Irving Klaw

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Irving Klaw (born November 9, 1910 in Brooklyn , New York - † September 3, 1966 ) was an American photographer.

Life

From the 1940s to the 1960s, Klaw ran a US mail order company that sold photographs of attractive women in bondage . He was one of the first fetish photographers and his model Bettie Page became the first known bondage model.

His family business, Movie Star News , grew out of a magazine business. Due to increased demand from his customers, he began - together with his sister Paula - to sell bondage and fetish photographs. Very few of the motifs showed actual nudity . Klaw published and distributed illustrated adventure / bondage series by Eric Stanton , Gene Bilbrew , Adolfo Ruiz, and others.

In the 1950s, Irving Klaw was known in the United States as the "King of Pin-Up ". He has made several films, the most famous of which are Varietease (1954) and Teaserama (1955). Bettie Page appeared in both films . They were re-released on DVD in the US in 2000 .

The Kefauver -Anhörungen before the US Senate in " Committee to juvenile offenders" ( Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency ) marked the beginning of the end for Irving Klaws business model of postal mailing of photographs. The investigation massively attacked comics, citing the fact that they were read by many juvenile offenders. The committee also tried to place pornography in a factual context with the development of juvenile offenders. Robert F. Kennedy , the US attorney general at the time , supported these views.

Irving Klaw eventually gave up his business and burned his negatives due to the political and social pressures he was increasingly exposed to. It is estimated that more than 80% of his negatives at the time were destroyed. At that time Paula Klaw secretly kept some of the better negatives in her care, which have been preserved to this day.

Irving Klaw died on September 3, 1966, from complications from untreated appendicitis . He left behind two sons, Arthur and Jeffrey.

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Klaw, Irving
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York
DATE OF DEATH 3rd September 1966