Page 40 – LIFE

The Lord of the Rings: The Story Behind An Extraordinary Adventure

February 14, 2022January 5, 2022 by Bill Syken

The following is from the introduction to LIFE’s new special issue The Lord of the Rings: The Origins, the Stories, the Extraordinary Adventure, available at newsstands and here, online:

“Fantasy has a history of misfires,” filmmaker Peter Jackson told Entertainment Weekly in 2001, just weeks before the release of his first movie based on The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary landmark. “For every other genre—Westerns, war—you can name truly amazing films. So fantasy is interesting, because there aren’t really any clichés. It’s [a chance] to give an audience an original experience.”

Back in 1937, that’s precisely what the fledgling novelist and distinguished Oxford professor had done with The Hobbit. His debut, set in his imagined world of Middle-earth, drew on a long-running fascination with fairy tales and Norse myth, creating a high-fantasy world unlike anything ever previously committed to paper. The tale of a resolute homebody, hobbit Bilbo Baggins, drawn into a quest—involving wizards, dwarves, elves, giant spiders, a fire-breathing dragon, a hoard of gold, and a massive conflict among five armies—immediately captured the public’s imagination and vaulted the novel to best-seller status.

Tolkien then spent 17 years crafting the sequel, and it proved worth the wait. Spanning more than 1,100 pages over three volumes, The Lord of the Rings told a far more complicated story, dense with mythology and invented languages, and made for a dazzling read. Even if it perplexed certain critics, it gained an immediate foothold with a generation of readers and forever changed the cultural landscape.

“His work reflected the potential of fantasy as a genre, and its influence extended beyond fantasy as well,” says Tolkien scholar Amy H. Sturgis, an author and professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. “His stories spawned many imitators, but they also continue to inspire creators who seek to tell different tales from other perspectives. Just think of modern mythologies like Star Trek or Star Wars; they use detailed maps and created languages and invented histories for imaginary cultures in order to build immersive worlds and galaxies. They invite audiences to inhabit these fictional landscapes and explore the human condition through their hopeful morality tales. That’s Tolkienian storytelling.”

The Lord of the Rings novels found an especially receptive audience among the American counterculture, becoming fixtures on university bookshelves across the country, which grew their popularity and influence. “The hobbit habit seems to be almost as catching as LSD,” proclaimed Time magazine in 1966. “On many U.S. campuses, buttons declaring FRODO LIVES and GO GO GANDALF—frequently written in Elvish script—are almost as common as football letters.”

Among those Me Generation fans was future author Stephen King, who has cited The Lord of the Rings as one of his 10 favorite novels. “Hobbits were big when I was nineteen,” King writes in the introduction to one of the books in his Tolkien-inspired Dark Tower series. “There were probably half a dozen Merrys and Pippins slogging through the mud at Max Yasgur’s farm during the Great Woodstock Music Festival, twice as many Frodos, and hippie Gandalfs without number,” he continued, naming popular characters from the saga.

In the decades since, The Lord of the Rings has served as a gateway for readers to discover the joys of adventure stories set in worlds far beyond their own. It has inspired authors to explore the furthest reaches of their imaginations and conjure countless stories that are equally beloved. “Of all the authors [that] had an impact on me . . . Tolkien is right up there at the top,” said George R.R. Martin, whose novels spawned the blockbuster TV series Game of Thrones, in 2019. “I yield to no one in my admiration for The Lord of the Rings—I re-read it every few years. It’s one of the great books of the 20th century . . .”

Of Tolkien’s many famous fans, however, few may understand and treasure his work more deeply than comedian and late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, who can even read Tolkien’s invented Elvish language. “Tolkien’s work has been a lifelong haven for me—truly a light in dark places when all other lights went out,” Colbert wrote in EW in 2014. “For an awkward teenager, Middle-earth was a world I could escape to.”

Filmmaker Peter Jackson read The Lord of the Rings in his later teen years, not realizing he’d someday return Tolkien’s epic to the forefront of popular culture. Released between 2001 and 2003, Jackson’s cinematic Rings trilogy dominated the worldwide box office, earning billions and racking up countless critical accolades. No longer just the domain of fantasy devotees, the story of heroic Frodo Baggins and his quest to destroy the Ring of Power became inescapable—though some longtime Tolkien experts were less enamored with the movies than general audiences.

