Page 126 – LIFE

Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis

November 3, 2020December 20, 2013 by

Some photographers become known for their mastery of a specialized topic, but John Dominis had the enviable ability to see and to capture anything.

Born in Los Angeles in 1921, Dominis was majoring in cinematography at USC when he left school in 1943 to enlist in the Air Force. After the war, he freelanced as a photographer for a number of national publications, including LIFE, and was put on staff in 1950 when he volunteered to cover the Korean War.

His 1965 photograph of Mickey Mantle tossing his helmet in disgust after a terrible at-bat is one of the most eloquent pictures ever made of a great athlete in decline and just to keep everyone guessing John Dominis also made some of the most memorable images of food ever to grace the pages of LIFE.

“The great thing about working with LIFE,” Dominis once said, “was that I was given all the support and money and time, whatever was required, to do almost any kind of work I wanted to do, anywhere in the world. It was like having a grant, a Guggenheim grant, but permanently.”

Dominis was remarkably candid about his work, and no more so than when discussing how he managed to make one of the most famous, and controversial, shots of his career: the bristling-with-energy picture of a leopard and a baboon facing off in what one immediately imagines rightly, as it turns out is a fight to the death.

In John Loengard’s terrific 1998 book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, Dominis says of that photo:

I certainly wasn’t a cat expert, but I could hire people who knew things. They’d lined up a hunter in Botswana, who was a hunter for zoos. He had caught a leopard, and he put the leopard in the back of the truck, and we went out into the desert. He would release the leopard, and most of the time the leopard would chase the baboons and they would run off and climb trees. I had photographed all this. But for some reason one baboon . . . turned and faced the leopard, and the leopard killed it. We didn’t know that this was going to happen. I just turned on the camera motor, and I got this terrific shot of this confrontation.

There was a different feeling about that in the 1960s. We were always setting up pictures. . . . But now there are many, many more competent photographers doing this stuff over long periods of time four or five years if a scientist is on a big study. . . . No one was working that way then. I felt that my job was to get the pictures. . . . We shot a gazelle and put it in a tree and waited for a cat to come. I didn’t feel bad about it at all. It sounds terrible now, I know, and maybe my attitude would be different now. . . . I’ve been criticized a lot. But to me, I had to do what I did.

His encounters with humans were (usually) less fraught, but always involved the same degree of preparation. Of his remarkable series of photos of Steve McQueen, and how he got the notoriously private and solitary actor to relax with a photographer around, Dominis told LIFE.com:

When I was living in Hong Kong I had a sports car and I raced it. And I knew that McQueen had a racing car. I rented one anticipating that we might do something with them. He was in a motorcycle race out in the desert, so I went out there in my car and met him, and I say, ‘You wanna try my car?’ We went pretty fast I mean, as fast as you can safely go without getting arrested and we’d ride and then stop and trade cars. He liked that, and I knew he liked it. I guess that was the first thing that softened him.

Then there’s Woodstock, an event that opened the eyes of a man who’d seen everything:

“I really had a great time,” Dominis told LIFE.com, decades after the fact. “I was much older than those kids, but I felt like I was their age. They smiled at me, offered me pot. . . . You didn’t expect to see a bunch of kids so nice; you’d think they’d be uninviting to an older person. But no they were just great!

“I worked at LIFE for 25 years, and worked everywhere and saw everything, and I’ve told people every year since the Woodstock festival that it was one of the greatest events I ever covered.”

Dominis became photo editor of People magazine in the mid-1970s and was an editor at Sports Illustrated for a few years, as well (1978 – 1982). But it was his work for LIFE in the 1950s, ’60s and into the early ’70s that not only defined his peripatetic career, but produced some of the most memorable and moving images of the 20th century. He died on Dec. 30, 2013, at his home in New York City, at the age of 92.

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

A Southern Pacific locomotive used a plow to clear snow from tracks in Donner Pass, five miles west of Soda Springs, Calif., 1949.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An Army unit patrolled at night in Korea, 1951.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A rifleman dashed uphill to take cover from enemy fire, Korea, 1951.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

New York Giants star Willie Mays, 1954.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mothers grieved for their sons killed during a student demonstration, South Korea, 1960.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A boat girl rowed a sampan across the Perfume River, Vietnam, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mountain tribal village, Vietnam, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Navy air operations on the aircraft carrier Independence, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dancer Jacques D’Amboise played with his children near his home in Washington state, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Kennedy shook hands from a train window, Japan, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

