Biographical Sketch of
Alan B. Stone (1928-1992)

Alan B. Stone was born in Montreal in 1928 and grew up in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace area. His career as one of Canada's most important physique photographers began around the time the family travelled to New York City for the 1939 World's Fair. He would return to New York a decade later to study at the School of Modern Photography. After setting up as a commercial photographer, Stone got a contract to take pictures of knots for a Boy Scout manual. Later the organization asked him to do some exercise shots, so he got in touch with Billy Hill, a former Mr. Canada who had a gym in Montreal. When Hill and his assistant wanted some pictures of themselves to sell at body-building competition, Stone's eyes were opened to the lucrative business of physique photography, and Hill became one of his star models. In 1956, he began having his photos published in magazines like Adonis in Britain and Physique Pictorial in the United States. While these publications didn't pay for the shots, they published their photographers' addresses and Stone said, “So then you had a mailing list, which you could milk, and I mean milk. If you ran a pic of Billy Hill and ran an ad for Billy Hill, then Zingo, you'd go down tot he post office and it was jammed.”

In the early 1960s, he got in touch with a New York publisher who was interested in the physique market. Stone undertook to assemble photos, his own and those of other studios in the world-wide network of physique photographers, write the captions (an art for which he had a special talent) and handle the subscriptions. In all he was responsible for four magazines: Ahoy, Crew, Face and Physique, and Physique Illustrated. His fame was such that models sought him out to be photographed. None of them were paid, but, in fact, they paid him for photos which they sold to eager collectors, many of whom were gay men. He took a special interest in some, helping them set up businesses and getting involved with their families. After another Montreal studio was raided for obscene photos, Stone had his negatives seized by the police, but all were returned since, as he said, he very rarely took nude shots. After a few years of lucrative magazine work, Stone branched out into other areas. He developed a camper that fit on the back of a pick-up truck and travelled extensively in Canada and the United States, often accompanied by one of his models, and sold photos and articles to camping and travel magazines. He continued his multi-faceted career right up to his death at 65. One of his last schemes was to set up a Quebec version of the famous Chippendale dancers to tour the regions, and was still taking pictures of prospective members a few weeks before he passed away in December 1992.