“Ever since the Jackson adaptations were released there have been fans who confuse what Tolkien wrote with what Jackson filmed,” say Tolkien scholars Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull in an e-mail to LIFE. “Jackson did well from his films, but they sharply [and] sometimes angrily divided Tolkien enthusiasts, some of whom praise them highly and accept their many departures from their source, while others—such as ourselves—find them seriously flawed.”

Subsequent attempts at adaptation have fared less well than Jackson’s Rings juggernaut. Theater producer Kevin Wallace raised about $25 million to mount a three-and-a-half-hour Lord of the Rings musical onstage in Toronto, in 2006. Unfortunately, according to the Guardian, the production was “an unmitigated disaster.” A retooled, trimmed-down version premiered on London’s West End in 2007 but unceremoniously closed the following year.

If anything, the musical’s woes speak to how challenging it can be to get Tolkien right. Jackson struggled with his follow-up adaptation of The Hobbit, which he also made into a trilogy. Although the films once again found commercial success, they didn’t catch fire in quite the same way his Rings trilogy had—by that point, Game of Thrones had become a sensation in its own right, offering fans a more mature take on the fantasy genre. (Jackson also stated that behind-the-scenes turmoil on the productions left him with less time to prepare than he might have liked.)

There are yet more Tolkien projects ahead. Amazon announced a Lord of the Rings series, due to arrive in 2022. Set during Middle-earth’s Second Age, the TV show will take place thousands of years prior to the period of Jackson’s movies. Early reports indicate that the first season will consist of 20 episodes, all shot in New Zealand, on a staggering $465 million budget.

Future adaptations will certainly come and go, but regardless of their success or failure, Tolkien’s writings will endure. Even though his stories were conceived long ago and unfold in a landscape different from our own, the crises the characters face and the work’s underlying themes remain imminently relatable and relevant.

“We live in a complicated world with multiple, simultaneous crises unfolding,” says Sturgis. “It is easy to feel not only stressed but also helpless and hopeless. . . . Tolkien reminds us that the smallest and most humble can be heroes; there is a part everyone can play in fighting the darkness and making the world better. Most importantly, Tolkien acknowledges that even in the direst of times, we have reason to hope. Our need for consolation, inspiration, and hope is evergreen.”

Here are photos from LIFE’s new special issue The Lord of the Rings: The Origins, the Stories, the Extraordinary Adventure.

Front Cover: Photo illustration by Sean McCabe/RappArt; Entertainment Pictures/Alamy (Aragorn); New Line Cinema/Lord Zweite Productions Deutschland Film PR/Ronald Grant/Mary Evans/Everett (Frodo); Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy (Samwise, Gollum, and Gandalf); AF Archive/Alamy (Arwen and Eye of Sauron; © New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett (Tower); Pobytov/E+/Getty (Clouds); Cyrustr/iStock/Getty (Storm); solarseven/iStock/Getty (Fire)

J .R. R. Tolkien, Oxford professor and author of The Lord of the Rings, 1955.

Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Getty

In The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, those forming an alliance to wage war against evil included Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Boromir (Sean Bean) and, in the background, Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davis).

Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy

Sam (Sean Astin) had little trust for Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy

Frodo (Elijah Wood) beheld the enchanting ring in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy

A rightwraith tracked Frodo (Elijah Wood), Sam (Sean Astin) Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) early on their journey in The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.

AA Film Archive/Alamy

Andy Serkis, with the help of special effects.,played the role of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies.

Album/Alamy

Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Arwen (Liv Tyler) in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

KPA Publicity Stills/United Archives GmbH/Alamy

Gandalf (Ian McKellan) took up arms in one of the brilliantly staged battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy

Gandalf (Ian McKellan) in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

© New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett

Director Peter Jackson (center) was flanked by screenwriters Fran Walsh (left) and Philippa Boyens after they won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, February 29, 2004.

