The wonderful Webber
Kim du Toit has some vintage photos of Diane Webber, pinup, dance instructor and advocate for naturism, who died last month at the age of seventy-six. [Second link includes fairly-explicit photo.]
Under her given name, Marguerite Empey — “Diane” was her middle name — she appeared twice as Playboy’s centerfold, the later sessions featuring photography by filmmaker Russ Meyer.
But I remember her best from the days of so-called “sunbathing magazines,” low-circulation nudist publications of the 1950s and 1960s. Diane and then-husband Joe Webber (they married in 1961) and their son John appeared regularly in those pages; the emphasis was not on Meyeresque fantasies, but on everyday living, albeit without clothing. Many of the photos were shot at the now-defunct Elysium Fields in Los Angeles’ Topanga Canyon.
Diane’s dual role as Playmate and hockey-mom prototype upset some folks in the hyper-puritanical Official Nudist movement of that era; her defenders pointed out that she’d appeared in many more photographs for nudist photographers like Ed Lange than she’d ever done for Hugh Hefner.
She made a few film appearances, and in 1967, under the auspices of Elysium, a hardcover photo book, The Wonderful Webbers, was published. These days it goes on eBay for upwards of $200.
One of her dance students remembers:
She was a very private person, however I feel it is appropriate to acknowledge and share memories of a brilliant woman who was a world-class artist in many fields. She was a famous figure model and actress, breathtaking dancer, dedicated instructor, and foundation resource for American Cabaret Belly Dance on the west coast. Do a web search on her name and there are hundreds of entries.
For those of us who were in her classes, she was one of the “tough” teachers who produced a huge number of professional dancers from the 70’s and into the new century. She formed one of the longest running (and still in existence!) professional dance troupes, “Perfumes of Araby” and created one of the first studio “Cabaret Nights” as a performance outlet for her upper level students.
Farewell, Diane.
