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venerdì 9 settembre 2016

Irving Klaw (New York, 9 novembre 1910 – 3 settembre 1966) photographer and filmmaker.

Irving Klaw

Irving Klaw (New York, 9 novembre 1910 – 3 settembre 1966) è stato un fotografo e regista statunitense, conosciuto soprattutto per essere uno dei primi fotografi a realizzare foto e cataloghi fetish. Una delle sue modelle più famosa fu la pin-up Bettie Page che immortalò per un catalogo di fetish e bondage.
Klaw nacque a Brooklyn, NY. La sua azienda di famiglia, Movie Star News, iniziò come un negozio di riviste. Collaborando con la sorella Paula, che posò e prese parte a diverse foto, iniziò il commercio di immagini bondage e fetish con l'ausilio di ballerine di burlesque come Baby Lake, Tempest Storm e Blaze Starr, utilizzate come modelle.
Klawn pubblicò e distribuì anche le avventure illustrate di artisti come Eric Stanton, Gene Bilbrew, Adolfo Ruiz e altri.
Negli anni cinquanta si dedicò al cinema; due dei suoi film più conosciuti furono dei burlesque, Varietease (1954) e Teaserama (1955), entrambi con Bettie Page, mentre un terzo film del 1956 Buxom Beautease ebbe una diversa protagonista. Nello stesso periodo venne incoronato come "re delle pin-up".
Sempre in questo periodo, a causa della campagna moralista del senatore Estes Kefauver che attaccò i fumetti additandoli come una delle cause della delinquenza minorile, Klawn fu costretto a chiudere l'attività e a bruciare buona parte dei suoi negativi, circa l'80%; fortunatamente la sorella riuscì a salvare i lavori migliori.
I figli Arthur e Jeffrey e suo nipote Ira Kramer attualmente gestiscono la Movie Star News.
Di lui si parla nel film diretto da Mary Harron, La scandalosa vita di Bettie Page, uscito nel 2005. Nel film Klaw è interpretato da Chris Bauer.

 Bettie Page by Irving Klaw

Irving Klaw (November 9, 1910 - September 3, 1966) was an American photographer and filmmaker.
Klaw is best known for operating a mail-order business selling photographs and film of attractive women (sometimes in bondage) from the 1940s to the 1960s. He was one of the first fetish photographers, and one of his models, Bettie Page, became the first famous bondage model.

Movie Star News

Klaw was born Isadore Klaw in Brooklyn, New York. into a Jewish family. His business, which eventually became Movie Star News, began in 1935 when he and his sister Paula opened a struggling used bookstore at 209 E. 14th St. in Manhattan.
After he discovered teenagers were frequently tearing out photos from his movie magazines, around 1939 he started selling movie star stills and lobby photo cards. Customers could order by item number from catalogs of sample photos. These sold so well that he stopped selling books and moved the store from the basement to the street-level storefront and renamed it Irving Klaw Pin Ups.
Business thrived, and the self-named "Pin-Up King" moved to 212 E. 14th St. and took on the name Movie Star News. Klaw also had a brisk international mail-order business selling cheesecake photos of movie stars.

Fetish photography

By the late 1940s he was receiving frequent requests for "damsel-in-distress" photos of actresses being bound and gagged, spanked and flogged. Because of the difficulty of finding enough stills to meet this growing demand, Klaw decided to produce his own photos.
He and Paula, who actually posed and took most of the photos in a studio upstairs above the store, started selling bondage and fetish photos using burlesque dancers like Baby Lake, Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr as models. Klaw always went to great pains to make sure his photographs contained no sex acts or nudity, which would have made the material pornographic and hence illegal to sell via mail.
Through his production company Nutrix Co., Klaw also published and distributed illustrated adventure/bondage serials by fetish artists Eric Stanton, Gene Bilbrew, Adolfo Ruiz and others.

Burlesque features and bondage film-loops

After the surprise success of the B-movie Striporama, a 1953 burlesque revue with famous striptease artists and model Bettie Page, Klaw quickly duplicated the formula and directed his own burlesque features. Using a professional camera crew and richly saturated Eastman color filmstock, Varietease (1954) and Teaserama (1955) featured Lili St. Cyr, Tempest Storm and Bettie Page (and were released on DVD in the U.S. in 2000). He produced and directed a third film in 1956, Buxom Beautease, without Page.
Also during this period Klaw set up weekend home-movie sessions where he produced scores of silent 8mm and 16mm black-and-white film loops. These featured striptease acts and an assortment of fetishistic subjects based on special requests from his clientele. Titles such as Riding the Human Pony Girl, Bondage in Leather Harness, and Booted Amazon Fights Again depicted women in skimpy lingerie and high heels engaging in elaborate bondage, cat-fights, spanking and slave training. Nearly all of these featurettes were shot on a single, sparsely decorated set, either in the studio above Movie Star News or at a nearby loft space. At least two films with Bettie Page (Rumble Seat Bondage and Jungle Girl Tied to Trees) were shot outdoors at secluded locations.
Still photos taken during the sessions were also sold at the store and in the bi-annual mail-order catalog Cartoon and Model Parade.

Censorship and early retirement

The Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1957 marked the beginning of the end of Irving Klaw's mail-order photography business in New York. The investigation tried to link pornography to juvenile delinquency. The McCarthy-style hearings branded Klaw as a degenerate pornographer and ushered in a new wave of media censorship. Bettie Page was also summoned to the hearings but was never called to testify (parts of the hearings are recreated in the film The Notorious Bettie Page). She retired from modeling soon afterwards. Because of the political, social and legal pressures he faced, Klaw closed his storefront business and burned many of his negatives. It is estimated that more than 80% of the negatives were destroyed. However, his sister Paula secretly kept some of the better images, which can be seen today.