Mike Blake/Reuters/Alamy

Betty White: The Secret of Her Success

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022 by Bill Syken

The following is from LIFE’s special tribute issue Betty White: The Illustrated Biography. (For more see also PEOPLE’s special edition, Betty White At 100, available here.)

What was it about Betty White?

Some perspective: When White, who died on Dec. 31, 2021, eighteen days shy of her hundredth birthday, made her first entrance almost a century ago, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison were alive, Lindbergh’s flight to Paris was several years away—and so were talking pictures, The Great Gatsby and penicillin. Babe Ruth had just hit his prime, the divine Sarah Bernhardt graced European stages and Impressionist master Claude Monet was still turning out water lilies.

White’s own career, meanwhile, would last more than 80 years, longer than the average American life expectancy, the show business equivalent of several geological epochs. She broke in with the dawn of television—in 1939, the year RCA introduced the technology at the World’s Fair, hyping its potential to foster the “unification of the life of the nation.” Through all the turbulent decades to come, White would endure, defying the odds of a brutally capricious industry in which even bona fide stars shine brilliantly for a few years, then burn out, fade away and cash their residual checks.

But Betty White never left us; never made anyone’s “Where Are They Now?” issue or “You Won’t Believe What They Look Like Today!” listicle. She was always there—present, accounted for and active, usually in front of a camera and eventually on the Web. And she did more than simply survive. Other icons have stuck around the pop culture landscape so long they came to be viewed as creaky relics—think of Bob Hope, whose interminable twilight made it hard imagine that he was an edgy and immensely influential comic in his day.

That’s the thing: It was always Betty White’s day—sunny and hot, in Cleveland and points beyond. By some miraculous alchemy she managed to remain popular—au courant, at times even outré, winning hearts and minds up and down America’s family tree, from the Greatest Generation to Gens X, Y and Z. White’s earliest fans could huddle up in front of the tube with their great-grandkids (or was it great-great?) and share a laugh—never at Betty, always with her. Most often the trigger was White’s comic trademark, the bawdy line—or sometimes scathing putdown—delivered with your mom’s smile and a cobra’s timing.

While her appeal may be universal, each age demographic does have its own Betty White. For the over-70 set, it may be Ike-Age Betty of the fabulous ’50s. That’s when she starred in (and produced) the sitcom Life With Elizabeth and pitched innumerable products as a go-to commercial spokeswoman. (Who else could sell Geritol at 32?) Boomers know White as the quippy game-show queen and talk-show guest—and of course for her Emmy-winning turn from 1970–77 on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Sue Ann Nivens, the saccharine “Happy Homemaker,” who was a sexually ravenous harpy off camera.

The ’80s and ’90s brought The Golden Girls’ sweetly ingenuous Rose, the role and show that may first define her, and then the 21st century delivered a trove of new delights—caustic Elka on Hot in Cleveland; droll cameos on sitcoms, in Super Bowl spots and Funny or Die videos; hosting Saturday Night Live—after a national Internet campaign on her behalf. Google her and you’ll find sites like “Why We Love Betty White” and “30 Reasons Why Betty White is the Greatest Person Ever.”

So, what was it about Betty White? What was the secret sauce—or perhaps it was a love potion—behind her undimmed awesomeness. Perhaps the answer is something like Louis Armstrong’s reply to the question What is jazz?: “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” But to hazard a guess, the source of her sorcery may simply lie in what can only be described as her quality of Betty Whiteness. First, that heart-shaped face, all chiseled cheeks and deep dimples. The Pepsodent smile, the turned-down nose and those eyes—sparkling, of course, but always with the puckish glint of someone who knows something we don’t. Then the voice—warm, merry and quintessentially American, like a heartland good morning. What you saw and heard was what you got, by all accounts. White lived 10 decades in this unforgiving world, conveying relentless good cheer all the way. That indomitable spirit sustained her through the devastating loss of her life’s love—third husband Allen Ludden, the popular game-show host. He died when White was not yet 60, four years before The Golden Girls began. “You can’t become a professional mourner,” White advised. “It doesn’t help you or others. Keep the person in your heart all the time. Replay the good times. Be grateful for the years you had.”

