Page 90 – LIFE

The Art of Photographing Arnold, the Pig from `Green Acres’

January 16, 2020September 18, 2014 by

Most people who spend time studying the relative intelligence of animals will readily admit that pigs are among the smartest of our mammalian cousins.

One photographer in particular, Vernon Merritt III, might attest to the validity of such an assertion about pigs, if only because he once found himself taking pictures of one of the most famous pigs ever to oink its way through a photo shoot and, if nothing else, came away impressed by the creature’s willingness to please.

The story of Merritt’s portrait session with Arnold of Green Acres fame is succinctly told in the book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw (Bulfinch Press, 1998). Returning to the States after he was wounded (“shot through the coccyx,” as he put it) while covering the war in Vietnam as a freelancer, Merritt was hired as a staff photographer at LIFE in 1968. Asked specifically about his 1970 photo shoot with the pig, Merritt jokingly acknowledges in What They Saw that, as an Alabama native, he might have been tapped for the assignment because of his own “special understanding of the porcine nature.”

We rented the pig, and he came with his handler, and the pig would do anything you wanted the pig to do. The handler would click one of those little clickers, and every time he did, he’d give the pig a little something to eat. The pig was overwhelmingly cooperative.

“Overwhelmingly cooperative.” How often does one hear that phrase applied to celebrities, human or otherwise, these days? We’re just sayin’. . . .

A pig that played Arnold on the TV show, “Green Acres,” 1970.

Vernon Merritt III The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren: Classic Photos of a Movie Star

December 20, 2019September 18, 2014 by

Powerful, enduring relationships can sometimes develop between photographers and their subjects. Such was definitely the case with LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt and the luminous Italian film star, Sophia Loren. Over the course of their decades-long friendship, Eisenstaedt took countless pictures of the Oscar-winning actress most of which never made it into the pages of LIFE magazine (and many of which were never intended for the magazine).

“Eisie must have shot thousands of pictures of me that no one ever saw,” Loren told LIFE.com, fondly recalling her camera-toting “shadow.” Here, LIFE.com presents a series of Eisenstaedt’s finest portraits of Loren, made at the very height of her international fame.

“When I met Eisie,” Loren recalled, “it was really a love at first sight. He became my shadow. But he never tried to interfere in my life. No, he just kept on shooting and smiling, and was happy just to be with me like I was to be with him! I miss him. He couldn’t do any wrong to me. I trusted him so much. He’s one of those who doesn’t grow on trees, as my friend Cary Grant used to say.”

Asked by LIFE.com about the qualities Eisenstaedt brought out in her that other photographers did not, Loren said: “That I was a girl, joyful for her life, because she accepted anything that came with her work. Just being really, completely happy. Yes.”

Loren appeared on LIFE’s cover seven times through the 1950s and ’60s.

“At that time,” she said, “when LIFE magazine came out every week, it was something very important for a career the best thing that could happen to an actress. It was something unbelievable. Everybody talked about it a story in LIFE magazine, with a cover.”

In the summer of 1964, Eisenstaedt visited Loren and her husband, Carlo Ponti, at the home Ponti had spent years restoring: an opulent, ancient, 50-room villa in Marino, Italy. Several of the pictures he made there are featured in this gallery. And although Loren loved the house—at the time of Eisenstaedt’s visit, she called living there “bliss”—it was sold around the time of Ponti’s death, in 2007.

“This is something I don’t like to live with—sad memories,” she confided. “Life gets very hard when you lose someone so important to you, and you don’t need to be surrounded by the memories all the time, which are so strong and hit you in the most unexpected moments. We had a great, great love. The more I go on without him, the more I miss him. It was a great feeling it was great in life and it was great in our work.”

Asked if she ever tires of fame, Loren broke into a musical laugh.

