models nude on the beach
early in the morning.
She would get access to
amusement parks, like Playland.
Her first published
photograph was taken
at a wild animal park.
She would ask her friends
for use of their mansions,
and she would even
film people nude
in front of her Christmas tree.
- As soon as Bunny
started taking pictures,
every magazine wanted to
have her stuff in there.
- Bunny gave cache to magazines.
If you published Bunny
Yeager photographs,
not only were you
getting great photos,
you were also getting to say
that you were getting photos
by Bunny Yeager, the world's
prettiest photographer.
- She understood what
the magazines wanted,
and what was commercial.
- [Sarahjane] She was
able to take the fact
that she was working
both in front of and
behind the camera,
and turn that into a brand.
- Not many people are on
both sides of the camera,
and Bunny was on both
sides of the camera.
- Smile, sparkle.
Good.
All right, let's try something
with your arms around your head.
- You're one of the world's
foremost photographers
of women, is this a good job?
I'm not trying to play
income tax man now,
but do you make a
good living out of it?
- Well, I make a nice
living, but the big thing
about it for me is I'm married
and I have two children.
And I can make my own hours,
and still indulge
in having a career.
In my life
I met a beauty
without bounds
- Dad talked about it a
lot, how special she was.
I remember him
always telling me,
"Your mom's not like other
moms, just being a housewife
and sitting around
eating Bonbons."
"She's working, she's
a photographer."
- Bunny was the most famous
female photographer in America.
- Bunny Yeager, is that right?
(audience applauding)
Miss or Mrs Yeager?
- Actually, it's Mrs.
Mrs. Yeager, where are
you from Mrs. Yeager?
- Miami, Florida.
- Miami, Florida. Lucky Florida.
All right, panel,
you all masked up?
Let's have a look at
everybody here and abouts,
except those four
good characters over
there on the panel
know exactly what your line is.
(audience gasping)
(audience applauding)
- One of the factors that
really influenced the shape
of Bunny's career was how
much of an outsider she was.
- John, it's all too obvious.
Mrs. Yeager is from Miami.
She's not sunburned,
she's a beautiful blonde.
She's obviously a typical
American school teacher.
One down and nine to go.
- She was an outsider
because she was a
self-taught photographer,
she was an outsider
because she was a woman.
She was an outsider
because she lived in Miami,
which was not a
center of publishing.
- Mrs. Yeager, do
you deal in services?
- [Bunny] Yes, I do.
- Mrs. Yeager once was on
the other side of the camera,
but for the last four years,
she's been a photographer.
- She was an original,
and she epitomized in a sense
what Miami Beach was
in the '50s and '60s,
booming, loose, devil may care,
let it all happen.
(pleasant music)
I had just started radio and
I was doing a morning show.
And one day the general
manager called me in and said,
"The all night guy,
Al Fox, is sick,
would you sit in overnight?"
- It's "The Witching Hour,"
Miami Beach's Midnight Flyer
program, we're underway.
- He says, "All you do is
just play records and talk."
- Miami Beach Midnight Flyer-
This is not a
Bunny Yeager story.
But I'm alone in the station
and about 3:00 a.m.
the phone rings.
(phone ringing)
And I pick up the phone, "WAHR,"
and this voice, I
can hear it now,
said, "I want you."
(pleasant music)
I'm 22 years old, no
woman has ever said,
"I want you," to me.
I suddenly realized there
were other advantages
to being on the radio.
Really love me
I said, "Well, I
get off at six."
She says, "No, I
go to work at six,
the only time is now."
Did you ever really miss me
So what the audience heard was,
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have
a real treat for you tonight."
You're gonna hear the
entire Harry Belafonte
and Carnegie Hall album,"
which took 23 minutes,
which is all the time I needed.
Down the way where
the nights are g*y
And the sun shines
- I put the record on,
zoomed over to the house.
I open up the door,
there's this lady,
I never saw her clear, white
negligee sitting on the couch,
opens her arms, I
jump into her arms.
My right cheek is
against her right cheek,
Belafonte is on the
radio, and I hear
Down the way
where the knights
Where the knights
The record gets stuck.
I place her back on the
couch, go to my car,
Jewish masochism, I
leave the radio on.
We enter the station,
all the lights are
ringing, the phones.
I'm picking them up, I'm
apologizing to people.
I'm sweating, the
last phone call
was an older Jewish man
and I said, "Hello."
And he said, "Where the
nights, where the nights."
"I'm going crazy with
where the nights."
So I said to him, "Why didn't
you just change the station?"
And he said, "I'm an invalid,
and I'm in bed all night
and a nurse takes care of me."
"And when she leaves,
she sets the radio
on top of the wardrobe
set to your station,
I can't get up and change it."
(pleasant music)
I said, "I deeply apologize.
Can I do anything for you?"
He said, "Yeah,
play Hava Nagila."
(upbeat music)
There was nothing like Miami
Beach, nothing like it.