Of course, White also said things like “Why do people say ‘grow some balls’? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.” She was earthy and ribald to the end, a gingerbread cookie spiked with tequila, and somehow even though we knew it was coming, we were always surprised. The racy old lady is a stock comic character, but White defied the stereotype—her risqué zingers weren’t for incongruous effect or Mae Westian camp. She was genuinely, unabashedly sexual—with #nofilter.

That was one of her most valuable contributions. Aging can be a terrifying prospect, and ageism is epidemic in American society. If you’re over 50 you’re dead wood in many quarters, even invisible (except to AARP, which won’t leave you alone). Seniors, the elderly, people of “a certain age”—whatever you call them, they’re often treated as second-class citizens, diminished in ways large and small—subject to microaggressions, to use a current term of art. In a youth-obsessed culture, being called “old” is an insult. There’s the eye roll of millennial contempt; still worse may be the well-meaning condescension. Think of those cell-phone commercials that suggest retirees are too dim to handle technology. And of course, they’re post-sexual. How many of us, when young, saw an older couple hold hands or kiss, and thought, Aww, aren’t they cute? Reducing them, as it were, to puppies or kittens?

Betty White wasn’t cute, at least not in that way. And she was always in her prime. She may have logged more years than some Monets last on museum walls, but like the Frenchman’s garden landscapes, she remained forever fresh and radiant. And she never got old.

Here are a sampling of photos from LIFE’s special tribute issue Betty White: The Illustrated Biography. (For more see also PEOPLE’s special edition, Betty White At 100, available here.)

Betty White, 1956.

Hulton/Archive/Getty Images

Betty White in 1957, photographed for her sitcom Date With the Angels.

ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

Betty White and actor Lorne Greene hosted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1965.

NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Betty White often delighted as a guest on game shows, as she did here on Password in 1967 with host, Allen Ludden (right), who was also her third husband.

CBS/Getty Images

White starred as Rose Nyland on the beloved sitcom Golden Girls; here she appears with (from left to right) guest star Burt Reynolds and co-stars Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur and Rue McLanahan.

Alice S. Hall/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore (right) presented Tina Fey with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for her show 30 Rock in 2008.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Betty White performed with Molly Shannon (center) and Ana Gasteyer (left) on Saturday Night Live in 2010.

Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Women of the Winter Olympics: Amazing Athletes in Action

December 20, 2021December 15, 2021 by

Ever since the first Winter Olympics in 1924, women athletes have competed for gold with the same intensity, grace and power as their male counterparts — even if, in ’24, the only events in which women were allowed to take part were figure- and pairs-skating. At the 2022 edition of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, meanwhile, competitors from around the globe will put it all on the line in a diverse array of events that includes new events such as big air freestyle, monobob (or one-person bobsleedding) and snowboard cross. Among the star attractions on the U.S. team are women such as skier Mikaela Shiffrin, bobsledder Lolo Jones, snowboarder Chloe Kim, and short track speed skater Maame Biney.

Here, in acknowledgement of the long, icy, often-uphill trail that sportswomen have had to navigate through the years, LIFE offers a series of Winter Olympics photos from the 1940s to the 1970s — pictures featuring the still-famous (Peggy Fleming, Lidiya Skoblikova, Andrea Mead Lawrence) as well as more than a few largely forgotten female athletes who made a mark in the Olympics, whether they medaled or not.

Fifteen-year-old Andrea Mead Lawrence, the first American alpine skier to win Olympic gold, trained in 1947.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Six-time U.S. national figure-skating champion Gretchen Merrill, St. Moritz Olympics, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

French figure skater Jacqueline du Bief, St. Moritz, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

British figure skater Jeanette Altwegg, bronze medalist at St. Moritz, 1948.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Canadian Patricia Gault, St. Moritz, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Olympic figure skater, St. Moritz, 1948.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gretchen Merrill, St. Moritz Olympics, 1948.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American skier Brynhild Grasmoen, St. Moritz, 1948.

Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Great Britain’s Sue Holmes, Cortina, Italy, 1956.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified skater, Cortina, Italy, 1956.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified athlete, Cortina, Italy, 1956.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American figure-skating silver medalist Carol Heiss, Cortina, Italy, 1956.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Russian cross-country skiers Radya Yeroshina (silver) and Lyubov Kozyreva (gold), Cortina, Italy, 1956.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American silver medalist Penny Pitou (left) and German downhill gold medalist Heidi Biebl, Squaw Valley, 1960.

Nat Farbman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Slalom silver medalist Betsy Snite (USA), Squaw Valley, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American downhill skier Penny Pitou (silver medalist), Squaw Valley, 1960.

Nat Farbman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American downhill skier Penny Pitou (silver medalist), Squaw Valley, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified athlete, Squaw Valley, 1960.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Figure skater Carol Heiss (gold medal, Ladies Singles), Squaw Valley, 1960.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Figure skater Carol Heiss (gold medal, Ladies Singles), Squaw Valley, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Russian speed-skating gold medalist Lidiya Skoblikova (center), with Poland’s Elwira Seroczynska (left, silver) and Helena Pilejczyk (right, bronze), Squaw Valley, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified athlete, Innsbruck Olympics, 1964.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American skier Jean Saubert (center) received kisses from French downhill gold and silver medalists (and sisters), Christine and Marielle Goitschel, Innsbruck Olympics, 1964.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified athlete, Innsbruck Olympics, 1964.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Left to right: Christine Goitschel, Jean Saubert, and Marielle Goitschel, Innsbruck, 1964

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American speed skater and four-time Olympic medalist Dianne Holum, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Unidentified athlete, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Three-time Olympic medalist Lyudmila Titova, Russian speed skater, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American figure skater Peggy Fleming, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Twelve-year-old Romanian figure skater Beatrice Hustiu, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American figure skater Janet Lynn, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American figure skater Peggy Fleming, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Peggy Fleming, gold medalist, Ladies Singles figure skating, Grenoble Olympics, 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Anne Henning, 16, won the 500-meter speed skating race at the Sapporo Winter Olympics, 1972.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Figure skaters Janet Lynn (American, bronze), Beatrix Schuba (Austrian, gold) and Karin Manguessen (Canadian, silver), Sapporo Winter Olympics, 1972.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American speed skater and four-time Olympic medalist Dianne Holum, Sapporo Winter Olympics, 1972.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Women’s luge, Sapporo Winter Olympics, 1972.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Just for Fun: A Look Back at LIFE’s Tongue-in-Cheek Gift Guides

December 24, 2021December 15, 2021 by Bill Syken

The desperate quest to please loved ones can lead to purchases around holiday time that you would never consider the other eleven months out of the year.

In 1953 LIFE acknowledged the occasional absurdity of holiday commerce with a guide to some the odder “fancy” items being offered to shoppers. LIFE photographer Yale Joel wittily executed the idea by shooting these silly objects in a high-fashion setting, as if a jewel-encrusted spray gun was in fact the pinnacle of glamour.

Then, in 1969, photographer Yale Joel came back with a more outlandish version of the same premise.

The guide in LIFE’s December 7, 1953 issue was headlined “Good-for-Nothing Gifts,” with the tagline, “they are better to give than to receive.” According to the story, one of the hottest gift of 1952 was—for real—a sequined fly swatter. This meant that in 1953, manufacturers produced fancy versions of other household objects to try to capitalize on the trend. This led to all sorts of odd offerings: “Holiday shoppers whose main object is to pamper the recipient may choose jeweled backscratchers which are almost too pretty to use, velvet eyeglasses which are designed to be worn instead of a hat, timepieces for pets who cannot tell time.”

Thus did ordinary objects gain big price tags. The encrusted backscratcher, for instance, retailed for $6.95 at Lord and Taylor—which would about $70 in 2020 prices. Even today, you can buy backscratchers in packages of six for ten bucks.

But Lord & Taylor’s bejeweled backscratcher was a major bargain compared to the gifts Joel shot for another tongue-and-cheek gift guide years later in LIFE’s December 12, 1969 issue. This guide promised to have “something for everyone, and a few things for nobody.”

