California, the Golden State, is known for its vast expanse and breathtaking beauty Since Lewis and Clark first wrote and spoke of its wonders, California has offered the promise of great potential and unlimited success. People came by the thousands, and despite the crowding cities, pollution, and the volatile earth beneath, they are still coming. Celebrated to mythic proportions in music, literature, and film, the name California’ itself has come to represent plenitude and arguably much of that meaning involves finding success, love, and personal freedom. The culture that has risen from the state has always fueled this fire-from the discovery of gold, to surf culture, to Hollywood, with daydreams of movie stars bronzing under swaying palms or gracefully dipping into the cool azure of swimming pools, unfettered by the rigors of the workday the rest of us face No matter how exaggerated or improbable, the promise of California continues to inspire and draw people from all over the world.

It is easy for us to take for granted many of the freedoms we enjoy today. Our culture has become saturated with images of desire, glamour, and excess. Sexualized images of women and men dominate advertising and art. Before all this, of course, was a great struggle: a time when such images were unthinkable and could easily be the ruin of a career, or even land one in jail In the United States. California led the way in the Sixties, in the struggle for free expression, especially sexual expression

Specifically, on the front of self-expression in the photography of the male form, there have been many crusaders such as Bruce of LA, and Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild. Their idealized and latently sexual physique photos define the genre from the late Forties through the Fifties. By the early Sixties, in California at least, the scene was rapidly changing. Desperate to escape the more conservative parts of the country, many young men and women came to California to live their lives freely, especially young gay men. Mel Roberts and his Rolleiflex were waiting.

Mel Roberts was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1923. He started creating his own imagery as a teenager by shooting 16mm movies of his friends. He was drafted in 1943 and served as a cameraman documenting World War II in the South Pacific. After the war Roberts moved to California. Like many he wanted to work in Hollywood He studied cinema and graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in filmmaking. Talented and handsome, Roberts found work easily. One of his earliest distinctions was working on the blacklisted film “Salt of the Earth”, as music editor He became involved in the newly formed Mattachine Society – one of the earliest political organizations of the gay movement, and lived as an openly gay man. A turning point occurred while Roberts was working for a large aircraft manufacturer in San Diego ‘I was right in the middle of directing a film, I went in to the office and was told to leave the building immediately. I couldn’t figure out why. They never told me. I didn’t pass the security clearance, obviously. I assumed there were two reasons: I had worked on ‘Salt of the Earth” and because I was gay’

Roberts found work as a model for the La Jolla Museum of Art and spent his days surfing and combing the beach. It was the beginning of a new direction in his life. ‘I was part of what you might call the elite gay community of La Jolla All the best looking guys hung together, we went to the bars together. There must have been six or eight of us Good looking Marines, good looking sailors. It was kind of a little clique We always got the best looking tricks. So in addition to laying on the beach and modeling, we also collected bottles and cans. We were all unemployed most of the time. We just survived as best we could, but it was a great year. I’ll tell you that.”

Shortly Roberts returned to Los Angeles and began getting work from a variety of Hollywood studios as a director, cinematographer and film editor, which kept him busy through much of the mid to late Fifties. Roberts bought his first still camera during this time, and began shooting his friends and lovers.

Mel Roberts began photographing models toward the end of the classic physique period in 1959. He felt something was missing in male photography. ‘I always thought that there was one place that the manly figure should be – out in a natural environment, because man is part of nature. I think that’s what got me intrigued and started in this business, because I felt the male model wasn’t being treated properly in the natural environment.*

He encountered many young attractive men being open about themselves and thought that someone should photograph them. Encouraged by several friends, he decided to give it a try “I was staying at my friend Richard Haydn’s [the actor], I was taking care of his mansion. I’d bring all my tricks back there which was very impressive I had picked up this guy at a bar in Santa Monica. Bob Davis. He was a gorgeous surfer and became my first model.”

