Born Under Fire: Rare Photos From the Birth of Israel

Seven decades ago, in the midst of a civil war and at the tail end of the decades-long British Mandate for Palestine, the state of Israel was born. The post-World War II era’s premier powers the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the young state at once. Official recognition from many other nations took longer; Spain, for example, did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until 1986.

Many of Israel’s neighbors, meanwhile, as well as more than a score of other countries around the world, from Afghanistan and Algeria to North Korea, Somalia, Yemen and beyond, have never officially recognized Israel, while others that shared diplomatic relations have, at one time or another, suspended or broken ties completely over the years.

Thus, in the years since its birth in May 1948, Israel—a country roughly the size of New Hampshire—has arguably played a more salient (and divisive) role in international geopolitics than any other non-superpower on the planet. Surrounded by enemies, today and at the hour of its creation, Israel remains what it has to some degree always been: a kind of Rorschach state that assumes myriad shapes for myriad observers—aggressor, defender, usurper, bastion, homeland.

For example, far from being universally celebrated, the period when Israel won its independence i.e., the era of civil war and of the war against neighboring Arab states after May 14, 1948 is commemorated by Palestinians as Nakba, or “the catastrophe.” And no wonder, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during, and long after, those wars of the late ’40s. In recent years, the contentious (to put it mildly) issue of Israeli settlements and continued Palestinian displacement on the West Bank has added fuel to what has always been a dangerous, smoldering fire.

In other words, for an awful lot of people around the Mideast and around the world, the intractable “Palestinian problem” might be better characterized as “the Israeli problem.”

In light of this fraught legacy and the nature of the enmities that have, in large part, come to define the region long-time Middle East watchers can perhaps be forgiven a certain pessimism when discussing the prospects for a lasting peace from the eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea.

Here, however, through a series of rare photos most of which never ran in LIFE magazine, LIFE.com looks back not at the Mideast’s thorny, enduring troubles, but at the immediate aftermath of Israel’s independence. A conflict photographer who made some of the most devastating images to emerge from the Second World War, Frank Scherschel brought to his coverage of Israel’s birth a correspondent’s cool, clear eye, and a storyteller’s ability to find the smaller, quieter narratives amid the ruin and chaos of a war-battered landscape.

For its part, in an article published just weeks after Israel’s official independence, LIFE magazine acknowledged the ancient hopes of the Israelis at the dawn of their new nation, while presciently noting that nothing, nothing at all, was ever likely to come easy to the fledgling, embattled state:

In the deepening dusk on May 14, 1948 which to them was the 24th day of the month of Iyar in the 5,708th year after creation the Jews of Palestine gathered in their cities and villages to celebrate the most fateful moment in their history. The British mandate still had eight years to run, but already the last high commissioner, Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, had retired to the cruiser Eurylas in Haifa harbor. There he sat watching the night creep across he eastern Mediterranean and the twilight envelop yet another fragment of old empire. He was too far offshore to hear the Jews chanting their ancient “Hatikvah” (Song of Hope), but he well knew the words: We have not forgotten, nor shall we forget, our solemn promise. . . .

In the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ended nearly 2,000 years of Jewish longing for a homeland with a great blow of his fist upon the speakers’ table. “The name of our state shall be Israel,” he intoned, and a new nation was born.

Encouragement for the new state was not long in coming. Neither was trouble. Both the U.S. and Russia promptly recognized Israel and thus gave stature to the provisional government. . . .

But as these diplomatic bouquets were tossed, the embittered Arabs threw shells and bombs. From the ring of Arab states around Palestine the long-threatened attack had begun. King Abdullah of [the British protectorate of] Trans-Jordan sent his Arab Legion against Jerusalem and by week’s end had the Jewish defenders compressed into an ever-narrowing sector within the old walled city. Egypt’s planes repeatedly bombed Tel Aviv. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia pitched in for whatever their scattered efforts might be worth. Israel was born indeed, but the Jews would need of the Shield of David to keep their nation alive.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Proclamation of Nationhood is read by Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Around him are members of the provisional government, including Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok (third from right). Labor Minister Moshe Ben Tov (extreme right) wears sport shirt. Portrait above is of Theodor Herzl, Zionism's founder

