LIFE

Did You Know Casablanca Was Also a TV Show?

November 11, 2025 by Bill Syken

Casablanca is one of the most beloved movies in history. When the American Film Institute listed its top 100 movies, the film from 1942 came in second, behind Citizen Kane and just ahead of The Godfather.

So perhaps its not surprising that Hollywood tried to take another bite from that apple. In 1955 ABC aired a Casablanca television series built around the continuing adventures of freedom-loving cafe owner Rick Blaine in the age of the Cold War. The show was part of a rotating series of dramas presented under the aegis Warner Bros Presents. Warner Bros had been the studio that made the original movie.

But the magic of the movie could not be recaptured, and the series ran for only ten episodes. What went wrong?

According to the book Short-Lived Television Series 1948-1978: Thirty Years of More Than 1,000 Flops by Wesley Hyatt, the problems began with casting. Humphrey Bogart had no interest in playing Rick Blaine again. The show’s director, John Peyser, set his sights on Anthony Quinn, but the actor’s asking price proved too high. So they ended up casting Charles McGraw—who, according to Peyser, “couldn’t act his way out of a hat.” Also, according to Peyser, the scripts were terrible.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see another issue. The movie Casablanca was not only the story of the resistance movement during World War II but also a romance between Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund (played by Ingrid Bergman), the woman who broke Rick’s heart in Paris.

The television show couldn’t easily bring back the Ilsa Lund character because of the way the movie ended, with Rick sending Ilsa away in a grand moment of self-sacrifice for a larger cause. In a speech for the ages Rick declared that their problems didn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but here’s looking at you, kid.

In the television show, Rick didn’t have a “kid” to look at—except for one episode. Anita Ekberg, who like Bergman was Swedish, made a guest appearance playing a character named Katrina Jorgenson. Ekberg’s character was the center of attention when LIFE staff photographer Loomis Dean visited the set for photos. In the shots where Ekberg poses with Clarence Muse, who portrays Sam the piano player, Ekberg looks like she is just about to ask Sam to play As Time Goes By.

Dean’s camera knew what the show’s creators did not, because they capture what the show was missing. If Ekberg had been in more than one episode, maybe that would have been the beginning of a beautiful TV series.

Anita Ekberg and Clarence Muse appeared in the television version of Casablanca, which ran for ten episodes from 1955-56.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The television series Casablanca ran for ten episodes from 1955-56.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Anita Ekberg appeared in the 1950s television version of Casablanca.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From the Factory to the Track: Inside the Fantastic World of Ferrari Racing

November 6, 2025 by Bill Syken

Some people may only know Ferrari as a maker of luxury sports cars, but the company is also the most storied maker of racing cars for Formula 1. Ferrari has competed for every world championship since 1950, and its racers have the most race wins in Formula 1, a good bit ahead of rival McClaren and way out in front of the third place finisher, Mercedes.

In 1956 LIFE photographer Thomas Mcavoy went deep inside the Ferrari racing operation, following cars from their construction in Maranello, Italy, to their racing at the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix. Appearing in the some of the pictures is company namesake Enzo Ferrari himself.

Enzo Ferrari once said, among his many aphorisms, “Race cars are neither beautiful nor ugly. They become beautiful when they win.” Still, most would agree that his cars are quite stylish, and some of the images McAvoy shot with the cars on the streets of Monaco look like they could come from fashion shoots.

One of Ferrari’s drivers, Peter Collins, is photographed with his wife, actress Louise Cordier, and they were a certified mid-50s glamour couple. Reportedly the only person who didn’t approve of their marriage was Enzo Ferrari, who worried that the relationship would distract Collins from his racing.

After seeing the elaborate process required to construct a Ferrari racer, it’s plain to what Enzo Ferrari put his love into.