Roberts photographed his early models in the standard posing straps of the day, or sometimes in a revealing mesh bikini, or torn shorts, but when they were willing he photographed them nude. Before 1967 full frontal male nudes were considered obscene, and therefore subject to seizure while being developed. To avoid restrictions on content Roberts took on the difficult task of processing his own color film. Some of the images in this book are flawed as a result. Some have no surviving originals and were reproduced from his vintage prints. Their imperfections reflect the difficulty artists faced at this time and represent an important detail in the history and evolution of male nude photography

In 1962 he submitted some of his work to “Young Physique’ magazine and the photos were accepted. Soon, requests were coming in from around the world for his photographs. It was at this point that he formally began his professional photography career

Public attitudes were quickly changing and Roberts images reflect the growing visual freedom. “One of the things I noticed about male physique photography at the time was that most of the models were muscular. That was the type that AMG and Bruce of LA concentrated on. I just thought there had to be more to it than that, something more natural, with everyday guys I’ve discovered that once someone reached the age of 24 or 25, they really let themselves go. Going to the gym was still sort of an unusual activity I concentrated most of my efforts on young men from 18 to 24 or 25, and very few people beyond that age”

Roberts was immediately successful and he quickly became one of the most prominent male photographers of the period. His work was published extensively in the United States and throughout Europe during this period.

Interestingly many of his models didn’t define themselves sexually. In the new open spirit of the Sixties people were changing how they perceived themselves and others. “I found that the most open and positive attitudes about sex came during the Sixties. There were love-ins Thousands of people would show up. You can t believe the attitude. Everybody was using drugs. Live bands would perform. People would bring their kids, and they’d run around naked. Even the adults would run around naked Nobody was uptight.”

It was a time of charmed experimental openness and trust. People were becoming increasingly uninhibited. Roberts embraced this attitude and lifestyle. He became friends with many of his models, some even lived in his own home. In all over 51 people lived in his home for two weeks or more over a sixteen year period, a few even stayed for years

Roberts was keenly aware of the styles and trends of the day and made a point of capturing this important aspect in many of his photographs. “I’ve always had mixed feelings about nudes. I think this is why you’ll see so many shots of my models wearing clothes. I’ve always felt that once you reveal complete nudity, all the mystery is gone. But, if there is something left to the imagination, something still concealed or only partially exposed, it is much more exciting. In a way, I was kind of sorry that full frontal nudity was permitted, although not really But it made for creative alternatives. That’s what I tried to do.”

Roberts intended to document the styles of the changing limes. Shot more for himself than his customers, these portraits reveal the unique character of the individuals, the cultural climate and many nuances of the period The clothing and social styles of the Sixties and Seventies have become part of the collective consciousness of America. Specific details, such as a feathered hairstyle, a particular type of sneaker, or pipelined shorts, seen in their original context, take on an even greater resonance now that these styles have disappeared, evolved, or been re-defined in contemporary culture.

Many of these images have never been published. This collection reflects Roberts’ unique vision with images that capture subtle details of life from those times. It is important to note that a significant portion of his work is comprised of erotic nudes, the majority of these were purposefully excluded from this edition and will be showcased in a separate volume

By the end of the Sixties, experimental impulses began to totally reshape American culture, especially regarding attitudes toward sex and sexuality “It’s hard to explain what the Sixties were like.” Roberts reflects, “there’s nothing today to compare. We think. we have a lot of sexual freedom, but there was a different attitude then.”

By the mid Seventies, however, things had changed dramatically. Jay Howard, one of Roberts’ close friends and former models describes his impression of this transition – “I think when Charlie Manson did his trip, around ’69, people started to be scared of each other. Then Jim Morrison died. Janis Joplin died and Jimi Hendrix died. It jolted a lot of people.” Roberts agrees: ‘Everything started to sour. By 1972 and 1973, with the Vietnam War still going on, there was a lot of cynicism.’

These events profoundly shaped the directions and attitudes in people’s lives, and the perception of “California Dream” Roberts continued to photograph models and to sell his photographs to people around the world. The images of hippies in love beads gave way to bell bottom pants and skateboards There is also a significant difference to his images from the Seventies compared to the two previous decades. On a cultural level an innocence was lost. In the Fifties, in an effort to create a sense of cultural security after World War II. a rigid definition of identity, family and standard of living emerged These idealized American values soon became a commercial caricature that was impossible for most people to live up to or sustain By the early Seventies this standard had become a highly divisive issue that fragmented the concept of any singular American ideal. By the m»d-Seventies more diverse sub-cultures had begun to evolve and co-exist. It was also the time when an openly gay culture first began to emerge, including the rise and proliferation of many gay themed books and magazines, which became increasingly explicit. As consumer tastes moved toward more explicit material Roberts felt the pressure to make his images more sexual. And while he did not want to be known as a pornographer he eventually experimented with more sexually explicit erotica to remain commercially viable.

