Wrestling with Angels. John Hanrahan

I didn’t just shoot with Bruce. I met with Giorgio Armani, received an invite from Calvin Klein to attend his daughter’s Sweet Sixteen at Studio 54, and was soon working with other renowned photographers like Francesco Scavullo. But Bruce was the first to book me. Despite it being my first shoot, I wasn’t nervous at all. The nervous kid who posed outside Mac’s that day was gone. I treated the shoot like a match and arrived on set with the same confidence I brought into the ring. But it was more than that. I had enjoyed studying photography at Penn State, and I was fascinated by the whole process. I was amazed that my first experience on the other side of the camera was with a guy who had changed the whole fashion industry with his work for Calvin Klein. I looked at the camera like I was looking at the most beautiful girl I could imagine. He told me that there were too many handsome guys who were just flat in pictures, which was why he booked inexperienced guys like surfers and athletes for big campaigns, like the pole-vaulter he used in a Calvin Klein ad. He liked real men who had more behind their eyes. Guys who could kick your ass, take your girl, and make her love them.

      Bruce discovered what I had inside and outside and captured it with his camera. He would tell me to put something on to see how it felt and just move around naturally—then suddenly say, Stop! That’s perfect. Just tilt your head a little bit this way. Eyes over here, eyes over there. You look so handsome. Oh hold that…that’s beautiful, Johnny.

      Afterward, Bruce took the time to answer my technical questions for the high-level photography classwork I had to complete. I grilled him about the Ansel Adams zone system, calculations for developing film, and the different shades of gray the same way I drilled Dan Gable about wrestling techniques. Bruce said it sounded like I knew more about some of those things than he did. As I got ready to head back to campus, exhilarated by the idea of these shots appearing in Italian Vogue, Bruce left me with one piece of advice about the modeling business: Don’t give up everything and focus solely on modeling. There’s a lot of creepy people in this business; keep doing your wrestling too. I said I would.

      I spent the next year of my life driving back and forth from campus to Manhattan in my battered Honda Civic, each job seemingly bigger than the last. Bruce, Scavullo, and Juan Ramos shot me for Vogue. I had the cover of Menswear shot by Albert Bray. I was featured in Macy’s runway show at the Waldorf Astoria—all before moving to New York and making any real effort to pursue that line of work. Initially, I only knew how big the jobs were because I was making good money—which allowed me to buy drugs and food—and because my college girlfriend was jealous. She wanted to be a model, was on the cover of the Women of Penn State calendar and hot rod auto magazines. She begged to attend shoots with me, hoping to get discovered. Then the magazine ads and editorials I had shot started turning up on newsstands, and my agent let me know I had compiled a portfolio of work, or “tear sheets,” that would enable me to work in any fashion market in the world.