It was hard in
Miami, Miami Beach,
to take anything
really seriously.
(pleasant jazz music)
People got married, got
divorced, nothing was forever.
(pleasant jazz music)
It was a loose, by a loose town,
I mean it was a very
sexually liberated city.
(pleasant jazz music)
- [Ed] Bunny Met Sammy
Davis Jr. in 1955.
Imagine, this is
segregated Miami.
Sammy couldn't even
stay on Miami Beach
past six o'clock at night.
- Bunny tells this
great story about
how she picked Sammy up
in the car and Sammy said,
"I have to get in
the back seat."
I don't know if Bunny
was naive at the time,
but that was just absurd to her
because Sammy was
such a huge celebrity.
He still wasn't comfortable
riding in the front seat
with a blonde white woman
in Miami at the time.
- He would go off during the day
with Bunny and
photograph models,
both of them taking
a risk at that time.
- They would photograph pictures
of my grandmother,
Maria, together.
- They hit it off and
she gave him lessons
on how to pose models.
- [Carlos] They
photographed together
behind her favorite
photo sh**ting place,
which was the abandoned
mansion of the Firestones,
which is actually where
the Fontainebleau is now.
(pleasant music)
- So there was a night
that Bunny and Bud
and Sammy Davis Jr. came over
to my grandparents' house.
It goes beyond just
a couple of couples
hanging out and having fun.
(pleasant music)
They all felt comfortable
just hanging around,
you know, my grandmother's nude.
It's just like nobody cares.
- Bunny was straight
in that world.
She very much embraced the
notion that being a sexual woman
gave you an entree into this
highly sophisticated society.
(pleasant music)
- Bunny really kind
of skirted two worlds.
In fact, you look at some
of her books from the 50s
and she'll have the
nice girl next door.
And the next page, it'll
be a burlesque performer
that was over at Plus
Pigalle on the beach.
(pleasant music)
- You know, I grew up in a
farming town in Michigan.
I'm a natural dishwater blonde,
not very glamorous, kind
of very ordinary looking,
and I wanted to be the
opposite of what I was.
I wanted to be like a
Hollywood movie star.
18 years old, and went
to a place in Anaheim,
and walked into this little
like blacked out windowed store
and it was a fetish store, and
it was just like filled with,
you know, everything
you could imagine.
And obviously, a completely
different world for me.
(upbeat music)
That's where I saw my first
picture of Bettie Page.
There wasn't really anybody
that was trying to be
the new Bettie Page,
so that was kind of the
thing that sparked my career.
- That never ending
appeal of Bettie Page is,
how can someone be so sexy and
so innocent at the same time?
(pleasant music)
I'm gonna take my time
Bettie Page was a
young woman in the 50s,
who moved to New York
with big aspirations
of maybe being an
actress or a model.
And ended up being
in camera clubs,
which were these sort
of private pervy clubs
where men came to photograph
for their photography classes.
But, you know, it was
women in their underwear
in people's living rooms.
Bettie was an underground hit.
Take my chance to see
you swim and dance
Make a old man blush
- The sorts of magazines
that Bettie Page
became famous with
would be kind of covered
in brown paper wrappers,
sold behind the counter,
and you theoretically had to
be of a certain age to buy.
I think some people are familiar
with Bettie's pinup images,
and then there's
the bondage stuff
from like the Claw Studios.
But if you dig even deeper,
it gets much racier than that.
- It's so funny that
what were considered
some of the raciest
images of the time,
that you had to know
a guy who knew a guy,
and then you had to get in
the mail in a brown envelope,
were made by a group
of people who in no way
was this titillating to them.
They didn't even
really understand
it on any sexuality level.
This was business. There
are guys who will pay money
to get special boots made,
and for women to just do
something really specific,
like dance around
with this little stuffed clown.
(upbeat music)
- [Ed] Bettie came down
in 1954 on a vacation.
There was someone in New York
that Bunny had worked with
who told her about Bettie,
and they connected that way.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
The first sh**t she
did was at a studio
where she just had
a ordinary backdrop.
(pleasant music)
The second sh**t
was at Africa USA.
I declare sure enough
I'm a hot mama
I know about me
- [Bettie] I tried to
tell Bunny, I said,
"Bunny, I've got circles under
my eyes and I feel terrible."
I said, "I don't
feel like posing."
She says, "Bettie, I had to
pay money to Little Africa
to use it this morning," she
said, "We have to do it today."
The most popular
pictures ever taken of me
wearing that leopard outfit,
and you can see circles,
deep circles under my eyes.
Yeah I'm warning
all you chicks
- And those are the images
she sent to Playboy.
Playboy sent back a response
saying, "We love these,
but we only use
indoor photographs
for our centerfolds."
"Can you sh**t her indoors?"
Hot mama
And that's what she did, she
went and she photographed her
with the Christmas tree
and the Christmas hat.
And that became the
January 55 centerfold,
and they both became famous.
