Attracting star power to the civil rights movement was as much about raising money as it was about galvanizing public support. Fundraisers held across the country in 1963 often featured celebrities and artists on hand to help raise cash for the March on Washington. One of these events took place just a few weeks before the March, in Birmingham, Ala., where violent clashes between local police and young protesters in May 1963 spurred the momentum that culminated in the March on Washington in late August.
Dubbed a “Salute to Freedom,” the concert was held at Miles College and included appearances by Martin Luther King Jr., Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Johnny Mathis, James Baldwin and other political and pop-culture stars. Proceeds from the show helped cover transportation costs for Alabamans who went to Washington just weeks later.
None of the photos in this gallery were ever published in LIFE.
Martin Luther King Jr. (seated, at right) watched the Shirelles perform during the Salute to Freedom benefit concert in Birmingham, Ala., August 5, 1963.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Author James Baldwin looked out at the crowd.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ray Charles performed.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The crowd reacted during the Salute to Freedom benefit concert in Birmingham, Ala.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The Salute to Freedom benefit concert in Birmingham, Ala.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Joey Adams (left), president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, on stage with the Shirelles.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Nina Simone performed.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Fans enjoyed the concert.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Martin Luther King Jr. (left) and an unidentified man addressed the crowd.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The Salute to Freedom benefit concert in Birmingham, Ala., August 5, 1963.
Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A man held an American Guild of Variety Artists banner during the Salute to Freedom benefit concert in Birmingham, Ala., August 5, 1963.
Whether he was shooting as a staff photographer for LIFE or freelancing for other major publications—Smithsonian, Fortune, Newsweek—Bill Ray never shied from an assignment, however large or (seemingly) small, during the course of his long career. Global events and quiet moments; armed conflicts and avant-garde artists; the grit and menace of the early Hells Angels and the bracing glamor of the Camelot years, he covered it all.
“I threw myself, one hundred percent, into every shoot,” Ray said. “And I loved it.”
For this Photographer Spotlight, however, LIFE.com focussed on one aspect of Ray’s varied portfolio: celebrity portraits.
Even a partial roll call of the stars Bill Ray photographed for LIFE reads like a Who’s Who of Sixties pop culture: Marilyn Monroe, Sinatra, the Beatles, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis, Steve McQueen, Jackie Kennedy and on and on and on. What’s truly remarkable is that he managed to capture something utterly distinctive about each one.
It’s difficult to imagine one photographer capable of showing us something elemental about personalities as wildly disparate as, say, Brigitte Bardot, Sonny Liston and Woody Allen, but Bill Ray did just that, again and again.
Some photo captions in this gallery include Ray’s memories of what it was like to photograph these people. But we’ve also included, below, a few of the longer and often hilarious stories Bill Ray told about documenting the lives and careers of the 20th century’s most famous public figures.
Marilyn Monroe Sings “Happy Birthday” to JFK, May 19, 1962:
I was on assignment for LIFE at the old Madison Square Garden that night one of many photographers down in front of the stage. The police, with directions from the Secret Service, were forcing the press into a tight group behind a rope. I knew that all the “rope-a-dopes” would get the same shot, and that would not work for LIFE. I squeezed between the cops and took off looking for a better place.
It seemed that I climbed forever. When I found a pipe railing to rest the lens on (exposure was strictly by guess), I could see JFK through the telephoto. When the moment came, the Garden went black. Total silence.
One spotlight snapped on, and there was Marilyn, in that dress, crystals sparkling and flashing. She was smiling, with everyone on the edge of their seats. Then, in her breathy, sexy, unique voice, looking the entire time right at JFK, she sang.
In two-and-a-half months, Marilyn would be dead. In eighteen months, Kennedy would be assassinated; Vietnam would turn into our worst nightmare; Camelot would be gone. But that night, Marilyn’s brief song stopped the world.
Brigitte Bardot Throws a Tantrum on the Set of Shalako, Spain, 1968:
I rode with Bardot to the set many times in her white Rolls-Royce. On one of those mornings, B.B. saw a stray, starving dog and ordered her driver to stop. It was love at first sight. The starving mutt loved B.B. and the Rolls, and B.B. loved the mutt. B.B. put all her retainers on the case. She would make a perfect life for this “adorable” dog.
Her hairdresser bathed the dog. Her chauffeur tore off in the Rolls for filet mignon. The dog never left her side until the fourth day when he keeled over dead from too much of the good life.
B.B. started to cry and worked herself up to uncontrollable wailing. She locked her dressing room door. Cast and crew [including co-star Sean Connery] were standing by. Lunch time came and went. The wailing went on and on. The whole day was lost; mucho dinero.
