Lower Manhattan’s Lost Anchors: Remembering the Twin Towers

Say you’ve lived in New York for a while. Ten years. Twenty years. Maybe your whole life. You’re coming out of the subway, in pretty much any borough. You’re a little turned around when you get to the street. You’re not sure which way is north, which is south. Without thinking about it, you gaze around for the one landmark (or rather, the two landmarks) that always helped orient you in the past those enormous, companionable markers that silently indicated, at a glance: This is south. This is Lower Manhattan. Get your bearings.

Then you remember: the Twin Towers are gone. So you cast about for some other clue, some other sign that will tell you where to turn, and as you head off in the right direction, the vanished towers hover at the edge of your thoughts a ghost image that, like Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s famous black-on-black New Yorker cover, seems to perpetually fade, but never really goes away.

The towers anchored Lower Manhattan for almost three decades. While they stood, no one would have characterized them as “beloved,” or even as terribly well-liked. They were too gargantuan, too lacking in character (it seemed) to elicit the sort of affection offered to structures like the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge. The Twin Towers were sleek, utilitarian monoliths.

Gradually, though, people did warm to the pair. There were times, for example, when the setting sun burnished the soaring glass sides of those two buildings, that they were genuinely beautiful. And seen from a distance, the Twin Towers added a certain balance to the island’s famous skyline, a counterpoint to the skyscrapers of midtown.

The towers are gone now. A new skyscraper, One World Trade, has risen in the spot where the Twin Towers once stood, and the skyline of the city has again been reshaped, transformed—as it always has been, and always will be.

And who knows? Maybe future generations of commuters and tourists will walk out of subway stations all over town, a little turned around, a little confused, and will automatically gaze about for the one landmark that has always helped orient them an enormous, companionable marker that silently indicates, at a glance: This is south. This is Lower Manhattan. Get your bearings.

 

World Trade Center 1983

Lower Manhattan and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, photographed from Brooklyn, 1983.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Lovely Bones: The Art of Evolution

Design is a funny, marvelous, sometimes unsettling thing especially when evolution itself is the designer.

Take these six-decade-old pictures of skulls and bones. Seen in a certain light, and photographed for LIFE by the great Andreas Feininger, the bones of creatures as varied in size and temperament as fish, bats, elephants, hummingbirds and humans are eloquent totems, raising questions about life, death and what we ultimately leave behind.

In the end, though, perhaps the way that humans and our fellow creatures appear when seen at the most elemental level in other words, how we look when literally stripped to the bone says more about us than we’d like to admit. Even as these pictures summon thoughts that swing between the morbid and the exalted, one thing remains strikingly clear: in the right hands, bones are beautiful.

Many of these Feininger photographs appeared in the Oct. 6, 1952, issue of LIFE.

Andreas Feininger, owl’s skull

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, picture of a mole

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger photograph of a bat

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger photograph of a fish

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, skeletal vertebrae of catfish, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, pygmy armadillo, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, jumping mouse, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, Human and horse skeletons, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, elephant, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, hummingbird and elephant’s femur, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, gorilla rib cage, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, shrew, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, skeletal structure of a bird, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, ostrich femur, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, bear femur, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Andreas Feininger, sloth, 1951

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Men Who Would Be 007: LIFE Behind the Scenes at James Bond Auditions

In the early 1960s, movie producers adapting Ian Fleming’s novels about a suave British spy named James Bond plucked a relative unknown, Sean Connery, from obscurity and offered him the role of a lifetime. When Connery left the franchise after five movies (although he would briefly be back, in 1971, in Diamonds Are Forever, and again in 1983 for Never Say Never Again) the hunt for another Bond was on.

In 1967 LIFE sent photographer Loomis Dean to casting sessions for the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The magazine published a handful of those photos in an article on the film and on the Bond phenomenon. But some of Dean’s choicest frames Bond wannabes suiting up, brandishing guns, sipping faux martinis, and wooing women never ran in the magazine.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos from those 1967 auditions, featuring the five top candidates including George Lazenby, who would eventually win the coveted role.

[Buy the LIFE book, 50 Years of James Bond.]

Critical reception of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has hardly been uniform. There was much initial grumbling, for example, about Lazenby’s performance—especially in light of Connery effectively defining the role for a generation of moviegoers. Lazenby was a 28-year-old Australian model living in London, with virtually no acting experience outside TV commercials. But there was something about George Lazenby that placed him a notch above his competitors. Particularly impressive was his physical prowess. (In a subsequent audition to test his fighting skills, Lazenby reportedly broke a stuntman’s nose. That clinched it.)

