RICHARD BENNETT 1960s Les Demi Dieux

This is the third in a series of excerpts from the biographical introduction to Brooklyn Boys, the new monograph on Danny Fitzgerald and Les Demi Dieux. With the start of the 1960s, Fitzgerald met Richard Bennett, the man who would become his collaborator and life partner until Fitzgerald’s death in 2000. A chiseled, masculine beauty with the natural ability of a classic artistic poser, Bennett came to New York City from working-class Scranton, Pennsylvania, looking for acting and modeling gigs. He apparently pursued Fitzgerald himself, submitting his resume to Fitzgerald through an enthusiast in the Bronx who was familiar with the photographer’s aesthetic. “Danny was mesmerizing,” Bennett remembers from his first encounters with Fitzgerald. “He could talk about anything—art, literature, opera, film—and people really listened to him.” Fitzgerald’s only notes on Bennett speak of the model’s admiration for the photographer and personal willingness to participate in the photographs themselves. “After pictures (8 rolls),” Fitzgerald notes in his diary, “I slip a ten into Richy’s pocket: he replies faintly ‘that’s not necessary—I enjoy it as much as you.'” As Bennett became Fitzgerald’s primary model, his work changed quickly and dramatically, incorporating the visual drama of modernist photographers and filmmakers, and breaking from the clichés of the “beefcake” photography of the previous decade. The influences of photographers like Alfred Eisenstaedt and filmmakers Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein became more apparent in Fitzgerald’s work. His photographs began to evidence the technical mastery and restrained sensuality of earlier male nude photographer George Platt Lynes, though less theatrical and with greater realism. 2611-3In no time, Bennett moved into Fitzgerald’s home and they began to shoot photographs everywhere together. Over the next few years they would take the camera from the makeshift photography studio on the second floor of their home to New Jersey beaches, to the woods of Western Pennsylvania. Fitzgerald’s photography came into its own with Bennett as his collaborator, and they soon formed a routine that drew in other models as well.

BRIAN DEXTER Cold Studio Group 1970s

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