Photo Essays
LIFE Goes to a College Joust, 1952
It lasted roughly one thousand years (give or take a few centuries). It generated mind-boggling advances in science, technology and medicine. It saw magnificent...
Jewel of Manhattan: LIFE in Central Park, 1961
New York’s Central Park has been around, in various incarnations, for roughly 150 years. In that time it has been hailed as a masterpiece of landscape design;...
Gypsy Rose Lee: LIFE With a Burlesque Legend
Ask anyone today under the age of, say, 40, “Who was Gypsy Rose Lee?” and chances are pretty good that the reaction will be utter bewilderment. “Gypsy Rose who?”...
Behind the Picture: ‘The American Way’ and the Flood of ’37
Like popular songs and fashions, some photographs have the power to define entire eras. A fatally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of a hotel kitchen, a...
Remembering Jonathan Winters (1925–2013)
Jonathan Winters, known to some as the king of ad-lib comedy, died April 11, 2013, at the age of 87. Famous for his improvisational offbeat humor and quick wit,...
LIFE With Jackie Robinson: American Icon
When Jack Roosevelt Robinson stepped onto Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, he not only changed the face of professional baseball in America. In ways...
The Invention of Teenagers: LIFE and the Triumph of Youth Culture
Historians and social critics differ on the specifics of the timeline, but most cultural observers agree that the strange and fascinating creature known as the...
LIFE at the Movies: When 3-D Was New
In the early 1950s, when Milton Gunzburg, a scriptwriter at MGM, and his brother Julian, a Beverly Hills ophthalmologist, developed a process that would allow...
Being 007: LIFE Behind the Scenes at James Bond Auditions
In the early 1960s, movie producers adapting Ian Fleming’s novels about a suave British spy named James Bond plucked a relative unknown, Sean Connery, from...
LIFE With Michael Caine: Rare Photos From 1966
In October 1966, in a lengthy profile of a young English actor on the rise, LIFE magazine took a stab at describing what would in time be recognized not only as...
Bye Bye Birdie Turns 50
It might not seem old to some, but Bye Bye Birdie – George Sidney’s high-kicking movie adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name – was released 50...
Marilyn Monroe in ’49: Early Photos of a Superstar in Training
“I’m sending only brief captions,” a LIFE magazine correspondent wrote to his editors in February 1949, in notes accompanying photographs of a little-known...
LIFE With Bardot: Rare Photos of the Original French ‘Sex Kitten’
Decades after her acting and singing careers came to an end, Brigitte Bardot is today primarily known for her animal-rights activism and for her frequent scrapes...
I Was in LIFE: Ann-Margret Remembers
Fifty-odd years ago, a young singer/dancer on the verge of breaking into the movies visited LIFE magazine’s L.A. bureau — and for once, the newshounds who worked...
LIFE With Steve McQueen: Photos of the King of Cool in 1963
In the spring of 1963, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of The Magnificent Seven and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall...
Stars Behind Bars: LIFE With the Prisonaires
For much of the 20th century and well into the 21st, much of popular music — rock and roll, R&B, hip hop — has banked on the appeal of the rebel, the outsider...
LIFE With Zsa Zsa: Rare Photos of ‘Another Gabor,’ 1951
Anyone who has lived to be almost 100 likely has a few outlandish tales to tell. At least, one hopes they have tales to tell; it’s simply too awful to think of...
LIFE With Barbarella: Photos From the Set of a Camp Classic
The list of movies that were dismissed by critics — or that simply bombed at the box office — when first released, only to enjoy a renaissance and renewed...
Animated Movies: Not Just for Kids
From Fantasia to Waltz with Bashir, TIME looks at some of the greatest ever animated movies for the grown-up in all of us
Linda Christian: The Real ‘First Bond Girl’
As the latest Bond film, Skyfall, bows in the U.S. — after setting box-office records overseas — media everywhere are looking back at 007 movies and celebrating...