- [Bettie] I didn't know that
Bunny Yeager was gonna send
pictures to Mr. Hefner
for "Playboy Magazine."
I look like I've got a saggy,
there's just one breast
showing in the
picture, you know?
That little Santa Claus
hat and I'm winking,
with a little Christmas tree
ball covering you know where.
(gentle music)
- Being in Playboy at that
moment was kind of it,
if you were the kind of model
who took her clothes off.
- Bettie Page would not have
received the kind of accolades
and star quality that
stayed with her forever
without appearing in
the pages of Playboy.
And, of course, Bunny
made her a celebrity.
(pleasant music)
- The collaboration of
Bettie Page and Bunny Yeager
changed both of their lives.
Before working
with Bunny Yeager,
Bettie Page was
considered a fetish model,
it had very little to do
with celebrating Bettie Page.
Bunny Yeager
celebrated Bettie Page.
- My favorite pictures of
Bettie are the ones of her
surrounded by the lush foliage.
It was always sort
of like a playful
sense of herself
in those images.
That's one of the things
I loved about her,
and I think that made
her so memorable.
Not the nudity aspect, but the
fact that everything she did
was sort of in a
light, playful manner,
and she made it all seem fun.
(pleasant music)
- For all of Bunny's photos,
I find that there's a kind
of joyousness to them,
a celebratory quality.
- That attitude in the
1950s was unthinkable,
and approaching it with
that kind of innocence
is one of the common connections
that Marilyn Monroe
shares with Bettie Page.
(pleasant music)
- A flood tide of filth
is engulfing our country
in the form of
newsstand obscenity.
- That is directly responsible
for a substantial amount
of juvenile delinquency
and child crime.
- This continues to
increase for one reason,
it is big business.
(pleasant music)
- You're really looking at a
choice that women were making
to get involved with pinup
photography at the time.
That was a lot more
complicated than just,
I'm willing to
take my clothes off
in front of a camera, yes or no.
(pleasant music)
Playboy was this magazine
that, sure it was about sex,
but it was also about jazz
and it was about fashion,
and it was about
who you should think
the cool new writers are.
- The names of the writers
that came to us as a result
of their wanting to
appear in our pages,
there was no other
magazine at the time
with that kind of a mix.
First issue came out
in December of 1953,
and we sold out.
And then we proceeded
to staff up.
- And then we started
purchasing from independent
photographers before we
began sh**ting our own,
and it was how I became
familiar with Bunny Yeager.
And Bunny Yeager then
became a regular contributor
to Playboy and a good friend.
- Bunny had a style of her
own, and she really captured
that girl next door quality.
And that is one of the things
that Hefner felt
was so valuable.
(upbeat jazz music)
- [Diane] She was a
little adventuresome,
so she was the girl
you could marry
who would do fun
stuff in the bedroom.
It wasn't really an easy
thing to accomplish back then,
because we had strong moral
restrictions in America.
- [Narrator] Love seemed to
be all that really mattered,
but each of them knew deep down
that they wanted their marriage
vows to have real meaning.
- [Diane] It was easy to
get a bunch of strippers,
it was very hard to get
an ordinary secretary.
The idea that a woman would
want to be involved in it,
would wanna produce
material for it was perfect.
It was something
they could advertise,
it was something that
could bring in readers.
- But the suggestion back then,
that sex was simply a natural,
normal part of life,
was very revolutionary.
- [Sarahjane] For however
many faults he might have come
to be associated with, Hugh
Hefner was willing to take
the input of a woman very
seriously from the beginning
in the voice and
look of the magazine.
Not only was she the
first female photographer
to sh**t for Playboy, she was
one of the first photographers
to sh**t for Playboy at all.
- Hefner had a very
special feeling for Bunny
because she delivered and she
delivered time and time again.
The closest relationship he
ever had to a photographer
was with Bunny Yeager.
(upbeat music)
"Dear Bunny, I imagine
you received our check
for slightly over $1,000
for your September
feature, Bunny's Honeys."
- [Sarahjane] Her involvement
with the magazine went deeper
than just the
centerfolds she shot.
She would also bring
models to their attention,
who maybe their centerfolds
would end up being shot
on site and not by her.
She was very involved in
promoting the Playboy Club
when it came down to Miami.
Bunny Yeager really helps
define the look and voice
of Playboy in the early
50s and in the mid 50s.
(upbeat music)
As magazines like Playboy made
it more culturally acceptable
to take off your clothes
in front of the camera,
women started trying to get
that notoriety, you know?
Get that ability to use that
as a career stepping stone.
- Here were people, these
housewives, with no agency,
with no creative expression,
who were not really allowed
to go out and have a career.
People were putting them
in front of the camera
and saying, "You are special."
- It was just something
exciting for them to do,
it was a form of
Hollywood for them.
- I talked to my dad about
that when I was a teenager.
I berated him for
looking at the Playboys,
and I said, why would
you look at Playboys
when you have mom here?
