James Bidgood

Before there was Pierre et Gilles, before there was David LaChapelle, before there was Cindy Sherman, there was James Bidgood with his camera working in a tiny New York apartment.

James Bidgood died January 31 at the age of 88.

James Bidgood's most frequent and famous model Bobby Kendall posed as Pan in a photo from sometime in the 1960s.

James Bidgood made all these staged homoerotic fantasies in his own small 14th Street apartment.  He built all the sets and made most of the clothes himself.  Bidgood originally came from Wisconsin.  He arrived in New York as a young man and performed as a drag act and as a male dancer in the 1950s and 60s in various gay venues.  He worked as a window dresser, costume designer, and free-lance photographer publishing some of his highly fantasized homoerotic photos in "physique" magazines that mostly appealed to gay men.  

Bidgood used a number of models in his photos, and in his film Pink Narcissus that he worked on for seven years.  Some of those models were regulars, but a lot of them were boys from off the streets that his other models would recruit.  According to Bidgood, not all of those boys in his photos were gay, but seemed to be game for anything back in the 1960s and 70s..  Bidgood's most frequent model was Bobby Kendall (an alias).  Bobby Kendall was the star of Pink Narcissus and lived with Bidgood while the film was in production. 

Kendall was a runaway who was surprised by Bidgood's interest in him since he considered himself to be unattractive.  The two men were lovers for a while and remained good friends throughout their lives. 

Bidgood's 1971 movie Pink Narcisssus that took him seven years to make starring Bobby Kendall.  Bidgood built all the sets, made all the costumes, figured out all the lighting and special effects.  He filmed all of it in a tiny 14th Street railroad flat.

YouTube pulled Bidgood's Pink Narcissus for a bunch of reasons including copyright conflicts.
So, here are some stills from the movie.

Bidgood took his name off the movie because he objected to the way it was edited.  Who made Pink Narcissus became an enduring mystery in gay circles with many people guessing who was the author.  Andy Warhol's name came up frequently.  The mystery wasn't solved until the 1990s when Bidgood's photographs finally got some long overdue recognition in exhibitions and books about his work.

UPDATE:

According to the obituary in the NYTimes today (2/4/2022), James Bidgood died of covid.