The guide included an 80-carat diamond for $450,000 (more than $3 million today), a “Masterpiece of the Month” club for art lovers ($1 million, or $7.2 million today) in which buyers would receive works of 20th century masters by mail, and a kit for making your own fur coat from 75 sable fur pelts for $125,000, “including tailoring.”

Then there’s a giant phone receiver ($5, or $36 today), which would get this gift guide’s award for Best Sight Gag.

If nothing else, Joel and the editors of LIFE seemed to be having fun. Maybe that’s the real lesson for stressed-out shoppers: It’s the holidays. You may want everything to be perfect, but don’t forget to enjoy yourself.

This dog collar, which featured a Swiss watch, was made by Hammacher Schlemmer and cost $50 in 1953; a version with a compass instead of a watch cost $22.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These velvet glasses that slid back on the head were sold by Lord & Taylor for $15 in 1953.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This satin edged sleep mask, edged with gold braid and had gold eyelashes, brows and twinkling stars, sold for $3.95 in 1953 from Lord & Taylor.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This back-scratcher encrusted with gilt, pearls and seashells was sold by Lord & Taylor for $6.95.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Bloomingdales sold this spray gun that was coated with gilt and trimmed with flowers for $7.95 in 1953.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These work gloves with red felt fingernails and a large ring on the wedding finger sold for $2.95 in 1953.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This 80-carat uncut diamond from Tiffany’s would have been quite the holiday splurge at $450,000 in 1969.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This oversized receiver, “for really big calls” as LIFE put it in 1969, was sold by Hammacher Schlemmer/Invento for $5.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This smashed radio on top of a broken mirror was presented as a “mixed media sculpture” gift idea in 1969, with a $35 price tag.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This Honeywell “kitchen computer,” suggested for budgets, menus and other calculations, went for $10,600, with a two-week course in programming included.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The cost of creating “a unique fur coat, with 75 of the world’s most expensive pelts” from Russian crown sable was $125,000—including tailoring—in 1969.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

LIFE Takes a Bath: Classic Pics of People (and Pets) Enjoying a Soak

December 13, 2021December 13, 2021 by Bill Syken

Taking a bath might sound like a simple act, but this collection of photos from the archives of LIFE shows more variety than you might have imagined.

The breadth is hinted at in the first two photos in the collection. One is of actress Jayne Mansfield from LIFE’s Aug. 18, 1961 issue, taking a tub in a bathroom that is decorated floor-to-ceiling in pink shag. The room is, like the voluptuous blonde herself, an over-the-top expression of 1950s femininity. The photo also presents the bath at its most familiar, as a moment of relaxation and indulgence.

Contrast that with the bath taken by coal miner Mabrey Evans, which captures in one image the challenges of his circumstances. The photo was taken for a story in LIFE’s May 10, 1943 issue on labor issues in the coal industry. The story described how after a hard day of work, Evans would kneel in front of a washtub and scrub himself clean:

The washing process takes Miner Mabrey Evans about 45 minutes every evening. He carefully washes his hands, arms and chest first in a tub of hot water, and then while he scrapes the grime off his face, Mrs. Evans rubs the coating of coal black from his back.

The contrast between the photos of the coal miner and the coquettish actress is but the beginning. The collection includes a Japanese laborers in a communal bath, a British prep school student braving a morning plunge in 35-degree water, an aging Mickey Mantle seeking relief for his injury-ravaged body after a baseball game, photojournalist Lee Miller taking an impudent bath in the apartment of Adolph Hitler, and a Tahitian woman recalling the paintings of Gauguin with her loll in the island waters.

Some of the most striking images in the collection are of soldiers. Some of these men clean themselves in washtubs, as did the weary coal miner. Some enjoy a communal soak in ancient Roman baths at Gafsa. One of the photos featuring soldiers in the most joyous in this collection, and also the most famous.

That picture features American soldiers cleansing themselves in the ocean on the island of Saipan in World War II. The battle, chronicled in harrowing detail by LIFE photographers Peter Stackpole and W. Eugene Smith, was a brutal one, resulting in the deaths of 29,000 troops and many more civilians. The context helps explain the emotion of this particular bath, as soldiers took advantage of a lull in the fighting to strip off their clothes and refresh themselves in the waters of the Pacific.