“Are you kidding? I think it’s wonderful. [Fans] smile at me like I was a member of their own family. It’s a great feeling. In a sense, when I am at home I feel lonely because I miss my husband. But when I am outside, I have great big families around me all the time.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, Italy, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren laughing while exchanging jokes during lunch break on a movie set, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, Italy, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1961

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren with her husband Carlo Ponti on a boating trip off of Naples, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren, 1962

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on her bed in her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren in her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren picking roses at her Italian villa, 1964.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren at home, 1964

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and LIFE’s Eisenstaedt during a boating jaunt off the coast of Naples, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

‘Addams Family’ Hopefuls: Photos From Auditions for a Classic TV Show

January 16, 2020September 16, 2014 by

Some familial surnames are so much a part of the American landscape that it’s difficult to discuss the country’s history, its highs and lows or its complex and often contradictory legacy without mentioning them. The Roosevelt family. The Kennedy family. The Addams family.

Consider the relevance and the cultural reach of the latter. Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch and the rest have been around, in various incarnations, for eight decades. Created in the 1930s by the legendary cartoonist, Charles Addams, the endearingly macabre family and assorted friends, neighbors and things have appeared in magazines (most notably The New Yorker), books, movies, on Broadway and, of course in a short-lived but fondly remembered 1960s TV series. A later, not-terrible animated series ran for a few seasons as a Saturday morning cartoon in the mid-Seventies.

Here, LIFE.com takes a look back at the auditions for the show; some of the actors and actresses who ended up in the cast; and a number of others (largely unidentified in LIFE’s archives) who didn’t get cast.

In an article titled, “TV’s Year of the Monster,” meanwhile, in the Aug. 21, 1964, issue of LIFE, the magazine referenced The Addams Family as well as Bewitched and The Munsters in its preview of the networks’ fall lineups:

They’ve come alive, the whole creepy, crawly Charles Addams family! And what’s more . . . Mr. Addams’ ghoulish people will be but a small part of the monster population explosion at prime evening time.
Cowboys, surgeons and hillbillies have had their day. Now it’s the Year of the Ghouls, and the new fall season, which will burst upon us next month like a spray of lightning over Frankenstein’s castle, will be strictly from beyond the grave. Only let parents have no qualms it will be played solely for guffaws.

Finally, it’s worth noting that while Charles Addams himself was often depicted as a perverse and perhaps even sinister character straight out of one of his own cartoons, that persona was largely for show. As one of his obituaries pointed out when he died in 1988, at the age of 76, “a colleague at The New Yorker once described Addams as ‘an urbane, relaxed, congenial man of great civility. He doesn’t eat babies.'”

“He doesn’t eat babies.” What higher praise for any man?

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

The cast of ABC’s “The Addams Family,” 1964.

Don Cravens The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

An unidentified actor auditioned for the role of Uncle Fester, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin (Gomez) with various actresses who auditioned for the role of Morticia Addams, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin with an actress auditioning for the role of Morticia Addams, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene during auditions for “The Addams Family” TV show, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

These girls auditioned for the role of Wednesday Friday Addams—including Lisa Loring, at left, who was eventually cast.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A makeup artist with an actor (possibly Jackie Coogan) who auditioned for the role of Uncle Fester, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A would-be Morticia Addams, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin (right) with an actor who auditioned for the role of Lurch.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actors who tried out for the part of Lurch, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ted Cassidy was cast as Lurch—and his hand was also occasionally seen onscreen as Thing.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin with Ken Weatherwax (left), who was cast as Pugsley.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Boys who tried out for part of Pugsley—including Ken Weatherwax, at right, who was cast in the role.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin with an actor auditioning for the role of Uncle Fester, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Astin with an actress auditioning for the role of Morticia, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Unidentified actresses who tried out for the role of Morticia Addams, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An actress who tried out for the role of Morticia Addams, 1964.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An actress who tried out for the part of Grandmama Addams. (Blossom Rock eventually won the role.)

