A posive look at the photographic reer of Jim French, the creator and photographer behd Colt Studs. Colt Studs helped fe generatns of gay men on their own personal roads to 'creatg' the men they beme. For s, people who appreciated mascule male bety, turned to Colt. And was Jim French behd all the imag and the 'persona' the pany helped create.
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IN MEMORIAM: GAY PIONEER JIM FRENCH (1932 - 2017)
* jim french gay *
French's fluence on gay male visibily is prable only to Tom of Fland's terms of cultural saturatn. (Google "Colt mol gay" and you get almost 2 ln rults. Many of them had the kd of bodi many gay men only dreamed about.
But Jim French's day, was a ntrary notn to portray gay men as hypetmascule and butch. I don't know why he said , bee he was not gay, and hdsight, 's not a gay statement, if you nsir the time which was said, he said, "Why don't you do drawgs of bodybuilrs and we'll sell the reproductns. He had an office New Jersey and he was publishg some low-gra "gay" publitns like Young Adonis.
I thk most people knew what was, but those days "gay" was not on the radar. I suppose was the goln age of masochists, bee if you wanted to really make your life a livg hell, you uld be obvly gay.
Before he was the unntted master of erotic gay photography, Colt Studs founr Jim French got his foundatn as an advertisg artist the heyday of Madison Avenue. * jim french gay *
We would do ads gay-type magaz, and we did tras for a while: We would get ee ads if we let the magaze have so many pictur for their edn. But then I started feelg uneasy bee I've always felt that bee somethg is gay, didn't have to be sleazy. When I started dog this, the gay rose was jt startg to bud, so I was able to go wh and see beg to flower.
Gog by the name Rip Colt, French revolutnized gay eroti the neteen-seventi wh photographs of hyper-macho men who looked like Tom of Fland drawgs e to life.
A posive look at the photographic reer of Jim French, the creator and photographer behd Colt Studs. Colt Studs helped fe generatns of gay men on their own personal roads to 'creatg' the men they beme. For s, people who appreciated mascule male bety, turned to Colt. And was Jim French behd all the imag and the 'persona' the pany helped create. Screens wh the short film "Into Man's Country." Into Man’s Country lv to the secretive and timate world of the gay bathhoe durg the ‘70s. * jim french gay *
Colt Studs helped fe generatns of gay men on their own personal roads to 'creatg' the men they beme. " Into Man’s Country lv to the secretive and timate world of the gay bathhoe durg the ‘70s. Jerry Douglas's Tubstrip, a risque edy set a gay bathhoe, was a popular sensatn when produced onstage 1973-1974, the era of gay liberatn and the sexual revolutn.
The play, often dismissed by mastream crics but hailed as "funny, sexy, and important" by the gay prs, ran for 140 performanc off-Broadway, then toured to eight ci over ne months, and returned to Broadway starrg the legendary adult film star Casey Donovan the lead role. Dpe s unprecented succs and acclaim, the play was not officially published until wh the but publitn of the script of the play, this edn clus a foreword by Jordan Schildcrout tled "Tubstrip and The Erotic Theatre of Gay Liberatn", which exam the signifince of the play as one of a wave of erotic gay plays (most of them fotten or lost) that emerged between 1969 and 1974. He went on to have a major reer gay male pornography, directg numero award-wng films between 1989 and 2007, such as More of a Man, Flh & Blood, Dream Team, and Schildcrout is Associate Profsor of Theatre & Performance at SUNY Purchase.
Nicknamed “Diamond Calv,” he was the first Black man to w the Mr. Ameri ntt. As a gay man, he said, he also felt bigotry over his sexual orientatn. * jim french gay *
Larry Gilman plays Brian, the gay bathhoe attendant lookg for love the era of sexual liberatn. Lee Barton, reviewg the play for The Advote, lled "funny, sexy, and important, " but wonred whether mastream crics uld "tolerate anythg gay that is so open and healthy.
Some crics regard the tour as "homosexploatn, " but the Philalphia Enquirer lled "somethg of an event the history of gay liberatn... Assertg as do not the sickns but the validy of homosexual affectn and homoerotic appeal. One San Francis review praised Tubstrip as an exemplar of gay liberatn, remarkg, "When is the last time you walked out of a play or film about gays and felt good?
All Imag © Jim French (1932-2017) Courty of ClampArt, New York CyThe name Jim French may not be known to every gay man, but most of them will know (and love? Back 1967 when nudy was still nsired obscene French took on the name Rip Colt and found the legendary COLT Gozzano, COLT Stud’s archivist and art director sce 1997, not, “As opposed to the early male p-ups that were for gay dienc, but still masqueradg as mcle magaz and athletic trag magaz, Jim was more directly tailorg his imag to the taste of gay dienc.