It is, in its way, the epitome of bathing, these men who have seen such horror finding momentary relief by submerging themselves in the revitalizing waters.

Jayne Mansfield combed her hair while bathing in the pink carpeted bathroom of her home, known as “The Pink Palace,” in Los Angeles, 1960.

Allan Grant; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Coal miner Mabrey Evans scrubbed his arm in a tub of hot water in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, April 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A student at Winchester College, an English boys school, took a morning bath in a cold tub in a room that was 35 degrees; his technique was to grasp the edges of the tub, plunge in bottom-first, and get out as quickly as possible, 1951.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Artist Pablo Picasso taking a bath at his Riviera villa.

Photo by David Douglas Duncan /The LIFE Images Collection

Bathing was a complicated process for 24-year-old schoolteacher Dorothy Albrecht in rural Montana; first she needed to haul water from a cistern 100 yards away from her cottage and heat in on the stove before climbing into the washtub, 1941.

Hansel Mieth/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photographer Lee Miller took a bath in Adolph Hitler’s apartment soon after the apartment was discovered by Allied forces, 1945.

David E. Scherman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russell Finch, a writer, enjoyed the latest invention of the day, a portable television, while taking a bath, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A girl in Tahiti, bathing, 1955.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Basset Hound being bathed in the back yard.

Photo by Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Tokyo bath house, 1951.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A nurse bathed two children, India, September 1957.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Soldiers in their remote World War outpost of Amchitka Island, Alaska, bathed in halved oil drums, 1943.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Patients receive treatment on a hot baths spa, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen and wife, Neile, took a sulphur bath in Big Sur, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A woman used a new invention—a back brush equipped with front and rear-view mirrors so that she could see where she was scrubbing, 1947.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Crain on the set of the 1946 movie Margie.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Crain balanced a soap bubble on her index finger as she luxuriated in a bath in a scene from the 1946 movie, Margie.

Peter Stackpole/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aspiring actress Jo Ann Kemmerling read a book in the small tub that was set up in the kitchen of her small New York City apartment, 1953.

Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Soldiers in the Roman Baths at Gafsa in Tunisia, 1943.

Soldiers Swim in Roman Baths at Gafsa

Mickey Mantle soaked in whirlpool bathtub after a game, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Blondie, the pet lion, revelled in the shower spray of lukewarm water her owner Charles Hipp is directing on her pelt, at home, 1955.

Joseph Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

British soldiers of the Dorsetshire County Regiment took hot baths, 1944.

Actress Peggy Knudsen took a seaweed bath to produce better circulation and skin tone, 1961.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Bald Eagle’s bath in California, 1949.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A photo from an essay on labor in Japan showed workers crowded in square cement bath, 1947.

John Florea/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Starlet June Preisser tried a milk bath—she didn’t like it—in preparing for a scene in the movie musical Strike Up the Band, 1940.

Peter Stackpole/LIfe Pictures/Shutterstock

American troops in the Pacific bathed during a lull in the fighting on the island of Saipan, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE’s 100 People Who Changed the World

December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Bill Syken

The following is adapted from the new special issue LIFE’s 100 People Who Changed the World, available at newsstands and online:

History never stops moving. It evolves. It is fluid. What history looks like today is different from what it looked like, say, a hundred years ago; and what today’s history-in-the-making looks like now may be seen very differently just 20 years from now. Did anyone in 1907 really think Henry Ford was changing the world when he started tinkering with how to make his Model T? Other than maybe Henry himself, probably not. Will Elon Musk be seen in 2040 as a world changer because of his electric Tesla? He may or he may not.

When combing the past and the present for a list such as the 100 People Who Changed the World, there are criteria to consider, to be sure, but there are no hard-and-fast rules. There are judgments to be made, but there are no certain truths. Our list was less a hardened document than a current collection—a collection of men and women who, for better and sometimes for worse, have made a clear mark on our civilization. Such a list is by necessity subjective and open to delicious debate.