And he says, well,
I read the articles.
And it's like, who
are you kidding?
(pleasant music)
You come home
You come into my home
And there's there's
nothing more child
I can say when you
- When she started
working for Playboy,
she was making
really good money.
I mean, for those years,
really good money.
- What we think we know about
Hugh Hefner is he loved women,
and he wanted to own
and control women.
- But I must tell you,
frankly, that I am being taken
advantage of in
this association.
And that it is becoming more
and more a very one-sided deal,
with Playboy getting the
short end of the stick.
- And what we think we
know about Bunny Yeager
is she wanted more,
and she needed more.
- She told me that when she
really felt that she'd made it
was when she published
her first book,
"How to Photograph
the Female Figure."
That book sold close
to 200,000 copies.
(upbeat music)
- Writing was definitely
one of her passions.
She, I think, published like
20 books in her lifetime.
- [Announcer] From New York,
"The Tonight Show," starring-
- [Sarahjane] She had an
incredible drive to be respected
for how hard she worked
and how good she was.
- A photographer, Bunny Yeager.
- [Anchor] We have
a young lady with us
who's made a reputation
in this country
as one of the fine
photographers of gals.
Would you welcome Miss
Bunny Yeager? Bunny.
(audience applauding)
But now you photograph
yourself also, don't you?
- [Bunny] Oh yes, of
course. Doesn't everyone?
- [Anchor] Not that
I know of, I mean,
how do you know that you have
the expression that you want?
- [Bunny] Sometimes
I use a mirror,
I put a full length mirror
right next to the camera
and then I can see
just what I want.
Now that I'm more experienced,
I don't need a mirror,
I just know what I'm doing.
- [Anchor] You take mostly
glamour photography, don't you?
I mean, would that be
the correct terminology?
- That's right.
Facial expressions for
glamour photography,
amused, laughing,
grinning, giggling,
playful, animated, contented,
tranquil, charming, seductive,
sensual, surprised,
serene, coy, wanting,
interested, calm, provocative
teasing, awe-inspiring,
modest, flirty,
alluring, wistful.
You mean a good
model can do that?
- [Bunny] A good
model has to do that.
Anyone can smile,
but how many people
can do those expressions?
- [Anchor] I really don't know.
(audience laughing)
- Bunny was always
trying to look ahead
and see, you know,
where culture was going.
(upbeat music)
- [Ed] And, of
course, at that time
with the Supreme Court ruling
about nudist films,
everyone decided,
I'm gonna do a nudist film.
You come home
People like Doris Wishman,
she did, of course,
"Nude on the Moon,"
which Bunny helped cast
some of the models for that.
(upbeat music)
She loved being on film sets,
she was an extra in many films
just because she
loved movies so much.
- Will you take
care of Mr. Norman?
- Certainly, come
on, Mr. Norman.
- Oh boy, how are you?
- And why don't you
just call me Bunny?
- Oh, I can.
(upbeat music)
- [Holly] My grandma took all
of the white swimsuit photos
of Ursula Andres on that set.
They were used for
the movie posters.
- Bunny worked on a lot
of movies in Florida.
She helped write
script, she did casting,
she did production,
she did acting.
- Tom was still working
with another model,
and since we had time to
spare, we paused to watch
this willowy blonde in a
series of calendar poses.
(pleasant music)
- Bunny and her husband,
they saw what was happening
in the film business,
that a lot of people
were making money.
So they decided they were
gonna make some films.
They made three films,
"Orgy of Revenge,"
"Sextet," and "Room 11."
These would've been
x-rated films at that time,
by today's standards
probably R-rated films.
Bunny and Bud did very
well on the first movie,
but they had issues
with their distributor,
so they never really
recouped the money
from the second two films.
(upbeat music)
- Well, my parents always
talked about their work,
so I knew from the get go
that they were doing this.
Mom or dad actually
asked me to draw the logo
for one of the films, that was
during my high school years.
Certainly not something I
wanted anybody to know about.
I often wonder what it was
like to be in Bunny's home
in the 50s and 60s.
She both brought her work home,
but also kept her home orbit,
in a lot of ways,
completely isolated.
(upbeat music)
She wanted it all, she wanted
to have this picture perfect
vision of herself as
a wife and mother.
And she also wanted to
have this really daring,
you know, career that nobody
could have plotted for her.
- She was always gonna
be more cool than me.
I remember when I was in seventh
grade, she had this outfit
where she had one of
those little caps,
brimmed caps that were popular
at the time in the late 60s,
a miniskirt, and go-go boots.
Now, you can't
compete with that.
(upbeat music)
- [ASL Interpreter]
Definitely as an adult now,
I can see that my life was very
different than most people.
But you have to remember
that everything I see
is through a deaf lens.
I think it's different
because I was a deaf kid,
not because of who my mom was.
My dad was Arthur Irwin,
he was known as Bud.