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Aug. 21, 1964 issue

LIFE Magazine

Gandhi and His Spinning Wheel: The Story Behind an Iconic Photo

November 2, 2020September 10, 2014 by

Few public figures of the 20th century were and remain as instantly recognizable to literally billions of people around the globe as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, and no single picture has become more closely associated with his life, and his way of life, than Margaret Bourke-White’s 1946 portrait of the civil-disobedience pioneer beside his cherished spinning wheel.

In 1946, during the run-up to the historic 1947 partition and independence from Great Britain for both India and Pakistan Bourke-White spent time in India working on a feature, ultimately titled “India’s Leaders,” that would run in the May 27, 1946, issue of LIFE. (This gallery includes the article, in page spreads, as it appeared in the magazine.) She made hundreds of photographs, including many of Gandhi himself: with his family; at his spinning wheel; at prayer. More than a dozen of her pictures ran in the “Leaders” article in the May ’46 issue. Only two were of Gandhi, and neither of them was the well-known spinning-wheel picture.

In fact, that picture would not appear in LIFE until months later and even then, it ran as a small image atop an article in June 1946 that focused on Gandhi’s fascination with what the magazine called “nature cures” for the sick.

“At the age of 76,” LIFE wrote, “Mohandas Gandhi has embarked on a new career as a doctor. It is characteristic of the Mahatma that, at this moment when his lifelong crusade for a free India seems to have reached its final crisis, he is taking time out from a busy political life to preach a nature cure. Gandhi has no license to practice, of course, but to ask the Mahatma for such a document would be like requiring President Truman to produce his airplane ticket when he boards [the first presidential airplane, nicknamed] the Sacred Cow.”

After Gandhi’s assassination In January 30, 1948, the photograph was given pride of place in LIFE’s multiple-page tribute to Gandhi. Filling a half-page atop the article, “India Loses Her ‘Great Soul,'” the picture serves as a stirring visual eulogy to the man and his ideals.

In typed notes that accompanied Bourke-White’s film when it was sent from India to LIFE’s New York offices in the spring of 1946, the significance of the simple spinning wheel is explained:

[Gandhi] spins every day for 1 hr. beginning usually at 4. All members of his ashram must spin. He and his followers encourage everyone to spin. Even M. B-W was encouraged to lay [aside] her camera to spin. . . . When I remarked that both photography and spinning were handicrafts, they told me seriously, “The greater of the 2 is spinning.” Spinning is raised to the heights almost of a religion with Gandhi and his followers. The spinning wheel is sort of an Ikon to them. Spinning is a cure all, and is spoken of in terms of the highest poetry.

Of the most famous portrait Bourke-White ever made of Gandhi, meanwhile, the memo to LIFE’s editors simply states: “Gh. [a common shorthand for Gandhi in the notes] reading clippings spinning wheel in foreground, which he has just finished using. It would be impossible to exaggerate the reverence in which Gh’s ‘own personal spinning wheel’ is held in the ashram.”

Here, LIFE republishes Bourke-White’s great portrait, as well as other images of Gandhi from the same assignment. We’ve also included the page spreads of the “Indian Leaders” article that ran in May 1946.

Gandhi and His Spinning Wheel: the Story Behind an Iconic Photo

Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gandhi and His Spinning Wheel: the Story Behind an Iconic Photo

Margaret Bourke-White—LIFE Magazine

The Rooster vs. the Logo: A Truly Unique LIFE Cover

January 16, 2020September 10, 2014 by

When digging through the archives of a magazine that published as many issues as LIFE did through the years, one occasionally encounters something so surprising that it simply has to be shared. And so behold: the only cover among the thousands published by the venerable weekly, across five decades, that did not feature the red-and-white LIFE logo in the upper left-hand corner.

In a brief note on the issue’s contents page, the editors provided a memorable reason for excluding the logo: “LIFE’s title,” they wrote, “is not boldly superimposed on this week’s cover because that would have spoiled the composition” of photographer Torkel Korling’s portrait of the white leghorn.

