“Bobby Kendall” is a pseudonym. Born after WWII he was a teenage runaway who fled to New York City and was working in a pavilion at the 1965 New York World’s Fair when he met artist, costume designer, physique photographer (and homosexual) James Bidgood.
Kendall had never considered himself attractive, but Bidgood was transfixed by him and began featuring him in photo spreads for underground physique magazines like Physique Pictorial before casting him as the central character of his groundbreaking movie Pink Narcissus, filmed between 1962/3 (when Bobby was a young teen) and 1970 (when Bobby was in his 20s) and we see Bobby maturing into adulthood during the film’s sequences of explicit and extraordinary eye popping fantasy scenes (all these photos are from this movie)
This was Bidgood’s only film and, likewise, the only acting role of Bobby, who chose never to act, model, or do any public interviews again, preferring to live his life privately in New York City even after the film’s more recent rediscovery and restoration (currently streaming on the UK’s BFI Player)
The living arrangements between Bidgood and Bobby inspired the scriptless premise of Pink Narcissus. After meeting in 1962, Bobby moved into Bidgood’s tiny Manhattan apartment, living as his roommate /companion, lover and primary muse throughout the slow and long drawn out 7 year production. Their actual living conditions, living in a cramped, resource-strapped Midtown apartment formed the basis of the movie’s scenes of lavish, tinsel-draped fantasy sets created by Bidgood using their actual furniture.
Essentially the movie was Life Copying Art: The film’s plot—a handsome young sex worker isolated in a New York apartment, escaping his financial reality by retreating into grand, opulent daydreams—was a heightened, surreal reflection of their actual lives. Bobby was the film’s real-life runaway, navigating the gritty New York underground, and his bedroom literally doubling as the various exotic film sets for his fantasies such as a Roman colosseum or an exotic harem.
It’s great fun to watch, is startlingly graphic, and was (and remains) highly influential in the visual creativity of pop art and pop music.
“Bobby Kendall” is a pseudonym. Born after WWII he was a teenage runaway who fled to New York City and was working in a pavilion at the 1965 New York World’s Fair when he met artist, costume designer, physique photographer (and homosexual) James Bidgood.
Kendall had never considered himself attractive, but Bidgood was transfixed by him and began featuring him in photo spreads for underground physique magazines like Physique Pictorial before casting him as the central character of his groundbreaking movie Pink Narcissus, filmed between 1962/3 (when Bobby was a young teen) and 1970 (when Bobby was in his 20s) and we see Bobby maturing into adulthood during the film’s sequences of explicit and extraordinary eye popping fantasy scenes (all these photos are from this movie)
This was Bidgood’s only film and, likewise, the only acting role of Bobby, who chose never to act, model, or do any public interviews again, preferring to live his life privately in New York City even after the film’s more recent rediscovery and restoration (currently streaming on the UK’s BFI Player)
The living arrangements between Bidgood and Bobby inspired the scriptless premise of Pink Narcissus. After meeting in 1962, Bobby moved into Bidgood’s tiny Manhattan apartment, living as his roommate /companion, lover and primary muse throughout the slow and long drawn out 7 year production. Their actual living conditions, living in a cramped, resource-strapped Midtown apartment formed the basis of the movie’s scenes of lavish, tinsel-draped fantasy sets created by Bidgood using their actual furniture.
Essentially the movie was Life Copying Art: The film’s plot—a handsome young sex worker isolated in a New York apartment, escaping his financial reality by retreating into grand, opulent daydreams—was a heightened, surreal reflection of their actual lives. Bobby was the film’s real-life runaway, navigating the gritty New York underground, and his bedroom literally doubling as the various exotic film sets for his fantasies such as a Roman colosseum or an exotic harem.
It’s great fun to watch, is startlingly graphic, and was (and remains) highly influential in the visual creativity of pop art and pop music.