Bruce Bellas

Bruce Bellas is born in Alliance, Nebraska, in 1909. Trained in chemistry, he moves to Los Angeles in the 1940s and begins photographing male bodybuilders, opening his studio in 1948 under the name Bruce of Los Angeles.

He publishes his own magazine, The Male Figure. With postal rules barring frontal male nudes from the mail until 1968, he often travels with trunks of prints to sell to clients in hotel rooms. His pictures carry a distinctly campy, tongue-in-cheek sensibility, and he also makes early 8 mm films.

A collection of his work is held by the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California.