Page 100 – LIFE

World War II Erupts: Color Photos From the Invasion of Poland, 1939

December 9, 2019October 21, 2014 by

On Sept. 1, 1939, one week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, more than a million German troops, along with 50,000 Slovakian soldiers, invaded Poland. Two weeks later, a half-million Russian troops attacked Poland from the east. After years of vague rumblings, explicit threats and open conjecture about the likelihood of a global conflict in Europe, the Pacific and beyond the Second World War had begun.

The ostensible aim of Germany’s unprovoked assault, as publicly stated by Hitler and other prominent Nazi officials, was the pursuit of lebensraum that is, territory deemed necessary for the expansion and survival of the Reich. But, of course, Hitler had no intention of ending his aggression at Poland’s borders, and instead was launching a full-blown war against all of Europe. (On Sept. 3, both England and France declared war on Germany but not on the USSR.)

The invasion during which German troops, especially, drew virtually no distinction between civilians and military personnel and routinely attacked unarmed men, women and children lasted just over a month. Caught between two massive, well-armed powers, the Polish army and its Air Force fought valiantly (contrary to legend, which has the Poles surrendering quickly, with barely a whimper). In the end, Poland’s soldiers and aviators, fighting on two fronts, were simply overwhelmed.

In the weeks and months after the invasion, a German photographer named Hugo Jaeger traveled extensively throughout the vanquished country, making color pictures of the chaos and destruction that the five-week battle left in its wake. Here, LIFE.com presents a series of Jaeger’s pictures from Poland: portraits of a country subjugated not by one enemy, but by several. There

IJaeger’s photos include chilling images of evil–Hitler and other Nazis—and we see early, unsettling evidence of the violence, unprecedented in its scope, that would soon be visited upon scores of countries and countless people.

Refugees near Warsaw during the 1939 German invasion of Poland. (Sign reads, ‘Danger Zone — Do Not Proceed.’)

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Burned-out tank, Warsaw, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler (right) prepares to fly to the Polish front, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Post-invasion Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Unfinished Polish bombers, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near Sochaczew during the German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Polish soldiers captured by Germans during the invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Polish soldiers and a Red Cross nurse captured during the invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Captured Polish soldiers, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

German troops prepare for victory parade after the invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

German victory parade in Warsaw after the invasion of Poland, 1939. (Hitler is on platform, arm raised in Nazi salute.)

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler views victory parade in Warsaw after the German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Right to left, front row: Adjutant Wilhelm Brueckner, Luftwaffe fighter ace Adolf Galland, Gen. Albert Kesselring and Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz view the victory parade in Warsaw after the German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler (right), one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, speaks with an unidentified officer in Warsaw after German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Warsaw citizens buried their dead in parks and streets after the invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Street scene following the German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

German nationals prepare for repatriation during the invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Polish farmers and peasants flee German military during invasion of their country, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Polish women clean captured Polish guns in Modlin Fortress, north of Warsaw, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jewish women and children in Gostynin, Poland, after the German invasion, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Polish refugees, Warsaw, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Warsaw, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near Modlin Fortress, Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene in post-invasion Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Poles stand beneath monument to Polish patriot, Jan Kilinski, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near Sochaczew during the German invasion of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near Danzig after the German conquest of Poland, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Flea market in post-invasion Warsaw Ghetto, 1940.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near Warsaw, fall 1939; sign points to the battle front.

Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE at Home With Showbiz Superstars

February 25, 2020October 20, 2014 by

Access is a big word in media–as in access to stars and celebrities.In its prime, LIFE magazine almost alone among the popular culture publications of its day enjoyed the sort of access to A-list stars (as well as to lesser lights) that today’s tabloids only dream about.

Here, a fond look back at some of the 20th century’s biggest, brightest entertainers, in the friendly confines of their own homes.

Marilyn Monroe at her Hollywood home in 1953.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen and his first wife, TV actress Neile Adams, dress for a warm day at their Hollywood home in 1963.