He was a police officer, and
eventually became a detective.
He did that for many, many
years before he left the job
to work with my mother.
- I have to say that
my parents didn't have
a lot of personal friends,
I feel like most of
their friends were
business associates.
They were very much
into each other.
They were very close, they
were each other's best friends.
They were a big love story.
(pleasant music)
- [ASL Interpreter]
Him and my mother
always worked together, he
eventually began helping her
to get the equipment ready.
He also served as protection
for some of the models.
- A police detective
cannot support
his family in Miami Shores.
That's not the kind of people
that live in Miami Shores,
so it was mom's photo
money that allowed us
to live in such a
nice neighborhood.
I mean, it took time, she was
always having ideas of things.
She was very
devoted to her work,
and sometimes that left
me feeling kinda left out.
(pleasant music)
- [Sarahjane] As the 60s
go on, and she's working
with models who have
grown up in a culture
that has a little bit
more sexual liberation,
there's a lot more daringness,
a lot more
untidiness, let's say.
Instead of the
Bouffant Beauties,
who she worked with
for a long time,
you get these
long-haired hippies,
these really just
natural beauties.
- Into the late 60s
and the early 70s,
when suddenly they
wanted to see genitals,
it was a huge bar.
Women did not feel
proud of their pussies.
They didn't have
any ego about that.
That was a part they didn't
want people to look at,
and it was a huge barrier.
And it meant a complete
change in the kind of women
who would take
their clothes off.
(upbeat music)
- I think that nudity, it's
really a cyclical phenomenon.
I think it comes, it gets
very liberal and extreme,
and it goes back,
reacts the other way.
And it just seems to be
a cycle in entertainment.
(pleasant music)
- Being a figure
in Miami put Bunny
in a really optimal
position to get involved
in the next wave of
sexual expression.
(upbeat music)
- [Dian] When you
get into the 70s,
suddenly artistry just
wasn't important anymore.
- Nobody cared about
pinup in the 70s,
it was kinda like that
was old fashioned.
- Guccione, with Penthouse,
introduced pubic hair.
Playboy waited about a year,
and then they came
out with pubic hair.
(upbeat music)
Then you got a guy
named Larry Flint.
He came out in
1976 with Hustler.
(upbeat music)
This was another revolution.
- Was a market chef, Larry Flint
and his enterprises
and Penthouse Magazine.
- All that was important
was getting the genitals,
get those genitals in your face.
(upbeat music)
- You know, that's
just hardcore porn.
You don't need a great
photographer like
Bunny to do that.
- Bunny did try somewhat
to adapt to the new market,
but when they wouldn't
accept her work,
she wasn't willing
to compromise.
- She was struggling
to still try to do
the same kind of
milder photography
that had made her
success in the beginning
without a real audience.
- As pinup gets
overshadowed by porn,
Bunny really starts
to pull back.
There was a period where mom
couldn't cross that line,
because the photos
were getting so trashy
in the men's magazines, they
were not at all respectful.
- Then in the late
60s and early 70s,
feminism was kind of born in
that generation's incarnation.
And it was extremely
anti p*rn*graphy and,
by association, anti nudity.
- The marchers' aim was clear,
let's k*ll the $4
billion industry
that exploits females and
female bodies, young and old.
It has nothing to do with sex,
with love, with
erotica, it is violence.
And in most of the cases of
rapists and child abusers
who have been questioned,
they have said very clearly
that they were practicing
what they had seen
demonstrated in p*rn*graphy.
- [Cherilu] As I got older,
I started to be more
embarrassed about it.
I didn't want my friends to
know what mom did for a living.
(gentle music)
- [ASL Interpreter] I
remember the first time
that I ever felt strange
about it was when my sister,
Cherilu, began to feel
embarrassed about it.
She came to me telling me
how she felt it was wrong,
what mom was doing
and that it was dirty,
and I didn't agree with that.
- I feel like that should
be something private,
that kind of exposure, not
just for anybody to see.
(gentle music)
- [Ed] The 70s were
really tough for her.
She had to come up with
some alternative income.
- A police officer approached
her to do a job for him,
and it was of a picture of
a man and woman together.
And that was the kind of picture
that she hadn't done
up to that point.
- In the mid 70s, Bunny Yeager
was charged with obscenity
for sh**ting sexual content.
(pleasant music)
A woman, an outspoken,
pushy, famous woman
is the easiest
target to bring down.
- It was a ridiculous charge.
They believed that it was
retribution for Bud's work
with the police department,
'cause he was in
internal affairs.
- [ASL Interpreter] My
mom said, "If I'm guilty,
I will be going to
jail for 15 years."
- Her lawyer went down
to the courthouse lobby
and picked up a men's magazine
and brought it to the
courtroom and said,
"Look, this is what's for
sale down in your lobby,
and she's being charged with
this same kind of thing."
And so, the case was dismissed.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music continues)
- I don't wanna
speak for her family
to the devastating
consequences that had on them.
