Page 41 – LIFE

The 100 Most Important Photos Ever

April 11, 2025December 7, 2021 by Bill Syken

The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s newcspecial issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures of All Time and the Stories Behind Them, available at newsstands and online:

Photos are proof. We know this from our own lives. Here’s what dad looked like when he was in high school. Look at this cake I baked. I ran into Taylor Swift at the mall—see, here we are in a selfie. A telling taunt of our age is “photos or it didn’t happen.”

The same holds true for the wider world. The pictures that really matter are the ones that prove something, that show us a definitive truth, that make us understand. Here’s what a human fetus looks like. Here’s the glory of Muhammad Ali. Here’s the shock we felt when the World Trade Center Towers collapsed.

In our quest to select the most important 100 photographs ever, we looked for pictures that demonstrated something important and meaningful. Some capture a news event or show the brutality of war. Others crystallize a particular cultural moment. Some take us on a fantastic voyage—up into space, perhaps, or inside the human body. Some photographs matter because they showed what cameras are capable of and illustrate the extraordinary power of photography as a medium.

The oldest photo we chose was the first one ever taken, of a French landscape in the 1820s. The process involved chemical applications and a multi-hour exposure that left an impression on a pewter plate. That grainy photo of the view outside the photographer’s window signaled our species’ transition to the world of pictures. Thanks to the internet and our smartphones, with their built-in cameras, we now see more images each day than the people who lived in a world of paintings and prints saw in a lifetime. Most of these photographs we flip past and forget. Others linger. The best reorient our understanding. The rare ones—the ones we feature in this special issue—change how we see the world.

Here are a few selections from LIFE’s new special issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures Ever and the Stories Behind Them

(clockwise from top left) Joe Rosenthal/AP/Shutterstock; Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated/Getty; Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, [LC-DIG-fsa-8b29516]; NASA

Regarded as the first photo ever taken, this image of a French countryside was achieved when Joseph Nicephore Niepce placed a thin coating of light-sensitive phosphorous derivative on a pewter plate and then placed the plate in a camera obscura and set in on a windowsill for a long exposure.

Joseph Niepce/Hulton/Getty

Lewis Hine’s photos such as this one of “breaker boys” who picked pieces of slate from conveyor belts as freshly broken pieces of coal rolled by, helped raise support for child labor laws.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection, [LC-DIG-nclc-01130]

Elizabeth Eckford’s walk through a crowd of hateful tormentors into Little Rock Central High School in 1957 is a defining image of the tumultuous effort to desegregate schools.

Bettmann/Getty

The image of U.S. Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War II has been called the famous news photo of all time.

Joe Rosenthal/AP/Shutterstock

In a defining image of the Vietnam war, the wounded Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie (center, with bandaged head) reached toward a stricken comrade after a fierce firefight south of the DMZ, October 1966.

Larry Burrows/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Woodstock music festival that drew half a million people to an upstate New York farm in 1969 signified the best of that age’s hopes and dreams.

Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Michael’s Phelps’ win over Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by one hundredth of a second at the 2008 Olympics was a golden example of the photo finish.

Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated/Getty

Egged on by the bogus claims of the outgoing 45th president, a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an historic attempt to disrupt the tallying of electoral college votes.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty

The Hubble Space Telescope’s photo known as Pillars of Creation captured the conditions in which new stars are born.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team

It’s a Wonderful Life: Tribute to A Masterpiece

November 30, 2021November 30, 2021 by Bill Syken

The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s new special issue It’s a Wonderful Life: The Season’s Most Beautiful Film, available at newsstands and online:

Director Frank Capra’s 1946 fantasy, It’s a Wonderful Life, is one of the most beloved American motion pictures and a treasured part of the Christmas season. Generations of families have gathered round their televisions to share this deeply affecting, vividly filmed, and superbly acted parable: the story of George Bailey, a small-town banker on the brink of suicide saved on Christmas Eve by an avuncular angel who shows him a nightmarish vision of what the world would be like had George never been born. The Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris called the film “manifestly an all-time masterpiece.” In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it 20th on a list of the 100 greatest American movies ever made. The film’s star, James Stewart, who is arguably perfect as George, considered it his favorite of all the movies he’d made—and so did Capra, who directed some of Hollywood’s best. “It’s a Wonderful Life sums up my philosophy of filmmaking,” the director wrote. “First, to exalt the worth of the individual. Second, to champion man—plead his cases, protest any degradation of his dignity, spirit, or divinity. And third, to dramatize the viability of the individual.”

