‘Naked Ambition’ Brings Bunny Yeager’s Photography to a 21st Century Audience

It’s taken the better part of 60 years, but the bold women who helped kickstart America’s sexual revolution seem to finally be getting their due on film.

Earlier this year, San Francisco’s own Carol Doda was honored with Topless at the Condor, a documentary recounting the dancer’s fame as North Beach’s first topless performer and the hardships she faced after her heyday. Now comes Naked Ambition, a film that captures the life story of Bunny Yeager, a photographer and model who created some of the most iconic pin-up images of the 1950s and ’60s.

Naked Ambition is careful to pay tribute to what made Yeager so special. Though attention early in her career came from being dubbed the “world’s prettiest photographer,” the documentary explains in detail just why her work was so special at the time and why it continues to endure now. The film also demonstrates the ways in which her photographs and stylistic choices have impacted popular culture in the decades since.

As seen in Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tausch’s film, Yeager didn’t merely shoot images that titillated, she made sure that each of her models’ personalities had space to shine through. Her ability to put women at ease and to present their nudity in joyful, celebratory ways was born from her own experiences as a model in the 1940s. It was Yeager’s inherent humor and playfulness that transformed Bettie Page from an underground fetish model to the leopard-print-clad icon she is most commonly thought of today. Yeager’s own work with self-portraits also broke new ground.

“I think it’s so important that she was a bombshell pin-up girl,” burlesque star Dita Von Teese notes in the film. “It really made all the difference in how she photographed other people.”

One of the most fascinating elements of Naked Ambition is the way in which Yeager managed to walk a line between sexually liberated creative and 1950s domestic goddess. Though dedicated to her two daughters and to building a suburban home in Miami, Yeager also had zero qualms about taking photos of women in various states of undress for publications like Playboy. (Yeager was one of the magazine’s first regular contributors and first female photographers. She counted Hugh Hefner as a close personal friend.)

Interviewees in the documentary include cultural commentators, Yeager’s friends and family members, individuals tasked with safeguarding Yeager’s legacy, and models with fond memories of working with the photographer, including Marcia Valibus and Nani Maka. There is also wonderful archival footage of Yeager at work, as well as some words between her and Bettie Page recorded in a 1993 conversation for Interview magazine.

As with many women who make their names working in the sex industry, Yeager’s later life came with some extra challenges. The photographer struggled financially because her tone and aesthetics fell out of favor in the 1970s, as porn hit the mainstream. (“The Yeager photographic style does not parallel the contemporary mood and image of Penthouse magazine,” one stinging rejection letter reads.) Only with the 1990s rise of rockabilly and swing did Yeager’s work find a new generation of fans. During the lull before, she made ends meet with work in graphic design and even as a nightclub singer.

Yeager’s personal life was also impacted by her career. One of her daughters, Cherilu Irwin, remains ashamed of her mother’s catalog of work, speaking openly of her disapproval in Naked Ambition. When asked what she thinks her mother’s legacy is, Irwin leaves a long pause before openly wishing Yeager had not followed the career path she followed. Irwin’s longing to disassociate from her mom’s work has also clearly been a source of tension between her and her sister Lisa, who, in contrast, feels very proud of Yeager’s accomplishments.

Naked Ambition isn’t all perfect. One gets the sense that darker elements of Yeager’s story are glossed over for the sake of a more upbeat veneer. There is no commentary about the fact that her husband Bud Irwin was fired from the police force after being charged with falsifying burglary reports. There is little mention of the toll that his suicide in 1977 took on her. The fact that one of her best friends — and favorite models — Maria Stinger died by suicide in 1967 isn’t even touched on, despite the fact that Yeager’s working relationship with Stinger is prominently featured.

Overall, Naked Ambition is an entertaining snapshot of a resourceful and endlessly creative woman who was determined to live life on her own terms. It works fabulously as an introduction to an often-forgotten talent. It’s just a shame that, now and again, it leaves a little too much to the imagination.

‘Naked Ambition’ screens at San Francisco’s Roxie Cinema as part of SF DocFest, on May 31, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.