Glenn Bishop- one of the early Beefcake Models & Vintage Beefcake

I was uncertain if I wanted to speak about Glenn Bishop due to some circumstances, but he was a part of Beefcake history so I will.

Glenn Bishop was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan along the shores of Lake Michigan in the year 1937. He began working out and lifting weights at age 13 and was a star athlete in school.

Bob Mizer started the magazine Physique Pictorial which led a strange Chicago gym owner named Irv Johnson to start a rival physique magazine titled Tomorrow’s Man. Irv Johnson then set out on getting some new beautiful young men for his magazine, and discovered 15 year old Glenn Bishop, and immediately recruited him and offered him $$$ to be a physique model for him. Bishop obliged and would be featured in an early issue of Tomorrow’s Man in a speedo as the table of contents without his name posted. The next issue would add his name along with his photo and he was given a spread where he was nude but letters were carefully placed covering his “private parts”, as well as a photo of him covering himself with a towel etc. Bishop quickly became a favorite amongst gay men and Tomorrows Man took off.

At 16 he would soon have full nude photos taken and a “book” of just him was being sold through mail. The ads were in the physique magazine but you had to order the Glenn nude book specially. Irv Johnson did not try hiding his age, either, even writing about Glenn being 16 and in High School and would keep fans up to date with HS accomplishments Glenn had etc. Glenn in a speedo was the magazines table of contents for a while until June 1953, when at 16 the photo was changed to his naked rear end and Glenn would officially be introduced fully to readers, in an article titled “Want to meet Glenn Bishop?” Bishop would be featured in the magazine in one way or another from 1952 to 1954, mostly for Johnson to sell the nude books he created of Bishop. After 1954 Bishop would start modeling for tons of other physique magazines with every “physique photographer” of the time. Meanwhile, Bishop graduated from HS early (1953) and went to the University of Michigan (where he graduated in 1957). After college he went to chiropractor school, where he would graduate in 1960.

Glenn quickly became the most in demand model in the physique industry, with every photographer who took physique photos wanting to work with him. He became the highest paid physique model of the 1950s. Bishop took tons of photos for these magazines up until 1957. In 1958 Glenn “went solo” and had ads printed in Vim magazine where fans could send payment directly to him to buy his own catalogue, filled with photos of himself. At the same time, the physique magazines were still posting images of him taken as long as 5 years prior. His images were being recycled and reused over and over again in the different Beefcake magazines throughout the late 50s into the late 1960 despite him not having taken a new photo for them since 1957! When he graduated from chiropractor school in 1960 a magazine even published he was now a Doctor along with an old photo of him taken around 1955 (the photo posted below was taken around 1957 but published again in 1962).

Let’s just say he was young and beautiful and 100% exploited, however, he at least banked off of it himself as well and paid his way through college and chiropractor school.

His story is a fascinating one but messed up when you look at it now.