Irving Klaw
Encyclopedia
Klaw is best-known for operating a mail-order business selling photographs and film of attractive women (sometimes in bondage
Bondage (BDSM)
Bondage is the use of restraints for the sexual pleasure of the parties involved. It may be used in its own right, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage, or as part of sexual activity or BDSM activity.- Private bondage :...
) from the 1940s to the 1960s. He was one of the first fetish photographers, and one of his models, Bettie Page
Bettie Page
Bettie Mae Page was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She has often been called the "Queen of Pinups"...
, became the first famous bondage model.
Movie Star News
He was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. His family business, which eventually became Movie Star News, began in 1939 when he and his sister Paula opened a struggling used bookstore at 209 East 14th Street in Manhattan.
After he discovered teenagers were frequently tearing out photos from his movie magazines, he started selling movie star stills and lobby photo cards. Customers could order by item number from catalogs of sample photos. These sold so well that he stopped selling books and moved the store from the basement to the street-level storefront and renamed it Irving Klaw Pin Ups.
Business thrived, and the self-named "Pin-Up King" moved to 212 East 14th Street and took on the name Movie Star News. Klaw also had a brisk international mail-order business selling cheesecake photos of movie stars.
Fetish photography
By the late 1940s, he was receiving frequent requests for "Damsel-in-distress" photos of actresses being bound and gagged, spanked, and flogged. Because of the difficulty of finding enough film stills to meet this growing demand, Klaw decided to produce his own photos.He and Paula, who actually posed and took most of the photos, started selling bondage and fetish photos using burlesque
American burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
dancers like Baby Lake, Tempest Storm
Tempest Storm
Tempest Storm is the stage name of an American stripper, burlesque star, and motion picture actress. Along with Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr, she was one of the best known burlesque performers of the 1950s and 1960s. She is regarded as having one of the longest careers as a burlesque performer,...
, and Blaze Starr
Blaze Starr
Blaze Starr is an American former stripper and American burlesque star. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque"...
as models. Klaw always went to great pains to make sure his photographs contained no sex acts or nudity, which would have made the material pornographic and hence illegal to sell via mail.
Through his production company Nutrix Co. (and later also Mutrix Corp), Klaw also published and distributed illustrated adventure/bondage serials by fetish artists Eric Stanton
Eric Stanton
Eric Stanton was an American bondage and fetish illustrator, cartoonist, and comic-book artist.The majority of his work depicted female dominance scenarios.-Early life and career:...
, Gene Bilbrew
Gene Bilbrew
Eugene "Gene" Bilbrew was an American cartoonist and fetish artist. In addition to signing his work with his own name, he drew under a range of pseudonyms, including ENEG , Van Rod, and Bondy....
, Adolfo Ruiz and others.
Burlesque features and bondage film-loops
After the surprise success of the B-movie Strip-O-Rama, a 1953 burlesqueAmerican burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
revue with famous striptease artists and model Bettie Page, Klaw quickly duplicated the formula and directed his own burlesque features. Using a professional camera crew and richly-saturated Eastman color filmstock, Varietease (1954) and Teaserama
Teaserama
-Plot:This is a compilation of several 1950s burlesque acts, so there's no real plot to summarize. There are some strippers, some stand-up comics of the take-my-wife-please variety and cult favorite Bettie Page who introduces the acts and frames the film by strutting her stuff.- Cast :*Bettie Page...
(1955) featured Lili St. Cyr
Lili St. Cyr
Lili St. Cyr , was a prominent American burlesque stripper.- Early years :She was born as Willis Marie Van Schaack in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1918. She had a sister, Rosemary Van Schaack Minsky...
, Tempest Storm, and Bettie Page (and were released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the U.S. in 2000). He produced and directed a third film in 1956, Buxom Beautease, without Page.
Also during this period, Klaw set up weekend home-movie sessions where he produced scores of silent 8mm and 16mm black-and-white film loops. These featured striptease acts and an assortment of fetishistic subjects based on special requests from his clientele. Titles such as Riding the Human Pony Girl, Bondage in Leather Harness, and Booted Amazon Fights Again depicted women in skimpy lingerie and high heels engaging in elaborate bondage, cat-fights, spanking, and slave training.
Nearly all of these featurettes were shot on a single, sparsely decorated set, either in the studio above Movie Star News or at a nearby loft space. At least two films with Bettie Page (Rumble Seat Bondage and Jungle Girl Tied to Trees) were shot outdoors at secluded locations.
