Canada’s School on Wheels: A Teacher’s Daughter Remembers

In the early part of the 20th century, Ontario developed an innovative approach for bringing education to the children of the miners and trappers who worked in its remote northern regions. Train cars were converted to school houses and hauled from community to community, stopping for a week at a time to deliver a dose of eduction, before moving onto the next stop on its circuit. The school train would go back and forth, hitting each stop five or six times in a school year. The “schools on wheels,” as they were called—there were seven of them—operated from 1926 to 1967.

One interesting proviso in this set-up: the teacher and his family lived on the rail car for the entire school year.

In 1954 LIFE photographer Cornell Capa documented life and learning on one of these trains as it stopped in the remote mining community of Thor Lake. The star of LIFE’s story was Fred Sloman, who taught on his school on wheels for 39 years, and who also lived on the rail car with his wife and five children. The front half of the car was a classroom, and for years the 28-foot-long back section served as living quarters for seven people. The rail car was nine feet wide and had no running water.

The cramped conditions might sound like an awful way to live for the teacher and his family, but it was actually pretty great, according to Fredda Sloman, the daughter of Fred, who appeared in the LIFE story as a fifteen-year-old. Now 83, she speaks of those years as if they were a kind of paradise.

Fredda—who goes by Toby, a nickname she picked up in college—now lives in Clinton, Ontario, where the Slomans would spend their summers when school was out. Her home is on the old family property, and she also lives not far from the old rail car in which she spent most of her youth. The town of Clinton rescued the car from the scrap heap and turned into a museum, placed it in Sloman Park, which is named for her father.

Toby says that spending her youth living in such close quarters, with five kids stacked in bunk beds (though the oldest three had moved on when LIFE visited) and her parents on a fold-out sofa, seemed normal, because that was all she knew. So did the ritual of heading out to the nearest river the moment they arrived in a new town to fetch water and haul it back home. Or eating off a dining room table that was raised and lowered from its place in the wall like a Murphy bed.

“That was my life, it didn’t seem strange or odd to me,” she says now.

For her, the best part for growing up in a School on Wheels was the afternoons. When the school day was done, the other students would rush home to do their chores, so Toby would go off on her own and roam the wilderness of the Canadian north. A shy girl, she loved spending her free hours wandering in the bush, studying animal tracks in winter and collecting wildflowers when the weather was warm.

“It was a perfect childhood,” she says, adding the caveat: “Though I don’t know any other kid that would have thought it was the perfect childhood.”

The visit by Cornell Capa ended up changing the course of Toby’s life. She had minimal interaction with the LIFE photographer, which she chalks up to her shyness and also to the conventions of the era, which dictated that children did not participate in adult conversations. But she noticed Capa’s thoroughness and invention, and it gave her an idea of what she wanted to do with her life. Through much of her youth she had hoped to be a veterinarian, until she learned that she wouldn’t have been eligible for a spot in veterinary school in Canada because she hadn’t grown up on a farm or ranch. Then Capa came along to give her direction by example. When she was done with high school, she attended Ryerson Institute of Technology (now known as Ryerson University) in Toronto to study photography. After graduation she worked for 20 years as a photographer and reporter at community newspapers in Canada.

She imagines Capa would have been stunned to learn he had such an influence on the shy girl on the train, but says “for as long as I worked as a professional photographer, whenever I took a photo I liked, I would say `Thank you, Cornell.”

The other children of Fred and Cela Sloman had varied and interesting careers. One traveled the globe as a professional nanny, another worked as a statistician. Toby’s twin brother Bill, after serving in the Army, became a miner, trucker, installer of siding and, as his 2006 obituary noted, a fan of casual clothing. Her sister Elizabeth became a pediatrician and her achievements gained her a public profile. After working for a stint in Kenya with her husband, a fellow pediatrician, she helped lead the campaign against Nestle for promoting infant formula over breastfeeding, and in 1981 she became the first female president of the Medical Council of Canada.