ISRAEL PROCLAMATION OF NATIONHOOD

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two men peer out of a hole in a bombed building, shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People run away from the waterfront during an air raid shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An Israeli soldier, on guard shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Israeli soldiers, seen shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Graphic Warning Slide

Graphic Warning Slide

After an Arab air raid, bodies of dead Jews lie in the rubble along the Tel Aviv waterfront.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Haganah [Jewish paramilitary] soldier examines souvenir from Egyptian Spitfire shot down by Jews on Tel Aviv beach.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Soldiers walk down a ruined street, shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Armed forces of new state are built on Haganah militia. Members are shown here riding trucks down Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway to go into action near Bab el Wad.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Israeli wounded being cared for in forward first aid station, shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men watch as an Israeli military vehicle passes by, shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Israeli men photographed shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Burned-out buses seen shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Street scene, shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young woman looks out a battered window shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Happily displaying the Israeli flag shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel, exact location unknown, May 1948.

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Waco, 1953: Photos From the Aftermath of a Lethal Tornado

On the afternoon of May 11, 1953, an F5 tornado made a direct hit on Waco, Texas. (On the scale for rating rotational intensity created by storm researcher Ted Fujita, an F5 twister is capable of “incredible damage.”) In a matter of minutes, in the face of cyclonic winds that likely topped 300 mph, hundreds of homes and businesses were utterly destroyed; thousands of cars were damaged or totaled; almost 600 people were injured and 114 were killed.

It remains one of the deadliest tornados in American history. 

In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, LIFE’s John Dominis and correspondent Scot Leavitt, who had just recently moved to Texas, made their way to the devastated city. All of the photos in this gallery, many of which never ran in LIFE, are Dominis’s; in a note sent to LIFE’s editors in New York, Leavitt noted that “through virtually all [of Dominis’s] shooting, rain fell, the sky was dark and the mood was somber.”

For its part, LIFE wrote of the disaster in its May 25, 1953 issue:

By May 11 the warm, close weather was uncomfortably routine to the people of Waco, Texas. The day before had been muggy and the day before that, too. The big news in the Morning News-Tribune was of a tornado in far-off Minnesota. At mid-morning the New Orleans weather bureau warned there might be a few tornadoes close to home. But an Indian belief that tornadoes would never strike Waco had always held true and no one in the city worried about the report At 1:30 .m. the Waco weather forecaster announced, “No cause for alarm.”

Three hours later the skies suddenly darkened. people scurried for shelter from the hail and slashing rain, and at the edge of town a cemetery workman looked up to see a thick black wedge forming under a low cloud … At 4:37 p.m. the black wedge in the sky struck Fifth and Austin [streets], gouged the earth for a block and left the heart of Waco a broken coffin for scores of schoolboys, housewives, motorists….

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Rescuers attempt to free a woman trapped in rubble, Waco, Texas, May 1953.

Rescuers attempted to free a woman trapped in rubble, Waco, Texas, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco Tornado, 1953

In the downpour which followed the twister, a group of volunteer workers stood aside as another body was found in the ruins of the Torrance pool hall where 25 players, mostly teenagers, were trapped and killed when the roof caved in.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco Texas Tornado 1953

At 2:30 A.M., a power saw was used to cut away some timbers. Afraid she might be cut, Lillie [Matkin] said, “I’ve been here 10 hours, a little longer won’t hurt.”

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco Tornado, 1953

A human chain of rescue workers operated outside this building throughout search for Lillie.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco Tornado, 1953

At 6:45 A.M., Lillie Matkin’s ordeal ended, 14 hours and eight minutes after she was trapped and able only to wiggle her feet. Gently as they could, the men who had labored through night to disentomb her carried her out of the wreckage. Near the end of her entrapment a worker removed her shoes and before she was lifted out she cautioned, “Don’t lose them. They’re old but comfortable.” The shoes were brought to her later at the hospital.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Lillie Matkin, Waco tornado survivor, is freed from rubble, May 1953.

