Seeking Warmth During an Iceland Deployment

In the run-up to World War II, Iceland became a hot property. Britain first occupied the country in 1940, getting there before German soldiers and gaining a strategic base for air and naval forces. But Britain soon needed its troops elsewhere, and eventually America took over the occupation beginning in July 1941. This was months before the U.S. had officially entered the war.

The American presence in Iceland was a regular source of fasciation to LIFE magazine. Photographer Ralph Morse repeatedly documented life in this cold and remote outpost.

One of Morse’s shoots was a general study of life in Iceland. Another documented a visit from a theater troupe performing a show called The Drunkard. Yet another shoot showed the U.S. soldiers celebrating Christmas.

For all the wintry outdoor shots, the particular challenges of Iceland life come through most starkly in the indoor photos. The ceilings of the huts many soldiers stayed in were low and curved, and all the rooms look a little smaller than they should be—a side effect of designing buildings to keep the snow off and the heat in. Much of America knows about the experience of winter, but in Iceland it was so ingrained that it changed the shape of the architecture.

In its Nov. 15, 1943 issue LIFE described the troops’ winter experience.

In Iceland these days it is dark by four in the afternoon and by nine in the morning the daylight still has not come. In long winter nights the American troops are comfortable in their tunnel-shaped iron Nissen huts, warmed my old-fashioned pot-bellied stoves. To keep themselves busy they read their ancient magazines, look at 16 mm motion pictures or make shelves and cupboards out of old packing boxes.

Morse’s photos of the Christmas celebration ran in the Jan. 24, 1944 issue (The story noted that the previous year, Morse had spent Christmas with U.S. soldiers in a very different location, Guadalcanal). In writing about the Iceland Christmas, LIFE noted that the locals, who at first had been slow to embrace the presence of occupying troops, had over the course of three years warmed to the American presence. “An Icelandic choir toured American hospitals and soldiers gave parties for Icelandic children,” wrote LIFE. “At a dance in one Red Cross center there was an attendance of 68 Icelandic girls, where before there had never been more than six.”

Like a like of things, the Icelandic winters were easier when people got through them together.

U.S. soldiers in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men playing basketball in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Life in Iceland for U.S. soldiers during World War II, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wall decorations helped pass the time in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The United States Armed Force barracks during Christmas in Iceland, December 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Soldiers gathered for a Christmas service in Iceland, December 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Performers visited a hospital for United States soldiers during a Christmas celebration in Iceland, December 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A member of the U.S. military danced with a woman during a Christmas celebration in Iceland, December 1943.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A child carried his sled in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Shopping in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An artist at work in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A fishing ship off the coast of Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Man picking flowers, Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A gymnastics demonstration in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boxing match in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boxing match in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A visiting troupe performed The Drunkard in Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The play ‘The Drunkard’ was performed at the Herskola Theater, Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

U.S. soldiers watched the play ‘The Drunkard’ being performed at the Herskola Theater, Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A view of a monument dedicated to explorer Leif Erikson, Iceland, 1944.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE With Ingrid Bergman

More than most stars of her rare magnitude, Ingrid Bergman was an actress who went her own way. A Hollywood luminary for decades, from the Thirties well into the Seventies, the Swedish-born beauty acted in films that not only entertained millions but that also satisfied her own, personal need to constantly test and broaden the limits of her craft.

In 1943, for example, she told LIFE magazine, “I am an actress and I am interested in acting, not in making money.” Coming from almost anyone else in her position, that might sound like a public relations platitude. But even at that relatively early point in her career, Bergman had already proven herself a singularly versatile artist, with solid and even iconic performances in films ranging from psychological thrillers (Rage in Heaven) to horror (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) to romance (Intermezzo) to arguably the very greatest of all American movies, the 1942 Best Picture Oscar winner, Casablanca.

Bergman won three acting Oscars during her long career (two for Best Actress, in Gaslight and Anastasia, and one for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1974’s star-studded Murder on the Orient Express), and was nominated four more times. She also won Emmys, a Tony, Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle awards in other words, she proved again and again that she could act as well as star in almost any role, on film, stage and the small screen.

And for pretty much all of those years that she lit up the screen and the stage with her combustible mix of intellect, emotional honesty and sensuality, LIFE magazine covered Bergman’s life and her career. When she was the “hot new thing” in Hollywood (after making a name for herself in her native Sweden in the 1930s), LIFE raved about the “new brand of charm” she brought to the American screen. When, in 1946, she starred on Broadway in Maxwell Anderson’s Joan of Lorraine (for which she won her only Tony), LIFE referred to her deserved “enormous reputation” as Hollywood’s “undisputed queen.” When her career took a hit in the States after she left her husband and daughter, Pia, to live with and eventually marry the great Italian director Roberto Rossellini shocking and angering her American fans who had, simplistically, come to view her as something like a saint LIFE sympathetically covered her life and her work in Europe.