President John F. Kennedy in the midst of a ticker tape parade during a state visit to Mexico, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert F. Kennedy with Japanese children, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sen. Edward Kennedy (right) with an old friend, Jack Dixon, in his office during his first year in the Senate, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen took a break during a motorcycle race across the Mojave Desert, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen with his wife Neile at home in California, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen at home, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A trout “flew” out of a bed of almonds in preparation for Trout Amandine, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Beatles, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mickey Mantle tossed his helmet in disgust after a terrible at-bat, New York, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra in rehearsal, Las Vegas, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Outside the presidential suite at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in 1965, Frank Sinatra said goodbye to his mother, Dolly (left), and his father, Martin (center). They visited from New Jersey during the winter months.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Muhammad Ali after his title defense against Sonny Liston (the “Phantom Punch” bout), Lewiston, Maine, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Argentinian matambre, a slice of beef rolled with vegetables and chilies, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A pair of lions in the wild in Africa, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A leopard about to kill a baboon, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American sprinters Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right), after winning gold and bronze Olympic medals in the 200 meters, respectively, raised their fists in a Black Power salute, Mexico, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman is at left.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman kissed his wife, Anne Byrne, in the back of a taxi, New York, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock Music and Art Fair, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Wayne during a break in the filming of The Undefeated, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Wayne during filming of The Undefeated, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Redford exercised one of his eight saddle horses on his ranch in Utah, 1970.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The 90-meter ski jump at the 1972 Olympics in Japan.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

College Hijinks, 1949: Princeton Hosts a Charleston Contest

November 20, 2025December 11, 2013 by

A November 1949 issue of LIFE featured a wonderfully animated addition to the magazine’s long-running “LIFE Goes to a [fill in the blank here]” franchise, in which the magazine’s photographers chronicled everything from a black magic “hex party” — convened in order to cast spells on Adolf Hitler — to a snail-watching society in England.

The 1949 article in question, meanwhile, featured . . . well, let’s let LIFE set the scene:

The Charleston craze that splintered dance floors in the ’20s is staging a stubborn comeback, so much so that this year the usual elegance of Princeton’s annual Prince-Tiger dance was abandoned for a furious foot-shaking, hair-mussing Charleston contest. In spirt with the Charleston theme, enthusiastic revivalists came in ankle-length raccoon coats, their dates in waistless, sacklike flapper dresses. The enthusiasm even spread to the Princeton tiger in the person of a freshman cheerleader named Ed Craig, who took a few Charleston lessons from somebody else’s date, a girl named Barbara Pettit.

Pettit, it turns out, went on to win the contest (with another partner, not with Tiger Ed). Ivy Leaguers, it seems, weren’t like other collegians back in the day. The more things change . . .

Princeton Charleston Contest, 1949

Martha Holmes Time & LIfe Pictures/Shutterstock

Princeton Charleston dance contest, 1949

Martha Holmes Time & LIfe Pictures/Shutterstock

Hitler’s Christmas Party

November 2, 2020December 1, 2013 by

The images are chilling, bordering on surreal: Surrounded by fellow Nazis, Adolf Hitler presides over a Christmas party. Swastika armbands jarringly offset the glint of ornaments and tinsel; candles illuminate the festive scene. Confronted with the scene, a viewer might reasonably ask: How could Nazi leaders reconcile an ideology of hatred, conquest and extermination with the joyous spirit of the holiday, much less its celebration of the birth of the Jewish Christ?

In 1937 Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937 actually argued that “real” Germans should remove any vestiges of “oriental” religion from the holiday by harking back to the pagan Yule, an ancient Northern European festival of the winter solstice. He said, “We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem. It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion.” An eye-opening 2009 exhibit at Cologne’s National Socialism Documentation Centre featured early Nazi propaganda attempts to make over the holiday: swastika-shaped cookie-cutters; sunburst tree-toppers to replace the traditional ornament Nazis feared looked too much like the Star of David; rewritten lyrics to carols that excised all references to Christ.

But by the time Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had dragged the Allies into the Second World War, the Reich’s focus had shifted to more practical matters. Rather than trying to dissuade millions of Germans from celebrating Christmas the way they had for generations, Hitler, Goebbels and the rest instead encouraged their compatriots to send cards and care packages to the troops.

As for the religious views of Hitler himself, the evidence is hardly conclusive: In public statements he sometimes praised Christianity (once calling it “the foundation of our national morality”), but in private conversations—including one recalled by the Third Reich’s official architect, Albert Speer—the Führer is said to have abhorred the faith for what he deemed its “meekness and flabbiness.”

Hitler did, of course, fervently worship one thing above all else: the so-called Aryan race. Looking at the utterly banal, ordinary faces and figures in these photographs, however, it’s hard to believe that anyone, no matter how fanatical or deluded, could believe that the men at that long-ago holiday party comprised anything more than a roomful of gangsters and common thugs.

Scene from a Christmas party attended by Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, date unknown.

Hugo Jaeger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Christmas Wishes: Photos of Kids on the Phone With Santa, 1947

December 9, 2020December 1, 2013 by

This little girl is talking to Santa Claus, and so may any other girl or boy who telephones Murray Hill 8-2205 in New York between now and Christmas.