Woody Allen in Vegas, 1966:
It was a pivotal year for Woody. He published stories in the New Yorker, wrote and directed his first film, What’s Up Tiger Lily? and had a Broadway hit, Don’t Drink the Water. He was on fire, and LIFE wanted to celebrate him with a cover story. I was given the job of shooting Woody in Las Vegas, along with any other photos I could get of his other activities.
The Woody I met at Caesars Palace was one of the quietest, most cooperative people I’ve ever worked with. The only problem was that he didn’t do anything except stay in his room, write, and practice his clarinet until it was time for his standup routine. Then I remembered the kitschy nude Roman statues in front of Caesars. With trepidation, I asked Woody if he would pose with one of the nudes. He thought it was a funny idea and said “sure.” That was a relief and I pressed my luck, asking him if he would wear a red sweater that I happened to have with me.
“Is it cashmere?” he asked. It wasn’t; it was wool.
Woody said he was allergic to wool, but after some pleading, he agreed to wear it.
I needed the contrast with the white statue, and a bit of red never hurt for a cover shoot. The statue seemed to inspire Woody, and he really came to life. He hugged and vamped and swung around. It was tremendous fun.
Phone calls and telexes from New York assured me the shots were great and would run with the story.
But LIFE was a weekly and would use a news cover whenever they could. Unfortunately for me, some damn thing happened that week and LIFE scrapped the Woody Allen cover. It was heartbreaking but I still had the great thrill of working with one on the comic geniuses of my time.
Pvt. Elvis Presley in Brooklyn, 1958, before leaving the States to serve in Germany.
“The latest rule in girls’ high school fashion,” LIFE magazine proclaimed in 1969, “is that there isn’t any.”
In contrast to the popular fashions and styles of certain decades the Gibson Girl of the 1890s and early 1900s, the flapper of the Roaring Twenties, the “New Look” of the Fifties there was no single reigning style in the 1960s. Even as the slim-cut trousers and shift dresses of the late Fifties crept in, Mod miniskirts and go-go boots found their way over from London to mingle with the bell-bottomed jeans and fringed vests of the latter part of the decade. By 1969, the fashion choices of tens of millions of young American men and women were as variegated and ever-evolving as the world around them.
A “freaky new freedom,” LIFE called it. Was it ever!
Cultural transformation was an irresistible force during the Sixties, and across America and around the globe civil rights, women’s and gay liberation, the sexual revolution and, of course, the explosive soundtrack of R&B, soul and rock and roll informed everything from politics to fashion.
Unceasing change, meanwhile, is the one constant in human affairs and by the 1960s, technology had advanced to the point where events and movements in one corner of the world were instantaneously accessible on campuses and in communities everywhere. As global telecommunication networks grew at-once larger, faster and more sophisticated, America grew, in a sense, much smaller. The vast and near-visionary national highway system had spread across the country in the post-World War II years; more households than ever owned a car (or two); and for the first time, plane travel was becoming a viable option for many American families. Over the course of the 1960s, air passenger numbers more than quadrupled from the previous decade.
This mobility opened both literal and figurative vistas to countless Americans and even if most weren’t able to drive to Haight-Ashbury, or explore the Far East in person, they certainly saw these places on television and in the great photography being published in myriad weekly and monthly magazines and, increasingly, in newspapers. Fewer than a million households owned a TV in the late 1940s; two decades later, that number had increased more than forty fold. The August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech; the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination (and MLK’s, and RFK’s); the Vietnam War; the 1969 moon landing — all of these era-defining people and moments, and so many more, were broadcast into living rooms from Maine to California, Alaska to Florida.
Was the medium the message? Was the message the medium? For most people, it didn’t really matter, either way, as long as the pictures, the music, the fashions, the movements that came and went with dizzying speed as long as it all kept coming.
By 1969, America’s youth had not only soaked in more visual and auditory stimuli in a few years than most previous generations combined, but had re-imagined virtually all of that input in the form of sartorial self-expression. In light of that new, global sensibility, Beverly Hills high schooler Rosemary Shoong’s homemade “stunning leather Indian dress” (slide #1 in the gallery above) wasn’t just a dress. It was a time and a place, man. And it was out of sight.