At the same time pressure arose from the authorities. On two occasions, in 1977. and 1979 the Los Angeles Police Department raided Roberts’ home During the 1979 raid the L.A.PD seized all of Roberts’ negatives, prints, cameras-even mailing lists Without any ability to contact his customers or fill orders. Roberts’ business threatened to collapse. The L.A.P.D. refused to release the impounded property for over a year even though the city attorney found nothing actionable and charges were never filed against him By 1981 Roberts decided to end his professional photography career. “I feel like it was destined for me to stop at that moment.” he reflects. His decision coincided with the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the end of the sexual revolution, a time when opinions about sex began to polarize

From bodybuilders in posing straps, to surfers on the beaches of the California coast, to budding hippies in love beads, to skateboarders in short shorts and tube socks. Roberts’ photographs document the transitions of an entire generation. His images capture young men on a journey of self discovery, in a time before people were pressured to define themselves as gay, straight, or otherwise. These portraits are a celebration of self expression, hope and the possibilities that are as big as California itself.

– Mark Harvey.

Los Angeles. July 2000

“This book is dedicated to all the wonderful men who modeled for me, especially to those of them who are no longer with us. So many wonderful guys, many who became friends, even lovers.”

– Mel Roberts, July 2000

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In the 1950s one of San Francisco’s most popular nude beaches was located near Westlake ant Daly City, just south of the city. It was here during the warm months that a slender young man would bring his camera. He would build a makeshift windbreak and then lie back and wait for the good-looking men to saunter past his little haven. When he saw a particularly nice, muscular subject, the photographer would walk out, greet the passerby and invite him back to the windbreak to have some pictures taken. More often than not, the model would agree and he would pose against the rugged cliffs and outcroppings of the California beach. The young man was there every weekend in the summer taking pictures and admiring the view, but no one ever knew his name. Occasionally, he would cell his subjects that he was called “Denny,’ but he refused even to say whether this was his first or his last name. It was all very mysterious and probably a little exciting.

It was not until many years later that the beach photographers name was revealed to a small circle of trusted friends. He was Lloyd Denfield but he had always used the nickname “Denny” in his circle of gay acquaintances. Like many homosexuals at the time, Denny lived a double life; during the work week, he had a good job as an accountant with the US Army at nearby Fort Baker. This was in the repressive era of Nixon and McCarthy when pansies, pinkos, and perverts were ruthlessly persecuted by the government. With this in mind, the photographer well knew that even the slightest hint of scandal would bring a rapid and catastrophic end to his career.

Denny had another reason for his secrecy and reticence. He lived with his mother, and he at tempted to keep from her the details of his other life. He chose to give expression to his feelings only on the weekends. The secret photographs that he took were the only material evidence of his true nature and they became symbolic of his spirit. Like his inner feelings, the pictures were kept carefully hidden and locked away, they were brought out into the light only briefly and then whisked back where few could see them. But then, Denny’s case was hardly unique considering the temper of the times and the intolerance of his city.

San Francisco, the cool, gray city by the Bay, is today a haven for freethinkers and bohemians of al sorts. In its time it has been a successive paradise for beatniks, hippies, and gays — a place where you leave your heart. But in the 1950’s the city was hardly the liberal Utopia that we now consider it — for many it was a place you just wanted to leave. Like most other large cities in North America. San Francisco’s mainstream culture was intolerant, repressive, and corrupt; it was still a place where cops were paid not to raid gay bars and homosexuals had to live the same furtive, alienated lives they had to endure elsewhere. It was in this milieu that Denny lived and functioned as both a government bureaucrat and a gay man.

Denfield loved to look at beautiful nude men. During World War II, he had served in the South Pacific, and there he remembered watching a group of naked Marines as they swam and sported in a tropical stream. This defining moment awakened a desire to record the transient masculine beauty that was represented by the nude young men, and he determined to put his scheme into action when he returned home to San Francisco. In the late 40’s and 1950’s it was very difficult to obtain photos of nude men; the ones that existed were passed clandestinely from one person to the next, but with Denny’s horror of exposure and his reclusive nature, he was hardly in a position to join the magic circle. He therefore did the only thing he could: he began to take his own.

Dean Heinrich was one of Denfield’s former models, and he remembered the experience of being recorded on film. Heinrich was walking along the beach when the photographer approached him and invited him back to a sheltered area a short distance away. Denny looked his model over speculatively, grabbing his arm and roughly whirling him around and then back again, all the time inspecting him carefully. “I felt like a prize ham at the county fair,” Heinrich admitted. “Still, he played on my vanity, and I loved it.” Apparently Heinrich passed muster, and the young man was snapped in a number of nude poses.