The full story of the logo’s exclusion, meanwhile, can be found in a letter from a retired employee named Al Zingaro that ran in the Jan. 5, 1987, issue of an in-house Time Inc. newsletter, F.Y.I.:

To me, the most memorable LIFE cover appeared around 1937 [Mr. Zingaro wrote]. My memory cannot pinpoint the exact date. Permit me to tell this story as it actually happened.

I was a layout artist working on the night side, when at about 11:30 p.m. a nice gentleman of about 40 appeared and introduced himself as Henry Luce. He showed me an extraordinary black-and-white photo of a rooster’s head with a beautifully detailed cockscomb. Mr. Luce, who seemed somewhat shy, asked if I could please make up this photo into a LIFE cover.

About 30 minutes later I showed him the finished cover. He shook his head; something displeased him. “I do not like the LIFE logo covering the bird’s cockscomb.” I tucked the logo back of the cockscomb. Again he shook his head. He did not like the word “LIFE” covered even partly. I said, “Mr. Luce, we are at an impasse.” He was silent for all of 30 seconds then the thunderclap! “Let us omit the logo entirely. This fine photo must not be tampered with,” he said. “We’ll put LIFE in the red banner below in small type.”

“WOW.”

Granted, this was still fairly early in LIFE’s existence: in April 1937, Luce’s magazine had been around for less than two years. Nevertheless, there’s something to be admired about a publisher who would forgo, even temporarily, his magazine’s distinctive logo simply because he felt it would impinge on the integrity of a photograph . . . of a rooster.

LIFE magazine, April 26, 1937.

LIFE With Postwar Teens: Photos of Fads From Around the U.S. in 1948

January 14, 2022September 2, 2014 by

In late 1948, LIFE revisited a topic that the magazine had covered a number of times in previous years, and would delve into again and again over the next several decades: namely, teenagers. More specifically, the mystifying habits, lingo and fashion choices of teens around the U.S., from Detroit to Des Moines to Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.

As LIFE wrote in that 1948 article, titled simply (hyphen and all), “Teen-Agers”:

Every year as school begins boys and girls from 12 to 20 start scurrying around like squirrels after nuts, looking for games to play, new clothes to wear and new songs to sing. Every year by Christmas they somehow manage to figure out a different twist for almost every ordinary thing, like hats and handshakes, dates and dances. [Now] LIFE takes a look around the country to answer the annual question about teen-agers: what are they up to now?

In Atlanta on Thursday the boys have nothing to do with the girls and the girls have nothing to do with the boys. In Des Moines Tuesday is a special day. On Tuesday the boys wear GI shoes to school. In Detroit the boys go in for crazy haircuts, and in Seattle some football players wear hair curlers at night. This year’s fashionable word for a jerk, square or schmo is “geek” in Detroit, “mole” in Philadelphia, “pine” in Atlanta, “tweet” in Chicago, “snook” in Des Moines, “tube” in Los Angeles and “scurb” or “T.W.O” (Teensy Weensy Operator) in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes . . . the teen-agers have to be content with exaggerating the fads that were left to them by their elders. . . . Last year they liked to dance languorously to slow music; this year, with the exception of some pace-setters in California who are reviving the Charleston and the black bottom, they move even more slowly, dragging themselves at a walk around the dance floor.

And so it goes. One would think, reading the article in LIFE its tone one part scornful, three parts amused that the editors of the famous weekly had never been teens themselves. Then again, as the modern notion of the teen years as a quantifiable life stage didn’t exist in full until the early 1940s, perhaps LIFE’s editors were never teens, after all. What lucky moles, snooks and tubes they were.

Finally: Note that “Popular Guy” Earl Reum, who is featured in many of the pictures in this gallery, evidently went on to become what a tribute website calls “the ‘Master Wizard’ of student leadership training.” Dr. Reum died in 2010. Read tributes written by many people whose lives he touched.