Toby is now working on a memoir of her youth with her friend and author Bonnie Sitter. Having raised three sons herself, Toby is amazed at how her mother was able to care for five children in the back of a train car, and especially a set of twins. “That was before the days of Pampers,” Toby says. “Can you imagine raising twin babies without running water?”

Her father, she says, was a generous and warm-hearted man who had a gift for connecting with students. The school had fewer than a dozen students per stop, and he would only see them once every five weeks as the train traveled its circuit. Toby says that her father aimed for a “five-minute miracle.” He would spend five minutes with a child, find out what they were interested in, and then set them to learning about that. “He had the magic touch,” says Toby.

Though it wasn’t part of the job, her father would also teach the students’ parents, many of whom were Italian immigrants who had come to Canada to escape their war-torn country and wanted to learn English.

Toby says her favorite photo in the LIFE collection was one of her father projecting a film inside the train, because it recalls a story which demonstrates how dedicated he was to the communities he served.

Many of the Italian immigrant workers in northern Ontario were isolated and homesick. So Fred Sloman wrote to Kodak in 1930, explaining the plight of these workers, and asked if someone from the company could possibly make films of these workers’ hometowns—small villages of Prossedi, Supino and Pisterzo, located south of Rome. Sloman also provided Kodak with some family names. Kodak happened to have an employee passing through that area of Italy and shot movies for Sloman, in some cases finding actual relatives of the homesick Ontario workers. In the movies these relatives back home in Italy looked in the camera and raised glasses of wine to toast their family members in Canada. The immigrant workers wept as Sloman projected the footage on the inside of his rail car.

With moments like that, it’s easy to understand how a nine-foot-wide train parked in the icy north could feel like a place of enlightenment.

Fred Sloman instructed students in a railcar schoolhouse in rural Ontario, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Toby and Bill Sloman at work on the mobile schoolhouse where their father taught.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman taught in a railcar in rural Ontario, 1964.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Students in a railcar that served as a mobile school, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman taught in a railcar that served as a mobile school in rural Ontario, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman supervised students as they worked on their math lessons, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A five-year-old student put out a fire in a model of a county store built by Sloman to illustrate how a water tank operates, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A six-year-old student played with building blocks, building a pigpen, in the school railroad car, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Teacher Fred Sloman with students in a railcar that served as a mobile school, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A student snowshoed three quarters of a mile along the railroad tracks to go home to lunch after morning classes on the school train, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Children played outside the rail car during a school lunch break, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A train passed by the school train, which would remain at a location for a week at a time before being hitched and hauled to its next stop.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Slomans and local parents played Crokinole, a tabletop variation of shuffleboard in which the object is to knock the opponents’ checkers out of a circle, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman’s teaching materials in his school on wheels, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman and his wife, Cela in the living quarters of the school train.

.Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The home of one of Sloman’s railcar students, rural Ontario, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fred Sloman showed films to students and their families, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Slomans’ dining table would be pulled down for meals and then folded into the wall at night so the Slomans could open their foldout sofa for sleeping.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The challenge of doing laundry was that clothes would freeze on the line, and then still be damp when they were brought in and thawed.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Slomans, with Fredda a k a Toby at left and her twin brother Bill at the right.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Sloman’s dog, Sandy, snuggled by Toby’s feet during the school day, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fredda a k a Toby and twin brother Bill with their pet skunk, and bunk beds in the background, 1954.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The train did include a bathroom with a tub, though water had to be brought in from outside due to a lack of running water.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fifteen-year-old Fredda Sloman, a k a Toby, fed her pet dog and pet skunk; she and her brother had rescued the skunk from the wild as a baby and had it de-scented.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Toby Sloman Rainey in 2021, posing with the story about the school on wheels in the March 8, 1954 issue of LIFE.