And when, years later, she was again embraced and beloved by fans who “forgave” her her trespasses, and flocked to see her in films like Orient Express and Autumn Sonata and watched, in the millions, her Emmy and Golden Globe-winning turn in the Golda Meir television biopic, A Woman Called Golda, LIFE celebrated her return to America’s good graces.

Here, on the anniversary of both her birth and her death she was born Aug. 29, 1915, and died Aug. 29, 1982, at a too-young 67 after a long battle with breast cancer LIFE.com presents pictures of the one and only Ingrid Bergman as she appeared in LIFE through the years.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Ingrid Bergman in 1941

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in 1943, around the time she starred in For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Ingrid Bergman in 1943, around the time she starred in For Whom The Bell Tolls.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in 1943

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman with the painter Alexander Brook, 1944.

Ingrid Bergman with the painter Alexander Brook, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman as Maria in the movie For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Ingrid Bergman as Maria in the movie For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in 1945 with her Best Actress Academy Award for Gaslight.

Ingrid Bergman in 1945 with her Best Actress Academy Award for Gaslight.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in a scene from the 1945 movie, Saratoga Trunk.

Ingrid Bergman in 1945

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in the film Arch of Triumph

Ingrid Bergman in the film Arch of Triumph

George Lacks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in the film Arch of Triumph

Ingrid Bergman in the film Arch of Triumph

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

I

Ingrid Bergman as Joan of Arc praying for guidance during a scene from the Broadway production of Maxwell Anderson’s 1946 play, Joan of Lorraine, for which Bergman won a Tony.

Gjon Mili /Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman dresses as Joan of Arc in the Broadway production of Maxwell Anderson’s 1946 play, Joan of Lorraine, for which Bergman won a Tony.

Allan Grant/Life Pciture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman as Joan in the 1948 movie, Joan of Arc.

Loomis Dean/Life Pciture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman stands on a street as village women stare at her during filming of the movie “Stromboli” on the Italian island of Stromboli, 1949.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman during filming of the movie, Stromboli, on the Italian island of Stromboli, 1949.

Ingrid Bergman during filming of the movie “Stromboli” on the Italian island of Stromboli, 1949.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman during filming of the movie, Stromboli, on the Italian island of Stromboli, 1949.

Ingrid Bergman during filming of the movie “Stromboli,” on the Italian island of Stromboli, 1949.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman acting in a scene from the 1956 Jean Renoir film, ‘Elena et les Hommes.”

Thomas McAvoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman plays with a child actor between scenes of the taping of John Frankenheimer's 1959 TV movie, The Turn of the Screw, for which she won an Emmy.

Ingrid Bergman plays with a child actor between scenes of the taping of John Frankenheimer’s 1959 TV movie, The Turn of the Screw, for which she won an Emmy.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Ingrid Bergman in a special 1961 play on CBS, Twenty Four Hours in a Woman's Life.

Ingrid Bergman in a special 1961 play on CBS, Twenty Four Hours in a Woman’s Life.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Absorbed in conversation, 52-year-old Ingrid Bergman rides through Los Angeles on her way to the theater where she'll perform in Eugene O'Neill's play, More Stately Mansions, in 1967.

Absorbed in conversation, 52-year-old Ingrid Bergman rides through Los Angeles on her way to the theater where she’ll perform in Eugene O’Neill’s play, More Stately Mansions, in 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock images

Diving For Abalone: A Vanishing Tradition

Modern times have been hard on California’s abalone population. The warming oceans have hurt its food supply and led the shellfish to being listed as endangered. In 2017 California halted its abalone fishing season, and it has not resumed.

The precarious state of the population lends a heavier type of nostalgia to this 1944 LIFE magazine story about the joys of abalone diving.

LIFE photographer John Florea tagged along for an abalone expedition at Point Dume, a state beach in Malibu. The hunting party was a glamorous and photogenic one, as it included actor Peter Coe and actresses Martha O’Driscoll and Ramsay Ames.

LIFE wrote glowingly of the prize they sought: “Of all the seafoods that come from the Pacific Ocean, abalone…is probably most prized by Californians….This is partly because of its flavor, like that of a good scallop, and partly because it is hard to get. The abalone is a big stubborn snail that clings to underwater rocks, has to be pried loose with crowbars.”

As the above paragraph made clear, retrieving abalone requires some expertise. For the LIFE story the group of Hollywood actors were led on their quest by veteran abalone fishermen. And it was a good thing. “The girls spent hours diving, tugging and getting their hair wet,” LIFE wrote. “They finally gave up and let the experts supply the food.”

The actors were able to help more with the picnic. The diving was followed by shucking and trimming and breading and frying. Florea’s photos capture every step in this bygone tradition.