Outside the Ferrari factory, company namesake Enzo Ferrari (left) and head mechanic Vittorio Bellentani (right) spoke with an unidentified man next to a Lancia Ferrari D50 car, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ferrari head mechanic Vittorio Bellentani (second left, in dark blazer) watched as other mechanics lowered an engine into the chassis of a Lancia Ferrari D50 car (which will be raced in the Monaco Grand Prix) at the company’s factory, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ferrari head mechanic Vittorio Bellentani (center) watched as other mechanics lowered an engine into the chassis of a Lancia Ferrari D50 car that would be raced in the Monaco Grand Prix, Maranello, Italy, May 16, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An unidentified Ferrari mechanic worked on a Lancia Ferrari D50 car for the Monaco Grand Prix, at the company’s factory in Maranello, Italy, May 16, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mechanics worked on building a car for the Monaco Grand Prix at the Ferrari plant in Maranello, Italy, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ferrari mechanics lowered an engine into the chassis of a Lancia Ferrari D50 car at the company’s factory, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An unidentified Ferrari mechanic stripped a brake drum from a Lancia Ferrari D50 car at the company’s factory, Maranello, Italy, early 1956. This drum went into the car raced by Peter Collins at the Monaco Grand Prix..

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mechanics worked on building a car for the Monaco Grand Prix at the Ferrari plant in Maranello, Italy, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ferrari mechanics readied Lancia Ferrari D50 cars for the Monaco Grand Prix, at the company’s factory in Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An unidentified Ferrari mechanic pushed an engine for a Lancia Ferrari D50 car to be raced in the Monaco Grand Prix, on a cart at the company’s factory, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An unidentified Ferrari mechanic inspected the body shell segments for a Lancia Ferrari D50 car outside the company’s factory, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Outside the Ferrari factory, head mechanic Vittorio Bellentani (in dark blazer) and company namesake Enzo Ferrari stood near several Lancia Ferrari D50 cars that would be raced in the Monaco Grand Prix, Maranello, Italy, early 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Enzo Ferrari stood in front of his race cars at the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Ferrari car on its way to the Monaco Grand Prix, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ferrari racing driver Peter Collins enjoyed a drink with his soon-to-be-wife, American actress Louise Cordier at the Monaco Grand Prix, May 13, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Italian racing driver Eugenio Castellotti stood over his Lancia/Ferrari D50 prior to the Monaco Grand Prix race, May 13, 1956. With him are unidentified mechanics.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Ferrari car at the Monaco Grand Prix, 1956.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The start of the Grand Prix de Monaco, May 13, 1956. British driver Stirling Moss (#28, center), in a Maserati 250F, went on to win the race. Others visible include Argentine Juan Fangio (#20) and Italian Eugenio Castellotti (#22), both in Ferraris on either side of Moss.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

British driver Stirling Moss (later Sir Stirling Moss) raced a Maserati 250F car in the Grand Prix de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco, May 13, 1956. He went on to win the race.

Thomas Mcavoy/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The “Hollywood Shakespeares” of Cinema’s Early Days

November 3, 2025 by Bill Syken

In 1937, about ten years after talking movies had ended the era of silent film, LIFE magazine—then in its second year of existence—decided to shine a spotlight on the people who were putting the words in the mouths of movie actors.

LIFE staff photographer Paul Dorsey shot portraits of Hollywood’s most important writers. Some of the names of those writers are still recognizable today, while others are more likely to be known only to hardcore cinephiles.

For these writers, LIFE explained, it was the best of times but also the worse of times, because they were well-compensated by movie studios but also largely anonymous. Here’s how the magazine explained their predicament:

The greatest market for literary talent the world has ever known exists today in Hollywood. Writers for movies are better paid than any writers have ever been before. They are less recognized, however, than any equally important writers ever were—except, perhaps, the authors of the King James version of the Bible. These Hollywood Shakespeares have usually been mute, inglorious Miltons.

LIFE also believed that some of these writers were frustrated by their secondary role in the filmmaking process, and that this came though when they posed for their portraits—not because the writers looked upset, but rather because of the way some hammed it up for the camera, developing comic concepts for their photos.