Final years

After the Senate hearings and the ensuing legal difficulties with state authorities, Klaw was barred from continuing his business in New York. Shortly thereafter he moved his Nutrix Publishing Company, along with the associated Satellite Publications (Stanley Malkin & Pat Martini), to an office building in Jersey City, NJ. Both companies sold similar fetish-oriented photos and magazines.
To further avoid prosecution, Klaw's Nutrix publishing imprint was restricted to a mail-order-only business. For several years he published a number of small illustrated bondage/fetish photo-booklets. Titles such as Girl Psycho Handled with Restraint (1960), which includes old photos of Bettie Page, Girls Punishment at School of Discipline (1962), Tortured Models in the Wax Exhibit (1962), and Paddled Severely During Sorority Initiation (1963) are typical examples. Eventually he sold this business to Ed Mishkin, who changed the company name from Nutrix to Mutrix, adding the first initial of his last name.
Klaw relocated to Florida where he briefly returned to filmmaking in 1963, producing two films: Larry Wolk's Intimate Diary of an Artist's Model and Nature's Sweethearts, co-directing the latter. Unlike his previous movies, both pictures were exploitation "nudie cuties" that featured a number of topless women.
Irving Klaw died on September 3, 1966, from complications from untreated appendicitis. He was survived by two sons, Arthur and Jeffrey. His nephew Ira Kramer, son of Paula and Jack Kramer, currently runs the family business, Movie Star News, which is now located on 18th Street.
Klaw was portrayed by Dukey Flyswatter in the 2004 biographical film Bettie Page: Dark Angel and by Chris Bauer in the 2005 film The Notorious Bettie Page.

Legacy on film rediscovered

Due to the revival of interest in Bettie Page that began in the 1980s, various compilations of Klaw's films have been released on video and DVD. Background music and narration were added to the silent fetish loops for the two-volume video Irving Klaw Bondage Classics (1984) by London Enterprises.
In 2005, Cult Epics released both volumes on one DVD under the title Bettie Page: Bondage Queen. Also in 2005, Cult Epics put out Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen, a DVD compilation of her burlesque performances from Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama, plus six black-and-white film loops of dancing and a cat-fight.
More of Klaw's bondage film reels, including one with Bettie Page, are in DVD format in Bizarro Sex Loops (Volumes 4 and 20). These are compilations of vintage fetish films released by Something Weird Video (2008).

Filmography

  • Striporama (1953)
  • Varietease (1954)
  • Teaserama (1955)
  • Buxom Beautease (1956)
  • Intimate Diary of an Artist's Model (1963) - producer
  • Nature's Sweethearts (1963) - producer
  • Irving Klaw Bondage Classics, Volume I & II (London Enterprises, 1984)
  • Bettie Page: Bondage Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)
  • Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)
  • Bizarro Sex Loops, Volume 4 (Something Weird Video)
  • Bizarro Sex Loops, Volume 20 (Something Weird Video, 2008)


Irving Klaw Bettie Page

1950's MOVIE STAR NEWS Irving Klaw

 
SIMONE PINUP PHOTO 1950's NEGATIVE IRVING KLAW

BETTY PAGE PIN UP PHOTO FROM ORIGINAL NEGATIVE IRVING KLAW


KYRA PINUP PHOTO FROM ORIGINAL VTG 1950's NEGATIVE IRVING KLAW HIGH HEELS

BETTIE PAGE PIN-UP ORIGINAL PHOTO FROM IRVING KLAW

SALLY LANE FROM ORIGINAL  1950's  IRVING KLAW

LILI ST. CYR PHOTO FROM IRVING KLAW

HURRICANE PHOTO FROM 1950's BY IRVING KLAW

 KAY RONN PHOTO FROM 1950s NEG IRVING KLAW

 
SEXY RISQUE PHOTO FROM  IRVING KLAW



 Irving Klaw A X



Irving Klaw Bettie Page




Pepper Powell Image by Irving Klaw


Irving Klaw, Jackie Miller 

Bettie Page

 
Betty Page photographed by Irving Klaw, 1955.

Irving Klaw 1950s super 8mm fetish

Baby Lake (Burlesque Star) Autographed Photo by Irving Klaw



Irving Klaw poses Bettie Page in one of his lesser known images.  Klaw would fill "special requests" at his studio, and allow the paying customer to watch the photo session take place.  It is estimated after the Senate (and other organizations) stopped his mail-order business, Klaw burned up to 80 percent of the original negatives. 

Irving Klaw Shoot




Irving Klaw Shoot

Dorian Dennis — “Burlesque’s Most Beautiful Girl” — photo by Irving Klaw  






Bettie Page photographed by Irving Klaw c. 1950’s




1940s JEANNE CRAIN Irving Klaw



Tempest Storm Signed Irving Klaw 

Bettie Page fooling around with Irving Klaw

Dorian Dennis - From a larger photo series shot by Irving Klaw.

1955, photography by Irving Klaw. Colorized by John Winner | Bettie Page "Queen of the Pinups"

  





Irving Klaw models 1950's

 Bettie Page 1950s original Irving Klaw portraits ...



1952–57: Irving Klaw





 
Irving Klaw original camera negatives of model Rita Grable



Bettie Page With Irving Klaw



Irving Klaw Movie Star Photos

 

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