Betty Brosmer was the quintessential pinup model of the 1950s. Later, as Betty Weider, she became the defining female fitness icon from the 1960s through the 1980s. This is the tale of Betty Brosmer, the first supermodel in history, and her scandalous romance with Joe Weider, which transformed her into Betty Weider, a lasting symbol of female fitness.
WATSONVILLE: THE BROSEMERS
Tucked between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, about 70 miles south of San Francisco and just a short distance from Monterey Bay, lies the picturesque town of Watsonville. Known for its fertile soil, which nurtures redwoods, and its mild climate, Watsonville was once dubbed “The Apple City” due to the surrounding apple orchards. Yet, it was also marked by hard work, where long days of grueling farm labor yielded little pay.
The Brosemer family, immigrants from Belgium, originally lived in the silver mining town of Angels Camp, California. After the mines closed, Andrew and Elizabeth Brosemer and their eight children, including their son Andy, born in 1897, moved to Watsonville in search of agricultural work. Young Andy worked on a fruit farm, occasionally joined construction crews, and sold moonshine during Prohibition.
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Vendla Pippenger, born in Idaho in 1907, was one of six children. On December 4, 1928, at 19, Vendla married 31-year-old Andy Brosemer in Santa Cruz, California. Nearly nine months later, on August 6, 1929, Betty Chloe Brosemer was born. It was a turbulent time, with the stock market crash triggering the Great Depression just two months later, followed by the violent Watsonville Riots, a five-day clash between whites and Filipinos. The Brosemers lived in a cramped shotgun shack in Watsonville, a town with fewer than 9,000 residents. Initially, they shared their home with another young family and later with Andy’s mother and younger brother.
Their marriage was fraught with difficulties. In 1932, Andrew sought sole guardianship of Betty. He passed on to her a passion for baseball so strong that she could impress adults by reciting major league rosters and batting averages. “I think he wanted a boy, and I was his little boy until my brother came along,” Betty recalled. Although her parents remained together long enough to have two more children, they separated in March 1938 and divorced two years later. From age eight, Betty was raised by her father and grandmother, separated from her mother and younger siblings. She grew up as a tomboy, playing sports and collecting coins.
LOS ANGELES: AUNT ANNIE
Annie Chamberlain, born in 1895, left Maine for San Francisco in 1920, where she met and married Andy’s younger brother, a pharmacist. Together, they ran a drug store. After her husband died in 1934, Annie returned to Maine, where her favorite niece, Betty, would visit her. In 1937, Annie moved across the country again, this time to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at UCLA at 41. Five years later, she was a financially secure, middle-aged widow with a B.A. in French and a passion for learning.
Though Annie was only connected to the Brosemer family by marriage, she and Betty formed a strong bond. To Betty’s father, Andy—working long hours at a packing plant—Annie seemed to influence his daughter positively. Caring for Betty became increasingly difficult after the death of his mother, so Andy decided to take 12-year-old Betty to Los Angeles to live with her aunt in 1942.
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Los Angeles was a world apart from Watsonville. The rapidly growing city had over 1.5 million residents, most transplants from the eastern United States. Betty, a child of the Great Depression, attended school in Westwood and later Beverly Hills, surrounded by wealth and celebrity. She and Aunt Annie explored museums, dined in ethnic restaurants, and attended cultural events together. They also followed Annie’s beloved Red Sox, keeping up with the 1946 World Series through newspapers and radio. “She was always a bundle of energy with a good sense of humor, much common sense, and a great deal of wisdom,” Betty later said of her aunt, who became her surrogate mother. In later interviews, Betty rarely mentioned her biological mother, but she spoke glowingly of Aunt Annie, who lived to be 107.
Annie emphasized the importance of healthy eating and fitness. Under her guidance, Betty, who captained her softball team, began training with a boys’ weight set. The once-skinny girl transformed into a curvaceous 5’5″ teenager with blonde hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin—features that mid-century advertisers found irresistible.
NEW YORK CITY: MODELING
During a two-week vacation in New York City in 1949, Betty Brosemer posed for a photographer in exchange for copies of the photos, but nothing more. One of these photos, showing her gazing into a television, was later used in magazine advertisements like Life and Time and even appeared on billboards. Back in Los Angeles, Betty modeled swimsuits for some of the era’s most famous pinup artists, including Alberto Vargas, known for his Esquire “Vargas Girls,” and Earl Moran, renowned for painting Marilyn Monroe.
