LIFE

Vulgarian at the Gates: Russ Meyer Visits Yale

January 24, 2025January 24, 2025 by Bill Syken

Academia is a place where people debate ideas. In February 1970, at Yale Law School, an institution that has educated four of our nine current Supreme Court justices, the topic of discussion was a surprising one: the films of Russ Meyer.

Meyer occupies a distinct place in cinematic history as a kind of gleeful vulgarian. In the 1960s, around the time standards loosened up about what could be shown in movie theaters, Meyer was one of the leading figures in a genre known as “sexploitation.” It may tell you all you need to know about his films that at the time of his death in 2004 from complications from pneumonia, he was at work an anthology film about his career titled “The Breast of Russ Meyer.”

Meyer came to Yale as the star attraction of the two-day Russ Meyer film festival, and he brought two of his leading ladies with him. They were Cynthia Myers, who was also a Playboy Playmate and had featured in perhaps Meyer’s most famous film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He also brought Haji, the star of another one of his more notorious works, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

LIFE photographer John Olson was on hand to document the scene, and he had fun highlighting the juxtaposition of Meyer and his actresses exploring the school’s neo-Gothic architecture. In Olson’s shots, Yale students seemed delighted to have Meyer and his actresses on campus.

But not everyone was amused. The New York Times covered the gathering, and the newspaper’s brief story was headlined “Meyer and Two Feminists Exchange Barbs at Yale.” The Times repored, “The women accused Meyer of having a `breast fixation’ and said his films showed sex as something `sinful and evil.'” Meyer responded by suggesting he and the woman compare sexual experiences.”

Meyer’s response was provocative and rude, and just about what you might expect, especially in a setting where he was meant to embody crassness. They were also emblematic of the kinds of issues that people take up when they discuss of free expression. It’s the classic question—how much protection do you give to words and images that people find offensive?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji (right) and Cynthia Myers (left) visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji (left) and Cynthia Myers (right) visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji (right) and Cynthia Myers (left) visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Cynthia Myers (left) and Haji (right) visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russ Meyer, with Haji (right), one of his leading ladies, visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with two of his leading ladies, Cynthia Myers (left) and Haji (right) at the Russ Meyer Film Festival at Yale University, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji and Cynthia Myers (off to the right) visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer visited Yale for their Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer at the Russ Meyer Film Festival at Yale University, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russ Meyer with Haji, one of his leading ladies, at the Yale campus for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer at the Russ Meyer Film Festival at Yale University, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji (right) and Cynthia Myers (left), visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer at the Russ Meyer Film Festival at Yale University, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Russ Meyer, with leading ladies Haji (left) and Cynthia Myers (right), visited Yale for the Russ Meyer Film Festival, 1970.

John Olson/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Strangest College Class Ever

January 10, 2025January 10, 2025 by Bill Syken

Picking out the oddest offerings from the wide world of academia has become something of a modern pastime. Lists of such courses abound online, including this one from U.S. News and World Report that includes such headscratchers as “Paintball Kinesiology” and “DJing and Turntablism.”

I mean, what happened to studying Plato, right?

In 1958 LIFE magazine was early to the party with its story about a class being offered at Smith College, the highly respected all-female school in Northampton, Massachusetts. The headline: “College Class in Luggage Lifting.”

That headline, like many of today’s online lists, was meant to provoke a reaction. Smith College wasn’t exactly offering a full-blown course in the proper way to lift a bag, but luggage handling was a real addition of the college’s physical education curriculum.

The LIFE story explained why Smith was suddenly concerned about its students handling luggage the right way:

For years Smith’s physical education department has been teaching posture to its freshman. But when redcap porter service was cut back at the nearby railway stations, the college found that the girls were displaying un-Smithlike sags and sways as they struggled with their suitcases. To preserve both appearances and backs, the college added baggage handling to the course.

Perhaps the most interest aspect of this story, viewed all these years later, is the idea of what “un-Smithlike” behavior constituted in the 1950s. The course also created an irresistible photo opportunity that LIFE sent staff photographer Yale Joel to capitalize on. He took photos in both the gym class itself, and of students applying their knowledge in an out-of-use car of the Boston and Maine Railroad.

