Written By: Ben Cosgrove
Once again, football season is upon us, and once again, the occasion brings with it all the marketing mayhem, fan frenzy and trash-talking that sports are so often heir to. Pro football is unique among American sports due to its sheer, outsized spectacle. It’s louder than baseball, brasher than basketball, and more routinely violent than the phenomenally physical sport of NHL hockey and the high-speed lunacy of NASCAR. In fact, of all the major sports in North America, football is arguably the one that brings out whatever vestiges of machismo might be lurking in even the most seemingly mild of fans.
Football, after all, is for manly men. But there are many types of toughness. Mental toughness (Jackie Robinson); quiet toughness (Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper); gritty toughness (a weary, determined American Marine); crazy, spasmodic toughness (Cagney’s sociopath, Cody Jarrett, in White Heat); run-right-over-you toughness (Jim Brown); and on and on.
Here, LIFE.com offers a look back at some of the iconic faces and personalities that, in their own time and in their own chosen pursuit, were tough enough to answer that age-old question: Who’s the man?
John Garfield 1938
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Marine on Saipan 1944
W. Eugene Smith Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jimmy Stewart 1945
Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Kirk Douglas 1949
Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
C.H. Long 1949
Leonard McCombe Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Gary Cooper 1949
Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
James Cagney 1949
Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Marlon Brando 1949
Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Robinson 1950
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Gregory Peck 1950
W. Eugene Smith Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Humphrey Bogart 1951
Eliot Elisofon Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Rocky Marciano 1951
Eliot Elisofon Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ernest Hemingway 1952
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Spencer Tracy 1955
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mickey Mantle 1956
Ralph Morse Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Mercury Astronauts 1959
Ralph Morse Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Burt Lancaster 1959
Grey Villet Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Frank Sinatra 1961
Leonard McCombe Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Steve McQueen 1963
John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Muhammad Ali 1966
Bob Gomel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John Wayne 1969
John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jim Brown 1969
Henry Groskinsky Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Johnny Cash 1969
MIchael Rougier Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jack Nicholson relaxing at home in Los Angeles, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Clint Eastwood 1971
Bill Eppridge Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