Liv Combe writes frequently on food, travel, fashion and culture; is a regular contributor to the literary review, Full Stop; and will soon begin work for Afar magazine in San Francisco. While she knows it’s a cliché, she would very much like to have seen the Paris of the 1920s.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
Student Rosemary Shoong at Beverly Hills High School, wearing a dress she made herself, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Beverly Hills High classmates showed off their fashions, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High school teacher Sandy Brockman wore a bold print dress, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Corona del Mar High School students Kim Robertson, Pat Auvenshine and Pam Pepin wore “hippie” fashions, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High schooler Nina Nalhaus wore wool pants and a homemade jacket in Denver, Colo., 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Southern California high school student walked toward classmates while wearing the “Mini Jupe” skirt, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Southern California high schooler wore a buckskin vest and other hippie fashions, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Beverly Hills High School student Erica Farber, wearing a checkered and tiered outfit, walked with a boy, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Students at Woodside High in California, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High school students wore “hippie” fashion, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High schooler Lenore Reday stopped traffic while wearing a bell-bottomed jump suit in Newport Beach, Calif., 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High school fashions, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
High school fashions, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Southern California high school student wore an old-fashioned tapestry skirt and wool shawl, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Southern California high school students, 1969.
Arthur Schatz/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A high school student wore bell bottoms and boots, 1969.
Arthur Schat/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A Kansas high school student wore a mini skirt, 1969.
A question for the film buffs out there: Is there a genuine, bona fide leading man in the movies today who on camera and off looks, sounds and acts like a grown-up? Think before you answer, and consider the potential contenders.
Tom Cruise? Brad Pitt? Leonard DiCaprio? These guys are all at points in their careers when they can pick and choose their roles and command obscene sums of money for their work. But they all possess a kind of post-adolescent quality that, while marginally engaging, never quite feels fully adult. Pitt, for example, is by all accounts a solid guy, with his heart in the right place on all sorts of important global issues. But there’s still something about Mr. Jolie that feels, somehow, slightly juvenile. Maybe it’s the hair.
Russell Crowe? Tom Hanks? Despite the critical acclaim, the Oscars, the varied and at times risky career moves, it’s still tough to think of them as fully-formed, comfortable-in-their-own-skin grown-ups. The irony, of course, is that both have played fully-formed, comfortable-in-their-own-skin grown-ups on the big screen to absolute perfection; it’s when they simply have to be themselves that they can both seem a tad sophomoric. Charming, of course, and disarmingly self-aware. Self-deprecating, even. But a little bit silly.
George Clooney? Will Smith? Matt Damon? They clean up nice, and Clooney, especially, looks phenomenal and at ease in a tux which, after all, is a very grown-up outfit. And yet, somehow, all three of those guys often resemble nothing so much as precocious lads.
This is not to say that all of today’s leading men are overgrown high schoolers. Liam Neeson is, emphatically, a grown man. So is Denzel Washington. So are several other actors (older guys, in their 50s and 60s) who might conceivably be thought of as leading men. But generally speaking, the number of leading men who look, sound and act like grown-ups, on camera and off, seems to have plummeted in the past few decades. Maybe that’s because, as a culture, we’ve grown so obsessed with the idea of Youth not in a Wordsworthian, Romantic sense of eternal innocence, but a blinged-out, selfie-snapping, consumerist Youth culture: the slippery, golden demographic so avidly pursued by marketers.
All of which makes the photograph above so damn appealing. Here we have four of the most enduring stars in Hollywood history Clark “The King” Gable, Cary Grant, Bob Hope and David Niven during a break in rehearsals for the 1958 Academy Awards, and despite the fact that they’re convulsed with laughter over a shared joke, they’re all very clearly, unapologetically grown up. They’re accomplished, famous movie stars reveling in one another’s company and not one of them looks as if he has the slightest interest in being younger, or hipper, than he is.
And that, of course, makes them all very cool, indeed. No matter how old they might be.
Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bob Hope and David Niven
Leonard McCombe The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
You would think that Marilyn Monroe is such an object of fascination that every photo of her would have surfaced ages ago—if not during her life, then at least soon after her death in 1962.
But in 2013, a book by Christopher Andersen, These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack With Jackie, made news because it asserted that Marilyn Monroe actually phoned Jackie Kennedy in 1962 and told her that JFK was going to make her, Marilyn, his second wife. That spurred LIFE.com to dig into its archives and find a series of pictures that LIFE’s Loomis Dean made in 1948, when Marilyn was a mere 21 years old. None of Dean’s photos from that shoot had ever been published in LIFE.