Thus reads a photo caption in a December 15, 1947 LIFE magazine story about some holiday subterfuge devised by the famed New York toy store, FAO Schwarz. The clever gambit involved an FAO-produced phone system on which children could dial that number (MU8-2205) and speak directly to Santa himself, laying out their wishes for the holiday: world peace, universal human fellowship, a train set, a bunny, a briefcase.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos by Martha Holmes from that article as well as some other “Awww”-inspiring pictures that never ran in the magazine.

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Patricia Guinan promises to leave out milk and crackers for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, 1947.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Bann Kernan, who is 7 years old, squirms with delight as she asks Santa for a wrist watch. Moments later she gave the phone to her younger brother, Bennie, 5, who requested a train.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Jo Ann Ward began with aplomb by saying, ‘Hello, Santa Claus. How you feel?'” The three-year-old wanted a doll and a boat.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “‘After making sure he could not hear and be disillusioned,’ Bann Kernan ‘whispered confidingly to the LIFE researcher’ that there is “no Santa Claus,” while brother Bennie remained blissfully unaware.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Elaine Jung is 6, wants a doll’s house and carriage, also asked Santa to be sure not to forget her baby sister.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Jimmy O’Brien, 4, asked for a bike and a sailboat. When Santa asked where he lived, he said, ‘You know where.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Christopher Lange, the son of Poland’s U.N. delegate Oscar Lange is nearly 8 years old and a firm believer in Santa Claus. He showed his official background by requesting the badge of the profession, a briefcase, for Christmas. (He also asked for a paint set.)” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

F.A.O. Schwarz, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Santa Himself and Mrs. Claus, who sometimes wear red coats to keep in character, answer calls at the Schwarz workshop.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

F.A.O. Schwarz, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Schwarz’s President, Philip Kirkham, used to play Santa for the benefit of special customers’ children by shouting good cheer up a dumbwaiter shaft.” The first time he did it, employees thought he was ‘a little daft.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes/ The LIFE Picture Collection

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Bann Kernan, 7, calls Santa.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

Natalie Wood: Rare and Classic Photos of the Lifelong Movie Star

January 17, 2020November 29, 2013 by

At nearly every stage of Natalie Wood’s career—the early days as a cute studio-contract moppet; her teenage Method experiments inspired by her work in Rebel Without a Cause; and her emergence as a powerful leading lady who could more than hold her own with Warren Beatty and Steve McQueen—LIFE’s photographers were there, capturing Wood’s talent and beauty as they blossomed over the years.

But not every picture from those many rolls of film could make it to print. Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of the best photos of the late, radiant star which were not originally published in LIFE magazine.

Natalie Wood died, far too young, in 1981. She was just 43 years old. She drowned near Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of California. In 2012, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner reclassified the cause of her death as “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

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

Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen, 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood in 1945; at age eight she appeared in Miracle on 34th Street.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood swung upside down in her backyard as a child, 1945.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood practiced as her 16-year-old sister Olga plays a Chopin waltz, 1945.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natasha Wood drew a girl’s face on her blackboard.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Woods watered the lawn as her mother, Maria Gurdin, supervised, 1945.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood sat poolside with a poodle in 1956.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood, Dennis Hopper and Nick Adams made dinner in 1965.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood read aloud from Thomas Wolfe’s The Hills Beyond for friends Dennis Hopper and Nick Adams in 1956.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood in character with Dennis Hopper and Nick Adams, 1956.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood (with Nick Adams and a partly hidden Dennis Hopper above), 1956.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood took a call while sitting on her bed at home in 1965.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood with actor friends in Los Angeles in 1965.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Twenty-two-year-old Natalie Wood, 1960, at the Beverly Hills home she shared with husband Robert Wagner.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty posed for a portrait for their movie Splendor in the Grass.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, 1961.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood readied for the Academy Awards in April 1962.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Woods readied for the Academy Awards, April 1962.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood received the final touches on her updo with hair spray before the Academy Awards in April 1962.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An assistant helped Natalie Wood into her dress in April 1962.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood smiled beside her date for the 1962 Oscars, Warren Beatty.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen, 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood smoked with Steve McQueen in 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen in 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: Rare Photos From the Set of a Holiday Classic

December 21, 2020November 26, 2013 by

Far more than a mere plot device heralding George Bailey’s dark night of the soul (and his joyful return to the land of the living), softly falling snow is something of a central character in Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. For this film Capra decided that the cheap “fake snow” so often used on movie sets back in the day simply would not do; he wanted something as close to the real thing as he and his prop department could get.

LIFE photographer Martha Holmes documented the use of an innovative new snow-making process employed during the making of It’s a Wonderful Life—a process that, for the first time, allowed filmmakers to produce and control remarkably realistic onscreen snowfalls, drifts, flurries and landscapes.

The look and feel of holiday movies would, quite simply, never be the same again.

Movie snow in the early decades of film-making was usually white-coated cornflakes, sometimes mixed with shaved gypsum, and they produced so much audible crunching and crackling when actors walked across it that dialog was often over-dubbed afterwards. For It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, who was trained as an engineer, and RKO studio’s special effects wizard, Russell Sherman, developed their own artificial snow, one befitting the hushed beauty of a winter night in the fictional town of Bedford Falls.

Utilizing technology made available after World War II, Sherman’s crew mixed foamite — the material used in fire extinguishers and sometimes marketed under the brand name Phomaide—with sugar and water (or, by some accounts, with soap flakes) to create a substance that could be sprayed virtually anywhere, tucking tiny Bedford Falls under a wintery blanket of white.

The foamite solution was pumped at high pressure through a wind machine to create the look of freshly fallen snow on trees, streets and in drifts against buildings. Some 6,000 gallons of this new pseudo-snow were used in the making of It’s a Wonderful Life, and the RKO Effects Department received a Technical Award from the Motion Picture Academy for the development of the new white stuff. The artificial snow even clung convincingly to clothing and created picture-perfect footprints, while generating nothing like the sound of trod-upon breakfast cereal. This enabled Capra to record the film’s sound live, lending yet another layer of authenticity to the finished movie.

Capra’s vision for an authentic film experience, meanwhile, extended beyond a formula for better manufactured snow. The set for Bedford Falls was also an engineering marvel. Constructed in two months, it was one of the longest sets ever made for an American movie. It covered four acres of the RKO ranch and included 75 stores and buildings; a tree-lined center parkway with 20 fully grown oak trees; a factory district and residential areas. Main Street was 300 yards long, or three full-length city blocks.

What many movie buffs don’t know is that George Bailey’s bleak Christmas Eve was actually shot during a series of 90-degree days in June and July in 1946 on RKO’s ranch in Encino, California. The days were so hot that Capra gave the cast and crew a day off during filming to recover from heat exhaustion. In the famous scene on the bridge, before he saves Clarence the angel from the dark, swirling waters below, a suicidal George Bailey is clearly sweating—although Jimmy Stewart’s wonderful acting convinces us that fear and dread might well be the reason for that.

Stewart once said that of all the films he made over the course of his six-decade career, It’s a Wonderful Life was his favorite. Stewart, who had recently returned from distinguished service in World War II, almost passed on the role of George; it was Lionel Barrymore—who so brilliantly played the villainous, money-mad Mr. Potter in the film—who convinced him to take the part.

Made for $3.7 million, the movie was a hugely expensive production in the mid-1940s, especially considering its initial box office run only earned $3.3 million. It also happened to be the first and only time Frank Capra produced, financed, directed and co-wrote one of his films.

The disappointing box-office numbers doomed Capra’s production company, and the director soon found himself out of favor with the changing tastes of postwar audiences. But the movie—and its director—gained newfound fame and esteem as later generations were introduced to, and fell in love with, the movie on television.

“It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Capra once said. “The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I’m like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I’m proud . . . but it’s the kid who did the work. I didn’t even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea.”

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that in notes taken on the set of It’s a Wonderful Life by LIFE’s Helen Robinson—for an article that never ran in the magazine—one throw-away line stands out to contemporary readers. In addition to foamite, “[the whitish mineral] dolomite and asbestos were other old standbys used to dress the set.” That’s right, folks: asbestos was used as a stand-in for snow.

Jimmy Stewart on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in downtown Bedford Falls on the set of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

The innovative artificial snow used for ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ earned a technical award from the Motion Picture Academy.

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

The crew deployed artificial snow on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

On the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

The crew made artificial snow on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

On the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Jimmy Stewart on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ One of the characteristics of the new artificial snow was that it would stick to hair and clothing.

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Artificial snow on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Director Frank Capra (right, with unidentified man) on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

On the set of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Downtown Bedford Falls on the set of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

Martha Holmes (The LIFE Picture Collection)

More Like This

arts & entertainment

Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis

College Hijinks, 1949: Princeton Hosts a Charleston Contest

Hitler’s Christmas Party

Christmas Wishes: Photos of Kids on the Phone With Santa, 1947

Natalie Wood: Rare and Classic Photos of the Lifelong Movie Star

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: Rare Photos From the Set of a Holiday Classic

Hanging Out With Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

See LIFE’s Best On Display in New York

The Green Pastures: The First Broadway Show With an All-Black Cast

LIFE’s Favorite Ice Skating Images

Like Seeing Old Friends: Images From the ’90s Golden Globes

LIFE’s Favorite Vintage Surfing Photos

More Like This

Subscribe to the LIFE Newsletter