In 1950, at 20, Betty moved to New York City and dropped the first “e” from her last name, becoming Betty Brosmer. Her modeling career quickly took off. “Once in front of the camera, my shyness seemed to evaporate,” she recalled. She earned $15 an hour (equivalent to about $185 today). “I would work practically every day for a time at 480 Lexington Avenue [Grand Central Palace in midtown Manhattan]. Almost all of the top models worked there,” she remembered. “I didn’t wear enough makeup, so they’d paint it in the photo. Sometimes, the final image didn’t even look like me.”
Betty Brosmer’s Rise to Fame
Betty Brosmer graced her first magazine cover in July/August 1950, appearing on Gala, a men’s magazine known for featuring scantily clad women.
Typically dressed in a bikini, tight shirt, and short shorts accentuating her impossibly tiny waist, Betty became a staple in men’s magazines such as Bold, Modern Man, and French Peep Show.
Her only role in a risqué Broadway variety show was to look pretty, but the production was poorly received by critics and closed quickly. Representing a New York dressmaker, Betty toured the country, visiting 44 of the 48 states, making appearances in department stores, and smiling on local TV shows.
Betty Brosmer racked up numerous titles during the 1950s, including Miss Pretty Girl, Miss Supersonic, Miss Waist and Hips, Miss Potato Chips, Miss Blue Eyes, and Miss Prime Rib—winning around 50 beauty pageants. The winner was usually decided by audience applause, though Betty later revealed that many of these contests were rigged. “I felt so sorry for some of those girls,” she admitted. “They would bring me into a modeling agency and say, ‘Are you prepared to do this?’ as if they knew I would win. Some contests were legitimate, but when the winner had to advertise a product, they wanted to ensure you could make appearances on radio and television.”
In just three days of promoting Long-Life Potatoes as Miss California, Betty earned $3,000—equivalent to the median annual salary for American men at the time, $3,000, and $1,200 for women. As Miss Television, Betty was featured in TV Guide and appeared on shows hosted by Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, and Steve Allen. From then on, whenever she posed with products in newspaper stories, she was often referred to as “television actress Betty Brosmer,” despite never having acted on TV.
LOS ANGELES: THE PINUP QUEEN
In 1954, Betty Brosmer returned to Los Angeles and enrolled at UCLA, majoring in psychology. Walter Winchell’s popular newspaper column noted: “New York model Betty Brosmer (in Hollywood) told interviewers: ‘The only thing I miss about New York is the big league baseball.’”
She signed an exclusive contract with L.A. pinup photographer Keith Bernard, giving him the rights to shoot all her pinup photos. Betty received one-third of the earnings in return—an unusual but highly profitable arrangement for both. “I don’t think he realized how popular I would become,” she reflected.
With her inviting face, often captured by Bernard in a playful “Who me?” pose, and her striking 5’5”, 112-pound figure with its astonishing hourglass proportions (39” bust, 19” waist, 36” hips), Betty epitomized the blend of innocent and sexy, often dubbed the “naughty librarian” look. She was frequently mistaken for Marilyn Monroe, but no other model could rival her tiny waist, known as “the impossible waist” of Betty Brosmer.
Bernard’s photos of Betty adorned the covers of over 200 men’s magazines, including Carnival, Bold, Point, Rogue, Chicks and Chuckles, and Nugget.
Expanding Betty Brosmer’s Modeling Career
In addition to her pinup work, Betty Brosmer also ventured into fashion and commercial shoots with various photographers. Her image graced the covers of multiple publications, from the hardboiled pulps Crime Detective and Police Detective to photography magazines like Art and Photography and Camera Art and even the British edition of the famous movie magazine Photoplay. She became the face of Chesterfield cigarettes, smiling in magazine ads and on billboards, and during a live TV commercial, she smoked for the first and only time, struggling to hide her distaste. For years, life-sized cardboard cutouts of Betty could be found in stores worldwide, promoting cameras, shoes, and air fresheners. Her likeness also adorned sleazy “adult” paperbacks with titles like Lust Lodge, Naked Party, The Teaser, and Bed Crazy. Her image continued to be sold or appropriated well into the 1960s.