Courtesy Bonnie Sitter

Unveiling the New Beautiful: Spring Fashion Week in Paris, 1951

What happens during Paris fashion week definitely does not stay in Paris. When designers present their new fashions to retailers and taste-makers, the hope is that what happens there will reshape closets around the world.

The event was influential enough that LIFE sent three photographers to Paris for the 1951 edition and give readers a first look at what might be headed their way. Until the models hit the runways, no one really knew what the designers had been planning. “A new hemline was as carefully guarded in Paris as a barrel of plutonium in the U.S,” LIFE wrote in its cover story for the March 5, 1951 issue.

Some years, the new looks were so different that they pushed last year’s frocks to the back of the closet. The looks in 1951 were more of an evolution. “To the disappointment of an adventuresome few, but to the relief of most of the trade which did not want to cope with anything revolutionary, this showing would not, like the “new look” explosion of 1947, tend to make present wardrobes obsolete,” LIFE wrote. “The new trend, if anything, was conservative.”

The new designs may not have been radical, but they were popular. LIFE reported gangbuster sales, which may have been the real point, as the designers achieved the goal of broadening the type of stores that carried their clothes: “The stately houses, which once preferred to cater to exclusive stores and private clients, were taking increasing interest in the buyers for lower-priced stores.”

LIFE’s photographs, taken by aces Gordon Parks, Nina Leen and N.R. Farbman, capture the excitement of being there. Some pictures highlight the clothes, of course, but others show the frenzy of the business and media folks as they gathered for seven days that could change their world.

Vogue editor Bettina Ballard prepared models for a spring fashion shoot, Paris, February 1951

Photo by N R Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock

This gown was the big finish for a show by Paris newcomer Castillo of Lanvin.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Models showed off five fabulous ball gowns designed by Jacques Fath at a Paris fashion show, 1951.

Gordon Parks / The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Two French models showed off evening dresses while surrounded by eager crowd of buyers at Dior fashion show, Paris, 1951.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Buyers and press packed the halls at this Dior showing, Paris 1951.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A spring fashion show, Paris, 1951.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Prepping dresses for the spring fashion show in Paris, February 1951.

Photo by N R Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These two Dior dresses illustrated his theory of “oval of face, oval of bust, oval of hips,” Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The new spring fashion line, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A young woman modelled a green and white striped rain coat designed by Maggy Rouff, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A fashion shoot in the Louvre, Paris, 1951.

N R Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A new raincoat from designer Pierre Balmain, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A Beige wool wrap-around jacket designed by Jacques Fath, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

An evening dress designed by Maggy Rouff, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These fiive spring hats by Schiaparelli were expected to be hits in the U.S.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

An evening dress designed by Lafaurie, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A yellow wool coat designed by Alex Gres, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Designer Elsa Schiaparelli (left) tested out a hat at the 1951 spring fashion shows in Paris.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Designer Marcel Rochas in between his two fashion shows, Paris, 1951.

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A polka dotted smock top over black skirt by Balenciaga, Paris, 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A waistcoat with box-jacket outfit by designer Christian Dior, Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A black cocktail dress featuring a deep V neck, which almost went to the waist, by designer Jacques Griffe, Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This evening dress featured American plaid cotton apron over pleated organza dress by designer Jean Desses, Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A French model showed a small print dress with triple-flounced skirt and long sleeves by designer Jacques Fath, Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A French model showed off new spring hat design, Paris 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These silly sunglasses featuring long blue eyelashes and small lenses were dreamed up by designer Schiaparelli, and brought a lighter note to the generally conservative spring showings in Paris, 1951.

Gordon Parks/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

When Miami Beach Went to War

During World War II, Miami Beach transformed from a tourist haven to military training ground. Tens of thousands of troops passed through South Florida to prepare for combat.

“America’s winter playground, home of the press agent and the bathing beauty, has gone to war,” LIFE reported in its December 18, 1942 issue. “…instead of tourists in gay sports clothes, young men of the U.S. Army Air Forces, dressed in drab khaki, drill on the green golf courses and live in hotels. For now Miami Beach is a vast army training center.”