For example, John Lee Mahin, who would be nominated for an Academy Awards for his 1937 film Captain Courageous, posed with chickens on his typewriter to jokingly suggest that his screenplays were about to lay an egg. LIFE theorized, “This urge to act probably represents the revolt of repressed artists who have never had the satisfaction of giving final expression to their inspiration.”

Some of the writers in this portrait collection did have a considerable public profile. Dorothy Parker was glamorous enough that she would eventually become the subject of a movie, and Dashiell Hammett came to Hollywood as a seminal writer of detective fiction. Then there’s Preston Sturges, who would eventually become a director as well as a screenwriter and make classic films such as Sullivan’s Travels and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. A PBS piece of Sturges said that “The success of these films set the precedent for other writers to become directors.”

Thus did writers gain an avenue to the limelight that did not involve clowning in front of the camera for LIFE.

Writer Dorothy Parker (wearing hat), who co-wrote the original “A Star is Born,” sat with Edwin Justus Mayer, who wrote for many Ernst Lubistch movies, including “To Be or Not To Be,” 1937.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

MGM screenwriter John Lee Mahin sat at his typewriter with chickens who were supposed to be, along with him, laying an egg, 1937; he would be nominated for an Academy Award for a movie he wrote which came out that year, Captains Courageous..

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dashiell Hammett, the legendary noir mystery writer, had many of his stories adapted in to movies and wrote original screenplays too.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Warner Bros. studio writing trio (L-R on sofa) Jerry Wald, Maurice Leo, and Richard Macauley in the throes of writing Gold Diggers in Paris.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Screenwriter Robert Hopkins received a 1936 Academy Award nomination for the earthquake musical “San Francisco,” starring Clark Gable.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Writer Niven Busch lying on sofa with a newspaper over his face as he took a break from screenwriting, 1937.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. P. McEvoy, who wrote screenplays and also many fiction stories that were adapted into movies, is credited with originating the phrase “Cut to the chase.”

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Writer and director Preston Sturges, in white tee shirt, showing cut on arm, in 1937. Sturges would later direct as well as write and become famous for movies such as 1941’s Sullivan’s Travels.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Screenwriter Jack Cunningham was known for being prolific, and he is credited with scripts for more than 130 films.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Warner Bros. writer Niven Busch worked on screenplay in his office. In 1938 he would be nominated for an Oscar for the musical drama In Old Chicago.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ring Lardner Jr., early in his screenwriting career in 1937, would win writing Oscars in 1943 for Woman of the year and in 1971 for M*A*S*H.

Paul Dorsey/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Look of a Westminster Champion

October 28, 2025 by Bill Syken

The expressions on this dog’s face are priceless, and you don’t need to know his place in history to appreciate the photos of Kippax Fearnought that were taken by LIFE staff photographer George Silk.

But in fact the dog does have a place in history, which in why LIFE featured this grumpy-looking fellow its Feb. 28, 1955 issue. Fearnought had just won the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, which was a rarity for a bulldog.

Here’s what LIFE said about the result:

With his whiskers properly clipped and his nose vaselined to bring out the highlights, an English-born bulldog, Ch. Kippax Fearnought, won U.S. dogdom’s top laurels, the best in show award of the Westminster Kennel Club’s show in New York’s Madison Square Garden. First in his breed to win the award since 1913 and only the second to win the award since it was established in 1907, Fearnought was brought to the U.S. 14 months ago by Dr. J.A. Saylor of Long Beach, Calif., who bought him after seeing his picture in a magazine.

In the years since these photos were taken, Fearnought’s place in history has only become more precious, because since 1955 show no other bulldog has joined him on the Best in Show list.

But all talk of prizes aside, it’s these looks that are winning. If you can’t get enough of them, check out this Facebook group dedicated to Grumpy English Bulldogs.