At the time of their first meeting, Heinrich recalls that Denny was of medium height, and had a slender rather than a muscular build. He was good looking, although he had angular features and wore glasses when he needed to inspect something carefully. The mysterious photographer then disappeared until the next weekend when he again showed up in this usual spot on the beach, and this time he had some pictures to give to his model. Denny usually took out the best photos for his collection and then gave two or three photos to the model; in the early days, they were always black and white photos.

Denny haunted the nude beaches of Northern California, both enjoying the opportunity to doff his own clothing and also to admire the other men who were there. Denfield loved the outdoors: he loved photographing outdoors; he liked doing lots of things outdoors — especially sex. Being anonymous on the weekends had its advantages, and Denny exploited his mystery, his photography, and his own good looks. He could always retreat back into the gray flannel world of accountancy when he had to. but on summer weekends, he could let his true nature run riot.

At some point in the late 1950s Denfield’s mother died, and he apparently inherited a fair amount of money. This marked a dramatic change in his life on many levels. He sold the house in which he and his mother had lived and bought a spacious home in the hills of Marin County, north of San Francisco. He stopped frequenting nude beaches about this time too. There were rumors that he had gotten into trouble with the authorities — probably nothing very serious — but enough to frighten him away from his former haunts and habits. With his new home, he finally had a place where he could indulge his passion for nude photography and muscular men in a private setting. Thus began what one witness has called “a five-year party in Marin.” There was always a lot of food, drinks, and sex to be had at Denny’s house, and one of the principal consumers of all of these was the genial host himself.

Despite the change in his lifestyle, Denny continued to take pictures. He also began to make contacts with others in the field of physique photography, and through them he started to share some of the models that could be trusted to pose discreetly; he also began to use hustlers to model for his pictures. After one of these male prostitutes robbed him, however, Denny was reluctant to photograph anyone who was unknown to him or to other photographers. For these reasons, fewer amateurs begin to show up in his photographs, but there were other innovations in his work, too. Sharp-eyed viewers can recognize some well known physique models of the time such as Andy Kozak, Gene Meyer, Tom Matthews, and John Winship.

Denny began to take pictures in a wonderful but now neglected medium: stereo views. Kodak came out with the stereo “Realist” camera in the mid-1950s, and Denfield was intrigued by the possibilities of shooting his nudes with the 3-D camera. Throughout his years of photographing men, Denny must have taken many thousands of these stereo views.

Later in his photographic career, Denfield took to whisking his models off to locations all over California. Some of his favorite places were the rocky hills around Chatsworth near Los Angeles, but he was most charmed by the scenery in the desert near Twenty-nine Palms. Many of his best work shows models posing next to the cactus, yuccas, and joshua trees of the desert landscape.

These outdoor photo sessions were often excuses for extended parties. According to one witness, Denny would often take half a dozen six-packs of beer, and he and the model would end up consuming the entire amount before they tumbled back into the car and careened homeward. At one point Denny became so drunk that he couldn’t see to drive home; it was after this experience that the photographer decided to quit drinking so heavily. With the mathematical logic of an accountant, he must have added up the advantages and the risks, and decided that it was simply not worth the danger. As he aged however, Denny made a lot of changes in his life.

Although his passion for photography tended to slow down through the early 1960’s, Denny continued to take both black and white and stereo views of young men who suited his fancy. Ironically, however, Denfield showed his work to very few people. This talented camera artist kept his work to himself, occasionally showing it to a small number of trusted friends, and then only after they had begged and cajoled him. So far as can be determined, only one or two of Denny’s photos were ever published, and these appeared in the bodybuilding magazine Strength and Health. They were conventional bodybuilding shots of a few local athletes such as Malcolm Brenner and Al Monoogan, but they were hardly Denfield’s best work; his finest work remained as hidden and reclusive as the photographer himself.

Denny stopped photographing nude men in the late 1960’s. When in 1967 the US Supreme Court reluctantly legalized the sale of nude photographs through the mails, the floodgates were opened and it became easy to obtain as many pictures of naked men as you wanted. Denfield had long insisted that he only took pictures because they were unobtainable any other way, so when that reason was removed, Denny had no desire to continue his hobby. He simply did not need to take pictures anymore. It was then that he turned from photographer to collector, buying up as many nudes as he could lay his hands on — and that was quite a few. By the time of his death, Denny had amassed a collection of many thousands of original physique and male nude photographs, not counting the thousands that he had taken himself.