And to think that, in large part, the film owes its iconic status to a bureaucratic bungle. When the movie was released in 1946—to a generally tepid response—U.S. copyright protection lasted 28 years. In 1974, it could have been renewed for another 28 years if Republic Pictures, the original copyright owner, had filled out some forms and paid a nominal fee. For whatever reason, Republic neglected to do so, and the film passed into the public domain. Before long, TV stations across the country, relieved of the burden of paying royalties, showed It’s a Wonderful Life repeatedly around the holidays. A 1993 Supreme Court decision allowed Republic to reclaim the film from public domain by copyrighting the story and music; the next year, the company cut a long-term deal to grant NBC exclusive broadcast rights to It’s a Wonderful Life, which the network typically aired from one to three times a year.

In the end, the movie’s mix of whimsy, sentimentality—and a dose of horror—captured the imaginations of millions again and again. “What is remarkable about It’s a Wonderful Life is how well it holds up over the years,” critic Roger Ebert wrote in 1999. “Some movies, even good ones, should only be seen once. When we know how they turn out, they’ve surrendered their mystery and appeal. Other movies can be viewed an indefinite number of times. Like great music, they improve with familiarity. It’s a Wonderful Life falls in the second category.”

No one could have imagined all this 75 years ago. But then, the life of It’s a Wonderful Life has been full of improbable twists and turns of fate. The film owes its origins to a story titled “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern—a Civil War historian, of all things—who said the idea came to him while shaving. Stern revised and refined the tale repeatedly and had pretty much given up on publishing it when RKO Radio Pictures snapped up the rights and worked up a script. It kicked around for a bit—until RKO chief Charles Koerner sold the rights to Capra in 1945. At that point, the famous director was at a professional crossroads. In the 1930s he had built a sterling reputation for his handling of humor, sentiment, and pungent social commentary in movies such as It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Capra celebrated ordinary folks who triumph over daunting adversaries; some called his films hokey—hence the term “Capra corn”—but few disputed that, by and large, they were deftly executed. Serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Capra earned a chest full of decorations for his Why We Fight propagandist documentaries boosting the Allied effort. Now he was a civilian again, with a newly established production company, Liberty Films, and he was looking for just the right property to launch his postwar comeback.

The film’s appeal is manifold. Aside from the film’s spot-on performances, nostalgia, warmth, and emotion, Ebert noted, “the darker later passages have an elemental power, as the drunken George Bailey staggers through a town he wants to hate, and then revisits it through the help of a gentle angel.” Writing in Film Comment, Robin Wood called the movie “one of the greatest American films.”

Nevertheless, some otherwise admiring critics consider the movie flawed, among them Joseph McBride, a professor of film at San Francisco State University and author of the definitive 1992 biography Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. McBride argues that the supernatural aspect of the story—its deus ex machina resolution—is rather “a cop-out.” In McBride’s view, “It’s a Wonderful Life is a film about a failure. I asked Capra whether it was autobiographical, and he said ‘What the hell do you think?’ He was a rich, successful Hollywood director who had just won the Distinguished Service Medal. But Capra was plagued by self-doubt and considered himself a failure.”

Few would agree with that assessment. Frank Capra was many things, including a difficult and profoundly complicated character, but no one can call him a bust, any more than his self-sacrificing, civic-minded, deeply troubled cinematic hero from Bedford Falls. Together, with a little help from an unlikely angel, they struck a chord—or, if you will, rang a bell—that after 75 years and counting, still resonates deep in the human heart.