- [ASL Interpreter] I had
come home for spring break.
I was so excited to jump in
the swimming pool at home,
I missed it so much.
And as soon as I got in,
I looked and the pool
was untaken care of, the water
was green, it was disgusting.
And I ran back in the house,
like, "What's wrong
with the pool?"
"I was looking so
forward to swimming."
They said, "We
don't have the money
to have the pool cleaned."
(gentle music)
- There was some embarrassment
over that arrest.
My dad was becoming an
alcoholic, he was depressed.
- [Ed] Bud really blamed
himself for Bunny being charged.
- [Cherilu] It just sent
him into some depression.
Dad tried to take his
life, he took pills.
Mom found him and called
for the ambulance.
They pumped his stomach
and he survived.
My husband and I got married,
and two weeks later
I got a telegram.
(gentle music)
He took his life using a g*n.
He was in the front
seat of one of the cars,
and mom and Lisa found
him the next morning.
(gentle music)
- [ASL Interpreter] I
had gotten up very early
in the morning on a Saturday.
And my mom was in
the same clothes
that she was wearing
from the previous day.
And I went over to mom,
I'm like, "What's wrong?"
"What are you doing here?"
She's like, "I'm
just sitting here,
waiting for your
father to come back."
And I told her, "I'm gonna
go ahead and take a shower,
and get ready
before I call 911."
And when I came outta
the shower, my mom said,
"I found your father's
body in his car."
I was dumbfounded.
(gentle music)
- [Cherilu] Well, I mean,
we were all just devastated.
(gentle music)
(gentle music continues)
It was a very tough time,
it really deeply wounded
all of us that were left.
(pleasant music)
When my kids were growing
up, we moved to Ohio.
I was kind of glad
for the separation,
because I didn't want the
kids to love the photos.
- [ASL Interpreter] It
was a really hard time
economically in our household.
- After Bunny pulls back
from pinup photography,
she starts to focus on
other aspects of her work.
She does a lot of
headshot photographing,
she does commercial
photographing.
She teaches classes,
puts herself out there,
taking bit parts in TV shows,
does boudoir photography.
(pleasant music)
- She started performing,
she had a singing act,
a nightclub act.
- [Cherilu] She had
a beautiful voice,
she could have done
that as her profession.
Pack up all my care and whoa
Here I go swinging low
- She has a second act
that's wildly different
than her heyday
as a photographer,
and she scrambles
to make a living.
Bye bye
Blackbird
- I had a hard time
understanding mom,
because she would do things
that she was not qualified to
do, so to speak, officially.
Like, she wrote a diet book.
Well, mom's not a dietician.
Now, she did have a lot of
experience dieting as a model.
(upbeat music)
- [ASL Interpreter] After
my sister's wedding,
mom and I lived alone for
probably about a year,
it was just the two of us.
Unfortunately, me and my mom
began to have a lot of conflict
at that time, because
this is when I had learned
that so much of my life
had been kept from me
because they couldn't sign.
And I was starting to feel
very resentful at this time
in my life, and I had met my
first husband at this time,
and we got married and left.
(pleasant music)
- Think about how hard
it is to have been
somebody who's
considered very elite,
and become somebody
who is really
scrambling for economic crumbs.
(upbeat music)
- [ASL Interpreter] Then
we kinda lost track of her,
she took no pictures
from 80s to 90s.
She was working in newspaper,
graphic print design.
She was selling different
pieces to magazines
for about 10 years, and
then she stopped doing that.
But there was no profit,
the money was terrible.
(gentle music)
The office was
completely closed.
Everything from the office had
been brought into our home,
and our house just held
everything all the time.
- There was a fire, and she
lost a lot of her negatives.
She just felt so deflated.
She didn't have a chance
to get back up in a
sense for herself.
(upbeat music)
- In the early 90s, most
of the people that I knew
that collected pinup art, they
were fans of the Rocketeer.
They knew about the
Bettie Pages, and all
these like obscure
little zines where they
could see pictures of Bettie.
- People rediscovered
Bettie in the 1990s,
Bettie became this icon
of early female sexuality.
(upbeat music)
- [Guinevere] To me, it
was this kind of cipher
where people projected
things onto her,
people thought she was a rebel.
People thought she
was this SM goddess.
A generation of 90s
rockabilly girls
thought she was the style icon.
And the number of
women I saw in the 90s
with Bettie Page bangs, but
like neck tattoos, is a lot.
- I think the young people
are embracing, again,
a kind of a retro cool
from the latter 50s
and the 60s and 70s.
In that context, Bettie
Page is truly iconic.
(upbeat music)
- Bunny really leans into
trying to get involved
in the culture that
surrounds Bettie Page.
- [ASL Interpreter] And
that's when she started trying
to sell some work on eBay,
lithoprints and
that type of stuff.
- People who in the past, if
they had wanted, you know,
a signed lithograph
of Bettie Page,
would've had to write her
with a self-addressed,
stamped envelope, can now
go on eBay and just buy it.