So. Here she is, with another then-aspiring actress, Laurette Luez, and Hollywood veteran Clifton Webb on the set of a comedy called Sitting Pretty. Neither Marilyn nor Luez were in that movie. But Luez was under contract to Twentieth Century Fox—the studio that released Sitting Pretty—and Marilyn had once been under contract to Fox, and eventually would be again, so the presence of the two women on the set, whether as young actresses looking for pointers, or for publicity purposes, isn’t all that surprising. In fact, as Marilyn and Laurette Luez change seats at one point (the fourth image), it’s highly unlikely that these are purely impromptu shots of the trio.
(Incidentally, Webb was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film, one of three Academy Award nods he earned in his long career.)
It’s always jarring to see Marilyn as, in effect, an ingenue, in the years before she achieved stardom and then went on to transcend the movies and enter a realm of tragic legend. But in early 1948, Marilyn Monroe was just another talented, engaging young actress who hoped to be famous someday.
Be careful what you wish for.
Then-unknown actress Marilyn Monroe with Clifton Webb and Laurette Luez on the set of a 1948 comedy, “Sitting Pretty.”
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Marilyn Monroe, Clifton Webb, Laurette Luez, 1948
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Then-unknown actress Marilyn Monroe with Clifton Webb and Laurette Luez on the set of a 1948 comedy, “Sitting Pretty.”
Long before the heady, rock star-like run for the White House, before “Ich bin ein Berliner,” before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the pillbox hats, Marilyn’s “Happy birthday, Mr. President,” Camelot and the limo drive through Dallas, John and Jackie Kennedy were a young newlywed couple much like any other newlywed couple with one notable difference: by the time of their wedding they were, in a sense, already superstars.
The pair had appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine two months before their wedding, in July 1953, perched on the sloping deck of a sailboat off of Cape Cod, both of them smiling, windblown, emphatically New England-y, beside the cheeky headline, “Senator Kennedy Goes a-Courting.” They were both from prominent, monied, influential families, and they were frequently featured, together and apart, in the society pages of major newspapers.
Their marriage in Rhode Island on September 12, 1953, was national news. LIFE magazine sent photographer Lisa Larsen, then in her late 20s, to cover the highly publicized event. Her photos from the occasion offer not only a before-and-after record of the nuptials, but a surprisingly intimate chronicle of one of the most high-profile American weddings of the 20th century.
For its part, LIFE magazine reported on the scene in an article in a Sept. 1963, issue:
The marriage of Washington’s best-looking young senator to Washington’s prettiest inquiring photographer took place in Newport R.I. this month and their wedding turned out to be the most impressive the old society stronghold had seen in 30 years. As John F. Kennedy took Jacqueline Bouvier as his bride, 600 diplomats, senators, social figures crowded into St. Mary’s Church to hear the Archbishop of Boston perform the rites and read a special blessing from the pope. Outside, 2,000 society fans, some who had come to Newport by chartered bus, cheered the guests and the newlyweds as they left the church. There were 900 guests at the reception and it took Senator and Mrs. Kennedy two hours to shake their hands. The whole affair, said one enthusiastic guest, was “just like a coronation.”
—Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
The bride and bridegroom finally sat down to lunch after the long, wearying ordeal of the receiving line. Jacqueline, whose wedding dress contained 50 yards of material, got settled in while her husband started right in on the fruit cup.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Bouvier and her husband Sen. John Kennedy stood in front of the church after their wedding ceremony.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The line of guests waiting patiently to congratulate the couple extended to the front lawn of the bride’s mother’s 300-acre Hammersmith Farm at Newport.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John and Jackie Kennedy on their wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackie Kennedy on her wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier at their wedding, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John and Jackie Kennedy with ushers, bridesmaids and flower girls.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John and Jackie Kennedy with groomsmen and other guests on their wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Joe Martin. U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, congratulated the bride and bridegroom.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Flower girl Janet Auchincloss, half sister of the bride, talked to Kennedy while the bride looked out the window at guests waiting to go through the receiving line.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John and Jackie Kennedy on their wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Guests, including Robert Kennedy, watched as newly married John and Jackie Kennedy cut their wedding cake, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy on her wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A slice of wedding cake was offered to the bridegroom by flower girl Janet at the luncheon. Kennedy had already had some cake so did not want any more.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John and Jackie Kennedy on their wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy on her wedding day.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Guests at the wedding reception for John and Jackie Kennedy, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy danced with her husband, John F. Kennedy, at their wedding reception, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy danced with her new father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy danced at her wedding reception.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A girl with a flower at John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding reception, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacqueline Kennedy on her wedding day, Newport, R.I., Sept. 12, 1953.
Lisa Larsen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Off for their honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico, the bride and bridegroom left the wedding reception amid a shower of rose-petal confetti and rice.