The military was drawn to Miami for much the same reasons that vacationers have been for decades—they liked the climate and seaside location, as well as flat terrain. Within a year of the United States joining World War II, the army’s Air Forces (what it was called before the Air Force became a separate branch) had leased “almost all of the 332 resort hotels” in Miami Beach, according to LIFE.

As one history tells it, the transformation worked well, even if the effect was sometimes jarring: “The hotels,” a reporter wrote in 1943, “make good barracks. The baby pink and eggshell furniture is stored now. Three-decker army bunks jam the pastel-tinted rooms, dance floors, night clubs.”

LIFE’s photos, taken by Myron Davis and William C. Shrout, capture the juxtaposition between Miami’s picture-postcard surroundings and the seriousness of the Army’s mission. Soldiers cram into baseball stadium stands to take a course on chemical warfare. Future mess hall cooks learn their trade in resort kitchens. Palms trees sway in the background as soldiers are pushed through the exercises meant to toughen them up for combat.

The few pictures that might be mistaken for classic beach vacation photos are the ones of shirtless soldiers rushing into the water. In those shots, there is no hint of the hell they could be headed for, once they were done in Miami.

Army recruits exercised on a Miami Beach golf course in 1942; the buildings in the background were used as classrooms.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers took swimming lessons in the pool at the Roney Plaza hotel, Miami Beach, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers performed calisthenitcs that were followed by an ocean swim, Miami, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soliders in training took an ocean swim, Miami Beach, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers trained at Miami Beach, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers took an ocean swim, Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers swam and played in the ocean, Miami Beach, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers waited to get into the mess hall in the Hotel Evans, Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army recruits took aptitude tests in a movie theater, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Men from the 578th Squadron took a break from their training in the courtyard of the Breakwater Hotel, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A Miami restaurant was converted into a mess hall, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The lobby of the Hotel Evans was converted into an office space for soldiers, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The stock exchange on Collins Avenue in Miami was converted into a clinic for soldiers who were having problems with their feet, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These weren’t standard barracks, but officer candidates had to clean and prepare their rooms for daily inspection, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army roll call was held outside one of the civilian buildings taken over for the training of Army recruits, Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army recruits trained to be cooks and bakers in a makeshift classroom in what was the Drake Hotel’s cigar store and coffeeshop, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army recruits lined up to enter a building taken over by the military, Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers drilled on a field in Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A clothier shop was catering to Army needs, Miami, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

An Army class in chemical warfare was taught in the grandstand of the Flamingo Park Baseball Field, Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soldiers trained in Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

LIFE’s Greatest Concert Photos

The photos in this collection of LIFE’s greatest concert photo covers a wide variety of performances. We have Leonard Bernstein at Lincoln Center and Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry. We have the Beatles making their U.S. debut and Marian Anderson at Carnegie Hall. We have The Doors rocking out at the Fillmore and Jack Benny cracking up the troops in Korea.

And that’s just for starters.

But look through these photos as a whole and you’ll get a sense of what makes a great concert photo. Sometimes it’s the expression of the performer, as evidenced by the photos of Frank Sinatra and Tina Turner. But often it’s the audience that makes the shot—whether it’s individual expression of glee, or the sheer multitude of human beings who have packed themselves into seats in the hopes of seeing something special. In photos as in life, the ‘hot crowd” can make all the difference.

The idea of an audience being central to the performance is amusingly winked at in one photograph in this collection, from an avant-garde concert in which the audiences watched 100 metronomes wind down to nothing. The spectators were the only living part of the show.

But the audience members are the true star of the most famous concert photos in the LIFE archives.

The Woodstock festival featured some all-time great performers—The Grateful Dead, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and more. But what made the concert an essential moment of the 1960s was the 400,000-plus people who swarmed the concert site in upstate New York. The images of those who gathered are what truly defined the moment.

