MEYER MONTH – Carol Peters Pictorial

One thing I try to collect as a Meyer-related collector are vintage examples of his photography, most of which are stunning. Looking for articles for this years MEYER MONTH I stumbled upon WorthPoint, who had a record of various online auctions of Meyer paraphernalia from past years. Looking through this I discovered a gorgeous pictorial that Russ shot of model and actress Carol Peters. I’ve uploaded the pictures below for record, and also included the pictures of the back of the photographs which include stamps, labels and strikethroughs, which enable me to identify them positively as being taken by Russ. Most will have the models name and a stamp for Globe Photos who Meyer shot for. There are a lot of pictures on the internet that are attributed to Meyer, but unless they have been positively credited and provide visual or written sources I tend to stay away from them as its hard to accurately verify.

Each of the photos below were listed in separate auctions so I have put them all together as they were clearly part of the same shoot. WorthPoint has put that the shoot took place circa 1960 which means Russ was still actively working as a photographer and had only just started to embark on his film career when these were taken. The model Cara Peters was also known as Carol Peters, and was a Los Angeles stripper and model who appeared in a few films and television shows. She appeared in Meyer’s 1963 effort Europe In The Raw! and appeared uncredited in 1967’s Good Morning… And Goodbye!. She started to appear in US men’s magazines around 1962, so I wonder whether this particular shoot took place around then, especially with Europe In The Raw! appearing the following year. Aside from a few pictures I can find nothing else about her on the internet.

UPDATE FROM LYDIA – I recently watched the opening sequence of Good Morning… And Goodbye! to check out Cara, and the location in the film looks a lot like the location in these photographs. Whilst I can’t confirm it, I am pretty sure that these pictures were taken whilst Russ was shooting footage of Cara for the film, however as these photographs are undated and I can’t find any information online about her online or in Meyer’s autobiography A Clean Breast, this is just my own working hypothesis.