Who would have thought that 2021 would be the year that nude photos of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis would drop… and keep dropping?
Well – I guess the guy who is selling them on eBay knew, but the rest of us continue to be surprised by the release of these playful pics. I first wrote about them here in a post that was picked up by a dozen websites around the world, including the Advocate. Since then, two other pics have surfaced.
This photo, which I added to the previous post, sold on eBay for a whopping $1,600:
The pictures were part of a 2018 Sotheby’s auction of items belonging to Frank Branda, Jerry Lewis’s driver and assistant. The auction description listed “4 candid photographs of Lewis and Martin in a steam room and shower, Lewis posing modestly, Martin less so.”
To recap – three of the four recently sold on eBay:
It wasn’t a complete surprise that the most recent photo popped up for auction, as it was partially visible on the Southeby’s website. Cropped, low-res versions of this shot and a couple of others are also on Pinterest, with captions that they were taken at the Palm Springs El Mirador Hotel in 1952.
While I was able to clean up the sauna and first shower shots by removing the eBay seller’s watermark, which was strategically placed over Dean & Jerry’s nether regions, this time around the cheeky monkey has opted for a post-it note on Dean’s dong.
Damn Post-it Note.
Ah well. Nice pic nonetheless.
UPDATE: This photo sold for nearly $4,000.
This appears to be the end of this lot of photos… but it is possible that there are others out there….
The fabled Ivy League nude posture photos have been written about but seldom seen. Incoming college students were photographed fully nude to gauge posture, detect scoliosis, and address other correctable body issues… all while emotionally scarring the participants. Talk show host Dick Cavett joked about it in his early stand-up routines but had a much darker view of the experience 50 years later in a New York Times Op Ed piece.
In recent years, the Yale photos have garnered the most press, with tongues wagging at the possibilities of seeing our country’s best and brightest in the buff. The photos in question were so rare that most online articles on the subject did not actually feature any of them, opting to show similar medical textbook illustrations or military posture pics such as the WWII-era St. Mary’s College Navy Pre-Flight School photos, which I have written about here and here.
In the past year, choice examples of the photos featuring male freshman Yalies from 1937-1960 have begun to trickle out on eBay. It was only a matter of time before some familiar names began to pop up. Writer Calvin Trillin‘s photo went for a little over $100, while the pic of late actor James Franciscus pulled in a whopping $1,225.
Younger readers might not remember Franciscus – the dashing star of half a dozen television series and over 30 films. There is a fan site that dubs him The Patron Saint Of Cool. He was not afraid to show some skin over the course of his career, particularly in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970).
Prior to Yale, Franciscus attended the prestigious Taft School in Connecticut, graduating in 1953.
In her memoir and in a recent segment on The Tonight Show, Jane Fonda remembers him as her first love…and the best kiss she ever had.
They met while working together in summer stock when she was 18 and he was 20.
“He walked me out to the end of a pier and he kissed me,” she recalled. “The stars began to whirl and the pier began to shake, and my knees gave way and I slid down to a pile at his feet…. I’ve never had a kiss like that ever since.”
As for his Yale photo, which was taken the year before…. unfortunately, we don’t get to see the full Franciscus. The image posted for the public auction has a strip of paper blocking the view.
UPDATE: The photo is now in the collection of photographer Jack Pierson and was part of a 2024 exhibition at Elliot Templeton Fine Arts in New York City.
Photos of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis have recently come to light that are raising some eyebrows. A nude shot of the duo showering together sold on eBay for nearly $4,500 this past week, while a steam room photo sold for a modest $375.
These photos appear to have sold at Sotheby’s in 2018 as part of a collection belonging to Frank Branda, Jerry Lewis’s driver and assistant.
The auction description listed “4 candid photographs (8 x 10 in.) of Lewis and Martin in a steam room and shower, Lewis posing modestly, Martin less so.”
Martin & Lewis have a schvitz and a smoke. And who are their co-horts?
While I originally thought the guy on the right was comedian Morey Amsterdam, a reader wrote:
The guy on the right in the sauna photo is Mack Gray, who was Dean’s assistant, and later in life arguably his closest friend. Dean and Jerry met him when they first came to Hollywood; they attended one of George Raft’s parties, and Jerry referred to Gray as Raft’s ‘Man Friday’. (It’s also worth noting, by the by, that Raft and Gray were in a relationship.)
Dean Martin sharing a meal with songwriter Sammy Cahn as assistant Mack Gray attends. (1958)
Jerry Lewis smooches with Mack Gray.
Cropped versions of a couple of these photos can be found on Pinterest, although in poor quality jpegs, apparently scans of photos that ran in a magazine or newspaper at the time. I wouldn’t exactly call Pinterest a reliable source, but if the captioning is accurate these shots were taken in 1952 at the Palm Springs El Mirador Hotel.