Lillie Matkin, a Waco tornado survivor, was freed from rubble, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vigil without hope was kept by Mrs. Beth Parten, 25, whose husband, Cecil, was missing. She alternated between listening to reports coming in by portable radio in store and keeping watch in car parked outside the Red Cross headquarters. After two nights of waiting, workers found her husband's body.

A vigil without hope was kept by Beth Parten, 25, whose husband, Cecil, was missing. She alternated between listening to reports coming in by portable radio in the store and keeping watch in a car parked outside the Red Cross headquarters. After two nights of waiting, workers found her husband’s body.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Men look out at destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the town, May 1953.

Men looked out at destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the town, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco Texas Tornado 1953

A respite from horror came for Seaman Howard Wilkerson, 18, after a dreadful moment. Just before this picture was taken he had helped to remove the bodies of a dead man and woman from a car which had been crushed by a falling wall. Shaken by the sight, he said, “I wonder if I will ever sleep again.”

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene on a Waco, Texas, street after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Scene on a Waco, Texas, street after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Rescuers administer oxygen to a survivor in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Rescuers administered oxygen to a survivor in Waco, Texas, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Rescuers administer oxygen to a survivor in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Rescuers administered oxygen to a survivor in Waco, Texas, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene on a Waco, Texas, street after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Clean-up and recovery efforts in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

Clean-up and recovery efforts in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A crowd around an ambulance in the aftermath of the 1953 Waco tornado that killed 114 people.

People crowded around an ambulance in the aftermath of the 1953 Waco tornado that killed 114 people.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A survivor surveys the destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

A survivor surveyed the destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Destroyed homes, Waco, Texas, May 1953.

Destroyed homes, Waco, Texas, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Funeral following the May 11, 1953, tornado that killed 114 people.

A funeral following the May 11, 1953, tornado that killed 114 people.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hawaii Before Statehood: Color Photos, 1959

The image and legend of Hawaii as a tropical paradise endures for countless reasons. Few places on earth can boast more dramatic or romantic landscapes; the weather is generally gorgeous; the variety of climates one can encounter within the space of a few miles from arid to tropical to near-alpine to sun-splashed beach is mind-boggling. 

But paradise, as we all know, exists only in fairy tales—or, if a paradise did once exist in the Pacific, it long ago gave way to the complex, ambiguous and often politically fraught realities of the modern world. The Hawaii of the travel brochures—as marvelous as it might be in theory, and even at times in fact—is a beautiful construct that often ignores the island chain’s bumpier, and endlessly fascinating, history. (For instance, how many Americans in the contiguous 48 know anything at all about the nonviolent “democratic revolution” of labor strikes and major acts of civil disobedience that roiled the islands in 1954, reshaping Hawaii’s political landscape for all time?)

Here, LIFE.com presents color photographs made in 1959, the year that Hawaii was admitted to the Union. The admission took place on August 21, and in a March 1959 article, “Hawaii Beauty, Wealth, Amiable People,” for which these pictures were shot, LIFE painted a largely rosy picture of the place:

The first proposal to make Hawaii a state was put forward more than a hundred years ago when President Franklin Pierce cast his eyes across the Pacific and proposed that the splendid and strategic islands be taken into the union. Pierce’s plan faded and it was not until 1898 that Hawaii was annexed as a U.S. territory. Proposals to make Hawaii a state have been on the books of Congress for more than 40 years. Now it seems almost certain that in this session Hawaii will achieve its aim. [Hawaii was granted statehood in August 1959.]

As a territory, Hawaii has developed a sturdy economy based on U.S. military expenditures at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere, and on sugar, pineapple, tourism and livestock. The islands, which have a total area roughly that of New Jersey, have bred an incredibly polyglot and racially integrated population of nearly 600,000. This mean that Hawaiian statehood, besides conferring full U.S. status on a potentially rich and decidedly vital area, would also indicate to all the peoples of the Pacific and of Asia that the U.S. can still be the tolerant, hospitable melting pot of old.

 

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Cattle graze under volcanic cliffs on Oahu, 1959.

Cattle grazed under volcanic cliffs on Oahu, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Foodland supermarket, Hawaii, 1959.

Foodland supermarket, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Black-sand beach, made by waves battering volcanic rock, on the Big Island, Hawaii, 1959.

