Model-turned-photographer Bunny Yeager poses with a tool of her trade. (Photos courtesy of Music Box Films)
By Richard Ades
Lots of women posed for Playboy when it first hit newsstands in the 1950s. Bunny Yeager was attractive enough to be one of them, but she instead opted to make her mark on the other side of the camera lens.
The story of this celebrated cheesecake photographer is told in Naked Ambition, a documentary directed by Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch.
Featuring vintage film footage and interviews with people who knew her, the flick depicts Yeager as someone who played a big role in shaking up America’s puritanical attitudes toward sex and nudity.
Yeager was introduced to the craft of taking naughty pictures by posing for a few herself when she worked as a model beginning in the ’40s. The experience proved to be helpful when she decided to switch roles, the doc tells us, as it allowed her make her own models feel more at ease.
As someone who’d spent time in front of the camera herself, Yeager knew the women were mainly concerned about looking their best. By demonstrating that she understood them and was on their side, she turned each photo session into a collaborative effort.
The result: images that were not only sexy but joyfully so, and which allowed the personality of each individual woman to come through.
Bunny Yeager helped to turn Bettie Page into a popular pinup model.
While helping her subjects achieve centerfold celebrity—and helping Hugh Hefner turn his cheeky magazine into a success—Yeager achieved a fair amount of fame herself. She even made an appearance on the TV game show What’s My Line, where the panelists were unable to guess that her “line” was “cheesecake photographer.”
Among her friends and admirers who appear in the documentary is the late talk show host Larry King, who shares a long anecdote that is amusing but has little to do with Yeager herself. Mostly, though, directors Scholl and Tabsch properly keep the focus on the woman who became known as “the world’s prettiest photographer.”
Sadly, Yeager’s life had its share of challenges and tragedies. Ironically, the doc points out, one of the biggest challenges was brought about by the changing attitudes she helped to foster.
As society became more and more open to sexually oriented images, the images themselves became increasingly hard-core. By the mid-1970s, especially after the launch of Hustler magazine, the emphasis was on (porno-)graphic nudity rather than the kind of subtle artistry that was Yeager’s stock in trade.
Suddenly out of work, the photographer was forced to reinvent herself—which she did, again and again.
Maria Stinger poses with a pair of cheetahs during one of Yeager’s typically elaborate photo shoots.
As a woman who found success in a field dominated by men, Yeager could be seen as a feminist icon. But since she found that success by taking sexy pictures of women for men’s enjoyment, she’s viewed by some feminists with mixed feelings. Indeed, we learn, her own daughters still disagree over the value of her legacy.
One thing that can’t be argued is that Yeager was a pioneer who left her mark on society. Naked Ambition remembers and honors her for that very reason.
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Naked Ambition opens Sept. 12 in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Ottawa, Ontario, with additional openings scheduled in coming weeks. For a full list of engagements, visit musicboxfilms.com/film/naked-ambition/.
Reel Time With Richard Ades 