Kippax Fearnought, here going through his grooming routine in 1955, is the last bulldog to win Best in Show at the Westminster competition.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

What Winnie the Pooh Reveals About Childhood

October 24, 2025October 23, 2025 by Bill Syken

The following is from Kostya Kennedy’s essay in LIFE’s new special issue on Winnie-the-Pooh, at 100, available at newsstands and online:

HAPPY CHILDREN ARE all alike, the sage might have counseled; each unhappy child is unhappy in his or her own way. A preponderance of enduring children’s stories, those with the fiber to last, say, a century or more, are marked by an unhappiness of one kind or another: an absent parent, an evil stepmother, poverty, unfairness, persecution. Witches lurk, giants snarl, spells are cast, and people die. Childhood in Winnie-the-Pooh? That’s a world driven by daydreams and idle moments, by fine ideas, generosity, and pleasure in small things. What was Pooh up to one morning? “Well, he was humming this hum to himself and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being someone else. . . .”

Good feelings bloom throughout the Hundred Acre Wood, feelings of comfort and ease and the possibility of a happy surprise. Problems don’t turn out to be such serious problems after all. Potential crises never quite materialize. Nothing really seems that bad. When we first meet Pooh, Christopher Robin has him by one arm and is haphazardly dragging him down a flight of stairs, the stuffed bear’s head knocking—“bump, bump, bump”—on each step. Pooh proves unbothered. “It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs. . . . ”

When a small worry does arise for Pooh, it can usually be placated by a taste of condensed milk or a lick of honey. You’re able to take life as it comes when you’re bound to a core belief that things are going to turn out all right. Above all, in the pages of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, there’s an overriding sense—the threat of running into a Heffalump notwithstanding—of being protected and safe. Is there a child of any age, 2 to 102, who doesn’t want that?

My daughter Maya started at the local dance studio at an age when the classes served in essence as a form of one-hour babysitting. By the time she was 6, she took part in her third annual spring recital, on stage in the high school auditorium. As ever, the extended family turned out. “You know, the first couple of years, you weren’t much good at this.” Maya’s grandmother, my mom, was blunt in the post-show assessment. “But this year, you really looked great up there! What happened?”

Maya considered this for a moment. “The truth is,” she then said, “for a long time, when I was younger in dance class, I didn’t really understand what was going on. But this year, I suddenly did! Now I do!”

Such epiphanies are common in childhood, inevitable markers for the developing brain and the continuing apprehension of the wider world. Pooh and his friends are not 6 (until, finally they are), and the capers they embark upon, or get thrust into, manage to be at once purposeful and desultory. They have a mind to do something they’ve dreamt up or heard about, but they aren’t quite sure how to go about doing it. It’s a bit like following along in a dance class when you don’t really understand what’s going on. Pooh is a bear who may one day spend his time earnestly tracking the footprints of a Woozle only to gradually realize that the footprints are in fact his own. He’s also a bear who sizes up the situation and the available assets and then thinks to use an upturned umbrella as a ship to float across the flooded forest floor and rescue Piglet. (Not all endeavors go so well. This is a good time to warn Pooh readers against trying to float up to inspect a live beehive by holding onto a balloon.)

Pooh and Christopher Robin are proud of Pooh’s stroke of umbrella genius, just as they are proud when, after they’ve set out to find the North Pole, Pooh indeed finds it, in the Wood. The sign that Christopher Robin ties to that pole as he plants it upright in the forest floor—

NORTH POLE

DISCOVERED BY POOH

POOH FOUND IT

—is his version of a parent sticking their child’s fingerpainting on the door of the fridge. A buoyant Pooh, after a consult with Christopher Robin, soon sets out to find the East Pole as well.

In the summer of 2025, a meme emerged across social platforms featuring Jim Cummings, who has been the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh since 1988. Cummings is now 72, and, in the meme, he holds his infant grandson on his lap. In a soft, faintly husky tone—Poohlike, to be sure—Cummings says to the baby: “You’re braver than you believe, smarter than you seem, and stronger than you think. And cute as a button.”

It’s an adaptation of a line delivered by Christopher Robin in the 1997 movie Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. When Christopher Robin says it in the movie, he does so as part of an attempt to brace Pooh for what the future may bring. “Pooh bear,” Christopher Robin begins. They are playing together on the branches of a tree, and evening has set in. “What if, someday, there came a tomorrow when we were apart?”