Like his own pictures, his collection was stashed away in albums and locked cabinets and very few people had the good fortune to see any of it. It was about this time that the parties at the Marin house ended, and as soon as the free food and drink were taken away, most of the people who had helped themselves left, too. By the mid-1980’s, Denfield was no longer a young man, and only a few friends continued to visit the photographer. Part of the reason for his increasing isolation was that as he grew older, Denny began to get crotchety and difficult to get along with. He quarreled with just about all of his old associates at one time or another, sometimes cutting them off permanently.

Toward the end of his life, Denny became obsessed with acting. Despite his growing corpulence and advancing age, he enjoyed performing in local rest homes and other community venues in Marin County. Denfield had enjoyed a very active life as a gay man, but he was inwardly ashamed of being homosexual, so it is perhaps not surprising that he turned his back on his former life and the friends of his youth. He began to travel in other circles, and his new friends were just as ignorant of his collection, his photography, and his true self as those around him had ever been. To the end of his life, he remained a cipher.

Denny died in 1995 at the age of seventy, and he was given a huge funeral by his grateful friends and associates in Marin County. Unfortunately, only three gay people were in attendance in the otherwise packed church. It is a great stroke of luck, however, that those friends were able to rescue and preserve his wonderful collection, and the work of a hitherto unknown photographic genius is now available for the first time.

David Chapman

Seattle, 2000

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Vol.1 No.1 May-July 1968

A brief look at the Greek lifestyle in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. will give both an artistic and historical perspective on the Greek concept of beauty. From childhood on, every Greek boy was taught athletics in the tradition of his mentors. A finely formed body was of major importance within the Greek scheme of things.

The Greeks so worshipped beauty that, as we can see in their bas-reliefs and sculptures, they made it synonymous with goodness. Plato expressed the Greek way with his classic line, “From the love of the beautiful comes every good thing in heaven and earth. In his Republic, he wrote: “Virtue will be a kind of health and beauty and good habit of the soul, as vice will be a disease and a deformity of the soul.” Pericles — statesman, general and athlete — professed that men striving for the harmonious development of body and mind can win it by working for “the perfect beauty of our bodies and the manly virtues of our soul.” In one of his most memorable quotes, he said in an oration to the Athenians: “We are lovers of beauty without having lost the taste for simplicity, and lovers of wisdom without loss of manly vigor.”

The cultural milieu of ancient Greece was such that no man or boy was ashamed to admit to a consuming interest in beauty, its appreciation and its refinement. Instinctively the Greeks participated in the arts. Hoys painted, carved in stone, learned to play the flute and the lyre, to sing and to dance-Dancing was considered a form of athletics and. as such, was used to strengthen and tone up the body. Thus it is easy to see why many Greek dances were strenuous and often even warlike.

The Greek male exercised nude and wore no clothes in athletic events. It was only manly and straightforward to take pleasure in watching and even admiring the nude physiques of athletes. And a man or boy hadn’t the slightest fear of being called less than just that — a man or a boy it he said something like “Kalos pais — the boy is fair.” in rapt admiration of the miraculous work of art of which Greek athletes of the time were the embodiment.

At the same time, the Greeks considered the Persians and Egyptians among other cultures like them, to be effeminate for all their flowing robes, their mincing steps and constant use of perfumes. This only shows to point up the fact that what you think determines to a large degree what you are, and your concepts of “the beautiful and the good” (a Greek phrase) depend, of course, on your lifestyle the trappings of your culture, your knowledge, and social mores.

What’s m vogue, as it happens, is generally what everyone strives to imitate. The imitation doesn’t h§ve to be detrimental to the integrity of the individual. but it can be. For example, the typical Greek of early times would pity the poor boy brought up among Egyptians. Persians or Scythians. Imbued with the idea that the good life is to be lived by way of exotic clothes and cloying scents, the typical Egyptian boy must have looked on in amazement (if he ever had the opportunity) to see Greek soldiers practicing athletics, their oiled naked bodies glistening in the sun; or dancing, clad only in a bronze shield: or walking arm in arm, hand in hand.

Essentially, then, this is the difference between the two lifestyles, where in the one the naked male form was held to be both the symbol and the reality, the actual embodiment, of strength and virtue, innocence and vigor; and in the other, where the body is basically a hanger for long flowing robes, the symbols of status and refinement. It is precisely be cause of the Greek lifestyle, its adulation of “the good and the beautiful.” that whenever the naked male form is brought up either for discussion or study, for sense of direction the ideal has to be found in ancient Greece. “Nothing in excess” epitomized the concentration on the perfect balance, the proper exercise of mind and body.