A black-sand beach, made by waves battering volcanic rock, on the Big Island, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hawaiian scene, 1959.

Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene at Dole's 15,000-acre Wahiawa plantation near Honolulu, 1959.

Dole’s 15,000-acre Wahiawa plantation near Honolulu, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Catholics at St. Catherine's Church on Kauai, 1959.

St. Catherine’s Church on Kauai, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Washing hung out to dry, Hawaii, 1959.

Wash hung out to dry, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fans at a football game, Hawaii, 1959.

Fans at a football game, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Drum majorette leads band at Honolulu football game, 1959.

A drum majorette led the band at a Honolulu football game, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Football game, Honolulu, 1959.

Football game, Honolulu, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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This paddle dance, performed in honor of Lono, god of peace and agriculture, was taught to fourth-grade students at the Kamehameha Schools by a teacher of pure Hawaiian blood, Esther Waihee McClellan.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hawaiian women pose, 1959.

Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dunking pool at a Hawaii fair, 1959.

The dunking pool at a Hawaii fair, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roman Catholic church, Hawaii, 1959.

Roman Catholic church, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hawaiian police, 1959.

Hawaiian police, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene on a Hawaiian plantation, 1959.

Scene on a Hawaiian plantation, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tourists in Hawaii, 1959.

Tourists in Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Surfing, 1959.

Surfing, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young Hawaiian mother, 1959.

A young Hawaiian mother, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hawaii, 1959.

Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pearl Harbor, 1959.

Pearl Harbor, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Swimming in a freshwater pool, Hawaii, 1959.

Swimming in a freshwater pool, Hawaii, 1959.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart, 1945: A War Hero Comes Home

When James Maitland Stewart, the oldest child and only son of Alexander and Elizabeth Stewart of Indiana, Pa., enlisted in the United States Army in 1941, he wasn’t like most privates. For one thing, he was already well into his 30s. For another, he had already been rejected by the military for being too skinny. (The first time around, he was five pounds under the Army’s weight standard for new recruits.) And finally, no other World War II inductee had won a Best Actor Oscar, as Stewart had for his performance as reporter Mike Connor in the 1940 classic, The Philadelphia Story.

Putting his Hollywood career on hold to join the Army Air Corps—a forerunner to today’s Air Force—Stewart ultimately reached the rank of colonel, making him one of few Americans ever to rise from private to colonel in four years. He flew dozens of combat missions, some as command pilot, on sorties deep into Nazi-occupied Europe, and returned from the war on the Queen Elizabeth, covered in medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal.

For the cover story of LIFE magazine’s September 24, 1945 issue, photographer Peter Stackpole followed Stewart as the Hollywood star and war hero returned to his hometown.

Jimmy Stewart and his dad outside the family hardware store, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Jimmy Stewart and his dad outside the family hardware store, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and Family, 1945

Thirty-seven-year-old Jimmy Stewart sat down at the table with (clockwise from left) his younger sister Mary, his mother Elizabeth, his father Alexander, and his other younger sister, Virginia, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart 1945

Jimmy Stewart, home from the war, helped clear the table at his parents’ house, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart chats with George Little, the oldest employee in his father's hardware store, 1945. Besides all the usual hardware goods, the store also boasted Jimmy's Philadelphia Story Oscar on display.

“Jimmy Stewart chatted with George Little, the oldest employee in his father’s hardware store, 1945. Besides all the usual hardware goods, the store also boasted Jimmy’s “Philadelphia Story” Oscar on display.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart on the phone, 1945

While his father chatted with a customer at the hardware store, a uniformed Jimmy Stewart set up a date to go fishing, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart on the phone at his father's hardware store, 1945.

Jimmy Stewart on the phone at his father’s hardware store, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart goes fishing, 1945

Jimmy Stewart went fishing with his old friend Clyde “Woodie” Woodward, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and friend, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Jimmy Stewart and friend, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The house where Jimmy Stewart grew up in Indiana, Pa., about 50 miles from Pittsburgh, seen in 1945.