Here are a selection of images from LIFE’s new special issue It’s A Wonderful Life: The Season’s Most Beautiful Film.

(foreground) MPTVImages; Photo colorization by Jordan J. Lloyd/Dynamichrome; (background) Dimitris66/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty

Jimmy Stewart during a break in the filming of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Martha Holmes/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mary (Donna Reed) and George (Jimmy Stewart) get to know each other as youngsters in a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life.

Bettmann/Getty

Mary (Donna Reed) and George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) in It’s a Wonderful Life.

CBS Photo Archive/Getty

George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) comforts daughter Zuzu (Karolyn Grimes) in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Rko/Kobal/Shutterstock

Clarence (Henry Travers) plays the angel to a troubled George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) in It’s a Wonderful Life.

CBS Photo Archive/Getty

The snowmaking machine on the set of It’s a Wonderful Life represented a great technical advance in its day, producing more realistic snow than had been previously seen in movies.

Martha Holmes/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed posed for a publicity portrait for It’s a Wonderful Life.

Silver Screen Collection/Moviepix/Getty

It’s a Wonderful Life premiered at the Globe Theater in New York City, 1946.

© RKO, Courtesy Photofest

Times Square: The Ultimate Gathering Place

November 30, 2021November 30, 2021 by Bill Syken

Most everyone knows Times Square as the place where more than a million people come every December 31 to watch the ball drop and welcome the new year.

But the attraction of this Manhattan crossroads is more than one night only. The role that Times Square plays in America’s largest city has been well captured by the pictures taken by LIFE photographers over the decades.

Times Square was given its name on April 8, 1904, soon after the New York Times set up offices nearby. It developed into the glitziest spot in the city, thanks to its abundance of entertainment spots and neon billboards.

The photos here capture the excitement and the hubbub, the celebrations and the showplaces. One of the most jarring pictures in the collection is in fact a rare photo of Times Square looking quiet and serene, thanks to a taxi strike that left its boulevards nearly free of traffic. (The idea of Times Square without people later became the centerpiece of a nightmare sequence in the 2001 Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky.)

The collection includes two celebrity portraits. One is a natural for the location: playwright Moss Hart and his wife, actress Kitty Carlisle. The other is of Robert Redford at the time when his career was taking off thanks to his performance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the photo is memorable for the way the actor’s Western aesthetic contrasts with the gritty backdrop of Times Square in 1969.

One of the most famous photos in the history of LIFE magazine was shot in Times Square, on a day when the space erupted in spontaneous celebration. It was 1945, and Japan was about to surrender, bringing an end to World War II. One exuberant man was going from woman to woman, planting his lips on them (and he was far from the only one doing so) when LIFE’s Albert Eisenstadt took the picture known as “The Kiss.” The photo has had a problematic afterlife, as a woman claiming to be the nurse in the photo came forward to describe the kiss as terrifying from her perspective, but the image nonetheless captures the national mood at the long-awaited end of World War II.

The crowds that day indicate the particular hold of Times Square on the civic imagination. It’s the place where people magnetically streamed because something important had happened, and they wanted to share the experience with others.

This photo is from a staged essay from 1940 on the “White Collar Girl,” the subject of the best-selling novel Kitty Foyle that was later adapted into a movie; here Carol Lorell, who resembled the movie’s star, Ginger Rogers, portrayed a scene in which the White Collar Girl, alone amid the glitz of Times Square, had finished her workday and was unsure to do with the rest of her evening.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square on Dec. 31, 1941.

Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military police in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The motorcade of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved through Times Square, 1944.

William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Times Square billboard for the Broadway show Mexican Hayride, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square billboard, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pigeons and loiterers (visitors) gathered in cement island in the middle of Broadway in Times Square, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Customers peered at the wares inside a small, brightly-lit Times Square watch shop, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A strolling blind musician played guitar and harmonica along Broadway at night in Times Square in 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, 1944.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Servicemen made calls to faraway family and friends from booths at the GI phone center in Times Square, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Getty Images

Sailors looked for fun in a curfew-closed Times Square.

(Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

V-J Day celebrations in Times Square, August 14, 1945.

William C. Shrout The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

V-J Day kiss, Times Square, Aug. 14, 1945.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square was uncharacteristically quiet during a 1949 taxi strike.

Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Traffic congestion on Broadway looking north from 45th Street in Times Square, 1954.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, February 1954.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The cast of ballet Fancy Free danced in the middle of Times Square, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Playwright Moss Hart with his wife, actress Kitty Carlisle, in Times Square, 1959.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Redford in Times Square, between meetings, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Redford hailed a cab in Times Square. Just a few blocks away, at the Biltmore Theater on 47th Street, was where the actor got his first major notices as the star of Neil Simon’s 1963 Broadway play, Barefoot in the Park.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The stroke of midnight began a new year, new century and new millennium as people celebrated in Times Square on Jan. 1, 2000.

Ted Thai/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Stephen Sondheim: A Broadway Master’s `West Side’ Roots

November 28, 2021November 28, 2021 by Bill Syken

The following is adapted from LIFE’s new special issue on West Side Story, is available online and at retail outlets nationwide.

It was the kind of break most any songwriter in 1957 would have killed for: the chance to work with Leonard Bernstein on a Broadway-bound musical based on Romeo and Juliet. But Stephen Sondheim, who died on Nov. 26, 2021 at age 91, was never just any songwriter. When he was 25 years old, with the barest experience, only arm-twisting by his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, convinced him to accept the offer. “I didn’t want to do it,” Sondheim remembered later, but “[Oscar] said…this is the chance to work with real professionals…” And so, “I said okay. And that’s how I got the job.”

To describe Sondheim as a precocious talent would be stating the obvious. He completed his first full musical, By George, a comic take on high school, at 15 and enlisted Hammerstein, the father of a friend, to critique it. As a college undergrad, Sondheim adapted a George S. Kaufman play as a musical and completed four other musicals of his own. One of his earliest professional jobs was composing songs for Saturday Night, a work by twin screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein of Casablanca fame.

But for all of Sondheim’s success, as his career progressed, his work got darker, less commercial, and less popular with broad American audiences. Company, from 1970, about a womanizer, was told in out-of-chronological order. Pacific Overtures, from 1976, about the westernization of Japan, originally was presented in Kabuki style. And then there’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, from 1979, about revenge and cannibalism. His work was less like that of his musical theater contemporary, glitzmaster Andrew Lloyd Webber, than the poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, wrote critic Adam Kirsch in the Wall Street Journal earlier in 2021. “Sondheim’s sense that we reveal ourselves in what we don’t say and do—that slips and silences can be as important as full-throated declarations—is another thing that he shares with writers of his generation,” wrote Kirsch.

It’s unlikely Sondheim would have disagreed, at least when it came to the kind of writing that interested him. He had dismissed the lyrics of West Side Story favorites such as “I Feel Pretty” as embarrassing, and the lyrics of “Tonight,” the iconic fire escape duet between Tony and Mary, as artificial. In an interview on 60 Minutes in 2020, when West Side Story was being revived on Broadway, Sondheim told Bill Whitaker he wished he’d never written the line from “Tonight,” Today the world was just an address. It was too “fancy” for a tough-guy teen, Sondheim said. As for “I Feel Pretty,” the composer in a different interview complained that it, too, did not align with the character: “She’s a Puerto Rican street girl. She should speak in street poetry.”

However he felt about the lines, they are part of one the most beloved shows in the history of Broadway, and of the rich and complex legacy of a true titan of the stage.

LIFE’s special tribute issue West Side Story: The Sharks, the Jets, a Romeo and Juliet, which chronicles the show’s journey from stage to screen, is available for purchase online.

