The musical Hello, Dolly!made its Broadway debut in 1964 and was an instant smash with Carol Channing in the title role. Three years later, when ticket sales were starting to slump, producer David Merrick retooled with an entirely black cast that featured Pearl Bailey as the lead and Cab Calloway as her love interest. The move was such a success that it landed Bailey on the cover of LIFE. And it also drew the attention of the sitting U.S. President.
LIFE said that with the new cast, “the performances have sharpened up. The dancing has extra snap, as if the hoofers are trying to outdo their excellent predecessors.” Pearl Bailey, it said, had the perfect temperament for the role of Dolly and “feels at home in every word.”
Audiences agreed. Clive Barnes, the powerful New York Times critic, raved about the show, in which he said Bailey drew show-stopping applause from the audience: “For Miss Bailey this was a Broadway triumph for the history books…She took the whole musical in her hands and swung it around her neck as easily as if it were a feather boa.”
Interestingly, Bailey told LIFE that when she signed on as Dolly, she was not told anything about the racial composition of the rest of the cast. The choice to use only Black actors was not without its dissenters—including Frederick O’Neal, who was the first Black president of Actor’s Equity and felt that a mixed-race cast would be more in line with the goal of integration. LIFE also cited white critics who found the idea of an all-black cast condescending, and mentioned that some wondered if this might lead to an all-white Porgy and Bess.
Bailey’s response to LIFE was: “If anyone was worried about integration, why didn’t they worry about it at the time of the first Dolly?”
Bailey’s performance earned her a special Tony award (as a replacement she wasn’t eligible for a standard nomination). When Bailey and the cast performed at the ceremony they were introduced by Carol Channing, who graciously raved about the success Bailey was having with her signature role.
Among those who came to see the production was Lyndon Johnson. He already had a connection to the musical from his 1964 presidential campaign, when Channing sang “Hello, Lyndon!” at the 1964 Democratic Convention. For this new production Johnson and his wife Lady Bird visited with Bailey and came on stage after a performance. LIFE said that this was the first time a U.S. President had appeared on a theatrical stage before an audience.
Bailey continued in the role until Hello, Dolly! closed its original run in 1970. She returned to a new production of the show in 1975, one that had been especially designed for her.
Pearl Bailey during a curtain call for the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Pearl Bailey in a Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! when she took over the lead role in 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Jack Crowder and Pearl Bailey in the 1967 Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Jack Crowder and Emily Yancy were part of the all-Black cast in the 1967 Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Cab Calloway and daughter Chris, who both appeared in the 1967 Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey performed in the 1967 production of Hello, Dolly!
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
The 1967 production of “Hello Dolly” at the St. James Theater in New York.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird (center) with actors Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway after a performance of Hello Dolly, 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird with Pearl Bailey (right) after a performance of Hello, Dolly!, 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Pearl Bailey (left) and Cab Calloway (right) with President Lyndon Johnson and wife Lady Bird at a production of Hello, Dolly! that featured an all-Black cast, 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
Lyndon Johnson and wife Lady Bird with Pearl Bailey and the rest of the cast of the musical Hello, Dolly! at the St. James Theater in New York, 1967.
John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock
James Beard’s name is well familiar to anyone who follows the world of fine dining. His non-profit James Beard Foundation bestows annual awards to restaurants and chefs, and when the honorees are announced, it’s a foodie equivalent of the Oscars.
Beard, who died in 1985 at the 81, often appeared in LIFE toward the later stages of the magazine’s original run. For one story, in the June 16, 1972 issue, LIFE had Arthur Schatz shoot Beard in a way that mimicked Gjon Mili’s famous pictures of Pablo Picasso that ran in the magazine in 1949. Back then Mili asked Picasso to “draw” in the air with a small electric light, and the photographs captured a new kind of artistic creation. Decades later Schatz had Beard replicate the process by affixing a light to the chef’s wrist and capturing his motions as he made a souffle.
The results with Beard are perhaps less illuminating—Picasso’s motions were meant to be an end to themselves, whereas Beard’s end product was dessert. The motions that Schatz captured are simply a fun jumble. But the underlying message of the shoot was clear: chefs are artists too.
The 1972 LIFE article that went with the photos also included conventional photographs from Beard’s cooking classes. For the classes the renowned chef welcomed groups of 12 students into his New York City townhouse (which is still open to the public today for special events).
The article described Beard as a man who knew who he was, and also what he loved:
He seems to be that rare thing, a happy and fulfilled human being, as far from an identity crisis as the planet Pluto. His only problem would appear to be the occupational hazard of excess. Not exactly obsessed with vitamins and nutritiion, he says, “I happen to think that good food is good for you. Nothing can take the place of good butter and good cream.”