The conclusion of the LIFE story is very much of its time, which was a decade before the women’s liberation movement began to hit its stride. One freshman dismissed the need for a baggage-handling course by saying, “A girl who tries can almost always find some man to help her with her luggage.”

Assistant professor Anne Delano led a class on physical education that included instruction on handling luggage, with the motto “Use Your Head and Save Your Back” written out on a chalkboard, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Improving back flexibility was part of the physical education program at Smith College designed to make students better able to handle their own luggage, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Smith College college practiced the proper method for lifting luggage with bags that contained 12-pound weights, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Smith College students posed for a photo for a story about them being taught the best way to handle a suitcase, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Undergraduates at Smith College practiced the proper method for handling luggage, a skill they were taught as part of the school’s physical education program, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Smith College girls received instruction in the proper way to handle suitcases after redcap service was removed from local train stations, 1958.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

After the Breakthrough: Desegregation at Little Rock’s Central High

January 6, 2025January 6, 2025 by Bill Syken

The fight of the Little Rock Nine to integrate Central High School in Arkansas in 1957 is one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement. LIFE chronicled the Black students’ courage in the face of resistance as they made they way to class, and returned the next year when the first of those Black students graduated.

And in 1967 LIFE was back to Central High to ask—ten years later, how’s it going?

The answer was more complicated than the question. The story, illustrated with photos by Bill Eppridge, led with the positive news, which was that Black students had greater opportunities than they did ten years prior. As LIFE put it in 1967, “the breakthrough has been made”:

In the decade since integration was forced on Little Rock, Negroes have worked a revolution in Southern schools, achieving success and hope at a rate that would have seemed pure fantasy when it all got started. The success has been hard won, and Little Rock’s progress is matched in only a few places in the South. The number of Negroes in white schools is still minute in the really deep South—MIssissippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia—and still very modest in the surrounding states. Negro children in integrated schools have been beaten and shots have been fired into their parents’ homes. The old spirit of official resistance still exists in Alabama, where the legislature passes laws against integration. But all the same, the breakthrough has been made. Special programs are reaching the terribly disadvantaged child. There is a flavor of success and bright new spirits about this coming Negro generation—and it reaches far beyond the schools themselves.

But while formal segregation was on its way out, LIFE reported that true integration was still a long way off. David Baer, a white student at Central High who was the editor of the school newspaper, said of his Black classmates, “We don’t associate with them. We don’t invite them to our parties. We just both go to the same school, that’s all.”

Ed Whitfield, a Black student who excelled in the classroom and in sports, was frustrated by the reality of everyday life at Central High. “People are a lot less human than I thought they’d be,” he said. “When we first came to the school, whites were polite when we sat at their lunch tables. They stayed to themselves but didn’t get up and leave. But after a few months they started moving when we sat down. That’ll get to you a little. You can have a halfway decent opinion of yourself until people leave the table when you approach.”

In addition to revisiting Little Rock, Eppridge traveled across the South for a wide-ranging photo essay on the state of education for Black students. Eppridge brought his camera to schools in Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama that were taking first steps toward desegregation. He also chronicled how Head Start, a federal program launched in 1965 to help low-income children, was boosting impoverished Black communities. Eppridge also went to schools in Tennessee, Louisiana, and North Carolina where, as the headline put it, “Teachers Reach Children with Affection and New Ways.”

Eppridge’s photos throughout the essay are uniformly beautiful, even if that was not always true of the reality they captured.