Cover image by TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

LIFE’s Ode to the Men of Italy

November 17, 2021November 17, 2021 by Bill Syken

In its Aug. 23, 1963 issue, which featured Frank Sinatra and Frank Sinatra Jr. on the cover, LIFE decided to pay homage to the men of Italy. The story presented photos of men in a variety of situations and circumstances—a father giving away a bride, a farmer tending his goats, workmen on a lunch break, a mountaineer reaching a summit, a goofball clowning on the beach.

This tribute to the Italian male began with these words:

In whatever he does, from quietly combing the hair of a girl friend to loudly showing off at the swimming pool, the Italian man is the most natural of men. His spontaneity and his self-confidence are unequalled. He knows the girl will sigh with bliss, that there will be water under him when he comes down. He treats fleeting moments as if they were the most important in his life—because they are. As his country—and his spirits revived, the world has become better acquainted and even fascinated with his engaging qualities. For his candid enthusiasm and sensuality have helped fill the world with music and art, laughter and love and a particular kind of triumphant masculinity.

While making generalizations—even positive ones—about the male population of an entire country can be a dubious enterprise, in this case the idea is justified by the results, which are outstanding. The photos for the essay were taken by Paul Schutzer, a prodigal talent who became a LIFE staff photographer at the age of 26, and whose most famous images came from the big stages of history; Schutzer would die while on assignment in a combat zone, covering the Six-Day War in 1967.

But in his essay on the Italian man, it’s clear how much he was inspired by the opportunity to capture something about everyday life. Look at this run of pictures and you can practically hear Paul Schutzer saying “Oh, that guy is amazing. And that one. And that one.” Over and over and over. The original essay ran for six pages in magazine, but Schutzer took thousands of frames, enough to fill an encyclopedia. Roaming the cities and the countryside of Italy, he couldn’t stop shooting—which is as true a form a tribute as can be.

A man combed a woman’s hair, Italy, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photo essay on the men of Italy, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A father, soon to be overcome by emotion (see next photo), walked his daughter down the aisle.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A father broke down while walking his daughter down the wedding aisle.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A farmer tended his goats, from an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An Italian mountain climber lifted his hat in salute after reaching a mountaintop, 1963.

.Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda: A Hollywood Life

December 21, 2021November 15, 2021 by Bill Syken

Jane Fonda’s appearances in LIFE magazine from 1960 to 1971 track the transformations of an actress finding her voice.

Fonda, born on Dec. 21, 1937, was pictured alongside her famous father when she made the cover of LIFE for the first time in the Feb. 22, 1960 issue. Henry Fonda had starred in such films as The Grapes of Wrath and Twelve Angry Men, among dozens of others, and LIFE heralded Jane’s joining the family business with a fanfare that was positively Olympian: “Like an ancient goddess who was born full-grown out of her father’s head, Jane Fonda at 22 has sprung up almost magically as a full-fledged and versatile actress.”

The line was a reference to Greek mythology which cast Henry Fonda as Zeus and Jane as Athena. It was a lot to live up to. At that point Jane was just making her film debut in a 1960 romantic comedy called Tall Story. Jane played a cheerleader; her costar was Anthony Perkins, best remembered for his performance as Norman Bates in Psycho, released that same year. Tall Story made more of a thud than a splash.

But in 1964 Jane Fonda was featured in LIFE again, when she was in France to film Circle of Love, directed by Roger Vadim. Fonda didn’t make the cover then, but the magazine still gushed in the headline over “Henry Fonda’s lovely, leggy daughter.” The story continued in that frothy vein: “The girl’s look—soft, wheaten-blond hair, a dazzling smile, lovely long legs—is emphatically American and it is a look that knocks Frenchmen dead.”