In addition to photos from that story, included here are also a couple photos from an earlier appearance by Beard in LIFE magazine as part of a Nov. 23, 1962 issue devoted to food. In that issue Beard was part of a trend story on the popularity of cookbooks—he had a dozen out by that time‚ and was photographed making a casserole. Perhaps the most notable thing about that photo, shot by Yale Joel, is the pineapple-patterned wallpaper that is visible in the background. That same wallpaper also shows up in the background of the photos of his cooking classes that Schatz would take a decade later, confirming that both shoots took place in his home kitchen and that Beard was not just a fine chef but also a welcoming host.
James Beard wore an electric light on his wrist while making a souffle, with time-lapse photography capturing the motions of a chef at work.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard wore an electric light on his wrist while making a souffle, with time-lapse photography capturing the motions of a chef at work.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, during a culinary class that he taught at his home, 1972.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, during a culinary class that he taught at his home, 1972.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, during a culinary class that he taught at his home, 1972.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, during a culinary class that he taught at his home, 1972.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, during a culinary class that he taught at his home, 1972.
Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard, chef, at work in his home kitchen, 1962.
Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
James Beard sprinkled bread crumbs on top of a casserole, 1962.
William Wordsworth, who helped launch the Romantic age of English poetry, came of age at a time when industrialization was changing the English landscape. He was early in recognizing the value of maintaining and celebrating a connection to the natural world, just as man was starting to make significant encroachments.
In 1950, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Wordsworth’s death, LIFE magazine sent N.R. Farbman to photograph the home country of Wordsworth and the landscapes and local characters that inspired him. “The heart of Wordsworth’s poetry is in his profound love of nature,” LIFE wrote. “He also had a great respect for farmers—though they considered him a bit odd.”
The ambitious photo essay, which ran in the July 17, 1950 issue, paired Farbman’s images with verse from Wordsworth. Some of those verses that LIFE used appear here in the captions to the photos (you can read complete Wordsworth poems here), and this story also includes images from Farbman that never ran in LIFE, and so are presented without poetic accompaniment.
This 1950 photo illustrated Wililam Wordsworth’s poem “Solitary Reaper,” which includes the lines: “Behold her, single in the field/You solitary Highland Lass/Reaping and singing by herself;/Stop here or gently pass…”
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
LIFE used this image in 1950 to illustrate the Wordsworth poem “Remembrance of Collins,” which includes the lines: “Glide gently, thus forever glide/O Thames! That other bards may see/As lovely visions by thy side/As now, fair river! come to me…
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A gentle river flowing through lonely woody forest where Wordsworth wrote poetry; LIFE used this photo in 1950 to accompany a passage from “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.”
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A Lancashire shepherd holding a four day old lamb while holding a cane in the other hand. LIFE used this 1950 photo to illustrate the Wordsworth poem “The Prelude” which includes the lines: “Where sovereign Nature dictated the tasks/And occupations which her beauty adorned/And shepherds were the men that pleased me first…”
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This photo of Kilchurn Castle in Scotland, was used to illustrate in LIFE the Wordsworth poem “Address to Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe” which includes the lines: “Child of loud-throated War!the Mountain stream/Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest/Is come, and thou art silent in thy age.”
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The cottage where Wordsworth lived for eight years and wrote his best known poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cows grazing near ruins of 13th century Tintern Abbey, about which William Wordsworth wrote, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Ruins of a 13th Century Cistercian Tintern Abbey, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Beautiful country scene where Wordsworth lived and wrote his poems.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A shepherd walked with his sheep along country road in the beautiful country region where Wordsworth lived and wrote, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The region where Wordsworth lived and wrote his poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
The region where Wordworth lived and wrote his poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
A marsh area in the region where Wordsworth lived and wrote, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A beautiful country scene where Wordworth lived and wrote his poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
A beautiful country scene where Wordsworth lived and wrote his poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shuttetstock
Steps in beautiful country region where Wordworth lived and wrote his poems, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The view of the Palace of Westminster from Westminster Bridge in London, 1950.
A beautiful Country scene where Wordsworth lived and wrote his poems.
Big Ben and Parliament seen across the Thames River, 1950.
N.R. Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Monument dedicated to poet William Wordsworth, 1950.
The March 22, 1948 issue of LIFE featured a story titled “Escapists in Armor: Two Bored British Gentlemen Battle to Bring Back the Days of Chivalry.” The bored gentlemen were interesting in part because of their willingness to cavort in front of the camera in full armor, but also because one of the jousters had a famous name: He was Adrian Conan Doyle, the son of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Adrian Conan Doyle, when not tending to his father’s literary estate, made the most of his leisure time. He was described as a “big-game hunter, fisherman, zoologist, explorer, and author” in his 1970 New York Times obituary.