But while history may be fluid, it does tend to crystallize over time: The significance of Aristotle or Catherine the Great is easy to see from here. And certainly the importance of some of history’s great characters was apparent to their contemporaries: George Washington or Pablo Picasso or Mother Teresa. Others were largely invisible in their own time, their contributions realized only long after they were gone: Karl Marx died in 1883, many years before his writings would inspire powerful communist societies; Alan Turing, who died lonely and tortured, is now lauded as the brilliant father of the computer; and Rachel Carson gained respect as a naturalist writer not long before her death, but appreciation for her impact on environmentalism has blossomed more recently.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of this exercise is pondering the ultimate impact of present-day figures. Steve Jobs makes the list by virtue of his influence on high tech and our daily lives. But what of Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps the founding figure of social media when he launched Facebook in 2004? His impact is huge, and he has made it possible for billions of people to come together; but the social media site has also made it easier to drive society apart, upending the news business and even the way elections are conducted. Can we yet evaluate the nature of Zuckerberg’s controversial creation and his ability to control it?

Similarly, Jeff Bezos presents a quandary. He might be seen as a retailing successor to Richard Sears, who made our list of 100 even though his great namesake legacy is now in bankruptcy. But Bezos also rides the wave of technology, and the power and reach of Amazon are frighteningly large. And by the way, without Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf, would we even have Zuckerberg and Bezos to kick around? Who are they, you ask? Just the guys who figured out a way for all the computers of the world to speak to each other, something we call the internet. If that invention hasn’t changed the world as we know it, well, tell us what has.

When it comes to game changers, Martin Luther King Jr. is of course included here for his enormous impact on civil rights. Yet King also has spiritual descendants whose work continues to alter our lives every day, including Alicia Garza. She’s the organizer who coined the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Florida teen Trayvon Martin. An anguished Garza posted “I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter . . . Our lives matter.” That sentiment was turned into a hashtag and became a movement that appears to be challenging racism in a way that has eluded the nation for centuries.

Will the moment last? Only time, of course, will tell. History will move inexorably forward, our questions today will have answers tomorrow, and lists like these will change—again and again and again.

Here are photographs of some of the people who made the list in LIFE’s 100 People Who Changed the World.

COVER IMAGES: (Mother Teresa) Tim Graham/Hulton/Getty; (Lincoln) Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty; (Jesus) 3LH/SuperStock; (Einstein) Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Library of Congress/Getty; (MLK) Flip Schulke/Corbis/Getty; (Steve Jobs) Robert Galbraith/Reuters; (Beatles) John Dominis/ The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; (Edison) Granger; (Hitler) Photo12/UIG/ Getty; (Eleanor Roosevelt) Marvin Koner/Corbis/Getty; (Gandhi) Wallace Kirkland/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; (Oprah) Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock

Mother Teresa at a hospice for the destitute and dying in Kolkata, India, 1969.

Terry Fincher/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In 1994 Nelson Mandela visited the cell in Robben Island Prison in South Africa where he had been held as a political prisoner from 1964 to 1990.

© Louise Gubb/Corbis/Getty Images

Circa 1910, women worked on an early outdoor version of the Henry Ford assembly line that would revolutionize mass production.

George Rinhart/Corbis/Getty Images

Sojourner Truth, an anti-slavery and women’s rights activist, held in her lap a photo of her grandson James Caldwell, who fought with a Massachusetts regiment and survived being a POW in South Carolina during the Civil War.

Everett/Shutterstock

Helen Keller, blind and deaf, felt the face of her teacher, Anne Sullivan.

Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Albert Einstein in 1947, twenty-six years after the groundbreaking physicist won the Nobel Prize.

Donaldson Collection/Library of Congress/Getty Images

Catherine de Medici inspected the results of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a crackdown she had ordered against Protestants in Paris in 1572.

Gianni Dagli Orti/Shutterstock

Billy Graham walked with children during an evangelical visit to Nigeria in 1960.

AP/Shutterstock

Oprah Winfrey in 2014 at the Critic’s Choice Awards, where the media entrepreneur had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Lee Daniel’s The Butler.

Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock

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