American artist and pornographer David Michael (Mike) Miksche, also known as Steve Masters, was born in 1925 and died on this day in 1964. Born in Medford, Oregon to Czech immigrant parents, little is known about his early life. He studied at Oregon State University, leaving to join the US Air Force after America’s entry into World War Two. After the war, he moved to New York City, marrying and having a daughter, and working as a commercial illustrator for publications including Sports Illustrated. Tall, muscular and handsome, he was also one of the original models for the Marlboro Man cigarette advertisement series. Like many gay men of his generation, he lived a double life, frequenting New York’s underground leather and fetish scene, and later befriending celebrity homosexuals including Glenway Wescott and Andy Warhol. He became known for his homoerotic drawings, featured in Physique Pictorial and BIG magazine and published under the name Steve Masters (the initials being a code for his interest in sado-masochistic sex). In 1951, he was introduced to sexologist Alfred Kinsey, guiding him through New York’s BDSM scene as part of Kinsey’s research for Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and donating much of his erotic art to the Kinsey Institute. He also allowed Kinsey to film him and Samuel Steward performing a series of sado-masochistic sex acts, which became the Kinsey Institute’s first filmed records of homosexual and BDSM sex acts. Miksche suffered from depression throughout his life. A notorious sadist, he became feared by many in the BDSM community after reportedly breaking a lover’s ribs; Kinsey also described him as emotionally unstable and dangerous. He died in 1964, aged 39, reportedly drowning himself in the Hudson River (though Wescott claimed that he was rescued from the river and died later from a drug overdose). After his death, much of his erotic art was destroyed by his ex-wife, with the remainder archived by the Kinsey Institute. He featured prominently in Justin Spring’s 2011 biography of Steward, Secret Historian, leading to renewed interest in his life and work. In recent years, Miksche’s name was adopted by a Lebanese-Canadian sex writer named James, largely to disguise his writing from his devoutly Muslim family.