In LIFE’s story about Adrian’s jousting habit, illustrated with photos by Mark Kauffman, Doyle and Ash explained that for them, this was a kind of rebellion: “To Doyle and Ash this retreat to the medieval way of life expressed their disgust with modern civilization, politics, the Labor government and contemporary British sports. (“It’s better,’ said Ash, “than kicking a leather pudding around.”)
The jousting session that Kauffman captured was picturesque, but also a fiasco at times. “Doyle had difficulty cramming his 6-foot frame into his 91-pound armor,” the story said. And during the joust, one of Adrian’s straps broke, and wife had to step in and make repairs.
The pastime was also obviously a luxury that Conan Doyle was able to indulge because of the success of his father. Though he and his friend told LIFE that a budget version of knight cosplaying was accessible for everyone:
“For other escapists less well financed Doyle and Ash suggested the substitution of quarter staves,” the story said. “This requires only a pair of wooden clubs, a cooperative friend, and a fondness for being beaten senseless under a greenwood tree.”
A thought: Even though Adrian claimed to long for medieval times, he was a singularly modern creature. Were he around today—and with the famous name, the family fortune, the penchant for stunts and an obvious comfort in front of the camera—it’s not hard to imagine that he would have been a reality star. All the Sherlock Holmes stories falling into public domain in 2023 would only have added to the drama.
Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Arthur Conan Doyle (seen in the portrait), with his armor collection, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, also liked to collect keys, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle and friend Douglas Ash, who enjoyed dressing in armor and jousting, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle and friend Douglas Ash jousted on a wooden bridge in full armor suits, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle needed help from his wife after a strap on his armor suit broke during a jousting match, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle with his wife during a jousting day, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle and friend Douglas Ash, wearing plated armor for a recreational joust, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle and friend Douglas Ash jousted in suits of armor, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle and Douglas Ash toasted each other with a glass of wine after their jousting match, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Arthur Conan Doyle, 1948.
Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In January 1945 the U.S. Army decided that it wanted to give its troops in Italy a taste of a back-home tradition—football on New Year’s Day. And that’s how the Spaghetti Bowl came to be.
In the game, a team from the Fifth Army took on members of the 12th Air Force at a stadium in Florence, Italy. Though the game was, according to LIFE’s report in its Jan. 26, 1945 issue, “only three hours’ jeep ride from the front,” it looked an awful lot like what football fans were experiencing that same day at the college bowl games back home:
The audience of 25,000 GIs, WACs and Army nurses got hot dogs and a complete USO show between the halves. They cheered two pretty Bowl queens and booed when the drum majorette tried to cover her legs from the cold. They were serenaded by two 36-piece bands. They chanted “We want a touchdown” at the Fifth Army’s team, which called itself “The Krautclouters.”
The Army team, which included one player with NFL experience—Cecil Sturgeon, who had played offensive tackle with the Philadelphia Eagles before the war—won the exhibition 20-0. The Spaghetti Bowl was not a unique occurrence, as the military staged a number of footbell games in Europe for the entertainment of its soldiers abroad. On the same day as the Spaghetti Bowl, the Army also had three other games going: the Riviera Bowl in Marseille, the Coffee Bowl in London and the Potato Bowl in Belfast.
The photos of the Spaghetti Bowl were taken by LIFE’s estimable Margaret Bourke-White, and they capture the pageantry that was meant to replicate the joys of the American football. But the reminders of war remained close by. LIFE said that the “the game was played under the cover of P-38s because the Luftwaffe had promised to come to the game too” and noted that the festivities were a respite from the grim task of fighting through the winter in the snowy mountains of Northern Italy. The story termed that mission the war’s “forgotten front” because its chief strategic purpose was to occupy German forces that would otherwise be slowing down the more glorious mission: the Allied drive into Germany.
The issue of LIFE in which the Spaghetti bowl appeared featured on its cover a wounded soldier. That is a reminder of the reality from which the football game served as a distraction.
An aerial view of Berta Municipal Stadium in Florence, Italy where the Spaghetti Bowl took place, January 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Drum majorette Peggy Jean Roan, a USO entertainer, performed during a football game between the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force teams.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A member of the Women in the Air Force rode on a float made by decorating a jeep with a propellor during the Spaghetti Bowl in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A crowd of 25,000 at the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game between the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force, in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Teams from the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force competed at the Spaghetti Bowl in Florence, Italy, Jan. 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A crowd of 25,000 at the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game between the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force, in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Teams from the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force competed at the Spaghetti Bowl in Florence, Italy, Jan. 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Edward Shanks, a fullback for the Army football team, posed with drum majorette Peggy Jean Roan, a USO entertainer, at the Berta Stadium in Florence, Italy, during the Spaghetti Bowl, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A scene from the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game between the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force, in Florence, Italy 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Entertainment during the Spaghetti Bowl football game in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A crowd of 25,000 at the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game between the 5th Army and the 12th Air Force, in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Peggy Jean Roan of the U.S.O. entertained during the Spaghetti Bowl, a football game between the 5th Army and 12th Air Force in Florence, Italy, 1945.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
One of the defining moments of the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street comes early on, after Kris Kringle has been hired by Macy’s to be the department store’s Santa. The Macy’s toy department manager doesn’t recognize Kris as the real thing, but he sees the potential to make money off him. “I just know with that man on the throne, my toy department will sell more toys than it ever has,” Julian Shellhammer says. “He’s a born salesman. I just feel it.”