John Dominis; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jayne Mansfield combed her hair while bathing in the pink carpeted bathroom of her home, known as “The Pink Palace,” in Los Angeles, 1960.

Allan Grant; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Jacksons (clockwise left to right: Jackie, Marlon, Tito, Jermaine, and Michael) join parents Joe and Katherine in their backyard in Encino, California in 1970.

John Olson; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vivien Leigh at home with her Oscar for Gone With the Wind, 1940.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Paul Newman cooked eggs for Anthony Perkins in Newman’s kitchen in 1958 in Hollywood.

Leonard McComb; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, whose marriage would last 50 years (until his death in 2008), shared a laugh as they dressed in their Hollywood home in 1959.

Gordon Parks; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren picked flowers at the Italian villa she shared with producer Carlo Ponti in 1964.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Bette Davis and her Pekingese, Popeye the Magnificent, at home in Beverly Hills in 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Maureen O’Hara relaxed at home in Los Angeles in 1946.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Liberace danced on top of the keys of his piano-shaped pool in California in 1954.

Loomis Dean; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Oscar-winning actress Claudette Colbert posed in a two-piece evening dress in front of the fireplace in her home in Los Angeles’ posh Holmby Hills neighborhood in 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ricky Nelson sat on the diving board of his family’s pool in Hollywood in 1958.

Hank Walker; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Greer Garson sits her living room at home in Los Angeles’ exclusive Bel Air neighborhood, picking out records to play in April 1943, a month after her Best Actress Oscar victory for Mrs. Miniver.

Peter Stackpole; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sisters and frequent rivals Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland shared a family moment as they looked out over Beverly Hills from Fontaine’s home in 1942.

Bob Landry; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Carole Lombard drank a cup of coffee and talked on the telephone at her Hollywood home in October 1939.

Alfred Elsenstaedt; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

At Home With Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and a 400-Pound Lion

January 4, 2021October 17, 2014 by

Tippi Hedren, perhaps most famous for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, is an actress of formidable gifts. Hitch said, when directing her in that classic film, that Hedren had “a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor [than another frequent Hitchcock heroine, Grace Kelly]. She displayed jaunty assuredness . . . and she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well.”

But her role as an animal-rights activist and conservationist might well be Hedren’s most lasting legacy. For decades, her Roar Foundation and the animal sanctuary, Shambala Preserve, in California have advocated for big (and not so big) cats from lions and leopards to bobcats and servals and she’s been honored with a host of humanitarian and conservation awards through the decades.

In 1971, LIFE photographer Michael Rougier spent time with Hedren; her teenage daughter, Melanie Griffith (from Hedren’s first marriage, to Peter Griffith), her then-husband, the agent and movie producer, Noel Marshall; and others at their home in California. Also in attendance: Neil, a 400-pound mature lion, who occasionally slept in the same bed as Griffith and, as these pictures attest, had the run of the house, from the kitchen to the living room to the swimming pool.

Hedren has since acknowledged that it was “stupid beyond belief” to put her family at risk by allowing an animal with “no conscience or remorse genes” to roam free. On that, at least, we can all agree even if these pictures make Neil look like the world’s biggest pussycat.

Tippi Hedren’s Pet Lion Neil

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Melanie Griffith and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tippi Hedren’s Pet Lion Neil

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Neil the lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tippi Hedren and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Noel Marshall and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tippi Hedren’s Pet Lion Neil

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tippi Hedren and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Neil the lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tippi Hedren and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Melanie Griffith and Neil the Lion

Michael Rougier / The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

‘Animals Make a Hospital Happy’: Classic Photos of Critters Helping Kids

January 16, 2020October 16, 2014 by

In November 1956, LIFE magazine published an article with the deceptively lighthearted title, “Animals Make a Hospital Happy.” Noting that children, especially, are acutely aware of “how depressing it is to be in a hospital . . . the University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor runs a perpetual animal show which is enjoyed by the 3,000 children who pass annually thought its wards.”