“I’m really looking forward to being Bond, for the bread and the birds,” he told LIFE after his casting.

Meanwhile, the years have been kind to the 1969 flick. Entertainment Weekly, for example, ranked On Her Majesty’s Secret Service the sixth best of the Bond series, which now includes more than 20 feature films and is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time.

A composite image of the five top candidates (including ultimate choice George Lazenby, bottom right). Published in the October 11, 1968, issue of LIFE.

A composite image of the five top candidates (including ultimate choice George Lazenby, bottom right). Published in the October 11, 1968, issue of LIFE.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Richardson during James Bond auditions, 1967.

John Richardson during James Bond auditions, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

On Her Majesty's Secret Service director Peter R. Hunt oversees a test love scene between John Richardson and an actress, moving her leg just so.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service director Peter R. Hunt oversaw a test love scene between John Richardson and an actress, moving her leg just so.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Richardson during James Bond auditions, 1967.

John Richardson during James Bond auditions.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Bond audition candidate John Richardson (left), in profile, 1967.

James Bond audition candidate John Richardson (left), in profile, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Richardson reacts as his screen-test costar pulls out a gun, 1967.

John Richardson reacted as his screen-test costar pulled out a gun.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Director Peter Hunt studies John Richardson during his audition, 1967.

Director Peter Hunt studied John Richardson during his audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Richardson continued to act after he lost out on the Bond role, appearing in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) and a string of Italian movies.

After he lost out on the Bond role, Richardson appeared in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) and a string of Italian movies.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Bond audition finalist Anthony Rogers, 1967.

James Bond audition finalist Anthony Rogers, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Anthony Rogers and an actress during a screen test, 1967.

Anthony Rogers and an actress during a screen test.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Anthony Rogers smokes a cigarette during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Anthony Rogers smoked a cigarette during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Anthony Rogers smokes a cigarette during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Anthony Rogers during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Campbell during James Bond auditions, 1967.

Robert Campbell during James Bond auditions, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Director Peter R. Hunt helps Robert Campbell get into a shoulder holster, 1967.

Director Peter R. Hunt helped Robert Campbell get into a shoulder holster, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Campbell checks a page of lines during a James Bond audition, 1967.

Robert Campbell checked a page of lines during a James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Bond hopeful Robert Campbell adjusts his shirt and jacket, 1967.

James Bond hopeful Robert Campbell adjusted his shirt and jacket, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Campbell looks in the mirror between filming scenes for his James Bond audition, 1967.

Robert Campbell looked in the mirror between scenes for his James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Campbell during a kissing test, opposite actress France Anglade, 1967.

Robert Campbell during a kissing test, opposite actress France Anglade, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hans de Vries during James Bond audition, 1967.

Hans de Vries during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hans De Vries and France Anglade, James Bond audition, 1967.

Hans De Vries and France Anglade, James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hans de Vries during James Bond audition, 1967.

Hans de Vries during his James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby during James Bond audition, 1967.

George Lazenby during James Bond audition, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

James Bond hopeful George Lazenby fiddles with a knife while chatting with Bond director Peter R. Hunt, 1967.

George Lazenby fiddled with a knife while chatting with Bond director Peter R. Hunt, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby goofs off behind the scenes of his screen test, boxing with an unidentified man, 1967.

George Lazenby goofed off behind the scenes of his screen test.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby twirls a gun beside potential Bond Girl Marie-France Boyer, 1967.

George Lazenby twirled a gun beside potential Bond Girl Marie-France Boyer, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby during auditions for the role of James Bond, 1967.

George Lazenby during auditions for the role of James Bond, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby and Bond Girl hopeful Agneta Eckemyr, 1967.

George Lazenby and Bond Girl hopeful Agneta Eckemyr, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby leans against a bar during a moment away from James Bond auditions, 1967.

George Lazenby leaned against a bar during a moment away from James Bond auditions, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Lazenby, 1967.

George Lazenby, 1967.

Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot: Classic Photos of the Original ‘Sex Kitten’

Decades after her acting and singing careers came to an end, Brigitte Bardot is more recently known for her animal-rights activism and for her frequent scrapes with the French authorities over her passionate, public denunciations of what she considers the “Islamification” of her native France. (She has been fined multiple times for “inciting racial hatred” in books and speeches, arguing in 2003, for example, that France has “given in to a subterranean, dangerous and uncontrolled infiltration which not only resists adjusting to our laws and customs but which will, as the years pass, attempt to impose its own.”)

All these years later, however, it’s still difficult for anyone who was not alive at the time to grasp the galvanizing effect that Bardot had as an actress and as a sex symbol on moviegoers around the world in the 1950s and early 1960s. Here, LIFE.com celebrates the young Bardot with a series of pictures—most of which never ran in LIFE—made by Loomis Dean in 1958.

In a June 1958 article titled “The Charged Charms of Brigitte,” LIFE waxed lyrical (and, to contemporary ears, a touch patronizing, if not downright sexist) about the 24-year-old actress’ effect on American moviegoers and critics:

Not since the Statue of Liberty has a French girl lit such fires in America, and Brigitte Bardot does not just stand there like a statue. She moves, she wriggles, and her clothes are as often off as on. One of her films, “And God Created Woman,” has played for eight solid months in one New York theater and raked in some $2 million in the U.S. and, with her four other current films, has jammed art theaters until people complain they are clogging up culture. What Bardot has, which is more than sex, still mystifies many who stop to think about it . . . Meanwhile, the Bardot boom balloons. With four new films to open before years’ end, she’s finishing a fifth, “The Lady and the Puppet” [“La Femme et le Pantin,” but often billed simply as “The Female” for the English-speaking world], made in Spain where these pictures were taken.
In gaining her present eminence, Brigitte Bardot has had certain advantages beyond those she was born with. Like the European sports car, she has arrived on the American scene at a time when the American public is ready, even hungry, for something racier and more realistic than the familiar domestic product. Americana actresses, like American four-door sedans, seem to have grown more and more standardized in styling.
No Hollywood girl can play a mechanic’s wife or even an early western rancher’s daughter without being made up as precisely as the Marquise de Pompadour and garbed like a Main Line heiress. By contrast, an actress who lets her hair get in her eyes, who looks as though she could perspire at least lightly and who wriggles greedily as she kisses a man comes as a revelation.
But none of this really explains why Brigitte Bardot has been so successful. Other foreign actresses have had the same opportunity to profit from public receptiveness and the lack of censorship but none of them has been able to match her accomplishments. Brigitte, also known as B.B. and the Sex Kitten, has not lifted a finger to achieve publicity. In fact, she treats all reporters like net men from the city pound. . . . The male viewer, having been frankly invited to admire the lush Bardot charms, is soon forced to an uneasy suspicion that he is a wicked old man.

And on it goes—an endless stream of metaphors that remind us of why, in part, Bardot left acting behind when she was not yet 40 years old. She had helped to create and to define the sex-goddess archetype in the movies, but found herself almost entirely unable to break out of that mold no matter how “serious” her roles became or how nuanced her performances actually were.

In the end, then, if nothing else, the pictures in this gallery help explain why most critics and most audiences were, perhaps, unable to see beyond the sheer sensuality that Brigitte Bardot exuded, both onscreen and off. After all, for a while there in the middle part of the last century, she might just have been the sexiest woman on earth.

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

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on set with actor Michel Roux, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on location in Spain in 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film, “La Femme et le Pantin” Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed at the time she was making the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot plays the guitar while on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot checks her hair and makeup on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot (holding a copy of LIFE magazine) looks at a photographic slide on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin” in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot photographed between takes, Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

Brigitte Bardot with co-star Antonio Vilar on the set of the film “La Femme et le Pantin.”

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brigitte Bardot 1958

In Bardot’s films she often ended up lounging on a bed.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

01020849.JPG

Brigitte Bardot during break on location in Spain, 1958.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE’s Best Baseball Pictures

LIFE magazine’s coverage of the American pastime while always steeped in a genuine appreciation for the nuances, intricacies and thrills of the game was often as much personality-driven as performance-driven.

