Since moving to Washington, D.C. in the early 70s, I’ve known the fellow who modeled as Drew Burton. Last fall, urged on by many old fans of his, I got him to provide the following info.
Drew–as I’ll continue to call him–is a Philadelphia native, and now a longtime resident of D. C. In 1973, he was visiting a Baltimore friend who had moved out to LA. The friend’s roommate, Paul Strand, already a Bruce model, took Drew around to meet the photographer.
In a few sessions, Bruce made all the photos we know today of Drew solo & in duals with Strand. (Drew remembers that the solo studio work came first; later sessions were around the pool.) To the best of Drew’s memory, most were nude.
He remembers, too, that Bruce was quite pleasant to work with, and while he (like most pros) kept sex out of the work sessions, he made it abundantly clear that if the model was willing, he himself was eagerly so. But nothing came of this; it remained a business agreement about posing. Drew had that brief contact with Bruce & never saw him again. (I believe Bruce died the next year.)
So now we know that the Burton/Strand material released through Kensington Road was in fact the work of Bruce himself sometime during the summer of 1973.
From then until c. 1977, Drew Burton went on to model (wearing a beard most of the time) for a few other photographers. Kent Masters shot a solo video of him which is still around in Bullet Videopak #3. Lou Thomas (of Target Studios) took pix of him in various NYC locales, and used a shot of him wearing the ‘Body by God’ T-shirt Target was selling in ads in the skinbook monthlies of the day.
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