Jerry Feniello and Don McLeod

Millard, Gillespie, McLeod, Feniello, Cuilla, and Noto

More first impressions

Howard Olsen

AMG album/catalogue E introduced a fair number of models who became studio perennials — no fewer than nine men who would recur, two of whom would appear in albums of their own.

Louis Paul 

and Joe Bloomberg 

Angelo Noto and Joe Cuilla

Don McLeod

Frank Mead

John Balen

Ken Rashoff

Jerry Feniello

More early AMG duals

Forrester Millard and Harold Gillespie

Bob Mizer’s Athletic Model Guild publishing program was initially premised on a curated “album” of twelve images supplemented by a “catalogue” of extras. So far as I know, only Albums M and O are complete as albums — that is, with no extras gathered into a catalogue.

Album M is a variety album with some of the same models found in Albums E and G. Like the G album, these images record outdoor sessions: Forrester Millard and Harold Gillespie in the shallows, Don McLeod and Jerry Feniello grappling in the grass, Angelo Noto and Joe Cuilla in an acrobatic pose and at rest. A final evocative image shows the pair clasping hands across railroad tracks.

Don McLeod and Jerry Feniello

Joe Cuilla and Angelo Noto 

More early AMG duals

Bob Mizer’s AMG album/catalogue G marks the studio’s first full venture outdoors. (John Miller’s D catalogue and Gene Eberle’s album/catalogue F are the earliest tentative steps out of the photographer’s studio.) 

Harold Gillespie appears for the first time in G, but the models are otherwise familiar: Angelo Noto and Joe Cuilla (seen here), Howard Olsen, Bob Yerkes, Gene Eberle, Don McLeod, Jerry Feniello, John Miller, and Forrester Millard had already appeared in earlier albums and catalogues.

Some of the compositions in this al fresco outing indicate that Mizer was just as confident outside as indoors.

John Miller

and Forrester Millard

Jerry Feniello and Don McLeod

Harold Gillespie and Forrester Millard 

Shirts Optional 5

Fife vs. Feniello

Not the prettiest scans, but here is an example of an inadvertent switch in the AMG Thousand Model Directory that has led collectors astray. No doubt as part of the layout phase, when strips of type were laid down to identify the images, the left and right photos were swapped: Walt Fife is on the top left, Jerry Feniello on the top right; Dick Findley is on the bottom left, and Glenn Forde on the bottom right. 

As usual, the references to pages in the catalogues themselves will sort it out, but the Directory is so helpful, and so readily available, that it is often the default resource when seeking to identify models. Still, Bob Mizer was winging it a lot of the time, and he often renames models — though not, as here, a complete change of identity.