Unlike famous 5’5” blondes with hourglass figures like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, Betty never transitioned from modeling to acting. Despite being pursued by Hollywood mogul Howard Hughes—who noticed her at a Las Vegas revue with her Aunt Annie—Betty never took an acting class or auditioned for a film or TV role. Having grown up near Hollywood, she had seen too many pretty girls chasing the elusive dream of stardom and decided not to follow that path.
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Betty, like her Aunt Annie, had a deep love for learning. She frequently visited bookstores, where she immersed herself in philosophy, politics, and psychology. She practiced Zen Buddhism and yoga, painted in watercolors, cooked gourmet meals, and designed and sewed her clothes. Her eclectic record collection included classical music, modern jazz, mambo, and blues. She attended art auctions and visited galleries, dreaming of one day being wealthy enough to buy her favorite pieces. During this time, she dated a TV executive and the son of a governor.
BETTY BROSMER: BOUNDARIES AND FAME
Naturally, Playboy came calling. Keith Bernard photographed Betty for Hugh Hefner’s young and wildly popular magazine, but Betty remained covered—her nipples concealed by a demi-bra or hidden behind playing cards during a staged strip poker game. Disappointed by the lack of nudity after covering the shoot’s expenses, Playboy sued Bernard and never published the photos.
Throughout the 1950s, Betty teased her audience with near-reveals, almost spilling out of bras, bikini tops, and robes, donning skin-tight shorts, and striking countless seductive poses. Yet, despite the provocative imagery—holding a martini while dressed in a sheer nightie that barely clung to her chest, for example—Betty never fully exposed her breasts or buttocks. There was always just enough fabric or retouching paint to maintain a hint of modesty. In 1963, Fling magazine featured a “Last Fling With Betty Brosmer” spread, which seemed to show more than usual. However, the publisher later admitted to having drawn a nipple into cleavage shots.
“Several photographers asked me to pose semi-nude, but I always declined,” Betty explained.
“My main concern was that I didn’t know who I would marry. I thought it might embarrass my future husband and family. I didn’t think it was immoral; I didn’t want to cause problems for others.” Her decision to keep some things hidden only enhanced her popularity, setting her apart from contemporaries with no such reservations. A 1956 Modern Man cover even dubbed her “Hollywood’s Most Chased Chaste Pinup Girl Betty Brosmer.”
As the 1950s ended and the 1960s began, an advertisement appeared in men’s magazines, including those owned by Joe Weider, promoting 8mm or 16mm “ultra-revealing, provocative films” of Betty Brosmer, along with sets of 12 or 48 photos. In the ad, she appeared to be wearing nothing but sandals and a sign, with text promising that “she’d finally consented to let her fans see more of her.” One of the black-and-white “action movies,” titled Late Date, was described as follows: “Betty returns from a date, and after discouraging her overly amorous suitor, disrobes and prepares for bed. You’ll wonder why he gave up so easily when you see her in all her glory!”
Checks and money orders were to be made out to Betty Brosemer (her legal name). While Betty profited from the public’s desire to see her nude, the actual content never revealed more than her many magazine pinups had. Despite the suggestive advertising, Betty Brosmer maintained her boundaries, even as her fame continued to soar.
BETTY BROSMER’S AGE
In June 1955, a newspaper caption claimed that Betty Brosmer, Miss Plumber’s Helper, was 19. A year later, in a December 1956 magazine profile, she was still described as 19. Throughout her late 20s, Betty remained “stuck” at 19—the perfect age for a beauty queen and pinup girl. Eventually, she settled on August 2, 1935, as her official birthdate, which most sources cite today. However, for those who calculated the dates, this youthful adjustment created a troubling backstory: it implied that she moved across the country to New York City in 1950 and, while still in high school, became a child prodigy pinup model, allegedly posing provocatively for men’s magazines at just 14 years old. In reality, she was 20. Census records confirm that the future supermodel and fitness icon Betty Brosmer, later known as Betty Weider, was born on August 6, 1929.