California is working to restore the abalone population and there is hope that its red abalone season could return in 2026.

Actors Peter Coe and Martha O’Driscoll watched the hunt for abalone off the California coast, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bill O’Connor handing Martha O’Driscoll two abalones that were freshly plucked from the ocean rocks in Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Martha O’Driscoll and Peter Coe during an abalone dive off Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A crew of abalone divers enjoyed the waves off the Southern California coast, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Freshly caught abalone are removed from their shells in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Freshly caught abalone are removed from their shells in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Freshly caught abalone were trimmed and sliced in preparation for a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The actresses breaded the freshly-caught abalone in preparation for cooking on a California beach, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Ramsay Ames, Martha O’Driscoll and Peter Coe fried abalone steaks during a California beach picnic, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Abalone shells at a picnic at Point Dume beach in Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Martha O’Driscoll, Ramsay Ames, and Peter Coe enjoyed their sandwiches of freshly caught abalone in Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Martha O’Driscoll, Peter Coe, and Ramsay Ames during an abalone picnic, Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors Martha O’Driscoll, Peter Coe, and Ramsay Ames during an abalone picnic, Southern California, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island: A California Classic

Santa Catalina Island, commonly called Catalina, is a longtime leisure destination off the coast of Southern California. The island can be reached by ferry from Long Beach in about an hour, and the plentiful attractions range from riding glass-bottomed boats to taking tours of the wildlife that populate the more remote sections of its rugged terrain.

Fans of the Will Ferrell movie Step Brothers will also note that the island is the site of the movie’s climactic scene, the Catalina Wine Mixer—which is, in fact, a real event. If you don’t believe it, check its official website, which has a page titled The Catalina Wine Mixer is Real.

The island was a regular attraction for LIFE photographers. Ralph Crane, Peter Stackpole and Martha Holmes all had their turn at documenting what made the island so special.

Stackpole’s photos at Catalina became the basis for a big feature in a June 1941 issue. He followed two starlets, Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks on their adventures around the island, and took photos of them playing beach volleyball, posing with a peacock, and riding a glass-bottomed boat to look at the abundant sea life.

The photo from Holmes and Crane, taken in 1946 and 1959, respectively, capture the same holiday spirit. The final photo in this collection shows the Catalina Casino (not a gambling establishment but a picturesque nightlife spot on the water), which is still in operation today, and is one of the attractions that continues to inspire Californians to take that ferry across the channel.

Actresses Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty rode a motorboat at Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young actresses Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty played volleyball at Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Starlet Betty Brooks played volleyball during a visit to Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Betty Brooks and Patti McCarty encountered a white peacock at Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Starlets Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks rode a glass-bottomed boat as part of a visit to Catalina Island, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On Catalina Island, young actresses Patti McCarty and Betty Brooks return to their hotel for a rest before dinner, 1941.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1946.

Martha Holmes/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1946.

Martha Holmes/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1946.

Martha Holmes/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Horseback riding at Catalina Island, July 1946.

Martha Holmes/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple enjoyed the port view of Avalon Bay at Catalina Island, 1946.

Martha Holmes/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1959.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1959.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1959.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Catalina Island, 1959.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Majesty in Tokyo: The 1964 Olympics

The first modern Olympics was held in 1896 in Athens, and the games have certainly changed much since then—a fact that will be obvious to anyone who tunes in the 2024 edition from Paris and sees competitve breakdancing, the latest addition to the Games’ cavalcade of sport.

The Olympics are continually evolving, but all throughout the years the Games have a simple appeal: The best athletes in the world gather and compete to see who is the fastest, the strongest, and the most acrobatic. On top of it you have pageantry: the opening and closing ceremonies can be as compelling as the games themselves.

In 1964 LIFE staff photographer Art Rickerby went to Tokyo to capture the 1964 Summer games in all their glory.

The Tokyo Olympics made history because it was the first the time the event was staged in Asia. That was also the first time the Olympics were broadcast via satellite—before that, improbable as it sounds, video tapes had to be flown across oceans before the competition could be seen by overseas viewers.

From the perspective of LIFE managing editor George P. Hunt, who covered many Olympics, the Tokyo event also stood out for the control exerted by Japanese officials. “The Games were precise, stiff and formal,” Hunter wrote, looking back in 1968. “The Japanese have a penchant for over-organization. The government even put a lid on the hot spots in Ginza.”

That management style which seemed novel to Hunter has become the standard, no matter where the Olympics are held. Host cities spend many billions to stage the games, and media companies invest heavily to broadcast them. They prepare with the same intensity as the athletes, and they do what they can to make sure all goes as hoped.

And the 1964 event, as always, made for not just plenty of athletic drama but some pretty pictures as well.

