The Drigo Mystery

In John Kobal's 1985 book Hollywood: The Years of Innocence, a chapter is devoted to the 'art studies' (i.e. nude photographs) of young actresses.  Although most of the photos in the book are supposedly by Evans (Kobal does a poor job of attribution), many of these 'art studies' are signed 'Drigo'.  Who was Drigo?  Kobal doesn't bother commenting on the photographer.  And he only identifies one of the women, dismissing the rest with an 'it doesn't really matter'.  Very helpful.

A search for Drigo on the internet brings back lots of hits, but no photographer by that name.  The only piece of information that I found was an ad for Drigo Art Studies in a couple of 1923 issues of the spanish language film magazine Cinemundial.  Offered for sale were photos of bathing beauties, movie actresses, and 'fotografias artisticas' (hint, hint).  The address given is 5617 Hollywood Blvd, which was just a few blocks east of the Evans Studio.

     
With the photos appearing in Kobal's Evans-centric book and an ad with a nearby address, was Drigo in fact Nelson Evans?  The answer finally came this week when I purchased this Drigo photograph:

Thanks to those ubiquitous windows, this is easily identifiable as an Evans photo.  Here's a photo of Louise Fazenda in front of the same windows.  Notice that the curtains are the same in both photos.

As for the identity of the young lady, she is possibly Alice Maison, one of Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties, but it's difficult to say with any certainty.  But unlike John Kobal, I think her name does matter.

So where did the name Drigo come from?  It's unknown if these photographs were sold before 1923, but if not, it's possible the name was not Evans' own invention.  Perhaps after his death the studio decided to market the photos under a pseudonym to hide their origins.  If so, one hopes that the money from any sales went to the charity that the studio gave all of their profits to at the end of the year.