The house where Jimmy Stewart grew up in Indiana, Pa., about 50 miles from Pittsburgh, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The movie star and war vet Jimmy Stewart signs autographs for local girls, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Jimmy Stewart signed autographs in Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Col. Jimmy Stewart, 1945

Jimmy Stewart, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and family, 1945

Jimmy kidded his father about the old days. His sister Mary (center on swing) was an artist and married to a chaplain in the Navy. His other sister Virginia (left) was a magazine writer and married to artist Alexis Tiranoff, who was in the Army.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart plays the piano with his sister, 1945

Jimmy Stewart plays the piano with his sister Virginia, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Stewart looks in his family's hardware store window and spots a model plane he'd built years earlier, 1945.

James Stewart looked in his family’s hardware store window and spotted a model plane he’d built years earlier, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and stuffed squirrel

In 1945, Jimmy Stewart eyed a stuffed squirrel he’d shot years earlier. The creature was only “slightly moldy,” LIFE reported.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and hand puppets, 1945

Visiting his hometown in 1945, Col. Jimmy Stewart played with a pair of puppets he made when he was seven years old.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart entertains some local children, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Jimmy Stewart entertained some local children, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart takes out his father's horse and shay, 1945.

Jimmy Stewart took out his father’s horse, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Magician Bill Neff wasn't just a friend of Stewart's; he once provided Jimmy with a summer job, when they "took a tour as magicians."

Magician Bill Neff wasn’t just a friend of Stewart’s; he once provided Jimmy with a summer job, when they “took a tour as magicians.”

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Stewart, back home after serving in World War II, reads in bed at his parents' house, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

James Stewart, back home after serving in World War II, read in bed at his parents’ house, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Col. James Stewart: movie star, war hero, Indiana, Pa., 1945.

Jimmy Stewart, 1945.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE With the ‘Lizard King’: Jim Morrison and the Doors, 1968

Reflecting the uncertain, tumultuous era in which it was made, much of the popular music of 1968 was moody, trippy, obtuse and, perhaps not surprisingly, utterly confounding to many in the mainstream.

Among the counterculture protagonists that LIFE sought to bring to its millions of readers was Jim Morrison, the highly influential lyricist and front man of the Doors. For a LIFE feature, “Wicked Go the Doors: An Adult’s Education by the Kings of Acid Rock,” the writer Fred Powledge studied Morrison through his lyrics and his notorious onstage antics. 

Here, LIFE.com presents color portraits of the then-24-year-old rocker/poet, plus shots that never ran in the magazine of the Doors playing New York’s famed Fillmore East.

At the time of his 1968 portrait session with photographer Yale Joel in New York, Morrison and his bandmates had released two albums (featuring hits such as “Light My Fire,” “People Are Strange” and “Love Me Two Times”), and were about to record a third, Waiting for the Sun. As their popularity grew, the 33-year-old Powledge, taking a break from his typical beat (civil rights and race relations), aimed to “dig,” in an almost scientific fashion, the weird but compelling music his 9-year-old daughter was into.

The most satanic thing [Powledge wrote] about the Doors is Jim Morrison, the lead vocalist and author of most of the group’s songs. Morrison is 24 years old, out of UCLA, and he appears in public and on his records to be moody, temperamental, enchanted in the mind and extremely stoned on something . . . [Morrison’s lyrics] are not what you’d call simple and straightforward. You can’t listen to the record once or twice and then put it away in the rack. And this is one of the exciting characteristics of the new music in general: you really have to listen to it, repeatedly, preferably at high volume in a room that is otherwise quiet and perhaps darkened. You must throw away all those old music-listening habits that you learned courtesy of the Lucky Strike Hit Parade and Mantovani.

“Once you see him perform,” Powledge continued, “you realize that he also seems dangerous, which, for a poet, may be a contradiction in terms.”

LIFE’s physical description of Morrison, meanwhile, name-checked a famous burlesque dancer and pinup girl: “He wears skin-tight black leather pants, on stage and away from it; and when he sings, he writhes and grinds and is sort of the male equivalent of the late Miss Lilly Christine, the Cat Girl. But with Lilly Christine you had a good idea that the performance was going to stop short of its promised ending-point. You don’t know that with Morrison.”