The notion is so alien to Pooh (you try imagining a tomorrow when oxygen has been entirely removed from the atmosphere) that he can’t comprehend it. “As long as we’re apart together, we shall certainly be fine,” Pooh says.

Christopher Robin giggles but presses on. “Yes, yes, of course. But if we weren’t together. . . . If I were somewhere else?”

The scene moves along, with Pooh catching fireflies in the waning light, and leads to the braver/smarter/stronger adage. But the point has now been made. Tomorrow will come. It turns out that within all the comfort and warmth, there is indeed a dagger of cruel truth beneath the surface in Winnie-the-Pooh, the same cruel truth that finally undoes every happy childhood: It ends. ▪

Here are a selection of images that touch on the rich narrative celebrated in LIFE’s new issue Winnie-the-Pooh: The World’s Most Wonderful Bear, available at retail and HERE.

Cover images: TGlyn Jones/Alamy; (inset) © Ernest H. Shepard/BuyEnlarge/ZUMA Press; (stock) Toru Kimura/Getty Images; enjoynz/Getty Images

A.A. Milne with his son, Christopher Robin, and the stuffed bear Christopher Robin originally called Edward. The early Winnie-the-Pooh short stories were based on tales Milne made up to entertain Christopher Robin.

Getty Images

E. H. Shepard, here in 1976, was a prolific painter before he turned to illustration. He modeled his drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh after his own son’s bear, called Growler.

Getty Images

Christopher Robin and Pooh had each other’s back in this illustration from A.A. Milne’s first Winnie-the-Pooh book, which came out in 1926.

© Ernest H. Shepard/BuyEnlarge via ZUMA Press Wire

Pooh, Piglet and Christopher Robin from A.A. Milne’s 1926 “Winnie-the-Pooh,” the first illustrated book with these characters.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Pooh met Tigger in Milne’s second collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The illustration is by E.H. Sheppard.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Pooh and Piglet in A.A. Milne’s 1926 collection The House on Pooh Corner.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Ernest Shepard in 1969 (opposite). In addition to the Pooh books, he illustrated children’s classics such as The Wind in the Wilows and The Secret Garden.

David Montgomery/Getty Images

This 2009 novel picked up where the Milne stories left off.

AFP via Getty Images

This rare Winnie-the-Pooh book featured an inscription from author A.A. Milne asking for artist E.H. Shephard to decorate his tomb.

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Shoes That Really Match the Outfit

October 9, 2025 by Bill Syken

Choosing shoes that go with your outfit is the subject of many online tutorials. In 1946, some clothes makers experimented with a novel approach to simplify the challenge. They sold shoes and dresses that were literally cut from the same cloth.

Here’s how LIFE explained it in an Oct. 1946 issue:

The newest looking shoes this year are made of bright fabrics. For shoemakers this is a risky innovation because gay shoes make a girl’s feet look bigger than they are, and the American girls’ feet are big enough already (most sold size, 7 1/2). But using fabrics makes it possible to turn out novel shoes which match other parts of an outfit. Besides, as shoemakers realize, bold shoes are a fine device for attracting attention to pretty legs.

The trend didn’t last, but it did serve as the inspiration for some eye-catching photos from LIFE staff photographer Nina Leen, an expert on making fashions jump off the page.

LIFE noted that manufacturers had been forced to make fabric shoes during World War II because of rationing that limited the supplies of leather (and also rubber). But during those war years manufacturers used dark-colored cloth so as not to draw attention to it. In 1946 some manufacturers switched gears and decided to the highlight the presence of cloth by using bright patterned fabric. LIFE said that this approach gave outfits a “startling footnote.”

P.S Speaking of footnotes, the 1946 story’s comment about the size of women’s feet is not only odd but also outdated. These days women’s feet are actually much bigger, with the average size now up to 8 1/2. The most likely explanation: changes in the American diet.