(upbeat music)
- [ASL Interpreter] After
my mom did that work
of Bettie Page, it seemed
like they lost touch
for a very, very long time.
And that was when
mom finally found out
that she had been put into
a psychiatric hospital,
and was unable to be reached.
- [Bunny] Well,
hi there, Bettie.
First, I want to-
- [Bettie] Long time no see.
- [Bunny] When I've been
interviewed, they always ask
who I thought was the best
model I ever worked with,
and I've always had to answer
Bettie Page because, you know,
you had a face that I believe
was perfect in every way.
And your body was the kind
that looked natural
when you were nude,
instead of appearing naked.
I think your biggest
asset was your enthusiasm
and your creative
facial expressions
that made you better
than any other model.
- [Bettie] I think it was also,
and because I liked posing.
I liked the modeling.
I can make in two hours
more than I would make
40 hours a week doing secretary
work eight hours a day.
(upbeat music)
- It's very rare when
you find an artist
and you look at their work,
and it literally defines
an epoch and a time
because they capture the form
and the shape of that moment.
(pleasant music)
- [Larry] She captured the
essence of what the bikini
and the girl go together.
(pleasant music)
- [Sarahjane] It's this
major contribution to style
and popular culture, the bikini,
and nobody knows
that it was Bunny.
- There's a famous photo of
her that we've had in galleries
that is her in a daisy
bikini that she made
by putting daisies
together, fake daisies.
And so she had a
similar swimsuit,
not the iconic one, but
made out of flowers.
And when I was 14, she asked me,
"Well, what do you think,
Holly, would happen
if you put this on?"
And I was horrified, I
looked at her and I said,
"I think my mom would k*ll you,
that's what I think
would happen."
(pleasant music)
(gentle music)
- [Dian] One of the great
things about the passage of time
is that it will take
the veneer of filth
off of nude material
and turn it into art.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
- There were two main
reasons that we decided
to do Bunny Yeager's first
ever institutional show
at the Andy Warhol Museum.
Seeing her work and
thinking, of course,
about Cindy Sherman,
and Yasumasa Morimura,
and many photographers
who do self-portraiture,
utilizing disguise
and masquerade.
I realized that Bunny had
beat them to the punch
by at least 15 years.
I wanted to make sure that not
only did I get to know more
about her work, her motivations,
but how she should be woven
into the narrative of art
history, because I realized
pretty quickly that
she deserved to be.
(gentle music)
Many curators, and those
in the museum profession
would not have viewed pinup
photography as relevant
to the lineage of art
history until quite recently.
Feminism in its first,
second, and third waves
within the academy
allowed that door
to open ever so gradually.
But it took until 2010,
when we did that exhibition,
for it to be fully open.
I'll never forget that one
of the first conversations
we had, I told her,
"We're so thrilled
to be showing your work
at the Warhol Museum."
And she immediately said,
"How much are you going
to sell them for?"
And I said, "Well, Bunny, we're
actually not selling them."
And she said, "Well then
why are we doing this?"
- Well, I often tell the
story about Diane Arbus.
She called Bunny the world's
greatest pinup photographer.
She came to Miami intent on
meeting Bunny and called her,
and Bunny said, "I've
never heard of you,"
and Bunny refused to meet her.
And this was the leading
female photographer
on the New York
scene at the time.
She didn't even
really understand the
significance of that.
- I don't think she really
thought so much about
whether she was
making art or not.
Bunny really did
self-portraits all the time.
She was fearless like that,
it showed her courage.
And it's what first got
me interested, I said,
"Oh, I wanna meet this
lady who's taking pictures
that looks like this."
- She gets a museum exhibition,
she gets picked up
by an art gallery.
People start to look
at her photographs
as part of the story of
photographic history.
- [ASL Interpreter] I
found out that a gallery
was trying to get her to
show some of her work,
and we were just
completely shocked by it.
I mean, not because we
didn't think she deserved it,
she did, she was
an amazing artist.
But they started to show
an extreme interest in her.
And from there, it only spread.
The calls didn't stop
coming from galleries.
(upbeat music)
- [ASL Interpreter] And I
remember going out one day
and there was just, the
place was full of cars
Everybody was outside
drinking and smoking,
it was like a party again.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
- [Carlos] Paz De La Huerta
always wanted to be
photographed by Bunny.
Bunny photographed in
our house, in El Portal,
literally blocks
away from her house.
(pleasant music)
- She was an accomplished
photographer,
she was a successful
photographer, but
she was also a model.
- [Carlos] When I photographed
her in our studio,
Bunny went back to
her modeling years.
There she was, having another
chance at all the things
that she loved, it was like
everything aligned for her.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
- She still used a film
camera till the day she died.
(pleasant music)
- She told me that Hugh
Hefner, he's such a gentleman.