Black students gathered on front steps of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1967, ten years after the school was desegregated, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Opal Harper, an English instructor, was one of five Black teachers at Central High School in Little Rock in 1967, ten years after the school’s integration.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Coral Lee Mercer, the only Black member of the High Steppers at Little Rock’s Central High, instructed two classmates trying out for a spot, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Henry Hall was one of many Black members of a school band at Central High School in Little Rock in 1967, ten years after the school was desegregated.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Teacher Bonnie Polk instructed Patricia Dukes during archery class at Central High School in 1967, ten years after the school was desegregrated.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bill Brooks, a star in track and in football, was congratulated by teammates at Little Rock’s Central High, ten years after the school was desegregated.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bill Brooks, a track and football star at Little Rock’s Central High School, drove off the blocks on his way to winning the 100-yard dash, 1967. Black athletes such as Brooks found the process of integration easier than most classmates, LIFE reported in 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students at Little Rock’s Central High School in line at cafeteria, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the recently desegregated Lusher School in New Orleans, three boys walked through the playground together, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the Richards School in Florence, Ala. in 1967, LIFE reported that integration was going smoothly, despite resistance to the movement at the state level.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Foster Shockley attended to students in his kindergarten class in the privately financed Nashville Education Project for disadvantaged children, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Student Ann Taylor (left) studied the gestures of her dance teacher Alice Condodina at the North Carolina School of the Arts, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children dashed for school buses in the recently desegregrated schools in Ruby, S.C., 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children played on an improvised jungle gym made with tree branches and tin cans at the Mt. Pugh Head Start center in Mississippi, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At a school in New Orleans, students dried their artwork by blowing on it, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children played basketball at the True Light Baptist Church Center in Glen Allan, Mississippi, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress June Havoc discussed theater with members of the drama class at desegregated McDonough 35 School in New Orleans, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy Carter: A Noble Life

January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 by Bill Syken

The following is from the introduction to LIFE’s special tribute issue, Jimmy Carter: A Noble Life, which is available online and at newsstands.

When James Earl Carter died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on December 29, 2024, he was 100, and many people who as 18-year-olds had voted for or against him in the 1970s were contemplating retirement—an unthinkable concept for Carter. To the end, the nation’s longest-lived President remained passionately engaged in American life and global affairs, his body buffeted by illness but his intelligence undimmed.

Jimmy Carter’s protean career saw soaring triumphs and crushing defeats, but one theme ran through it like a river—a call to service, deeply rooted in devout Christian faith. He’d risen meteorically to the White House, suffered a precipitous fall, then rebuilt his legacy through good works at home and abroad, whether it was promoting public health and welfare or safeguarding the environment or protecting human rights. His dogged resilience was a lesson in the human capacity for renewal. It seemed Jimmy Carter would go on forever.

He was 96 when he and his wife, Rosalynn, appeared with three other former Presidents and their first ladies—the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas—in a two-ad campaign urging Americans to sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine in March 2021. One spot showed clips of the couples receiving their shots; in the other, the ex-Presidents stood together, each addressing the camera.

It was Carter’s second time in the news that week. Days earlier, he’d released a statement blasting Georgia Republicans for a slate of measures restricting absentee ballots and eliminating Sunday voting, widely seen as a reaction to GOP losses in his traditionally red home state. Georgia had favored Joe Biden in the 2020 election and sent Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the U.S. Senate, partly on the strength of mail-in and Sunday votes from majority Black districts. “I am disheartened, saddened, and angry,” said Carter, who had backed both senators and endorsed Biden. “We must not promote confidence among one segment of the electorate by restricting the participation of others.”

Carter became such a fixture in public life, it was hard to believe he’d burst onto the national scene seemingly out of nowhere in 1976 to wrest the presidency from Gerald Ford. A polarizing war, racial division, and Watergate had left the nation starving for change—and the unpretentious governor/peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, fit the bill. Physically unprepossessing, Carter was hardly magnetic in stump speeches, but he won 297 electoral votes, 50 percent of the popular vote, and on Inauguration Day became the first incoming President to walk from the Capitol to the White House. In the Oval Office, Carter saw himself as a technocratic problem solver, but he was an insular President, reliant on a tight inner circle of friends and advisers nicknamed the Georgia Mafia. Bluntly honest, he seemed incapable of schmoozing legislators.

Still, backed by a Democratic Congress, Carter could claim substantial achievements, including enacting strong new pollution controls, bolstering consumer protections, establishing the Energy and Education departments, and appointing many female and Black federal judges. And then there was his crowning foreign policy triumph, brokering peace between Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat—the Camp David Accords.

But other crises overwhelmed Carter’s presidency: runaway inflation, energy shortages, and the humiliating hostage standoff with Iran. In 1980, Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in an epic landslide, 489 electoral votes to 49; he returned to Plains depressed, and roundly dismissed as a failure. As it turned out, he was just getting started.