Discipline was not easy. When boys became epheboi, teenagers, they were expected to learn the rules of running, jumping, throwing the javelin and the discus, dancing, chariot racing, boxing and wrestling.

Paintings from Greek vases and excerpts from the literature of the time let us know that the boys’ trainers were stern taskmasters. Any youth caught in faulty execution of a sport quickly felt the sting of his trainer’s whipstick.

Practiced daily and with concentration and devotion, the Greek boys’ curriculum soon became as much a part of their lives as eating and sleeping. The rewards of these exercises are obvious to anyone of any age who has ever followed a strict regimen for daily fitness. Along with increased ability to play sports and perform one’s daily routines, come self-confidence. poise and a healthy self-concept that generates from within, a glowing result of discipline and self improvement.

The Olympics were of course the final testing grounds for mental and physical excellence, the highest temporal reward for the attainment of ‘the good and the beautiful.” The Olympics were five days in duration, the first and last days of those five being reserved principally for ceremonies, the last day of course marked by much celebration and festive ceremonies. Held once every four years, the Festivals in the Valley of Olympia ended on the fifth day with a final sacrifice at the altar of Zeus and the awarding of prizes and awestruck admiration of their “beautiful and good” athletes from young and old alike.

Victors of the games were well aware that their honor carried with it weighty responsibility. Youngsters sought their advice on how to come to the same success. Parents and teachers — moral guardians — pointed to athletes as examples to their children and pupils of ‘ supreme beauty of body, mind and soul.”

A passage from Pindar that aptly expresses the essence of Olympic victory reads: “Before the gates of excellence, the high gods have placed sweat. Long is the road thereto and rough and steep. But when the height is achieved then is there duty so hard in keeping.”

Each new generation has always had a special predilection for looking back to “times when” and holding up to itself as a modern ideal whatever shapes and forms of the beautiful it can find in past cultures that exist today only in their lasting impact on the continuing story of man. Coming generations will continue to look back on the past, for in the past are to be found experience, wisdom and often beauty, sometimes a primitive beauty, sometimes a classical beauty, but always a beauty enhanced by the intangible aura of “the good days.” From the beginning of time, one of man’s main preoccupations has been with beauty. The human eye tries to find proportion in nature, handsomeness in design and form and goodness in person-to-person relations. The naked male figure is no more and no less than a part of beauty in existence.

1968

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1939: Shot and directed his first 16mm film, titled “Modern Robinson Crusoes” using his high school and neighborhood friends as actors

1940: Shot and directed 16mm film, titled “Vacation in Dreamland”

1941: Graduated Macomber Vocational High School, Toledo, Ohio
Entered University of Toledo

1943: Inducted into Military service for the US Air Force
Served as Air Force cinematographer in the Pacific Theatre of operations Stationed in Papua New Guinea, The Philippines and Okinawa

1945: Honorably Discharged from the Air Force

1946: Relocated to Santa Fe Springs, California

1947: Attended University of Southern California, Department of Cinema

1950: Graduated and entered Graduate Cinema Program at USC

1952: Music editor for the film “Salt of the Earth”
Moved to La Jolla, California
Hired by Convair Aerospace Corporation as Director of Documentary Film Division then abruptly dismissed by Convair without explanation (possibly due to his involvement on the then blacklisted film “Salt of the Earth”)
Life model for the La Jolla Museum of Modern Art sculpture classes

1953: Returned to Hollywood, worked as freelance cinematographer and film editor for various Hollywood film studios
Purchased his first Rolleiflex Camera, began shooting his friends and lovers.

1954: Purchased his current home in Bel Air, the location of many of the photos herein.

1959: First nude model shoot in Pacific Palisades.

1962: First male nude photographs published by “Young Physique” Magazine.
1963: Began receiving requests for prints from mail-order customers worldwide

1967: Self-published first book, titled “Mel Roberts Boys”

1969: European photo agent distributes his photographs in Germany, France, Belgium, England and Switzerland

1977: First raid on his Bel Air home by the Los Angeles Police Department

1979: Second raid on his home by the L.A.P.D., seizing all existing chromes, negatives, photographic equipment and customer mailing lists.

1980: All photographic materials released, no charges filed.

1981: Ceased professional photography career.

1992: L.A.P.D. raids his home a third time, seizing portions of the same material as before. No charges filed.

1993: Released first of four video collections featuring photographs of his early work.

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