Today, animal-assisted therapy is common in hospitals, nursing homes, rehab clinics and other places where the pain and solitude that so often come with illness and the stress associated with recovering from injuries or sickness can be almost paralyzing. Whether or not spending time with animals can actually help spark long-lasting improvements in mental health is an open, and controversial, question. But anecdotal evidence suggests that patients offered the opportunity to play with and otherwise interact with animals appear to be more optimistic about their prospects for recovery, while certain animals (especially social animals, like dogs) can often help decrease the sense of isolation and loneliness that so often plagues those stuck in hospitals for long periods of time.

As the LIFE article put it, “for hurrying a child out of the sickbed, the Ann Arbor hospital has found that nothing can match a youngster’s natural fascination with animals.”

Here, in fond tribute to the critters among us, LIFE.com shares photos from that long-ago article, as well as many more that never ran in LIFE.

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

Coati Mundi, a raccoon-like animal, cavorted on a wire above the heads of young patients and teachers in Ann Arbor,; on the table were a calf and a pig.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dinner for ducklings was eagerly handed out by children crowding around a pool set up on hospital sun deck. The ducklings were lent by an Ann Arbor farmer.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Three-year-old Peggy Kennedy enjoyed these ducklings paddling around in a tub. Peggy, a polio patient, wore a plastic chest respirator.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene at University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor, 1956.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A bath for this piglet occupied Patricia Cebelak (left), 8, who had a food allergy, and Linda Fox, 4, who had a lung ailment. Two teachers lent a helping hand.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A dolled-up rabbit, with ears poked through a dress, toured the sun deck in a baby buggy pushed by Linda Fox. Pat Cebelak followed with a beagle pup.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tempting a coati, Marc Tannenbaum offered the animal a drop of perfume. The animal had a curious way of taking perfume on its paw and rubbing it on its tail.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Canine comfort was offered Buddy Berlin, whose left leg was paralyzed, by Ginger, a beagle pup. At bedside was the hospital’s school director, Mildred Walton.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two children played with kittens at the University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor, 1956.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene at University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor, 1956.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cuddling with a towel-wrapped baby duck was one of the hospital’s methods of using therapy with animals.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene at University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor, 1956.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A child shined a flash light on a jar with a turtle inside at the University of Michigan’s hospital at Ann Arbor, 1956.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Taylor and Clift: Photos From the Set of ‘A Place in the Sun’

January 16, 2020October 15, 2014 by

In the rife, overstuffed annals of Hollywood, few real-life love stories can match that of Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift. That Clift was gay made little difference in the intensity and duration of the two stars’ adoration of one another: here, after all, were two talented, passionate artists who met at a young age (she was in her teens; he was in his late twenties) and immediately discovered that they were, for lack of a better phrase, soul mates.

By the time they shared the screen together for the first time, in the classic murder-romance-melodrama, A Place in the Sun (1951), both were bona fide box-office draws: Taylor had been onscreen since she was 10, and Clift a soulful, introverted Method actor who influenced countless others who came after him had already garnered the first of his four career Oscar nominations. (He never won an Academy Award, although most movie aficionados feel he deserved at least one, for his unforgettable turn as the tortured Robert E. Lee Prewitt in From Here to Eternity.)

Their unique bond so evident in these pictures made on the Paramount lot during filming of A Place in the Sun, and never published in LIFE, was occasionally deepened even further by disasters visited upon them both through the years. For example, in 1956 Taylor likely saved Clift’s life when, after he crashed his car leaving a party at her home, she raced to the wreck and literally pulled from his mouth broken teeth on which he had begun to choke.

(The Clash famously referenced that awful scene, which changed the course of Clift’s career and set him on a winding path of booze-and-painkiller-fueled decay, in the song “The Right Profile” from London Calling: “I see a car smashed at night. / Cut the applause and dim the light. / Monty’s face is broken on a wheel. / Is he alive? Can he still feel?”)