The anything-goes attitude Powledge sensed in Morrison was not unfounded: While working on his story in 1967, the writer was in the audience for a Doors concert in New Haven, Conn., and watched as Morrison who had been ranting to the audience about local police was arrested onstage on indecency charges (later dropped).

You are reminded that the music is a plastic reflection of our plastic world. The sounds are transistorized, sharper than sharp, just as the plastic lettering over a hot dog stand is redder than red. Out of this context the music even the conventional sounds of the church organ or the street noises is unreal; it is marvelously effective in reflecting what’s going on in our society. It dances close to disharmony, to insanity; sometimes it does sound insane and disharmonious, but then you listen closer and find a harmony hidden deep within it.

“Morrison is a very good actor and a very good poet, one who speaks in short, beautiful bursts, like the Roman Catullus,” Powledge wrote. “His lyrics often seem obscure, but their obscurity, instead of making you hurry off to play a Pete Seeger record that you can understand, challenges you to try to interpret. You sense that Morrison is writing about weird scenes he’s been privy to, about which he would rather not be too explicit.”

LIFE’s April 1968 take on Jim Morrison and his band wasn’t the only time the magazine visited the topic. Just two months later, in a story titled “The New Rock” (featuring not only the Doors but also Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Jefferson Airplane, the Mothers of Invention, Cream, the Who and Country Joe and the Fish), Morrison explained his philosophies and his cathartic stage shows.

“Rather than start from the inside, I start on the outside and reach the mental through the physical,” he told LIFE. “Today is the age of the heroes, who live for us and through whom we experience the heights and depths of emotion. The spectator is a dying animal and the purgation of emotion is left up to the actor, not the audience.”

That sort of quasi-mystical hocus-pocus is, of course, exactly the reason countless rock and roll fans have always been drawn to the Doors, and why so many others find them so gratingly pretentious. Hardly anyone who is at all familiar with their music is lukewarm toward the band a fact that would no doubt bring a smile, or a sneer, to Morrison’s face if only he were still alive.

Not long after Yale Joel made the photos in this gallery, the sinuous Morrison seen here had changed: he became hairier and heavier as he descended deeper into drinking and drugging. He was just 27 when he died.

Still, he was prolific in the three short years between the Joel photo session and his death, fronting memorable concerts, recording three more Doors albums and writing two volumes of poetry all of it building upon the material that elevated him from rock ‘n’ roll front man to pop-culture icon.

Jim Morrison, photographed in New York City by LIFE's Yale Joel in 1968.

Jim Morrison, photographed in New York City by LIFE’s Yale Joel in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

Jim Morrison, photographed in New York City by LIFE's Yale Joel in 1968.

Jim Morrison, 1968

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

Jim Morrison, photographed in New York City by LIFE's Yale Joel in 1968.

Jim Morrison, 1968

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

The Doors perform at New York City's Fillmore East in 1968.

The Doors performed at New York City’s Fillmore East in 1968.

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

Jim Morrison, photographed in New York City by LIFE's Yale Joel in 1968.

Jim Morrison, 1968

Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection

On Arbor Day, Gratitude and Praise for Trees Great and Small

In her classic 1918 novel, My Antonia, the writer Willa Cather re-created and paid homage to a vanished world of America’s Great Plains — a world of hardy homesteaders and tiny, solitary towns tenaciously clinging to the land amid vast and still-wild spaces. Among the countless memorable, vivid passages in the book, one in particular stands out as a near-perfect distillation of the almost unbearable solitude of the lives lived out on the great, rolling prairie.

“Trees were so rare in that country,” the book’s narrator recalls, “and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.”

There is, after all, something sociable about trees — whether we encounter them singly, in small groves, or in enormous forests. Trees give us paper and pencils, guitars and parquet floors, whiskey barrels and church pews. They offer shade on hot days. They lock away carbon dioxide. Their incredible root systems control runoff from heavy rains and help keep streams and rivers free of choking silt and mud. They act as windbreaks, minimizing snowdrifts in the winter and reducing topsoil erosion all year round. They keep city streets cool, and help muffle noise pollution.

Here, on Arbor Day, we offer gratitude and praise to trees — steadfast companions on our small planet.

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