JOE WEIDER
Joe Weider (1920-2013) was raised in a Jewish ghetto in Montreal and launched his first muscle magazine, Your Physique, in 1940. He married American Diana Ross (not the famous singer) in 1947 and moved to New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan. His business grew to include instructional courses, weight sets, and other workout equipment. In 1952, he introduced highly profitable nutritional supplements. Throughout the 1950s, Weider expanded his publishing empire to include not only bodybuilding magazines like Muscle Builder (which replaced Your Physique) but also sports magazines (Boxing and Wrestling, Inside Baseball), pioneering women’s fitness and beauty magazines (Figure & Beauty, American Beauty), and a variety of men’s adventure and “cheesecake” magazines that featured semi-nudity, such as Body Beautiful, Adonis, Jem, and Monsieur.
In the mid-1950s, while dining with his magazine art directors at a Times Square restaurant, Joe Weider noticed a billboard featuring a blonde woman in a flowing dress, likely advertising Chesterfield cigarettes. “That’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen! She looks like an angel. Why can’t we get photos like that?” he exclaimed. That “angel” was Betty Brosmer, and Weider later acquired photos of her taken by Keith Bernard.
Betty made her Weider magazine debut on the back cover of the October 1956 issue of Fury, featuring the strip poker photo never used by Playboy. The following month, she appeared in a four-page lingerie and swimsuit spread in Fury and as the not-quite-revealing centerfold in the premiere issue of Jem, Weider’s Playboy knockoff. Betty soon became a regular feature in Weider’s men’s magazines.
“Meet Betty Brosmer—Our Newest Beauty Queen” was the title of a five-page article in the December 1956 issue of Figure & Beauty. The article, credited to Joseph Weider, presented Betty as an intelligent and down-to-earth woman, supposedly defying the typical blonde stereotype.
1957: A Pivotal Year for Joe Weider
In 1957, Joe Weider experienced a series of significant events. In January, his only child, daughter Lydia, was born. He also moved his headquarters from Jersey City to a newly constructed, modern building in Union City, designed to his specifications. However, in June, the distributor for Weider’s 13 magazines suddenly went bankrupt. Many of these magazines had been launched at the distributor’s request, with the distributor covering the expenses. When the money flow from newsstand sales abruptly stopped, bills and lawsuits for unpaid debts quickly followed. Despite maintaining his first-class lifestyle, Joe Weider paid off his substantial debts. Over the next two years, he discontinued most of the newer magazines, refocusing his business on bodybuilding—his core passion—through magazines, workout equipment, instructional courses, and his most profitable venture, nutritional supplements.
A Betty Brosmer Photoshoot
In 1957, in Southern California, Betty Brosmer participated in a photoshoot while riding in the back seat of a car with bodybuilder Dick DuBois, the 1954 Mr. America. Photographers Russ Warner and Bob Delmonteque were in the front. A memorable shot from that day, featuring DuBois and Brosmer smiling in swimsuits, arm-in-arm on a dock, appeared on the December 1957 cover of Muscle Builder. This was Brosmer’s first appearance on a bodybuilding magazine cover, and it was a huge success, though her name was misspelled as “Betsy Brosmer.”
During the car ride to and from the shoot, Brosmer and DuBois, who are studying to become Pentecostal preachers, discussed topics unusual for a model and a muscleman, such as philosophy, religion, poverty, and education.
At one point, Delmonteque turned to Betty and said, “I have a friend in New York who’d fall madly in love with you.”
“Why would you say such a thing?” Betty asked.
“Because you share many of the same interests,” Delmonteque replied.
That man was Joe Weider. Although Betty was shooting for one of Weider’s magazines that day, as she had for the Figure & Beauty article a year earlier, and had appeared in and on Weider’s men’s magazines using older photos, she didn’t know much about Joe Weider. Yet, she was his favorite model.
Joe and Betty: The Romance Begins
In late 1958, Betty Brosmer returned to New York City for a Broadway play that was canceled before she ever took the stage. Reading about this in a newspaper, Joe Weider contacted her agent and invited her to his Union City offices. Betty declined, but they arranged to meet at a Manhattan photoshoot. On her way there, she remembered the comment about a man who was supposed to fall in love with her. She found Joe “nice-looking” but noted he was “a little overweight and not fussy about grooming.” Despite this, she found him charming and genuinely earnest.