Concerts like Woodstock are rare—”once in a generation” would be underselling it. In most shows, the performers are essential. But the audience can make the moment, or the photo.

Look at the picture of the Rudy Vallee nightclub show from 1949, in which the most prominent figure is not the singer but a woman in the foreground. She’s all dressed up and wearing a fancy hat, and a look of sheer delight. Of course it’s not Woodstock. But she’s the one who’s telling you: there’s something happening here.

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, 1966

Ray Charles performed at Carnegie Hall, 1966.

Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1966.

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Harry Belafonte performing at the Coconut Grove nightclub, 1957.

Harry Belafonte performed at the Coconut Grove nightclub, 1957.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two days after their U.S. TV debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show," the Beatles play for 8,000 fans at their first American concert, at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C., on February 11, 1964. Ticket price: $3.

Two days after their U.S. TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the Beatles played for 8,000 fans at their first American concert, at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C., on February 11, 1964. Ticket price: $3.

Stan Wayman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Entertainer Jack Benny performed bits for troops stationed in Korea, 1951.

Michael Rougier/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Errol Flynn entertained troops in Korea with Jack Benny, 1951.

Michael Rougier/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Rock group The Doors performing at the Fillmore East. (Photo by Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

The Doors performed at the Fillmore East, 1968.

Photo by Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry, 1956.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

George Harrison and Bob Dylan at the Concert for Bangladesh in New York, 1971.

Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Tina Turner, 1970

Tina Turner and band, 1970.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tina Turner, 1970

Tina Turner, 1970.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmie Rodgers, 1958.

Paul Schutzer/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Duke Ellington, New York, 1943.

Duke Ellington, New York, 1943.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Singer Margaret Truman performing with a big band at the Hollywood Bowl, 1947.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Louis Armstrong at the Monterey Jazz Festival, 1958.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Louis Armstrong and Tyree Glenn performing “Hello Dolly” at the Steel Pier, 1965.

Leon Gard/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Elvis Presley in Florida 1956

Elvis Presley in Florida, 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra at the Eden Roc, Miami, 1965.

John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Frank Sinatra, 1965.

John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dean Martin (right) joined Judy Garland on stage, 1958.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, New York, 1949

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at the Copacabana, 1949.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, New York, 1949

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at the Copacabana, 1949.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Singer Rudy Vallee performing at a nightclub, 1949.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Leonard Bernstein at the podium for the first performance ever at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall in New York, 1962.

Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Singer Marian Anderson, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1947.

Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Sidney Bechet played his saxophone in a small basement club in Paris, 1952.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

One hundred metronomes performed Liget’s ‘Poeme Symphonique’ at the Buffalo Arts Festival, Albright-Knox Gallery, 1965.

Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Woodstock Music & Art Fair, August 1969.

Overcome by the driving rhythm, a flutist abandoned herself to dance during an impromptu amateur performance in the woods at Woodstock, 1969.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock Music & Art Fair, August 1969.

Woodstock, August 1969.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock Music & Art Fair, August 1969.

Woodstock, August 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Father-Son Moment on the Set of ‘The Ten Commandments’

Here’s a fun piece of movie trivia: in the 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments, the role of baby Moses was played by Fraser Heston, the son of Charlton Heston, who starred as the adult Moses.

As Fraser tells it, director Cecil B. DeMille cast him before he was actually born.

“[DeMille] heard my mom was pregnant and said, ‘Well, if it’s a baby boy, he can play the part of Moses,’” Fraser told the The New York Post in 2020. “When I was born, the first telegram she got said, ‘Congratulations, he’s got the part. Love, C.B.’”

Baby Moses appears early in the film, when his mother sends him down the Nile in a basket, hoping to save him from an order by the Pharaoh to kill Hebrew newborns.

Fraser was three months old during the filming. He says that his introduction to the movie business was not without its perils.