[Buy the LIFE book, Remembering Liz]

In its May 28, 1951, issue, meanwhile, LIFE magazine wrote of A Place in the Sun:

It is easy for an ambitious young man to get himself involved simultaneously with a simple-hearted girl who lives in a cheap boarding house and an extravagant rich girl who gives gay parties. In 1925 Theodore Dreiser [told such a tale in his] long, oppressively powerful novel, “An American Tragedy,” which in turn made only a fair movie in 1931. This year the young man . . . is the hero of a long, oppressively powerful movie called “A Place in the Sun.” Directed by George Stevens for Paramount, it gives three young actors [Shelley Winters brilliantly played the ‘poor girl’] the chance to give the most natural performances of their careers. Montgomery Clift as the confused, likable, rather stupid social climber; Shelley Winters as the dowdy working girl; Elizabeth Taylor as the dazzling rich girl. Until it sinks into a sentimental quagmire the end, the second movie excels first in being remarkably faithful to Dreiser’s tale of three pitiful youngsters and in telling the story with the same earnestness and breadth that have made the novel survive as a classic.

While they may not make old-timers forget the Greta Garbo-John Gilbert embraces of the ’20s, Miss Taylor and Mr. Clift lose no chance to show why they are considered two of the hottest juveniles in Hollywood. . . . In fact, after the lovers have been separated for good and the young man is in the death house [Clift’s character murders Winters’ after getting her pregnant], the face of the girl comes floating in via double exposure to give him a last unsubstantial peck before he goes out to be executed.

The film went on to win six Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay, and is now hailed as a (flawed) classic. Clift and Taylor would star again in another 1950s film, the Civil War-era drama, Raintree County—the movie they were making when Clift almost died in the car wreck outside Taylor’s home—and would remain deeply attached to one another until Clift’s death, at the too-young age of 45, in New York City in 1966.

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

Elizabeth Taylor (all of 17 years old) and Montgomery Clift posed together at Paramount Studios during a break in filming A Place in the Sun.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Contact sheets from LIFE photographer Peter Stackpole’s shoot on a Paramount lot with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, Hollywood, 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift goofed around during a break in filming A Place in the Sun.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Contact sheet from LIFE photographer Peter Stackpole’s shoot with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor at Paramount Studios, 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Contact sheet from LIFE photographer Peter Stackpole’s shoot on a Paramount lot with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, Hollywood, 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Contact sheet from LIFE photographer Peter Stackpole’s shoot on a Paramount lot with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, Hollywood, 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Haunts of Famous American Ghosts

October 31, 2021October 15, 2014 by

This October 31st costumed kids and a good number of grown-ups will be fanning out across neighborhoods and going to parties in cities and towns all over the world. The creatures and characters on display will range from the topical (covid, anyone?) to the classic (ghouls, pirates, witches, superheroes, zombies).

But no single emblem captures the spirit of the holiday quite as neatly as that old stand-by: a ghost.

Way back in 1957, in an article titled “American Ghostly Legends,” LIFE magazine paid spooky tribute to some of the country’s most celebrated ghosts and ghost stories. The magazine’s editors introduced the elaborate, multi-page feature thus:

The native ghosts of the U.S. are less famous than their Old World, other-world counterparts. But there are a surprising number of them and they make up a colorful and diverse group.

Most American ghosts were born in the simpler past of colonial or frontier days. Even in today’s scientific age their stories, like the ghosts themselves, die hard. From the annals of unearthly Americana, nine of the most fascinating stories were selected [for this feature]. At their sites photographer Nina Leen caught the haunting and haunted atmosphere which might make any man, having heard the creaks and seen the eerie moving lights and shadows, believe that ghosts still walk.

Here, on Halloween a six full decades after it first published, LIFE.com recalls “American Ghostly Legends” with a gallery of Nina Leen‘s striking color pictures, as well as reproductions of the article’s pages as they ran in LIFE.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Leen’s work while perhaps rather staid when compared with the filters and effects available via Instagram, Photoshop and other modern media was impressive enough at the time to win first prize for Magazine Color Story in a 1958 contest sponsored by Encyclopaedia Britannica, the National Press Photographers Association and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.