Opening ceremony at the track and field stadium of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

West and East Germans march together at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Arthur Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Japanese athletes marched in at the opening ceremonies of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Arthur Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

(Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock)

Japanese trumpeters at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock)

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Japanese track athlete Yoshinori Sakai lit the torch at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Olympic torch at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The opening ceremonies of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sunrise at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, home of the swimming and diving events of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

1964 Summer Olympic flags, Tokyo, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Opening ceremony at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A snack vendor at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

1964 Summer Olympics, Tokyo, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Al Oerter of the U.S. team won a gold medal in discus at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US swimmer Don Schollander (second from left) competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics, Tokyo.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US gold medal winner swimmer Don Schollander celebrated at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US gold medal winner swimmer Don Schollander at 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

USA swimmer Cathy Ferguson cried after winning gold in the 100-meter backstroke at the 1964 Summer Olympics. (L) Christine Caron of France won silver, (R) American Ginny Duenkel won bronze.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The USA women’s swim team signed a kick board after winning gold in the 4×100-meter medley relay, 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. L-R: Cynthia Goyette, Kathy Ellis ,Cathy Ferguson, Sharon Stouder.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

(Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock)

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US sprinter Edith McGuire at 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

USA diver Larry Andreasen at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

US athlete Hayes Jones in Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics, Japan

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Soviet heavy-weightlifter Yuri Vlasov at 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Medal ceremony at Lake Sagami for the Women’s 550-meter kayak pairs event. West Germans Roswitha Esser and Annemarie Zimmermann won gold. Second place went to 15-year-old Francine Fox and 35-year-old Gloriane Perrier of the US. In third place were Hilde Lauer and Cornelia Sideri of Romania.

Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ginny Duenkel (C), Marilyn Ramenofsky (R), and Terri Stickles (L) on the victory stand following the 400 meter race at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, 1964.

Arthur Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Behind the Picture: Hansel Mieth’s Wet, Unhappy Monkey

It is, without question, one of the most famous, most frequently reproduced animal photographs ever made. But photographer Hansel Mieth‘s own attitude toward her 1938 portrait of a sodden rhesus monkey hunched in the water off of Puerto Rico was, to put it bluntly, conflicted. In fact, the German-born Mieth (1909-1998) memorably called the creature in the picture “the monkey on my back.”

As Mieth explained in a 1993 interview with John Loengard, published in his book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, she made the photograph while covering a Harvard Medical School primate study on tiny Cayo Santiago, off the east coast of Puerto Rico:

One afternoon all the doctors were away [Mieth told Loengard], and a little kid came running to me and said, “A monkey’s in the water.”

I came down, and that monkey was really going hell-bent for something. . . . I threw my Rolleiflex on my back and swam out. Finally, I was facing the monkey. I don’t think he liked me, but he sat on that coral reef, and I took about a dozen shots.

When she got back to New York, Mieth learned that the joke around the LIFE offices was that she’d produced a striking portrait of Henry Luce, the founder and publisher of TIME, LIFE, Fortune and other magazines: evidently, some of her colleagues felt that the rhesus in the water looked like their boss. When asked by Loengard, six decades later, if she felt the portrait did resemble Luce, Mieth was diplomatic.

I didn’t see Luce that much. He had lots of other things to do rather than talk with photographers. . . . But I suppose it does, in a way. It all depends on what kind of mood you are in. To me it looks like the monkey’s depicting the state of the world at the time. It was dark and somber and angry. There were a lot of dark clouds swirling around. I heard from many people that they were scared when they looked at it.

Today, the monkey on Mieth’s back still commands our gaze, inviting us perhaps challenging us to project our own fears, anxieties and speculations on to a picture, and a primate, that never gets old.

FINAL NOTE: While a half-dozen lesser pictures from the assignment in Puerto Rico were published in the Jan. 2, 1939, issue of LIFE, Mieth’s now-iconic monkey photo appeared a few weeks later, in the Jan. 16 issue accompanied by the caption, “A misogynist seeks solitude in the Caribbean off Puerto Rico.”

According to the magazine, a primatologist explained that “the chatter of innumerable female monkeys had impelled this neurotic bachelor to seek escape from the din” by fleeing the jungle and making his way into the waves.

Seventy-five years later, that particular theory about how and why the rhesus was out there in the water still sounds as reasonable as any other.

Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com

A rhesus monkey in Puerto Rico, 1938.

A rhesus monkey in Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby rhesus monkey climbed on the chest of Michael Tomlin, a primatologist who cared for a rhesus colony in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This photo, which ran at a full page in LIFE in 1939, was labelled “Rhesus: Life Size” to show readers how small the monkeys were.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rhesus monkey ate a flower in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1939

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rhesus monkey searched for food in Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rhesus monkeys searched for food on Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.

Hansel Mieth/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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