And sure enough, when she
passed away, he was a gentleman,
and he sent 1,000 red
roses to her funeral.
(gentle music)
- [ASL Interpreter]
My mother passed away,
and you can't imagine
the amount of work
that she left behind.
- I was Bunny's manager
and agent for four years,
and she was one of
my best friends.
Lisa would say I was
probably the worst thing
that ever happened to her.
From the day I walked in this
office, she did not like me,
and that never changed,
she was totally consistent.
- [ASL Interpreter]
I felt like Ed
was taking anything he wanted.
He reorganized things in a
way that made no sense to me.
It was all this work me
and my mother had done
organizing these archives.
Five years worth of
work was just destroyed.
The work was being duplicated,
and just put out there
in ways that we had
no control over.
(pleasant music)
- My impression is that Ed
was a very good
salesperson for mom.
I think he was one of the
people that was encouraging her
to get her photos
into the art galleries
and to do art shows.
- Lisa was very, very
protective of her mom,
not only as a daughter,
but business wise.
- [ASL Interpreter] I
was so done with him,
and I decided to hire an
attorney to get rid of him.
- It was personally devastating
for me, but I bounced back,
and at the end of the day, I
think it was all for the best.
- It was extremely overwhelming
to be the only person
responsible for the archives
of my mother's work.
My sister just didn't
care about it like I did.
She was always on the phone,
trying to find someone
to get rid of it.
And I was on the phone,
trying to find someone
to partner with me.
- When I was in college,
I saw "The Godfather,"
and I thought about
Michael Corleone, you know?
How he did not want to be
part of the family business.
He so did not wanna be part
of it, and it drew him in.
I have kind of felt like that.
I wish I could have embraced
what my family was doing,
but I couldn't,
and I still can't.
I don't think that the photos
are respectful to women.
I understand completely what
my mom's feelings are on this,
but I disagree with my mom.
My grandma is someone that I
absolutely adored growing up,
someone who was good to me,
someone who always made sure
that I was taken care of.
(gentle music)
- [Cherilu] My
sister and I decided
it was time for us
to sell everything.
- [ASL Interpreter] It's hard
to say how I feel about it.
My sister was the one
that really pushed me,
she didn't care about my
mother's work the way that I do.
It was just too
painful to go on.
(gentle music)
- Everything was sold to
Daniel and Sarahjane Blum,
and I think that they're
continuing to sell the work.
(gentle music)
- Bunny worked so much that
there is enough material here
that I could try and sell it
myself for three lifetimes,
and still not get anywhere.
More than anything, I'm really
still trying to figure out
the best way to talk about her
and the best way to see her.
(gentle music)
- [Interviewer] What do you
think your mother's legacy is?
(gentle music)
- You know, I wish her
legacy was different.
- She changed how
photos were shot.
She taught people how to
take the first selfies.
I mean, this is
the 21st century,
she was so far
ahead of her time.
- Bunny was really
expert in creating mood
through the use of costume,
wig, makeup to create ambiance.
- That is the
Instagram aesthetic.
(pleasant music)
Bunny promoted the
idea that it's okay
for all of us to
see and be seen.
That it is not just
for the famous people
to be photographed as
glamorous or beautiful or sexy.
- She wasn't about
the performative
sexuality of a body,
she was about the
sexiness of a body.
- What you see today is as women
try to put themselves
forward as sexual beings,
try to share that
with the world,
they need to be their
own Bunny Yeager.
(upbeat music)
- I love this term,
reluctant feminist,
because I kind of felt a little
bit like, who are you to say
what's supposed to make
someone feel powerful,
and what's supposed to
make someone feel degraded?
'Cause it's like, you can
never really agree on that.
- One of the things that
I think is even more taboo
than women's sexualities
and women's bodies,
it's women's ambition.
(pleasant music)
- She managed to take some of
the most iconic photographs
of the time and frustratingly,
most people don't know her name.
- She didn't really get
the credit she deserved.
(pleasant music)
- [Cherilu] I believe
what my mother was doing
was purely a beautiful art form.
It was always a form
of art and beauty.
- Bunny was
unapologetically herself.
She didn't conform
to any cultural ideas
of what a woman, a mother, a
wife, should be at that time.
(upbeat music)
- I want people to know
that it is possible
to be revolutionary
without realizing it.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music continues)
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
(pleasant music continues)
- [Interviewer] When you
look back on these pictures,
how do you feel about it?
Do you feel proud?
- Yes, my grandchildren, I
want them to see and say...
'Cause, I mean, they look at me,
and one looked at my
hands one time and said,
"Oh gran, I don't
wanna get old."
But I wanna show them
pictures and say,
"Hey, gran was hot and
she had a good time."
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
(pleasant music continues)
- [Interviewer] What were
the Miami girls like?
- They weren't bad,
they weren't bad.
(pleasant music)
(pleasant music continues)
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Naked Ambition (2023)
Moderators: Maskath3, sidolanters, GabrielAlejo2341