I’m the first to call “fake” on photoshopped images found on the internet, but these new photos are very clear. The only pixel anomalies are the results of my attempt to remove the eBay seller’s name, which was strategically plastered across key nether regions, including Dean Martin’s uncut dong.
UPDATE: Other photos have gone up for auction – see a more recent post about those here.
Although photographer George Platt Lynes passed away of lung cancer at age 48 in 1955, it took another 30 years before the majority of his male nude photographs were celebrated and widely released. Virtually every collection of his work now features photos of a model named Ted Starkowski. His nude images are featured on the covers of several collections of Lynes’ work – in solo shots or posed with Mel Fellini:
So who was Ted Starkowski?
Lynes biographer David Leddick wrote:
Ted Starkowski worked the streets. Hustling by night, he regaled Bernard Perlin and George Platt Lynes with his adventures while he posed for them during the day. They created unique images with his cat-like face and lithe body.
Perlin later recalled; “He looked like an old tomcat – you know, after the battle. But he just loved the way he looked…. he was a star whore, he aimed for people with money and he got it.”
(Above) George Platt Lynes photographed Ted Starkowski flanked by Bernard Perlin’s sketches.
Teodor Francis Starkowski was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 4, 1927- the eighth child of Polish immigrants. When he was 6 years old, Ted was critically injured when he was struck by a car in front of his family’s home. He eventually made a full recovery, but the incident would foreshadow another auto accident forty-four years later.
His Army registration in September of 1945 indicates that he had attended three years of high school and was working at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield.
After his stint in the military he relocated to New York City, where he became a favorite subject for Lynes and his circle of artist friends, including Paul Cadmus and Jared French.
(Above) Six images of Ted Starkowski by Jared French.
Few other photographs by Lynes do as much to cast the model as an actor. In his tight jeans, bulging conspicuously at the crotch, fisherman-rib sweater worn without an undershirt, and workaday watchman’s cap relegated to the status of an ornament, Starkowski looks like a longshoreman snatched from the imagination of Tom of Finland … Lynes’s studio provides only the minimum furniture required to support Starkowski in a posture that manages to be solicitous and pensive at the same time, welcoming an evaluating view despite being absorbed in thought.
This photograph extends rough trade as a portable structure of fantasy that discovers erotic opportunities in ambiguities of dress and pose…. Evidently, Starkowski had a knack for acting like a straight man, or at least like a fantasy version thereof.
Ted Starkowski as drawn by Paul Cadmus (Male Nude, TS5, 1954)
A reader sent a photo of this Paul Cadmus drawing titled “Ted Reading” – posted with permission.
Another model who posed for many of the same artists was fellow ex-military man Chuck Howard, George Platt Lynes’ live-in boyfriend. After their split in January, 1951, Howard and Starkowski became involved in what David Leddick described as “a tempestuous affair.” The couple were photographed together on Fire Island while vacationing with Paul Cadmus, Jared and Margaret French: artists who called their collective photography work PaJaMa, an acronym of the first letters of their first names. See more of their work here.
The year after George Platt Lynes’ death, Starkowski was photographed by Carl Van Vechten. These photos are dated April 3, 1956:
Thanks to a wealthy benefactor, Starkowski traveled extensively in the second half of the 1950’s. Perlin recalled; “There was this old boy who picked him up on 42nd Street. Ted enthralled him – kept him drunk and kept him out of money, with which Ted bought diamonds, which he wore. Both hands glittered with diamonds.”
Leddick relays a story of Starkowski showing off a new diamond ring to artist George Tooker. Asking if he thought it was too big. Tooker replied “Yes, it is too large for a woman to wear.”
The Paul Cadmus drawing on the left shows Starkowski at age 36 in 1963.
And then… the trail goes dark for the next 14 years. If more images or information come to light, I will update this post. What we do know is that on Friday May 13, 1977, Ted Starkowski was leaving a New York City bar when he was struck and killed by a car. He was 50 years old.
An obituary ran in the Hartford Courant the following Tuesday, May 17th. He was buried in Mount Saint Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.
It was a sad end to a man who had inspired many artists.
Bernard Perlin recalled, “Despite his nefariousness, he did good in the art world. My drawings are comparatively negligible, but many of George’s photographs are just absolutely wonderful.”
Cropped, low-res versions of this shot and a couple of others are also on Pinterest, with captions that they were taken at the Palm Springs El Mirador Hotel in 1952.
Few other photographs by Lynes do as much to cast the model as an actor. In his tight jeans, bulging conspicuously at the crotch, fisherman-rib sweater worn without an undershirt, and workaday watchman’s cap relegated to the status of an ornament, Starkowski looks like a longshoreman snatched from the imagination of Tom of Finland … Lynes’s studio provides only the minimum furniture required to support Starkowski in a posture that manages to be solicitous and pensive at the same time, welcoming an evaluating view despite being absorbed in thought.
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