Badrabbit's Journal

John Willie’s Pat

John Willie | Photography
January 23, 2012

Of all of Willie’s models, the most is known about the woman he called Pat. She appears, with variant spellings of the last name, in a number of men’s magazines and two films.

An article in Glamour Girls (number 10) about Pat Conley gives a few details about her life. She was born in 1937 or 1939 in Oklahoma and settled in LA in the mid-1950s. She appeared in men’s magazines from 1957 to the early 1960s, of which the article provides a partial list and illustrations.

I believe Willie began using Pat in the middle of 1959, first for at set of photos where she and June appeared together and then shortly after for his best story set, The Stolen Date (second version), whose first photo is above. Pat is to the left, holding the phone, and Jill, Doree’s sister, is to the right. Pat appears alone in seven sets of bondage photos shot in 1960. She was also used for a private shoot by Willie (shot at a Beverly Hills mansion’s poolside) and another private shoot by one of Willie’s visiting New York City friends. It’s possible that Willie used Pat for A Lesson in Riding story set shot in 1958, but I don’t have any originals for comparison.

Getty Images online has photographs of her by Michael Ochs.

I have a UPI press photo shot in 1957 (shown above) for a LA School for Strippers story. Pat is the model in the bikini. Here is UPI’s copy attached to the print.

Hollywood’s School for Strippers (10/11/57)

Hollywood, Calif.: An advanced study in the fine arts of the bump, grind and tassel-twirling has been opened here in Hollywood to supply what faculty member Jean Smyle, professionally known as “Venus, the Body,” terms a more refined type of striptease for the country’s burlesque theaters. The school offers a 15-week course for $150 with an enrollment limited to 25 girls. The curriculum includes such subjects as removal of inhibitions, posturing and posing, exotic technique and walking with a wiggle. Jean said that she objects to bumps and grinds, but that most audiences are outraged if they’re not forthcoming.

Daurene Dare illustrates the technique of starting a strip routine by removing a simple non-revealing item such as a glove. The attentive pupil is Pat Conley.

The magazine that Pat appears in earliest, that I have, is Bold, August 1957, where she is on the cover and inside. Bold was a digest sized magazine.

Pat also starred (as Pat Conelle) in the nudist movie The Naked Venus which is available on DVD. The 1958 film was directed by Edgar Ulmer (who made Detour). In the film Pat’s hair is dyed blonde (her natural hair color was dark red).

Guyette’s Corset Photos

Charles Guyette | Photography
January 1, 2012

Charles Guyette’s broad range of photographs included women in corsets. Other fetish elements, such as boots or high heeled shoes, are found in these 1930s (to early 1940s) photos. In spite of the large number of photos produced, originals aren’t easy to come by. These are reprints made by Irving Klaw in the 1950s. Klaw’s reprints have images that are either cropped or reduced — Guyette’s print size was larger than Klaw’s 4×5 inch.

There are 5 Klaw reprints here, two before the cut, three after. Enjoy!

1975

Badrabbit
December 30, 2011

In 1975 Kelsey was divorced, again a single mom. She’d decided she loved me, was about to begin a disastrous relationship with a man who beat and terrorized her. We’d last seen each other in 1971, wouldn’t meet again until 1977.

In 1975 I was living and working in London in a large eighteenth century house on the Thames. The music room had 18 foot ceilings. As one of the job perks I had reader’s tickets for the London School of Economics library and for the main and manuscript reading rooms for the British Library. The latter ticket is the source for this 1976 photo of me.

I was extremely hung over when it was taken. The night before there’d been a party where the English artist, after a year-long residence in Moscow where she got to know members of the underground art community, taught us to drink vodka like a Russian. Poor sad me, I spent part of the evening afterwards wading in the Thames bawling my eyes out.

Kelsey and the Beautiful Woman in appearance very much fit the same type. The difference is that the Beautiful Woman knew she was pretty. Kelsey thinks she’s average looking, maybe rather plain. She’s a chameleon, constantly changing. Not having a fixed sort of prettiness only enhances the fascination.

John Willie’s 1930s Photographs

Irving Klaw | John Willie | Photography
December 4, 2011

In the 1930s John Willie was living in Australia with his second wife, Holly. He began, heavily influenced by the local fetish culture and London Life magazine, to create art and photographs using fetish themes focused around dress (usually, but not always solely high heeled shoes/boots) or bondage.

I have 300+ Willie photos and of those only 5% are these early 1930s images. The ones I have are 1940s/50s reprints by Irving Klaw. Some 1930s photos were used as illustrations in Willie’s Bizarre magazine published in the US after he moved here in 1946.

Here’s a damaged photo of Holly trying out a pair of boots.

Here are three bondage photos. The first two show the highly formal style that is found in his art and photographs created in this period. The third photo shows an early example of the theme of immobility that was so important in his later work. Holly is the dark-haired model in the first two photos.

The Murderess

Badrabbit
October 15, 2011

The ongoing Wall Street protests remind me of her. I first saw her in a van filled with college students and a couple of townies like me headed for a protest in DC. It was 1984.

The way she moved fascinated me. She and her coterie were in a seat in the middle of the van, lying on their backs, wheeling their legs in the air while Ferron’s Shadows on a Dime was playing.

Memory for me consists of motion. I can’t remember a face, though she was pretty, looked just like one of the models in the daughter’s Seventeen magazines, but it was a generic sort of beauty.

We talked briefly in the church in DC where we were washing up before going to the Mall. And again in the midst of the march, her telling me about Jello Biafra running for president. I saw a banner for a group I wanted to walk with and left her.

That evening, back at the van, her foot was bandaged and she was limping. She’d been playing in one of the fountains and cut her foot on a piece of glass.

On the ride home we were in the back, her foot in my lap, her panties twisted around the ankle (a fashion statement I wish more women would adopt).

Kelcey and I had been going through a rough spot. Things were getting better. Maybe one of the things that helped was this bit of human contact; I didn’t feel so isolated.

We ran into each other periodically after that, on campus or in town and I fell utterly in love with her, a huge crush.

About a year later, she’d been away at her co-op job, she was fresh looking and sunburned in the midst of a winter blizzard. We were standing in line in the small grocery story in the center of the village where we lived. She smiled at me and her voice dropped an octave. “I’m so cold and lonely.” The cashier was watching us, like she’d never heard that line said quite that way.

She made her purchase and was waiting outside.

Winter storms energize me. I love to walk in the bitter subzero cold, enjoy the quiet and snowflakes hitting my face. I wasn’t cold and I enjoy being alone.

I knew what I wanted was forever and what she wanted was a partner for the night. I knew she couldn’t come home with me; the daughter who was fifteen would utterly flip out. And I knew what Kelcey offered was what I really wanted and needed. So I walked past.

After that she was distant. Not exactly unfriendly but none of us likes rejection. I still loved her, but no longer woke up with her name on my lips.

A couple of years later there was an article in the newspaper about her killing a man (a boyfriend?) and partially dismembering his body.

Back in ’84 in the van my knife was borrowed by those up front to cut cheese. When it was passed back, she took it and cleaned the blade. “They don’t know how to take care of a good knife,” she said, handing it to me. The knife was a gift from Kelcey.

Kelcey knows if some day the murderess by chance knocks on our door, I can’t turn her away. I won’t say no this time.

And, Ferron is absolutely fantastic live.