He’s not wrong, either. But Shellhammer goes too far when he gives Kris a list of overstocked toys to push on the children. “Now you’ll find that a great many children will be undecided as to what they want for Christmas,” Shellhammer counsels. “When that happens, you immediately suggest one of these items.”
At this moment, viewers see a clear divide between Kringle and Shellhammer. Although Kringle has already embraced holiday shopping—playing the role of Santa in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and accepting a job at the department store behemoth—we now see where Kringle draws the line. “Imagine making a child take something he doesn’t want just because [Shellhammer] bought too many of the wrong toys,” Kringle muses as he rips up the list. “That’s what I’ve been fighting against for years—the way they commercialize Christmas.”
When the movie came out in 1947, the commercialization of Christmas had been going on for some time. The holiday shopping season was firmly entrenched in American society. Shoppers hit department stores en masse, and holiday spending became a key driver of the consumer economy. One sign of the gathering frenzy had come in 1912, when progressive labor reformers openly urged shoppers to plan ahead and do their holiday shopping as early as possible to lighten the load for retail staff. “Thousands of workers in every city have been taught by bitter experience to look forward to Christmas with dread,” the Consumers’ League of New York lamented in a magazine advertisement that year. “Every shop girl knows that the coming Christmas season will mean to her an immense amount of extra work, of nervous strain and exhaustion. The great army of workers whom you do not see—the bundle wrappers, drivers and errand boys—look forward to Christmas as a hateful time of undeserved effort and hardship.” Shopkeepers worked to attract the bustling holiday crowd to their stores by offering a wide range of Christmas-themed goods, and children’s toys—stuffed toys, dolls, train sets—were especially popular.
By the mid-1940s—the era that sparked Miracle on 34th Street—the U.S. economy was kicking into high gear after the Great Depression, in part due to production required during World War II. With the war over, jobs were plentiful and wages higher. And, because of the lack of consumer goods during the war, Americans were eager to spend. The postwar years were also the beginning of the baby boom, which would push the demand for children’s goods even higher.
In Miracle, Kringle, rather than following Shellhammer’s cynical directive to push overstocked toys on disappointed children, performs the ultimate act of customer service by pointing shoppers to competing stores that do carry the toys they want. The Macy’s manager is at first horrified—until parents congratulate him on this new marketing tactic and promise they’ll be loyal Macy’s shoppers from now on. The fictional “Mr. Macy” declares the new store motto will be “to place public service ahead of profits”—in the name of making a bigger profit than ever.
The resolution shows how Miracle is hardly a deep critique of holiday consumerism. In some ways, it’s closer to an embrace. Kringle knows where to send kids for the toys they want because he has an expansive knowledge of New York City’s stores and their toy inventory. He simply puts kids’ toy preferences over the profits of one store in particular. In the movie’s climax the ultimate Christmas gift is the consummate act of middle class spending—the purchase of a house. In this case, consumerism isn’t a nefarious concept but instead one that signals security and a means for a new family to come together in comfort. The Kris Kringle of Miracle may be put off by a world fraught with profit margins and clearance sales, but he also knows that, when done thoughtfully and with a sprinkle of faith, Christmas and gift-giving go together like milk and cookies.
The heroes of Miracle on 34th Street—John Payne as Fred Gailey, Maureen O’Hara as Doris Walker, Natalie Wood as Susan Walker, and Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle—gather at a Christmas party near the movie’s climax.
20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock
Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) brings out the playful side of Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) and shows her the joy of make-believe as Fred Gailey (John Payne) looks on in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street.
20th Century Fox/Photo 12/Alamy
Richard Attenborough took on the role of Kriss Kringle in the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street.
In the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street, Dylan McDermott (right), in the role of Bryan Bedford, defended Kriss Kringle in the movie’s trial scene.
Collection Christophel/Alamy
The wrapping department at Macy’s was busy during Christmastime in 1948.
Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A crew of Santas readied to work at Macy’s, 1948.
Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Woody Woodpecker delighted the crowds at the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in 1989; the store and its parade were integral settings in the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street.