George Silk, Ralph Morse, Mark Kauffman, Francis Miller and the other photographers who so frequently covered baseball for LIFE beautifully captured the action unfolding on the field. But they were also photojournalists: pretty much every photographer on the LIFE staff who was shooting baseball in the 1940s and ’50s (and even into the ’60s) also had occasion, throughout their careers, to photograph . . . well, you name it. War, science, technology, the arts, pop culture, politics, other sports from yachting to boxing to golf: the breadth of the subjects covered by LIFE, and the necessity for LIFE’s photographers to ably capture the heart of the matter whatever the matter happened to be meant that baseball was a bit more than just a game. For LIFE’s editors, writers and photographers, it was one more window into the human spirit.

Here, LIFE.com offers the best baseball pictures made for LIFE, from the late Forties to the early Seventies. The great players one would expect are, of course, here: Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and other Hall of Famers make their obligatory appearances. But above and beyond the sheer, phenomenal athletic talent on display (talent gauged by records set, titles won, World Series rings worn) there is also another, less-quantifiable element of the game portrayed in most of these pictures an element of individual and collective striving on the part of players, managers, owners and, of course, fans. For lack of a better word, that element is drama, and it’s here in abundance.

Finally, viewers will note and many will no doubt grumble about the preponderance of New York players and teams represented in these photos. More than half of the photographs either include players in Yankee, Dodger or Giant uniforms, or depict a scene in which New York players, even if unseen, either have or had a central role. In our defense we’ll just note that, during the years in which these photos were made, New York teams were hard to ignore. Between 1941 and 1956, the Yankees and Dodgers played each other in the World Series seven times.

So, yeah. There might be a little too much New York here for some. But if it’s any consolation, there’s nary a Met in sight.

After umpire William Grieve issues a walk to a Washington pinch-hitter, Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy and catcher Birdie Tebbetts express their doubts about Grieve’s judgment, 1949.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

University of Pittsburgh students cheer wildly from atop the Cathedral of Learning as they look down on Forbes Field, where the Pittsburgh Pirates are playing the Yankees in the 7th game of a Series that would enter baseball lore when Bill Mazeroski smacked a 9th-inning, game-winning home run.

1960 World Series, Pittsburgh

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Yankee pitcher Don Larsen talks to the press after throwing a perfect game—still the only perfect game in postseason history—against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brooklyn Dodger rookie hopefuls work out at spring training, 1948.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jackie Robinson, the great disruptor, dances off of third in the 8th inning of Game 3 of the 1955 World Series.

Jackie Robinson, the great disruptor, dances off of third in the 8th inning of Game 3 of the 1955 World Series.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Roy Campanella (left) talks with an awed fan during spring training in 1959.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Red Sox star Ted Williams, all of 22 years old, demonstrates his batting technique in 1941.

Gjon Mili Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In one of the most poignant pictures ever made of a great athlete in decline, 33-year-old Mickey Mantle—his electrifying talents blunted by injuries, age and years of alcohol abuse—tosses his helmet away in disgust after a weak at-bat at Yankee Stadium, June 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dodger southpaw and 1955 World Series MVP Johnny Podres reads about his own and his teammates’ exploits while visiting a store in his hometown of Witherbee, New York, a small mining town in the Adirondacks, a few hundred miles north of Brooklyn.

Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hall of Famer, linchpin of the Big Red Machine and the man ESPN once pegged as the greatest catcher in history, Johnny Bench displays the intensity that made him such a force on the diamond, Cincinnati, 1970.

Hall of Famer, linchpin of the Big Red Machine and the man ESPN once pegged as the greatest catcher in history, Johnny Bench displays the intensity that made him such a force on the diamond, Cincinnati, 1970.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Milwaukee Braves fans listen to a game against the Dodgers in 1956. The Dodgers ended the season one game ahead of Milwaukee in the National League, then lost in seven to the Yankees in the ’56 Series.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Leroy "Satchel" Paige, ageless relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, watches his teammates practice in 1948.

Leroy “Satchel” Paige, ageless relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, watches his teammates practice in 1948.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A rapt audience in a Chicago bar watches the 1952 Subway Series between the Yankees and Dodgers in 1952.

A rapt audience in a Chicago bar watches the 1952 Subway Series between the Yankees and Dodgers.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Willie Mays, arguably the greatest all-around ballplayer in major league history, poses for LIFE's Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1954, the year the Giants won the World Series.

Willie Mays, arguably the greatest all-around ballplayer in major league history, poses for LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1954, the year the Giants won the World Series the Series against the Indians in which Mays made his legendary, running, back-to-home-plate catch of a long Vic Wertz drive in the far reaches of the Polo Grounds.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Yogi Berra takes issue with the umpire's "safe" call after Jackie Robinson's electrifying steal of home in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series.

Yogi Berra takes issue with the umpire’s “safe” call after Jackie Robinson’s electrifying steal of home in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series.

Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ailing baseball great Babe Ruth thanks the crowd at Yankee Stadium for their ovation on "Babe Ruth Day," April 27, 1947.

Ailing baseball great Babe Ruth thanks the crowd at Yankee Stadium for their ovation on “Babe Ruth Day,” April 27, 1947.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Baseball great Jackie Robinson during filming of "The Jackie Robinson Story."

Jackie Robinson during filming of The Jackie Robinson Story (in which he starred), 1950.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Little Leaguers in Manchester, N.H., dress in a schoolroom before their first game of the season, as their formidable leader, Dick Williams, demands to know where the rest of the uniforms are.

Little Leaguers in Manchester, N.H., dress in a schoolroom before their first game of the season, as their formidable leader, Dick Williams, demands to know where the rest of the uniforms are.

Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE With Horace the Housebroken Hare

Carl Mydans belongs on anyone’s short list of the 20th century’s finest photojournalists. The Boston native chronicled downtrodden migrant farmers in New England and the American South during the Great Depression, covered the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, documented Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s legendary “return” to the Philippines in 1945 and was aboard the USS Missouri when a Japanese delegation signed surrender documents, ending the Second World War.

In 1956, Mydans also memorably captured the mercurial essence of an utterly compelling figure who, in his own time and in his own way, was as fascinating as any that ever graced the pages of LIFE: Horace the housebroken hare.

The notion of a wild hare (distinguished from a mere rabbit by its longer ears, longer legs and other physical traits) living in one’s house does not sit well with a lot of people. Men and women who are perfectly content to let a cat or dog roam around their homes will shiver in something like revulsion at the idea of a virile, bright-eyed hare hopping blithely through the kitchen, hanging out in the bathroom or sitting quietly on the living room sofa.

Judging by the mood of Mydans’ photographs, however, Horace and his people—the Webbs of Dublin, Ireland—appear to have come to an amicable agreement about how to get along under the same roof. In fact, in most of these pictures, it’s evident that the hare holds sway in the household, and the humans are there, for the most part, simply to do Horace’s bidding.

In its March 12, 1956, issue, LIFE shared the housebroken hare’s tale and Mydans’ pictures with the magazine’s readers:

It is the usual fate of the Irish hare, a wild strain betwixt the Scottish and European varieties, to sleep by day in the hedgerows and by night to scurry through plowed fields in search of leafy delicacies. To live long he must be a wary hare, on guard always against man, his guns and dogs.

This might have been the life of Horace, the loveable hare, had he not fallen three years ago into the hands of Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo. Webb and his wife took Horace into their home to study the ways of small wild animals. They kept him on … because they had acquired a wonderful pet, as intelligent, playful and domesticated as any dog.

Horace loves to eat from his master’s mouth, kick and drum against him in mock battle, bound about the house from chair to bed to bureau. And hare, a favorite food all over Europe, has no place on the Webbs’ dining table.

 

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

Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, with Horace the hare

Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, with Horace the hare.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

When he wanted to get in, Horace drummed his paws against the door.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Horace the hare sprawled out on the kitchen floor in home of Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare takes a drink, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare took a drink, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the hare and Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, 1956.

Horace the hare and Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, with Horace the hare

When the Webbs played table tennis, Horace took his place at midcourt and watched the ball flash by. Sometimes he caught it and ran off with it.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare in midair, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare in midair, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace likes to sit on a rug while Webb pulls him rapidly around the room. He is seldom thrown from the rug, balancing cleverly as it makes sharp turns.

Horace liked to sit on a rug while Webb pulled him rapidly around the room. He was seldom thrown from the rug, balancing cleverly as it made sharp turns.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare in mid-snack, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare in mid-snack, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

When bedtime comes, Horace usually acts as if he's asleep and forces Webb to pick him up and carry him to outside run.

When bedtime came, Horace usually acted as if he was asleep and forced Webb to pick him up and carry him to an outside run.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Portrait of Horace the Irish hare, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horace the Irish hare navigates the stairs in home of Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, 1956.

Horace the Irish hare navigated the stairs in home of Cecil S. Webb, director of the Dublin Zoo, 1956.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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