Still photos taken during the movie sessions were also sold at the store and in the biannual mail-order catalog Cartoon and Model Parade.
Censorship and early retirement
The KefauverEstes Kefauver
Carey Estes Kefauver July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S...
Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established by the United States Senate in 1953 to investigate the problem of juvenile delinquency.- Background :...
in 1957 marked the beginning of the end of Irving Klaw's mail-order photography business. The investigation tried to link pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
to juvenile delinquency. The McCarthy-style hearings branded Klaw as a degenerate pornographer and ushered in a new wave of media censorship. Bettie Page was also summoned to the hearings but was never called to testify. (Parts of the hearings are recreated in the film The Notorious Bettie Page
The Notorious Bettie Page
The Notorious Bettie Page is a 2005 American biographical film directed by Mary Harron. The screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner focuses on 1950s pinup and bondage model Bettie Page.-Plot:...
.) She retired from modeling soon afterwards.
Because of the political and social pressure he faced, Klaw eventually quit the business, and burned his negatives. It is estimated that more than 80% of the negatives were destroyed. However, his sister Paula secretly kept some of the better images, which can be seen today.
Final years
Klaw briefly returned to filmmaking in 1963, producing two films: Larry Wolk's Intimate Diary of an Artist's Model and Nature's Sweethearts, co-directing the latter. Unlike his previous movies, both pictures were exploitation "nudie cuties" that featured a number of topless women.Under his Mutrix/Nutrix publishing imprint, Klaw also published small illustrated bondage/fetish photo-booklets. Titles such as Girl Psycho Handled with Restraint (1960), which includes old photos of Bettie Page, Girls Punishment at School of Discipline (1962), and Tortured Models in the Wax Exhibit (1962).
Irving Klaw died on September 3, 1966 due to complications from untreated appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
. He was survived by two sons, Arthur and Jeffrey. His nephew Ira Kramer, son of Paula and Jack Kramer, currently runs the family business, Movie Star News, which is now located on 18th Street.
Klaw was portrayed by Chris Bauer
Chris Bauer
Mark Christopher "Chris" Bauer is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Bauer was born in Los Angeles, California and attended high school at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California. He played on Miramonte Championship football team his senior year, 1984...
in the 2005 biographical film The Notorious Bettie Page.
Legacy on film rediscovered
Due to the revival of interest in Bettie Page that began in the 1980s, various compilations of Klaw's films have been released on video and DVD. Background music and narration were added to the silent fetish loops for the two-volume video Irving Klaw Bondage Classics (1984) by London Enterprises.In 2005, Cult Epics released both volumes on one DVD under the title Bettie Page: Bondage Queen. Also in 2005, Cult Epics put out Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen, a DVD compilation of her burlesque performances from Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama, plus six black-and-white film loops of dancing and a cat-fight.
More of Klaw's bondage film reels, including one with Bettie Page, are in DVD format in Bizarro Sex Loops (Volumes 4 and 20). These are compilations of vintage fetish films released by Something Weird Video
Something Weird Video
Something Weird Video is an American publisher of video tapes and DVDs, based in Seattle, Washington. They specialize in exploitation film, particularly the works of Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis. SWV videos are available on demand to Comcast subscribers...
(2008).
Filmography
- StriporamaStriporamaStriporama is a 1953 comedy film directed by Jerald Intrator. The film starred a number of burlesque comedy, dance and striptease acts that were popular during the early 1950s. Today, it is best known as one of the few feature films starring pin-up model Bettie Page.-Plot:A meeting of the “Council...
(1953) - Varietease (1954)
- TeaseramaTeaserama-Plot:This is a compilation of several 1950s burlesque acts, so there's no real plot to summarize. There are some strippers, some stand-up comics of the take-my-wife-please variety and cult favorite Bettie Page who introduces the acts and frames the film by strutting her stuff.- Cast :*Bettie Page...
(1955) - Buxom Beautease (1956)
- Intimate Diary of an Artist's Model (1963) - producer
- Nature's Sweethearts (1963) - producer
- Irving Klaw Bondage Classics, Volume I& II (London Enterprises, 1984)
- Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)
- Bettie Page: Bondage Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)
- Bizarro Sex Loops, Volume 4 (Something Weird Video)
- Bizarro Sex Loops, Volume 20 (Something Weird Video, 2008)