Bunny Yeager
| Bunny Yeager | |
|---|---|
Yeager at the Miami Book Fair International, 2012
|
|
| Born |
Linnea Eleanor Yeager March 13, 1929 Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | May 25, 2014 (aged 85) North Miami, Florida, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Congestive heart failure |
| Occupation | Photographer, model |
Linnea Eleanor "Bunny" Yeager (March 13, 1929 – May 25, 2014) was an American photographer and pin-up model.
Linnea Eleanor Yeager was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, to Raymond Conrad and Linnea (née Sherlin) Yeager on March 13, 1926. Her family moved to Florida in when she was 17. She adopted the nickname "Bunny" from Lana Turner's character Bunny Smith in the 1945 movie Week-End at the Waldorf. The nickname has also been attributed to her portrayal of the Easter Bunny in a high school play.
She graduated from Miami Edison High School and afterwards enrolled at the Coronet Modeling School and Agency. She won numerous local beauty pageants including in rapid succession Queen of Miami, Florida Orchid Queen, Miss Trailercoach of Dade County, Miss Army & Air Force, Miss Personality of Miami Beach, Queen of the Sports Carnival and Cheesecake Queen of 1951. Yeager became one of the most photographed models in Miami. Photos of Yeager appeared in over 300 newspapers and magazines.
Yeager also designed and sewed many of the outfits she and her models wore, at one time boasting that she never wore the same outfit twice while modeling. She designed and produced hundreds of bikinis when the two-piece swimsuit was a new fashion item and is credited with its popularity in America.Bruno Banani, the German fashion company, has developed a line of swimwear based on Yeager's designs from the 1950s.
Yeager entered photography to save money by copying her modeling photographs, enrolling in a night class at a vocational school in 1953. Her career as a professional photographer began when a picture of Maria Stinger, taken for her first school assignment, was sold to Eye magazine for the cover of the March 1954 issue. She became a technically skilled photographer noted for, among other things, her early use of the fill flash technique to lighten dark shadows when shooting in bright sun. Yeager was one of the first photographers to photograph her models outdoors with natural light. Matt Schudel wrote in The Washington Post that her images were vivid and dynamic, going on to say, "She favored active poses and a direct gaze at the camera lens, in what could be interpreted alternately as playful innocence or pure lust."
...
Wikipedia