American Adonis : Tony Sansone, The First Male Physique Idol

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful and remarkable book...
Review: John Massey has created a genuine monument, a beautiful and remarkable book about a beautiful and remarkable man. It seems strange to apply "beautiful" to a man, but in the case of Tony Sansone it's the perfect word. The astounding collection of photos included in this sumptuously designed volume reveal all aspects of Sansone's near-perfect anatomy. They are rare nude poses showing not only the well-muscled landscape of Sansone's body, but the details of his classically handsome face and, who could fail to notice, his well-proportioned genitals. Many of the photos, especially those by the famous Edwin Townsend of New York, are true works of art, reproduced with painstaking fidelity in this book. Massey's biographical treatment reflects extensive research and diligent attention to detail. His clear, concise style presents a straightforward and uncomplicated view of Sansone. As the author implies, there was a complicated personality hidden behind the bold nudeness of this American Adonis. I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates the true sculptural beauty of the human body and the story of a pioneer of modern physical culture.

Rating:
Summary: Navigating between the lines with Tony Sansone
Review: John Massey in a herculean work of original research has rescued both a significant figure in the history of the emergence of public gay culture in America in the early 20th century, Tony Sansone, and his photographer, Edwin Townsend, both of whom were on the verge of being completely forgotten. This book is a notable contribution to the history of gay culture and art and deserves to be in any comprehensive collection of such materials. It is beautifully produced by Universal, an affiliate of Rizzoli, and was printed in Italy. The book will be at home on the most sophisticated gay and gay friendly coffee tables, not that the book is overtly gay, even with all the beautiful full frontal nudes of one of the most idolized body builders in the history of the sport.

Tony Sansone is important because he circulated in fascinating intersecting circles which existed in the early 20th century in New York and Hollywood. Born the son of poor Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, by sheer grit Tony rose to become a protege of the powerful publisher Bernarr Macfadden, one of the wealthiest men in America and even once a candidate for president.
Through Macfadden and his famous bodybuilding exhibitions at Madison Square Garden he met Charles Atlas, who became a friend and fan. By his late teens Tony was stepping into the worlds of art, theater, bodybuilding, and moviedom.

None other than Gertrude Whitney facilitated his career and used him as a model as did other lesser scuptors of the period. Sculptures from these associations are still held in the Whitney Museum of American Art's collections. David Belasco, the flamboyant theater producer who was one of the most significant figures in the golden age of Broadway in the 1920s and 1930s, picked up Tony to play the semi-nude role of a demon in an opulent and phantasmogoric production of Mimi, more or less a staging of Dante's Hell as a paradigm for modern industrialization. Edwin Townsend, a fashion photographer who also did portraits of many leading artists of the period, discovered Tony in this production and asked him to model.

A series of booklets of nudes of Tony were published from this association which quickly become collectors items among the underground cognoscenti. Due to the laws of the times, these portraits were meticulously airbrushed. But photographs of Tony in all his glory were also produced and squirreled away unknown and unseen by generations of admirers and collectors of male erotica. It is these photographs which John Massey has uncovered. These works were an artistic collaboration between the photographer and model. Their serious intent still reverberates in the 21st century.

Tony also was picked up for a Hollywood role where he was associated with many stars who are still household names, but the movies were not his thing. He returned to New York, opened as series of gyms, and did his modeling and publishing. He was a lifelong habitue of the famous Washington Baths in Coney Island, New York another of whose other patrons was Paul Cadmus and a circle of New York artists and theater people.

He and his wife Rita, also a child of Italian immigrants and physical fitness aficionado, worked with poor children on physical fitness in their declining years. He died in his 80s shortly after Rita did.

American Adois is a glimpse into a glamorous, erotic, monied, and fascinating world which touched on many facets of culture which only something as sexually charged as bodybuilding can do. That world still exists and in the career of Tony Sansone we see the paradigm worked out. John Massey has done a masterful job of piecing together this complex but highly intriguing story from rare and previously unknown materials. What stories he certainly he must have yet to tell us which he could not include in this book.


Rating:
Summary: Refreshing!
Review: Next to the photographs of Sansone shown here, much of today's male photography seems crude or overly "artful" [that is, with the setting as important as - and sometimes more important than - the figure itself]. Whoever Tony Sansone was when not posing - the total person, I mean, in all his complexity - the images he left us and given us here have, for me, a very moving un-selfconsciousness. There seems to be no effort whatsoever made to be alluring, provocative, "sexy", or particularly erotic. He stands there quite openly, ingenuously, a man gifted with great beauty of face and form and innate grace of movement as well, his sense of line surpassing that of many classically trained dancers. He presents us his beauty and grace as a gift to be enjoyed. It is done with great simplicity and - I have to say, at least for me - with what seems to be genuine innocence. And it is this sense of innocence that I find so very moving - even as much as his beauty is moving. There are many books full of images of beautiful men. I have found none that have Sansone's touching simplicity and, I am tempted to say, purity. This is indeed a rare book - in this or in any genre!