“We talked about his dreams and magazines,” Betty recalled. “He told me how he wanted to bring fitness to the world. At the time, he was almost a one-person publishing house, working 15 to 17 hours daily to rebuild what he had lost. I signed the contract [for photos of her to be used in his magazines and women’s exercise courses], even though I had received much better offers… I admired Joe, his beliefs, and his dedication to bringing something positive to the world.”
Joe Weider took a personal interest in overseeing Betty’s photoshoots. “He requested me for a dozen more photo assignments, and after each session, we would go out to lunch or dinner,” Betty remembered. “We talked on subjects of mutual interest—psychology, philosophy, and religion. There was no romance. I also gave him input on his magazines, opinions, and ideas, which he valued greatly.”
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Joe Weider recalled, “The more time I spent with Betty, the more I appreciated her good qualities and enjoyed her company. She was compassionate, a good listener, and the first woman I could talk with. The better I knew her, the more she reminded me of my father. It must have been a relief for her, being with a man who wasn’t head over heels or trying to put the make on her… Betty was drawn to me because I reminded her of her father…”
In the spring or summer of 1959, after a late-night photo shoot, Weider and Brosmer found themselves alone, dining on paella at a Spanish restaurant in Greenwich Village called Granada. The lights were low, the wine flowed, and as they gazed into each other’s eyes, Joe reached across the table and took Betty’s hand. It was the beginning of a romance that would last 54 years.
INFIDELITIES
One major complication: Joe Weider was a married man, albeit in an unhappy marriage. His relationship with his wife Diana had deteriorated, with both spouses suspecting the other of infidelity. On July 6, 1959, Joe moved into a guest room at the New York Athletic Club’s City House, an exclusive and prestigious building overlooking Central Park. Despite the club’s reputation for discrimination, Joe, one of the rare Jewish guests, found solace in the 24-floor building, where he could swim, lift weights, enjoy massages, and dine on gourmet meals—an oasis amidst the bustling city.
At that time, New Jersey only allowed divorce on the grounds of adultery or desertion (the latter requiring at least two years), while New York permitted divorce solely on the grounds of adultery. To build his case, Joe Weider hired a private investigator at $75 daily to follow Diana during her vacation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in August 1959. The investigator, who stayed in a hotel suite next to Diana’s, observed her with a glass-bottom boat operator, described as “one of Haiti’s most debonair men and charming bachelors about town,” for four nights. On one occasion, the investigator reported seeing both partially undressed and making out on the suite’s patio before retreating inside.
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Meanwhile, when Joe and Betty Brosmer traveled to Joe’s hometown of Montreal in November 1959, Diana hired a French-Canadian private investigator to trail them. The 270-pound investigator watched Joe’s room at the luxurious Queen Elizabeth Hotel. At 1:10 AM, Joe and Betty were seen walking affectionately from the elevator to the room. After they entered, the investigator pressed his ear to the door, even after being confronted by the hotel’s detective and night manager.
The investigator knocked on the door at 2:30 AM, accompanied by four men. When Joe answered, the group barged in. According to reports, Joe wore only an undershirt, and Betty wore only a bra and panties. Outraged, Joe insisted that Betty was his wife. The investigator responded, “This lady is not your wife. Your wife happens to be waiting in my room.” Joe is skeptical until he is led to a neighboring room, where a furious Diana confronts him.
JOE WEIDER’S DIVORCE
The scandalous events of Port-au-Prince and Montreal were aired in a Manhattan courtroom and splashed across New York tabloids in January and October 1960. Joe had sued Diana for divorce on the grounds of adultery, while Diana countersued on the same grounds, seeking $18,200 in annual alimony (plus a $10,000 counsel fee) from Joe’s $100,000-a-year income. The national spotlight focused on Betty Brosmer, with headlines like “Girlie Magazine Model Is Named In Divorce Case” dominating the news. In its relentless coverage, the New York Daily News frequently referred to Joe Weider as “runner-up for Mr. America and Mr. Canada”—titles he never held. In reality, he had only competed in bodybuilding once, unsuccessfully, at age 40, in the 1951 Mr. Universe.
