STRIPTEASE ARTISTS OF THE 1950S
This is the sixth book Bunny Yeager has had published by Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. Before that, she had over twenty photography books published by other publishers. It is a fact that she is one of the top glamour photographers in the United States.
In the late 1940s while she was successfully working as a professional fash-ion and photographer’s model in Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, she became intrigued with photography and studied darkroom lab techniques by night. By the early 1950s she had found it so interesting that she took a course in professional studio photography. Because she previously had been a model, she decided to specialize in glamour, photographing beautiful girls like herself. She sold her first photo to Eye magazine, which was published on its 1954 cover. It was a color photo of Maria Stinger, who had just won a Marilyn Monroe “look-alike” contest. She wore a bikini suit Bunny had designed and sewed for that special occasion and the cloth was fake leopard fur. Bunny posed Maria between two live cheetahs.
After that Bunny discovered a New York model, Bettie Page, who was va-cationing in Miami. Bunny decided to set up a holiday shot using a red Santa hat she sewed herself and a fake white Christmas tree. She posed Bettie sitting on her knees on a white shag rug, in the nude, holding one decoration in one hand and placing the other on the little tree. Bunny found a new magazine on the newsstands, called “Playboy” around the same time, and sent off several of these poses to them. It was just the right timing. Editor and publisher, Hugh Hefner liked the photos so much that he called Bunny on the phone as soon as he received them, asking her if they could use one in their January 1955 Holiday Issue. It was the first of eight Playboy Playmate centerfolds photographed by Bunny Yeager.
In May, 1955, Playboy did a 7-page pictorial about Bunny called “Double Exposure” because not only did Bunny shoot photos of models, but also of herself, using a mirror and self-timer on her camera. It was a unique idea for those times.
In 1959 she was voted one of the top ten women photographers in the United States in a poll taken among newspaper and magazine editors by the Professional Photographers of America, Inc. Her career has prospered to this day.