Other one-term Presidents have enjoyed distinguished second acts. John Quincy Adams served 18 years in the House as a fierce abolitionist; William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But Carter’s four-decade post-presidency, the longest in American history, was unmatched for its breadth and depth of accomplishment. Much of it sprang from the Carter Center, the nonprofit he and Rosalynn started in 1982, which has launched programs in 80 countries to promote health, sanitation, economic justice, and democracy. Carter became a leading authority on election integrity, roaming the globe to monitor voting. His most visible humanitarian work, though, was when he rolled up his sleeves and built houses with Habitat for Humanity, helping to provide some 4,400 families with safe, affordable shelter.

Carter won hearts around the world with his grace in the face of a 2015 cancer diagnosis—melanoma had metastasized and spread to his brain. He thought he had weeks to live but recovered and kept going. Social media immortalized him as a humanitarian action hero—a viral meme depicted him on the job with Habitat, hammer in hand, captioned, “You May Be Badass, But You’ll Never Be 91-Year-Old Jimmy Carter Battling Cancer While Making a House for the Unfortunate Badass!”

Even in his final years, Carter continued to show up for his convictions and his community. In May 2022, he filed a friend of the court brief to prevent a road being built through an Alaskan refuge. The following year, he and Rosalynn surprised attendees of the annual Peanut Festival in Plains when they waved to the crowd from a car. It would be the beloved couple’s last appearance at the event; Rosalynn died on November 19, 2023, at age 96. Carter’s tribute to his wife of 77 years summed up his own character as well. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in this world, I knew someone loved and supported me.”

Here are a selection of photos from LIFE’s special tribute issue to Jimmy Carter.

Cover image: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders/Corbis/Contour RA/Getty

A young Jimmy Carter, in his naval uniform, with wife Rosalynn. They were married for 77 years.

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th President of the United States by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger on January 21, 1977

Hulton Archive/Getty

Carter met with Israel’s Menahem Begin and Anwar Sadat of Egypt at Camp David, 1978. The agreements that resulted from the meetings, known as the Camp David Accords, led to a historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Everett/Shutterstock

Even before his Habitat for Humanity days, Jimmy Carter enjoyed building things. Here the former President made use of the woodworking tools given to him as a going away gift from his Cabinet and staff. Carter was sanding a table he built for Rosalynn to use as a typewriter stand.

Bettmann/Getty

Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, visited children suffering from schistosomiasis during their Feb. 15, 2007, trip to Nasarawa North, Nigeria. The Carters traveled to the community to bring national attention to the country’s need to make disease prevention methods and treatments with the medicine praziquantel more accessible in its rural and impoverished communities.

Emily Staub/The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter helped an Egyptian voter to cast his ballot at a polling station in Cairo on May 24, 2012 during the country’s second day of the country’s first free presidential election. Representatives from the Carter Center came to the country to serve as election monitors.

Wissam Saleh/AFP/Getty

Carter met with the locals while in Kathmandu on November 18, 2013, to monitor Nepal’s elections.

Deborah Hakes/ The Carter Center

Meet Lady Wonder, the Psychic Horse Who Appeared Twice in LIFE

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Bill Syken

The story of Lady Wonder began in 1925, when her owner, Mrs. Claudia Fonda of Richmond, Va., noticed that the horse she had purchased when it was two weeks old—then just called Lady— would come when Fonda was merely thinking of calling her. Fonda wondered if the horse could read her mind, she told LIFE. By the time Lady was two years old the horse had been taught to spell out words by using blocks with letters on them. When Lady correctly predicted the winner of the Dempsey-Tunney boxing match, the fame of what Fonda billed as “The Mind-Reading Horse” began to spread.

Lady Wonder’s first appearance in LIFE came in 1940, when the magazine, as part of a larger story on ESP, related the history of the horse but also reported that it had lost its extra-sensory special powers. The horse could still perform simple mathematics, though, and was at that point merely being billed as “The Educated Horse,” with claims of clairvoyance left by the wayside. Still, the story noted that its ESP expert believed the horse once posessed special powers.