“Obviously, my memory is a little sketchy,” he told the Post. “But I do remember my dad telling me that when they put me in the basket on the backlot of Paramount — the tank set is still there — the basket began to leak. The basket began to sink, and dad went to lift me out — and I was floating in four inches of water, perfectly happy. And the social worker who is by mandate on the set for all children grabbed me and said, “No, Mr. Heston, I’m the only one who can attend to this child during the filming.” He looked at her and said, with the voice he used on the pharaoh [Yul Brynner, in the film], “Give me that child!” And not surprisingly, she did. (laughs) When you get the voice of Moses — I used to call it the dark, gray voice — all he had to do was use that on us kids and we’d do anything he said.”

As an adult Fraser Heston worked in the movie business as a producer, director and writer. But his most lasting contribution to cinema remains, inevitably, his role in a film that has become an enduring tradition and whose airing on television is a sure sign of the holiday season.

“It’s the quintessential epic,” Fraser Heston said in a 2020 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, promoting a Blu-ray reissue of the film. “When you think spectacle, you think C.B. DeMille. When you think epic, you think The Ten Commandments. It’s a great story, isn’t it?”

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Director Cecil B. DeMille with Fraser Heston on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The filming of “The Ten Commandments,” 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The filming of “The Ten Commandments,” 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

When Movie Popcorn Was the Hot New Thing

Some traditions may seem to have been around forever, but they had to be new at some point. So it was with movie popcorn.

In its July 25,1949 issue, LIFE ran a story headlined Popcorn Bonanza. The story declared, “The single greatest attraction at any U.S. movie theater last week was not Clark Gable, Jane Russell or even Danny Kaye. It was popcorn.” The story included several pages of photos that proved their buttery point.

In the earliest days of cinema, movie theaters owners shied away from selling popcorn, hoping that movie theaters would be as tony as their stage show forebears. But as the Great Depression hit and the movie business got tougher, selling snacks became a means of survival, with popcorn proving to be an inexpensive and popular treat. The theaters that survived the tough economic times were the ones who had room to install popcorn machines.

Popcorn’s place as the king of movie snacks was cemented during World War II, when sugar became scarce and salty snacks took over the counter.

The 1949 LIFE story drove home just how important popcorn was to the movie business, saying “Fans are eating movie exhibitors out of the red.” LIFE’s photographers paid due respect to all the concessions that movie theaters had to offer. But the story made clear that popcorn and movies were the winning combo. Part of the story was shot in Fresno, California, during a screening of Canadian Pacific, a Western featuring Randolph Scott, one of the stalwart stars of the genre. No one in the LIFE story used the modern coinage “popcorn movie,” but one theater owner gave voice to the idea by saying that he had started choosing movies based on which ones would draw the most popcorn eaters. “By this new ratings, Abbott and Costello are the champs,” LIFE said. “Their comedies sell more popcorn than anybody.”

You can practically hear The Age of Ultron taking shape.

Sonny Frost and his friends in Fresno shoved popcorn into their mouths while keeping their eyes on the screen during the movie “Canadian Pacific”.

Photo by J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This movie fan readied to watch a Western at a Fresno, Calif. movie theater, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Sonny Frost didn’t wait to get to his seat to start eating his popcorn in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Movie goers hit the snack counter at a Dallas theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fun at the movie snack bar in Fresno, California, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack bar at a Dallas theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack bar at a Dallas movie theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack bar at a Dallas movie theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A movie theater in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The movie popcorn phenomenon, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

An attendant added salt to the movie popcorn, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Movie popcorn as it became the standard theater snack, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Patrons enjoyed the western movie “Canadian Pacific” in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack surge left this custodian with plenty to clean after a Saturday show in Muncie, Ind., 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Walter St. Clair, a popcorn producer who supplied many theaters, ate his own salty treats from five gallon can while reading in his Indianapolis home, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

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