When I was around thirteen or fourteen, I had a crush on every woman ever photographed by a man named Peter Gowland. In the "men's magazines" of the day, he was a true artist…and you could almost spot his work without looking at the photo credit. The ladies were young, healthy, happy, not wearing a lot of clothing (if any) and usually surrounded by lots of water. I was a boy, not a man, but I occasionally snuck peeks at men's magazines, always fearing someone would swoop in and arrest me for doing so. Mr. Gowland's ladies were worth the risk…and if you go over to his site and prowl around, you'll understand.
I met Gowland around 1973 when I was briefly taking some courses at Santa Monica College, mostly to appease my father, who hadn't liked me dropping out of full-time status at UCLA to write Super Goof comic books. At one point, SMC had what to some of us seemed like a very important record. Its football team stunk, its academic achievements were undistinguished…but more Playboy Playmates had hailed from our school than any other in the country. This was mainly because Peter Gowland frequented the campus, working with its instructors occasionally.
There was at the time — and may still be, for all I know — a scam worked by sleazy guys on the make. They'd approach attractive women in public places and say, "Hi, I'm a photographer for Playboy and you're lovely and if you'd like to make beaucoup bucks by posing for me, here's my card." They would then whip out a business card of dubious connection to Mr. Hefner's enterprise…and guess what they actually had in mind. From what I heard, that happened a lot. I met women who got one of those come-ons every week.
Well, one day I actually saw Peter Gowland do that with a young lady and it was legit. That is, he really was shooting pix for Playboy. He did tell me though that when he found a great new subject, he usually didn't offer her to that magazine. She could make a lot more money posing for him if he could sell the pix to a wider range of markets than Playboy's exclusivity contracts would allow. And he could spare himself vast headaches if he didn't have to reshoot photos over and over and over again to comply with Hef's micro-management.
I didn't have a chance that day to tell him a story that I thought he'd appreciate…that is, if he even believed it. It was the tale of how I came to be familiar with his work and I swear, it's absolutely true. Many years later, I wrote it up for one of my columns and posted it to this site. If you'd like to read it, it's right here.
I took that column offline a few years ago because I included it in one of my books but I just put it back for this occasion. Before I removed it, Mr. Gowland happened across it and wrote me a nice e-mail inviting me to come up to his studio in Santa Monica for a visit.
As noted here, Peter Gowland has died at the age of 93. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, several daughters, granddaughters and even a great-granddaughter…and I'll bet he took gorgeous photos of every one of them. He leaves this planet with the gratitude of a lot of guys around my age for showing us, just when we needed it, how beautiful a beautiful woman can be.