Identity Check - The Redcap and the Deserter

 

The Redcap and the Deserter is one of those Royale Studio, photo stories that 'got away'. It survives only in a couple of fragments but the presence of Tibor Urgay as the Deserter, taking his clothes off makes you long to see the rest. Tibor is easily identified visually but the man playing the Military Policeman is unknown.

This set belongs to the dark age after the 1960 Royale Catalogue and there is only one documented reference to it, just the title, in a Royale advertisement in 'Man Alive' No 8. This enables us to assign a release date of March 1960.  

As I am preparing articles for this blog I keep a lookout for Royale models who might be one of the un-named cast members of a storyette and I recently stumbled across one who I thought might be Military Cop in this picture. It's Terry Fury. If you look at the pictures in his solo set, you can judge for yourselves. Picture 6 is the only profile shot but that distinctive straight nose and his general demeanour strike me as a very good fit. 

Better still, the publication in the physique press of the earliest three of those solo pictures (which are obviously all from the same shoot), happened in December 1959, Spring of 1960 and April 1960, a close match to the advertisement for the storyette (March 1960). This is a persuasive argument for the shoots being close together. 

  The bizarre misnaming of Terry as 'Harold Masters' in that April image might be significant too, in view of his (presumed) role in 'Redcap and Deserter', but I guess we'll never know.

I have tentatively named Terry Fury as the missing MP until something more definitive turns up. 

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 Click on the 'Model's Names' label below for other Identity Checks

Identifying Royale Studio and Hussar Model's Names

How the lost names of Royale and Hussar models are discovered

Who played the MP in 'Redcap & Deserter?

   One of the main aims of the Royale Open Archive project is to identify by name and recognise the largely unsung heroes who actually posed for the photos that Royale fans love so much. The January 1960, Royale Catalogue is a priceless source of information, it names the stars of many of the early sets - David Reid, Fred Collins and Peter George etc., who often have such distinctive faces that it's easy to spot them in other, undocumented roles. More average mortals tend to be much more difficult.  

  Royale Storyettes and Hussar playlets that were issued after January 1960 are almost completely undocumented. So, for example, it would not be possible to name the seedy barman in Shanghai'ed Sailor (Jack Shrimpton) without the help of a feature that appeared in Man Alive 10. Unfortunately few of the beefcake magazines of the time followed Man Alive's example in publishing storyette photos, so the supporting actors in most later storyettes (and some early ones which had been deleted from the Catalogue by January 1960) are completely unknown.

The only recourse is to try and match storyette faces to those of Royale/Hussar models featured in solo poses in the physique press. That task is not made any easier by the fact that faces change dramatically when they are angled and in the vast majority of solo poses, the model is looking directly at the camera, whereas in storyette roles, they are often seen only in profile and sometimes only from behind or below. Tentative identifications can best be corroborated by matching the dates when storyettes and solo poses were published, since most models only had short careers in the spotlight and in lesser cases probably had effectively only one posing engagement, perhaps spread over more than one day to accommodate separate solo and storyette sessions.

I have succeeded (I believe) in uncovering the identities of some of these mystery men, or at least suggesting possible names for them. These are presently explained in the profile articles of the sets concerned as and when I discover them, but this is often a retrospective change, so I plan to follow up this explanatory article by announcing the 'discoveries' in blog articles here, using the common post label 'Identifying Model's Names'.

The first example will be the name of the model who plays the Military Policeman or 'Redcap' in the Redcap and the Deserter, story number 41, illustrated at the top of this post.

Recent updates at Royale Studio blog

 

 I have now completed the posting of Royale Studio, set 52 The Hold Up at the gallery. There are 10 images in all plus a couple of bonus AI efforts that are quite interesting. Background information about the set and cast can be found at the Profile Page: 52 The Hold-Up (Mar '61) 

There's also an update to set 55 Football Fight

Posting of 'The Hold-Up'

 

 

I have started posting the images of 'The Hold-Up', a Hussar 'playlet' which has striking parallels to 'The Wallet'. It stars a leather-clad Ron Wiltshire, seen above attempting to relieve an American sailor, Norman Simpson, of his wallet. His wicked plan comes spectacularly unstuck when a British sailor, Frank Harrod, intervenes. An early example of the 'special relationship'.

Read about the background of 52 The Hold Up 

Go direct to '52 The Hold Up' photo set