Fonda let the world know she was all grown when she was back on the cover of LIFE for its March 29, 1968 issue, which trumpeted her performance in the outlandish cult classic Barbarella. (Watching the original theatrical trailer for the movie feels like a piece of sci-fi time travel itself). LIFE’s story on the actress paid much attention to the movie’s director, Vadim, who was now Fonda’s husband. He had previously been married to actress Brigitte Bardot, whom he had directed in And God Created Woman, and another actress, Annette Stroyberg; Vadim also had a child with French screen star Catherine Deneuve. LIFE wrote of Fonda’s union with the director: “She is caught up in an absorbing marriage with Vadim, whose reputation has him more knowledgeable in matters sexual than Kinsey, Freud and Krafft-Ebing, due partly to his many spectacular wives and partly to the films that he makes.” The story also discussed fissures in Jane Fonda’s relationship with her father, with who she was not speaking at the time. (They would later appear together in the 1981 film On Golden Pond, earning an Oscar for him and a nomination for Jane).

The April 23, 1971 cover of LIFE marked the first big story in which the magazine presented Jane Fonda chiefly on her own, rather than in relation to her father or her husband. The cover proclaimed her a “busy rebel” and the story focussed on her newfound activism, opening with this sly sentence: “When her estranged husband, French director Roger Vadim, called her Jane d’Arc, Jane Fonda didn’t smile.”

LIFE greeted Fonda’s political awakening with something less than enthusiasm (and this was before her controversial trip to Vietnam that gave her the nickname Hanoi Jane). The story was headlined “Nag, Nag, Nag,” and reported, “The Hollywood Women’s Press Club gave her its annual Sour Apple Award (for giving the industry a “sour image)” and some say her activities played a part in her failure to get an Oscar for her performance in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

The magazine that had not too long ago swooned over her appearance now noted snarkily, “Long a member of the worst-dressed list, she has reduced her wardrobe to little more than two sweaters and two pairs of jeans, which she carries in a Louis Vuitton bag.”

Fonda’s transformation from ingenue to activist over the course of the 1960s was only the beginning of a fascinating evolution that defies easy summation. In the 1980s Fonda reinvented herself as the country’s leading workout guru, with her exercise videos topping the charts for six years. The outspoken critic of capitalism, after being married to progressive activist Tom Hayden for 17 years, followed that up with a ten-year marriage to media titan Ted Turner (they divorced in 2001).

The most consistent through-line is her acting, which continues fruitfully. She currently costars with Lily Tomlin in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, which has earned her award nominations and whose seven-season run is set to conclude in 2022.

Jane Fonda, 1956.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Henry Fonda with daughter Jane, 1960

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda with her father Henry Fonda on the set of Henry’s television show, ‘The Deputy’, circa 1960.

Alan Grant/Life Pictures/Shuttetstock

Jane Fonda in cheerleader costume she wore for her film debut in the movie “Tall Story,” 1960.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda played a cheerleader in her film debut, the 1960 movie ‘Tall Story’.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joshua L. Logan, who directed Jane Fonda’s film debut Tall Story and was also a family friend, studied a movie script with her, 1959.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Director Joshua L. Logan (center, right) with Jane Fonda (center, left) during the filming of Tall Story

Jane Fonda in California, 1959.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda, 1959.

Allan Grant/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda, 1959.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda, 1961.

Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The LIFE cover for the March 29, 1968 issue, featuring Jane Fonda wearing a space-age costume for title role in Roger Vadim’s film “Barbarella.”

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/ The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Jane Fonda ensconced in the “excessive machine” on the set of Barbarella, 1968. At right is her husband, the director Roger Vadim.

Carlo Bavagnoli / The LIFE Picture Collection

Jane Fonda as Barbarella, 1968

Carlo Bavagnoli / The LIFE Picture Collection

Jane Fonda, wearing a space-age costume and holding a space gun, being carried by Guardian Angel (John Phillip) in a scene from Roger Vadim’s motion picture Barbarella.

Photo by Carlo Bavagnoli/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Jane Fonda, photographed for a story about her activism, 1971.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda at home with her daughter, 1971.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda (second from the left) picketed a store selling nonunion lettuce, 1971.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda appeared at a rally against the Vietnam war with with actor Donald Sutherland, her costar in the movie Klute.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jane Fonda (right foreground, on couch) discussed the Vietnam War with students at Whittier College, 1971.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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