Page 144 – LIFE

The Nobel Prize in Literature: Portraits of Legendary Laureates

August 9, 2021March 5, 2012 by

The Swedish Academy, which began bestowing the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901, has missed some opportunities to honor deserving authors (Tolstoy, Joyce, Borges, Nabokov, Proust, Virginia Woolf and Graham Greene are but a few of the giants without Nobel laurels). But this is a failing that, to most, pales beside the excellence and striking variety in style and subject matter, if not race and gender, among those who have won.

Among literary prizes, the Nobel carries unique weight. Unlike the Pulitzer, the Man Booker, the Goncourt, et al. which each year honor discrete fiction and nonfiction titles, the Nobel celebrates and solemnizes a writer’s life work.

Here, LIFE.com looks back at how LIFE magazine portrayed some Nobel winners through the years.

NOTE: Only two honorees have ever declined the Nobel for literature, one voluntarily, the other under threat. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre sent his regrets, stating at-once graciously and forcefully, “A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.”

In 1958, the great Russian poet and author of Dr. Zhivago, Boris Paternak, accepted the Nobel, but was later forced by the Soviet authorities, to the enduring shame of the USSR, to decline the prize. In 1989 Pasternak’s son, Evgenii, accepted the Nobel medal on his father’s behalf at a ceremony in Stockholm.

German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann in Tulsa, OK, in 1939.

William Vandivert The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

1947 Nobel laureate Andre Gide, at work (left) and in a portrait by LIFE’s Yale Joel.

Yale Joel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

French writer Albert Camus smokes a cigarette on the balcony outside his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard’s office in Paris, 1955. Camus won the Nobel in 1957; in 1960, when he was 46 years old, he was killed in a car crash along with Gallimard, who was driving.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ernest Hemingway in Cuba in 1952. He was awarded the Nobel in 1954. When LIFE magazine published Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, in its entirety, in its September 1, 1952, issue, five million copies of the magazine were sold . . . in two days.

ALFRED EISENSTAEDT

Pearl Buck at her desk in 1942 (left), and in 1956 (right). She was awarded the Nobel for Literature in 1938.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sinclair Lewis in New York in 1937. He won his Nobel for Literature in 1930.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw, 90 years old, stands in the yard of his home in the Hertfordshire village of Ayot St. Lawrence, England, in 1946. He was awarded the Nobel for Literature in 1925.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 1949 Nobel laureate William Faulkner, photographed in Hollywood in 1940.

PIX Inc. The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 1962 Nobel laureate John Steinbeck in New York City in 1937.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jean-Paul Sartre at his home in Paris in 1946. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, but famously declined to accept it.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

PhilosopherBertrand Russell at his desk at UCLA in 1940 (left), and in England in 1951 (right). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.

Playwright Eugene O’Neill in New York in 1950. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936.

PIX Inc. The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wallis and Edward: Reassessing the Windsors’ “Romance of the Century”

January 30, 2022March 3, 2012 by

Wallis and Edward, the Romance of the Century. The evocative phrase so often attached to the marriage of the esrtwhile King of England and the twice-divorced American socialite, Wallis Simpson, has a wonderful ring to it. After all, what sort of cold-hearted wretch wouldn’t thrill, even a little bit, to the story of a ruler of an ancient realm abdicating his throne so that he might marry his true love? What kind of flinty-souled Scrooge would even question motives, or reasons, in the narrative of a former monarch finding happiness with a “commoner” from across the sea?

And yet … there’s just one little catch. History (as well as authorized and unauthorized biographies, magazine articles, movies, newspaper stories and more) suggest that the “romance of the century” was, in fact, more or less like any other marriage: there were good times, and bad times, and little evidence that the former outnumbered or outweighed the latter.

For example, the balance of power in the relationship was, for long stretches of the marriage, completely out of whack. (Most men and women, if they’re honest with themselves and with each other, will admit that even when a marriage is founded on genuine love and respect, it’s impossible to ignore the central role that the wielding of power with a lower-case “p” can play in ensuring or wreaking havoc with a relationship.) The Duchess was, by almost all accounts, the protagonist in the marriage. She was the more outspoken, the more driven of the pair, while the Duke frequently seemed content to play the doting husband to his glamorous, intelligent and unapologetically ambitious wife.

But even if the romance between the Duke and Duchess was, as millions of people around the globe so earnestly wished it to be, a marvelous union made stronger by the remarkable sacrifice that paved its way even if the romance, in others words, really was the Romance of the Century there would still be those nagging little details that, over the years, have cast an enduring pall on the Windsors’ tale. (See photos from the Duke and the Duchess’ apparently jaunty journey through Nazi Germany in 1937.)

The trouble with the image that so many people still evidently harbor of the 20th century’s gleaming, flawless romance is that, in short, the gleaming, flawless romance never really existed. That the Duke and the Duchess loved one another, in their way, is something that even their most vocal detractors especially the Duchess’ vocal detractors, and there are legions of them readily admit. But beyond their powerful attraction to one another, the Windsors also shared some of the less-savory sensibilities common to so many of their upper-crust peers in the late 1930s and even into the war years of the 1940s. Namely, they displayed a comfort with far right-wing movements and ideologies grounded, in large part, in an abhorrence of far left-wing ideologies that at times was difficult to distinguish from infatuation.

The two, after all, gladly met with Hitler during their highly publicized tour of Germany in 1937, and neither of them displayed much compunction about associating with figures suspected of being pro-German, if not outright fascist. Even in the midst of the Second World War, when England was fighting for its life against the Reich and the Windsors were passing the time in the Bahamas where the Duke was made Governor neither of them worked overtime to dispel the notion that, in the end, it didn’t much matter to them whether or not Germany won the war.

That the Duchess hated England was an open secret; that many in England, and especially many in the royal family and the higher reaches of government, despised and distrusted her in return was equally well-known. Such a toxic dynamic between the former Wallis Simpson and so many in England hardly excuses the laissez-faire attitude that both the Windsors seemed to adopt toward the fate of what, after all, was the Duke’s ancestral home. It does, however, help explain it. How many of us, after all, can maintain even the appearance of goodwill toward those who publicly and privately deride us?

But in the end, maybe it’s about time that the “Romance of the Century” tag is retired, and we try to see the Windsors for what, in an elemental way, they were: a married couple who lived much of their private lives in public, and upon whose marriage countless people projected (and still project) their own hopes, fears, passions and fantasies. There’s really no need to despise them; there’s no need to admire, or celebrate, or try to emulate them, either. We’ll just leave them to history.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 1940

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

May 22, 1950, cover of Life magazine featuring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

Might as Well Jump: LIFE Cover Portraits by Philippe Halsman

August 17, 2021March 1, 2012 by

Of all the 20th century photographers who made a name for themselves almost exclusively from their portrait work, few managed to capture as dizzying an array of subjects as adroitly as the Latvian-born master, Philippe Halsman. A friend to the likes of Dali, Picasso and Einstein, Halsman’s approach to portraiture judging by the uniform excellence of his work for LIFE and other publications from the early 1940s onward appears to have been as an equal-opportunity chronicler of the great, the famous and the utterly unknown, alike.

But there was, it turns out, a quite deliberate method at the heart of Halsman’s portraiture: in short, shoot men and women differently. The outline of the idea is no doubt familiar to portraitists shooting today although it’s also a very good bet that no one shooting today would phrase his or her modus operandi quite so … plainly.

LIFE once quoted Halsman as saying that, when photographing a woman, “I try to photograph her beauty; with a man I try to show his character. Once I photographed a man with a big nose, and emphasized his nose, and he was very pleased with the picture. That could not happen with a woman. The most intelligent woman will reject a portrait if it doesn’t flatter her. Only once in my whole career did it happen that a blonde asked me, ‘Please make me look intelligent.’ Unfortunately it was impossible.”

Halsman (b. May 2, 1906; d. June 25, 1979) began his long, enormously productive relationship with LIFE in 1942, and eventually shot more than 50 covers for the magazine. Of all the projects, themes, creative ideas and wonderfully revealing pictures Halsman devised and created throughout his long career, he is perhaps best know today for his portraits of rich, famous and often very powerful people jumping. Literally, jumping. And in true, mischievous Halsman style, he managed to make these portraits both mesmerizing and, somehow, significant — pictures that are saved from mere silliness by the evident technical prowess at play in each one.

The exuberant November 9, 1959, cover of LIFE that featured a laughing, barefoot Marilyn Monroe in midair came out at about the same time as a remarkable tome, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, which was filled with these singular, strange and, at times, downright thrilling portraits.

Other notables seen jumping in the book and in the issue of LIFE with Marilyn on the cover? Princess Grace of Monaco, Sophia Loren, Judge Learned Hand, Brigitte Bardot, Vice President Richard Nixon, the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theologian Paul Tillich and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name a few.

Why did they do it? Quite simply, because Halsman asked them to. (Only a very few subjects , including Herbert Hoover and the pianist Van Cliburn, ever refused.)

“In a burst of energy the subject overcomes gravity,” Halsman wryly noted of his jumping pictures. “He cannot also control all his muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible, and one needs only to snap it with a camera. I call this jumpology. The time may someday come when psychiatrists will diagnose hidden characteristics not with the slow and painstaking Rorschach test but with the rapid and hurtling Halsman.”

The rapid and hurtling Halsman. A marvelous phrase that, as aptly as any other, captures the quicksilver imagination and the finely harnessed talent that still, all these years later, animate the work of one of the all-time greats.

LIFE Magazine, November 9, 1959. Marilyn Monroe, photographed by Philippe Halsman.

October 16, 1944 cover of LIFE magazine featuring Lauren Bacall.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

May 22, 1950, cover of Life magazine featuring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

August 13, 1951, cover of Life magazine featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

September 3, 1951, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Gina Lollobrigida.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

December 17, 1951, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

April 7, 1952, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Marilyn Monroe.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

November 2, 1953, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Winston Churchill.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

April 26, 1954, cover of LIFE magazine featuring Grace Kelly.

Philippe Halsman Life Magazine

Classic Photos of People Watching TV

December 18, 2019February 27, 2012 by

Monumental events, mindless comedy, sports victories, talk shows, filibusters and on and on: television has shown it all. Almost any TV show will find an audience and some will find millions. Long before the recent dawn of cord-cutting and personal screens, when TV was in its infancy and then rising as a black-and-white cultural mainstay, it sometimes served as a venue for group gatherings. A shared activity, even if that activity was (usually) pretty passive.

Here LIFE looked back at some Americans, famous and not, who liked to watch.

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

Radio Corporation of America (RCA) executives watched a brand new invention called television at their New York offices before introducing the product to the public, 1939.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russell Finch, a writer, enjoyed the latest invention of the day, a portable television, while taking a bath, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men gathered to watch TV through a store window in Pennsylvania in 1948.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boy watched TV in an appliance store window in 1948.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sisters at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Erie, Penn., watched a program on a new local TV station, 1949.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Watching a Western, 1950

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A group of swimmers at an indoor pool watched the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Jacob Malik, filibustering in the UN Security Council in 1950.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grade school kids in Minneapolis watched a video “classroom lesson” on TV while the city’s public schools were on strike in 1951.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A rapt audience in a Chicago bar watched the 1952 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees. (The Yankees won.)

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Six-year-old girls used a “Winky Dink” drawing kit on their home TV screen as they watch the kids’ program, Winky Dink and You, 1953. The show, which aired for four years in the 1950s, has been cited as “the first interactive TV show,” especially in light of its “magic drawing screen” a piece of plastic that stuck to the TV screen, and on which viewers could trace the action on the screen.

Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A performing chimpanzee named Zippy watched TV in 1955.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An adopted Korean war orphan, Kang Koo Ri, watched television in his new home in Los Angeles in 1956.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Milwaukee fans watched the 1957 World Series, when their Braves beat the Yankees in seven games.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A railroad worker’s family watched TV in a trailer at a camp for Southern Pacific employees in Utah in 1957.

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An awe-struck baseball watched the Braves win the World Series in Milwaukee in 1957.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A traveling businessman watched TV in a hotel room in 1958.

Nat Farbman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tenant farmer Thomas B. Knox and his family watched Ed Sullivan and ventriloquist Rickie Layne on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Picketing workers watched TV in a tent outside the gates of a U.S. Steel plant in Gary, Indiana, during a strike in 1959.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, watched the 1960 GOP convention in Chicago from their hotel suite.

Hank Walker The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Kim Sisters—a Korean-born singing trio who had some success in the U.S. in the 1960s —watched television in Chicago in 1960.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Eventual VP candidate Lyndon Johnson watched TV during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

Thomas D. McAvoy The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A “Three-Eyed TV Monster” created by Ulises Sanabria permitted simultaneous two- and three-screen viewing, 1961.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Astronaut Scott Carpenter’s wife, Rene, and son, Marc, watched his 1962 orbital flight on TV. Carpenter’s was NASA’s second manned orbital flight, after John Glenn’s, and lasted nearly five hours.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Die-hard New York Giants fans watched the 1962 NFL championship game against the Packers outside a Connecticut motel, beyond the range of the NYC-area TV blackout, December 1962. Green Bay won, 16-7.

John Loengard The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A crowd watched John F. Kennedy address the nation during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra watched his son, Frank Jr., 21, emcee a TV show, 1964.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Different CATV (Community Antenna Television) stations available to subscribers in Elmira, New York, in 1966.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Diahann Carroll and journalist David Frost watched themselves on separate talk shows. Carroll and Frost were engaged for a while, but never married.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dick Clark: The Unlikely Impressario

August 11, 2021February 27, 2012 by

Dick Clark, who died in April 2012 at the age of 82, was often heralded (and occasionally derided) as “America’s oldest teenager.” But that glib description barely began to encompass or describe what the man meant, and what he accomplished, as a shaper and arbiter of American pop culture in the latter half of the 20th century.

As the editors of the LIFE book, Dick Clark and the History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, put it in the introduction to their celebration of his life and career: “They could have crafted a movie about him: the fellow who came to town—in his case, Philadelphia—and won everyone over. They didn’t have to. Dick Clark wrote the script himself.”

“It’s so strange that he was so absolutely right for rock ‘n roll,” the editors point out. “He wasn’t musically gifted, he wasn’t downtrodden, he wasn’t particularly rebellious, he wasn’t bluesy or what might be called soulful he wasn’t any of that. He wasn’t even long haired, and it is assumed he showered every morning. But he was the right person at just the right time and place to shake American culture [the way] Elvis or Brando or the Beatles would shake American culture. Yes, Dick Clark.”

Here, in memory of a steady fixture on the American music scene across six tumultuous, wildly varied decades, LIFE.com offers a selection of photographs from the book pictures that show a man who loved what he did, and who shared that enduring enthusiasm with generations.

Buy LIFE Books’ Dick Clark and the History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Dick Clark on his TV show the “American Bandstand” in 1958.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dick Clark poses for a portrait with his wife Barbara and their son, Richard Clark, Jr., on May 13, 1958, in Philadelphia.

Michael Ochs Archives

Dick Clark (at podium) during an airing of American Bandstand in 1969.

ABC Photo Archives

Dick Clark prior to his New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcast in 1983-84.

ABC Photo Archives

Little Richard with Dick Clark on American Bandstand in 1964.

American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

ick Clark surrounded by his grandmother’s complete collection of LIFE magazines, which he inherited on her death. On his lap is the 1936 premier issue.

Brian Lanker

LIFE at the Oscars: Classic Photos From Hollywood’s Biggest Night

April 19, 2021February 23, 2012 by

Audrey Hepburn. Marlon Brando. Elizabeth Taylor. Kirk Douglas. Grace Kelly. Bogart and Bacall . . . you get the picture. And during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when it came to the Academy Awards, LIFE got the picture, too over and over again.

In fact, from the red carpet to the stage to the after-parties (where tuxedos and gowns were de rigueur) there were few noteworthy Oscar moments that LIFE missed. Here, in honor of Hollywood, actors, actresses and the magic of movies in general we’re fans, after all LIFE.com offers a selection of Oscar photos that capture not only the familiar glitz and glamor of the proceedings, but those far rarer moments when a superstar drops his or her guard and, for an instant, we see someone who seems remarkably like us albeit better-looking, richer, and with more charisma than most of us could summon in a lifetime of trying.

(Trivia note: There are various, competing stories around the origin of the name “Oscar” as a designation for the coveted statuette. Some historians believe that Bette Davis, of all people, coined the term because the statue resembled — so the story goes — her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another creation myth has it that a secretary to the great Golden Age studio head Louis B. Mayer saw the very first Academy Award statuette and pronounced it a dead ringer for Norway’s King Oscar II. No one, however, has ever definitively nailed down who first uttered the name Oscar in connection with the Academy Awards. And part of us hopes no one ever does.)

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

Elizabeth Taylor walked through a crowd of admirers at the Oscars in 1961 the year she won her first Academy Award, for her role in BUtterfield 8.

Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grace Kelly and Clark Gable arrived at the 26th annual Academy Awards at the RKO Pantages Theatre in 1954.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kirk Douglas at the Academy Awards in 1954

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Television actress Sandra White laughed while arriving late at the 1953 Academy Awards.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall arrived at the 27th annual Academy Awards at the RKO Pantages Theater in 1955.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood, Best Actress nominee for her role as Deanie Loomis in Splendor in the Grass, had her hair done prior to the 1962 Academy Awards.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly waited backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre during the 1956 Academy Awards.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Wayne (whose image is being projected on the huge screen) accepted the Best Director Oscar from Olivia DeHavillan for an absent John Ford during the 25th annual Academy Awards in 1953 the first year the ceremony was televised.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charlie Chaplin —who had been living in self-imposed exile in Switzerland for two decades —blew a kiss to the crowd while accepting an honorary Oscar in 1972 for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.” When he was introduced to the audience, Chaplin received a 12-minute standing ovation.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, co-stars in the Elia Kazan-directed romantic drama, Splendor in the Grass, attended the 1962 Academy Awards.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the 1942 Academy Awards, Joan Fontaine gazed at the Best Actress Oscar she won for her role in Suspicion —an achievement that made her, incredibly, the only actor or actress to ever win an Oscar for a performance in an Alfred Hitchcock film.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Audrey Hepburn cradled the Oscar she won for her role in Roman Holiday.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Wayne held Oscars for Gary Cooper and John Ford (Best Actor for High Noon) and Best Director for The Quiet Man, respectively) backstage at the Academy Awards, 1953.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Academy Award-winner Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress) and dapper presenter Jimmy Stewart at the Academy Awards, 1949.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Photographers snapped their cameras Oscar winners Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight) and Bing Crosby (Going My Way) at the 1945 Academy Awards.

Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Presenters Ginger Rogers and George Murphy danced together while holding an Oscar backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre in 1950.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marlon Brando (right, with French singer and actress Line Renaud) casually held his Best Actor Oscar for On The Waterfront at the 1955 Academy Awards at the RKO Pantages Theatre.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Joanne Woodward danced with her husband, Paul Newman, at the Governor’s Ball following the Academy Awards where she won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Three Faces of Eve.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed held their Oscars as Best Supporting Actor and Actress in From Here to Eternity —a film that won eight statuettes in 1954, including Best Picture.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Producer Buddy Adler’s Academy Award for From Here to Eternity stood amid hats in the coat check room at Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills during an Oscars after-party in 1954.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Artist Marcel Duchamp walking down a flight of stairs in a multiple exposure image reminiscent of his famous painting "Nude Descending a Staircase." (Photo by Eliot Elisofon/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

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The Nobel Prize in Literature: Portraits of Legendary Laureates

Wallis and Edward: Reassessing the Windsors’ “Romance of the Century”

Might as Well Jump: LIFE Cover Portraits by Philippe Halsman

Classic Photos of People Watching TV

Dick Clark: The Unlikely Impressario

LIFE at the Oscars: Classic Photos From Hollywood’s Biggest Night

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Sophia, Marcello and a Movie Set to Remember

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