page_title: Robert Harrison (publisher)
section_title: Cheesecake
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Harrison (publisher) / Publisher / Cheesecake
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of Whisper magazine, May 1950
context_page_description: Robert Harrison was an American journalist and publisher, known internationally for sensational news stories. He worked for the New York Evening Graphic, the Motion Picture Herald and was publisher of Confidential magazine.
context_section_description: Harrison returned to New York City. Having learned from Quigley what he could get away with legally, Harrison struck out on his own with a series of non-pornographic "cheesecake" magazines. His first was Beauty Parade (1941–1956), started in October 1941. It contained, as its subtitle suggests ("The World's Loveliest Girls"), pictures of attractive models who had the "girl-next-door" look. Beauty Parade also began the photo-story format that would be repeated by other Harrison publications. Using the facilities of Quigley Publishing surreptitiously at night, Harrison used the photos from his Hollywood visit to paste together his galleries. When he was caught and fired on Christmas Eve, 1941, his sisters Edith and Helen rallied around him and raised several thousand dollars in capital, $400 of it from his favorite niece, Marjorie, who would later become a central figure in his most famous enterprise.
  Harrison's next magazine, Eyeful (1942–1955), was similar to Beauty Parade. The depicted women were still fully, or partially, clothed but were placed in more intimate positions. The models still had the girl-next-door look ("Glorifying the American Girl") and would feature a Wall Street secretary, Bettie Page, then supplementing her income for acting lessons. During this period Harrison hired Edythe Farrell from the National Police Gazette. Farrell, a psychology major from Hunter College, "introduced her new boss to Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis and the idea that whips and chains and spike heels would sell." Titter (1943–1955), which focused on sadomasochist themes—with women in bondage, handling whips or being spanked—began Harrison's move from "wholesome" looking models. Wink (1944–1955) also featured sadomasochist imagery, but contained a stronger element of fetishism. After World War II Harrison created Flirt (1947–1955), which mainly featured fetishist photo-stories. Harrison was not beyond posing himself with the models, "playing everything from pith-helmeted white slaver to wife spanker." To enhance sales he used three leading Petty Girl-like artists of the day to do the covers: Peter Driben, Earl Moran (AKA Steffa) and Billy De Vorss.
  The one Harrison men's magazine that differed from the Beauty Parade format was Whisper, started in April 1946. It began as a clone of Beauty Parade, but became more explicit, violent and blatantly sexual. In 1953 Harrison was arrested for staging a Whisper photo shoot at a New Jersey golf course. It starred Page as a prisoner being tortured by models dressed in skimpy Ku Klux Klan-like costumes. But the old format of suggested nudity and sex was not working in the 1950s as it did in the '40s. During the heyday of his cheesecake magazines, Harrison moved with his sister Helen from their two-bedroom apartment into a nine-bedroom suite at the Parc Vendôme. Harrison became a fixture on the New York nightclub scene and was portrayed as a playboy in society columns. He indulged in his trademark proclivity toward all things white—Cadillacs, tailored suits from Sulka, cashmere polo coats and hats. He was often photographed in the company of Broadway or Hollywood starlets. But the circulation of his magazines declined in the post-war years. By early 1952 his accountant told him that he was broke. In addition to rival imitators, Harrison "could not compete with the new celebrity focused men's magazine, Playboy, whose first issue, released in 1953, featured a full color centerfold of Marilyn Monroe." But Harrison had an aversion to real nudity and never went the route of Playboy. Instead, he returned to his New York Graphic roots. Thus Whisper would morph a third time in the 1950s to imitate the most audacious of Harrison's periodicals.
caption: Whisper, May 1950
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