The divorce case was more complex than initially expected. Diana’s lawyer highlighted the lack of photographic evidence, while Diana herself denied any romantic involvement and claimed a pelvic condition would have prevented her from engaging in the described foreplay. On the other hand, Joe’s defense offered a somewhat implausible explanation to counter the investigator’s testimony. He claimed that he and Betty were in Montreal working for his brother Ben’s French-language bodybuilding magazine, and because Joe was coming down with a cold, Betty was merely drawing him a foot-soaking bath as a kindly, medicinal gesture. Both were fully dressed, he insisted, and any witnesses who testified otherwise “must have been watching an old French movie on the hotel room TV.” Betty’s attorney added that she wore a two-piece black suit and galoshes. When Betty took the stand, dressed modestly and wearing glasses, she echoed the same story.
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On October 24, 1960, the jury delivered companion verdicts: both Joe and Diana Weider were declared innocent of adultery. However, the double win was also a double loss, as the estranged couple remained legally bound in a shattered marriage.
At the time, Reno and Las Vegas were the most accessible places in America to obtain a divorce. Mental cruelty, one of the nine grounds for divorce in Nevada, was the most common and required no proof. Residency could be achieved by staying in the state for six weeks, making the divorce trade a lucrative part of Nevada’s tourism industry. Joe and Betty moved into a small apartment on what is now Convention Center Drive, off the north Las Vegas Strip.
“Vegas cast a spell on me,” Joe Weider later said. “I loved the desert—the clean, stark beauty, the clarity of the light, the pure air…” Although Joe and Betty rarely gambled or drank, they enjoyed the vibrant Rat Pack era nightlife in the opulent hotels that seemed to rise from the Mojave Desert. By day, they were charmed by the small-town friendliness still lingering in Las Vegas. Joe continued to work on his magazines, consulting with editors in Union City by telephone. The couple stayed for six months.
After 14 years of marriage, Joe and Diana Weider finally divorced. “Relieved as I was to end my first marriage, it also brought terrible pain,” Joe later recalled. “We had a little daughter [Lydia] in her toddler years, and my ex-wife cut off contact completely. I provided support through our attorneys, but to me my ex-wife and daughter dropped off the map. For years, I had no idea where she was.” (In 1962, Diana married a man in Florida.)
THE MUSCLE MAN’S GIRLFRIEND
From November 1959 to June 1960, Betty Brosmer appeared on seven out of eight covers of Joe Weider’s two short-lived Playboy knockoffs, Monsieur and Jem. When she returned to the cover of Jem in January 1961, it marked the end of her career as a men’s magazine model, although old photos continued to resurface. However, her fitness career, which would last for decades, was beginning.
JOE AND BETTY WEIDER: THE WEDDING
Las Vegas was known for quickie divorces, but it was also famous for quickie marriages. On April 24, 1961, 31-year-old Betty Chloe Brosemer and 40-year-old Joseph Weider were married at The Little Church of the West, a rustic replica of a pioneer church and a Vegas landmark since 1942. The ceremony cost $25. While Joe’s family did not travel from Montreal, Betty’s father, sister, and Aunt Annie journeyed from California to witness the wedding. At a small reception at the Riviera Hotel, the newlyweds toasted their union, playfully fed each other slices of cake, and kissed as the photographer captured the moment.
POSTSCRIPT: BETTY WEIDER
On the February 1962 cover of Muscle Builder, Betty appeared once again with Dick DuBois in another photo from their 1957 shoot. If it worked once, why not twice? Even ten months after her marriage, the caption still referred to her as Betty Brosmer.
She received her first byline as Betty Weider in the premiere issue of Weider’s short-lived general interest fitness magazine, Vigor, in March 1963, where she served as the women’s editor and contributed to every problem. Over time, Betty Weider became a worldwide fitness icon—gracing the covers of Weider’s muscle magazines, writing prolifically as a columnist and editor, co-authoring exercise books, and becoming the face and figure of numerous Weider workout and nutrition products. However, until at least 1963, the girl from Watsonville with the “impossible waist” was still primarily known by her former name, Betty Brosmer, the ultimate pinup model of the 1950s.