Then in 1952 Lady Wonder returned to the spotlight when she seemingly offered insight to a tragic case involving a missing boy. Here’s how LIFE described her contribution in its issue of Dec. 22, 1952:

A friend of the district attorney of Norfolk County, Mass., went to see her, on a hunch, to ask her for news of a little boy who had been missing for months. She answered, “Pittsford Water Wheel.” A police captain figured out that this was a psychic misprint for “Field and Wilde Water Pit,” an abandoned quarry. Sure enough, that is where the boy’s body was found.

The incident brought national attention to Lady Wonder, and among those who made the pilgrimage to her Virginia farm was LIFE photographer Hank Walker. He captured the mare, then 27 years old, in action, dispensing advice and sports predictions. (For the specific college football picks from Lady Wonder mentioned in the article, the horse was right on only one out of three picks).

Not everyone was buying the act. In 1956 the magician Milbourne Christopher, who was a noted debunker of frauds, visited Lady Wonder’s stable and concluded that the horse was spelling out words under the subtle guidance of Fonda, who was directing Lady Wonder on which blocks to select.

Lady Wonder died the next year.

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Lady Wonder,” a horse with the purported ability to see the future, came in from the pasture to answer questions for her customers, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Julius Bokkon regularly visited Lady Wonder to solicit the opinion of the clairvoyant horse on matters in her life, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, the purported clairvoyant horse, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The tricks of Lady Wonder included performing addition; here she had been asked what 7+6 equalled (she had already pulled up a “1” that is out of view to the left), Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Owner Claudia Fonda stood by as her clairvoyant talking horse tourist attraction, Lady Wonder, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, a horse with supposed clairvoyant powers, attracted visits from tourists and well as regulars such as Mrs. Julius Bokkon, Richmond, Va., 1952. The levers around the horse were like keys in a giant typewriter that it used to communicate its messages.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Marienbad Cut: Gloria Vanderbilt Models A French Movie Hairdo

December 19, 2024December 19, 2024 by Bill Syken

The French New Wave became a force in cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, expanding ideas about the way movies told stories. One sign of the New Wave’s cultural influence was that even a movie which left many viewers befuddled was able to inspire a fashion trend in both Europe and the United States.

The film was 1961’s Last Year at Marienbad, directed by Alian Resnais, and its narrative, such it was, centered around a nameless man and woman at a luxury hotel who may or may not have a past together. The film is polarizing enough that it merited both a Criterion Collection edition and also inclusion in a book about the 50 worst films ever. The Criterion Collection edition, even while exalting Last Year at Marienbad, describes the film as a “fever dream” whose plot “has been puzzling appreciative viewers for decades.”

But even if fans didn’t know what the movie meant, they knew that it was stylish (the costumes were done by Coco Chanel), and many women wanted to mimic the hairstyle of lead actress Delphine Seyrig. Here’s what LIFE had to say about the trend in its issue of June 22, 1962.

Not since Veronica Lake’s pageboy bob completely hid one eye from view has a movie hairdo caused such a stir…Cut short and straight with back ends pushed forward under ears and a deep diagonal bang on the forehead, the Marienbad hairdo looks sleek and sophisticated, but appealingly artless at the same time.

Modeling the hot new look for LIFE was none other than socialite and future fashion icon Gloria Vanderbilt. The hairstyle had initially taken off in Europe, and LIFE wrote that Vanderbilt was the first New Yorker to adopt the Marienbad look, “after persuading hairdresser Kenneth to go to the film to study it.”

LIFE staff photographer Paul Schutzer ALSO seems to have also studied the film; the setups for his Vanderbilt photo shoot echo locations from the movie.

And while the film is difficult to understand, the hairstyle was appealingly simple to maintain. Vanderbilt said that while the style requires frequent cutting, in between it could be kept in place “merely by running a comb through it.” The story concluded that “women of all ages, types and places have begun to demand the short cut, glad of a fashionable excuse to give up overly teased bouffant hair for a comfortable, easy-to-keep summer style.”

Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt modeled a new hairdo inspired by the 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad.

Paul Schutzer/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt modeled a new hairdo inspired by the 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad.

Paul Schutzer/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock