Page 135 – LIFE

Alaska: In Praise of Big Country

August 17, 2021August 23, 2012 by

Like other remote, “exotic” lands, the vast expanse of mountains, forests, tundra, wild streams and endless, rugged shoreline known as Alaska has long fired the imagination of millions who have never set foot there. Just as mind-boggling as the 49th state’s spectacular (if sometimes harsh) beauty, however, is that fewer than three-quarters of a million people call the state’s 660,000 square miles home. In other words: Alaska has about one resident per square mile; New Jersey, by comparison, has about 1,200 inhabitants per square mile.

Get the picture? The place is huge, and even after all these years as a U.S. territory and as an exporter of key resources (primarily oil, abut also seafood, timber, minerals and more) it remains relatively empty.

Of course, different parts of what is now Alaska have been occupied by various peoples for thousands of years, long before Europeans and, from the other direction, Russians began arriving in significant numbers a few centuries ago. And yet, after many hundreds of years and several waves of immigration, the fact that Alaska still holds far fewer than a million people is rather astonishing and in many ways, adds to the Last Frontier’s mystique as a bastion of hardy, rough-and-tumble, solitude-loving homesteaders scraping a living from the land, rivers and sea.

(That Alaskans receive more federal aid per capita, in relation to taxes paid, than the citizens of almost any other state is something that isn’t celebrated quite as loudly as that can-do, pioneer spirit.)

Here, LIFE.com presents pictures many of which did not run in the magazine made by photographer Ralph Crane for a major cover story in 1965.

As LIFE put it in the introduction to the piece:

Alaska, the 49th state, is also the largest, most forbidding and least understood. Its 250,000 people [Note: now three times that number] are suspended, a bit uneasily, between memories of a pioneer, hardscrabble past and dreams of a glittering, prosperous future. The photographs [here] explore this hostile and demanding land which seems to conspire against man even as it engenders and commands his fierce loyalty.

Though some of the pioneers [who built Alaska] were simply moving out of range of the sheriff, and others would be misfits anywhere, most of them were the kind of men whose hearts beat faster out of doors, who drew strength from the struggle with nature … folks who just wanted to get away from the confines of the onrushing civilization.

More than five decades after those words were written, Alaska still retains a good deal of its allure as a place outside of both time and beyond the the strictures and constraints of “the lower 48.”

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

Original caption: “In the bright light of an Alaskan afternoon a band of Eskimos [sic] tossed their whaling captain into the air alongside ceremonial arches made of whale jawbones.”

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Original caption: “Skagway girls who dance in the Days of ’98 show do the cancan in the middle of Main Street. The domed Golden North Hotel and false-front buildings date back to Klondike gold-rush days.”

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alaska, 1965

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Image from the cover of the October 1, 1965, issue of LIFE.

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gene Kelly: Caught in the Act

August 12, 2021August 22, 2012 by

In May 1944 LIFE magazine published a series of photographs by the Albanian-born technical virtuoso Gjon Mili—images featuring a hugely talented young actor, dancer and choreographer named Gene Kelly as he danced, in his own inimitable way, around Mili’s studio.

“Gjon Mili,” LIFE noted, “who would rather photograph dancing than almost anything else in the world, recently trained his high-speed camera on the nimble feet and lithe body of MGM’s brilliant dancing star Gene Kelly.” What’s wonderful about Mili’s work in these pictures made, it’s worth stressing, seven decades ago is the technical brilliance and economy that he brings to bear on Kelly’s explosive artistry.

Here, LIFE presents a series of Mili’s photos many of which were not published in LIFE deftly capturing Kelly at a pivotal point in his career. He had appeared in half-a-dozen movies by 1944, and had choreographed sequences in several of those films, but the starring roles and legendary performances for which he’s remembered and celebrated today were still a few years down the road.

But there’s no doubt that, whether or not he was a bona fide star at the time, Kelly not only knew what he was doing: he knew where he was going.

In fact, perhaps the most significant and engaging aspect of these pictures is not Mili’s masterful technique and his facility with “trick” photography, but rather Kelly’s charm and, above all, his confidence evident in every frame. Very few American movie stars of the 20th century can lay claim to an immediately recognizable persona of their own making James Cagney, of course; Jimmy Stewart; Steve McQueen and a handful of others. And right up there with them is Gene Kelly, whose playful, clever and yet, deep down, hopelessly romantic characters propelled the action of classics like On the Town, An American in Paris and, of course, the greatest Hollywood musical of them all, Singin’ in the Rain.

While Kelly never won an Oscar for any of his specific roles or for his directorial efforts, he was presented with an Honorary Academy Award in 1951 “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Not bad for a Pennsylvania boy who always claimed that his dream in life was to play shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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

Original caption: “Many elements have shaped Gene Kelly’s dancing style. This leap shows the influence of the classical ballet.”

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gene Kelly dancing, 1944.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Original caption: “Kelly’s present style, which is very versatile, shows influence of ballet, Spanish dancing on early hoofing. Kelly is heir to Fred Astaire’s title as movies’ top dancer.”

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gene Kelly dancing, 1944.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of Gene Kelly, 1944.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In Praise of Hitchcock’s Leading Ladies

August 13, 2021August 13, 2012 by

Alfred Hitchcock’s movies are unlike any other filmmaker’s, for reasons that have been celebrated and analyzed for half-a-century. His unique melding of wry humor, suspense, powerhouse performances and a healthy regard for adult relationships, i.e., sex, make Sir Alfred’s films among the most entertaining and, at the same time, aesthetically rewarding in the history of the medium.

From early gems like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes to later classics like Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, Psycho, The Birds and so many others, Hitchcock’s movies even when quite genuinely disturbing are at-once sophisticated and fun.

Here, LIFE.com pays tribute to Alfred Hitchcock by celebrating the many actresses who served as muses and, in some cases, regrettably, emotional punching bags, for the demanding and often completely besotted director.

Tippi Hedren testing for Marnie (in which she starred) in 1963. She also starred, most famously, in Hitchcock’s The Birds.

John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Teresa Wright (Shadow of a Doubt) and Alfred Hitchcock in 1942.

Gjon Mili Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joan Fontaine — of Rebecca and Suspicion fame — with Alfred Hitchcock and Laurence Olivier in 1939.

Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Tallulah Bankhead on the set of Lifeboat in 1943.

Peter Stackpole Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Grace Kelly (on the set of the movie The Country Girl in 1954) was one of Hitchcock’s favorite actresses, starring in To Catch a Thief, Rear Window and Dial M for Murder.

Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Doris Day, who starred in The Man Who Knew Too Much.

John Florea Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Julie Andrews, who starred in Torn Curtain, in 1961.

Leonard McCombe Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Anne Baxter, who starred in I Confess.

John Florea Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eva Marie Saint, who starred with Cary Grant and James Mason in North by Northwest.

Nina Leen Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Janet Leigh, who starred in Psycho.

Allan Grant Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ingrid Bergman, who starred in Notorious and Spellbound.

Gordon Parks Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Shirley MacLaine in 1955. She starred in The Trouble With Harry.

Loomis Dean Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kim Novak in 1954. She starred in Vertigo, which is regarded by many as Hitchcock’s greatest film.

J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE Goes to the Louvre, 1953

August 10, 2021August 7, 2012 by

When it comes to the excellence of their collections, the beauty of their galleries and the sheer breadth of their cultural significance, few museums on earth can match Paris’ monumental jewel, the Louvre. In 1953, when LIFE photographer Dmitri Kessel visited, many of the Louvre’s rooms had recently been reorganized and redecorated but the intrinsic, inherent grandeur of the vast place (eight miles of galleries) remained undiminished.

Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of Kessel’s pictures of the scenes inside what LIFE unhesitatingly called “the world’s top museum”—a title to which, even today, six decades later, the wonderful, storied, glorious Louvre can arguably still lay claim.

Aerial view of the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Patrons view Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Raft of the Medusa, the Louvre

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Children take notes during a discussion of ancient Greek pottery at the Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Venus de Milo, the Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Married couple and their young daughter view the crown of King Louis XV at the Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Original caption: “Loading statue, worker places Roman carving of athlete on carriage to be taken to workshop where legs, put on by an earlier restorer, will be removed.”

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Artists scrutinize their versions of a Titian portrait (left) and the Mona Lisa (right), Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Louvre, 1953.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dusting a sculpture at the Louvre

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Painting of Jeanne d’Aragon by Raphael at the Louvre.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Apollon gallery at the Louvre.

Dmitri Kessel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Manson Family on Trial: Madness Visible

January 20, 2020August 7, 2012 by

In 1971, Charles Manson and several of his followers—Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Louise Van Houten—were convicted in the era-defining Tate-LaBianca murders that horrified not only Los Angeles, where the murders took place in the summer of 1969, but the entire nation. (Manson was convicted, in essence, as a “conspirator,” as he was not present at the killings, but ordered them to be carried out.)

The ferocity of the murders; the seeming randomness of the violence; and the chilling, bottomless weirdness of the Manson cult itself incised a terrible, indelible black mark on the late 1960s.

But it was during grand jury testimony and at the trial of Manson and his followers with the trial itself serving as a kind of bleak circus that lasted nine months, from the summer of 1970 to the spring of 1971 that the nation was able to gauge just how deeply unhinged “the Family” truly was.

Carving x’s in their foreheads? No problem. Shaving their heads to show solidarity with their leader? Done. Blocking entrances to the courthouse, chanting, singing, treating the trial and, by extension, the murders themselves like a trip to the amusement park? For the Manson clan, it was all grist for their cheery, death-adoring psychopathy.

After all, if Manson, Krenwinkel and the rest were going to be tried and (quite obviously) convicted of mass murder by the “establishment” and “the pigs” they despised, the least their brothers and sisters in the Family could do was show the world that, in the universe they inhabited, the killers were not truly criminals at all, but instead were iconoclasts. Rebels. Heroes.

Here, LIFE.com presents pictures from late 1969, when Manson and his co-defendants were finally indicted and charged in the Tate-LaBianca murders.

All these years later, the sight of Manson and his dead-eyed acolytes is still ghastly. But as long as pictures like these bear witness, the people whose lives were taken—Sharon Tate; Jay Sebring; Wojciech Frykowski; Abigail Folger; Steven Parent; Leno and Rosemary LaBianca—will remain in sight, and those who slaughtered them will be remembered not (as some would have it) as wayward, misled children, but as men and women who entered the homes of strangers and in a spasm of savagery ended life after life after life.

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

Charles Manson was led to court for a grand jury appearance in California in 1969.

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles Manson in custody, 1969.

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Charles Manson supporter outside the courthouse during his murder trial, Los Angeles, 1970.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles Manson supporters outside the courthouse during his murder trial, Los Angeles, 1970.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Charles Manson supporter outside the courthouse during his murder trial, Los Angeles, 1970.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Deputy district attorney Vincent Bugliosi in the Los Angeles Hall of Justice was interviewed at the beginning of grand jury hearings in the Tate-LaBianca murders, 1969.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manson Family member Susan Atkins left the Grand Jury room, Los Angeles Hall of Justice, December 1969.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manson Family member Susan Atkins, 21, emerged from a Los Angeles courtroom after grand jury testimony, December 1969.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles Manson, 1969

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manson family members Lynn “Squeaky” Fromme, 21, and Sandra Pugh, 26. Pugh brought her two-and-a-half month-old baby, Ivan, to court. They said they knew nothing of the Tate murders. “Manson was magnetic,” Pugh said. “His motions were like magic.”

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manson Family members Lynn “Squeaky” Fromme and Sandra Pugh, 1969.

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charles Manson and his attorney, 1969.

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE Magazine December 19, 1969

Dustin Hoffman: Early Photos of an Actor on the Rise

August 11, 2021August 7, 2012 by

Look at the titles and roles for which Dustin Hoffman is best known, and you’ll see clear proof that the Los Angeles native is one of the most accomplished screen actors America has ever produced: The Graduate. Midnight Cowboy. Little Big Man. Kramer vs. Kramer. Rain Man. Papillon. Tootise. Lenny. All the President’s Men. Wag the Dog.

And then, of course there’s his television work including his role voicing Lisa’s cool, sensitive, thoughtful substitute teacher, Mr. Bergstrom, in one of the greatest episodes of The Simpsons.

Here, LIFE.com offers photographs of Dustin Hoffman—most of which never ran in LIFE—made by John Dominis when the actor was just coming into his own as an artist and a star. (Many of the photos here feature Hoffman with his first wife, Anne Byrne, and her daughter from a previous marriage, Karina.)

At the time these pictures were made, Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate were behind him. Many of his greatest, defining roles were still ahead of him. But Hoffman admitted something to the magazine in the July 11, 1969, issue of LIFE in which a few of these pictures first appeared that today sounds a bit jarring:

“I don’t think at 50 you should be doing what you did when you were 30,” he said, referring to his own plans to become a director as soon as possible. “Acting, especially film acting, seems to me to be more of a female profession. The director, who has all the creative power, really uses the actor. I don’t know many actors who enjoy the work of acting. I like the adulation, the money, the whole gimmick of it, but I don’t think I’m a natural actor.”

Then, in a kind of wistful coda, the 31-year-old Hoffman admits, “I don’t see how people who have done 70 movies keep going.”

Before he’s through, the man who has inhabited some of the most distinctive characters in film history might look back at that sort of declaration and crack that famous, crooked, knowing smile.

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

Dustin Hoffman, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman with his stepdaughter Karina, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman signs autographs outside the theater where he starred in the play (which he also directed), Jimmy Shine, New York City, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman in his dressing room for the play (which he also directed), Jimmy Shine, New York City, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman in his trailer during the filming of the movie, John and Mary, in which he starred with Mia Farrow, New York City, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman with his wife Anne and daughter Karina, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman and family, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman naps between takes on the set, 1969

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman and wife, Anne, and their dog Ratso, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman with his dog Ratso, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman on the way to the theater with his dog, Ratso, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow on set of the film, John and Mary, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman plays tennis during filming of the movie, John and Mary, New York, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman asleep on the set of the 1969 movie, John and Mary.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman chases after his dog Ratso in New York’s Riverside Park, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman during filming of the 1969 movie, John and Mary.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Original caption: “On a rare day away from work, Dustin Hoffman browsed in Greenwich Village shops with Anne and later kissed her in a taxi (above), New York, 1969.”

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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In Praise of Hitchcock’s Leading Ladies

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The Manson Family on Trial: Madness Visible

Dustin Hoffman: Early Photos of an Actor on the Rise

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