Royale's 'Joke' Names

 Confusion about model names abounds in vintage beefcake photos. Models often adopted pseudonyms for publication. Sometimes they used different names for different studios. Royale Studio seems to have had more than it's fair share of confusion.

Tibor Urgay and Brian Lamprill in 'Gym', April 1960

I relate elsewhere at this blog the confusion of Tibor Urgay's identity with the US Model Ray Andersen (see above) because they looked so alike. Brian Lamprill was also inexplicably given the name of another British model, Gerry Haywood (not Gerri!) in this caption. By the way, I love the idea that this image (actually from the Urgay v Lamprill set) was an impromptu session created by models 'waiting assignment'.

Trim 16 March 1960

Communication problems might be the explanation of this earlier mis-naming of Brian Lamprill as Brian Campbell in Trim magazine in  April1960. In the 60's contact between Royale in London and Trim in Washington DC with attendant clock differences was reliant on slow letters and unreliable phone lines. In the index of Trim Studio Quarterly No 26 he's called Brian Lamphill.

Vim Nov 1960

Poor Brian Lamprill was also tagged as Brian Lamphrille in Vim later the same year. This hardly seems like a simple mistake, a typo or misspelling. It's as if some wag deliberately turned the name into a suggestive pun. (Say it out loud if you don't get it!). It probably wasn't Vim's doing, they took themselves very seriously as a body building periodical. In fact, Royale seemed to make a regular practice of giving models 'joke' names.

The Cast of 'Navy Gash'

Lamprill was primarily a 'straight' body builder for Royale and able to use his real name (or at least his competition name) but Royale often using serving members of the armed forces for their racy, uniformed storyettes and they probably adopted false names which were often not particularly subtle. Thus the trio above from 'Navy Gash' were named (L to R) Ned Willy-gan, Percy* and Tom Hard-ing. (To be fair, Tom Harding could be a real name)

*Percy is a common UK euphemism for penis, (as in 'I'm off to point Percy at the porcelain').

I have also related elsewhere at this blog the confusion surrounding the names Ned Willigan and comedian Spike Millican in Navy Romeo Identities which I suspect is another jest by the people at Royale.

Royale seemed to pick a well-known, French surname (top left) at random to identify Yves Grangeat in this feature at Body Beautiful 9. Presumably they couldn't remember or couldn't pronounce his real name in their communications with the magazine. In fact Yves suffered a multitude of misnamings in his short career, see the Yves Grangeat Index Page.

In those days in the UK making fun of foreigner's names was perfectly normal and Tom Manlick's improbable, saucy 'moniker' was possibly derived from an original Central European name.

Peter George as 'Harold Andsbury' in Gym 3, Jun 59

Gym Magazine were complicit in dubbing Peter George as 'Harold Andsbury' in this feature. Abbreviating Harold to 'H' produces the name H.Ands-bury, highly suggestive of FF fetish. Coining sobriquets like this for other people was a popular pastime for certain gay men in those days and some were very good at it. It's more likely a jest about Peter's memorable backside rather than titillating information about his actual sex life. 

Stan Free giving a caning to a youth in' TEDS'

Renaming models was not confined to magazine appearances, Stan Free was called 'Barry Cutts' in the Royale Catalogue listing of 'TEDS' but I've not found that name used anywhere else. I've speculated that this is another joke  in his Solo Sets Post

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More casual mistakes crop up even in Royale's own catalogue - 

David Reid was called David Reed in the blurb for the Bullies storyette.