Page 22 – LIFE

The Hot Rod Life

April 2, 2024 by Bill Syken

The world of hot rods and drag racing has its romance, but it has its dark side as well. Recent high-profile incidents—such as one involving football star Jalen Carter—show that the pastime is one which courts peril and even death.

The thrills and the dangers were both acknowledged when LIFE took a deep dive on drag racing in a 1957 cover story. The photos capture the charm of a sport in which people take cars and soup them up and see how fast they can go. It’s the essence of an age in which people were deeply connected to their cars, seeing what they drove as an expression of self and of a newfound mobility, rather than just a way to get from point A to point B. Many of the photos in this gallery are by the great Ralph Crane, but it also includes other drag racing images from LIFE photographers Frank Scherschel, N.R. Farbman, Grey Villet and Loomis Dean are either from that story or other instances in that decade when LIFE sent its photographers to document the hot rod life.

The 1957 magazine story was headlined “The Drag Racing Rage: Hot-rodders Numbers Grow But Road to Respectability is a Rough One,” and the nine-page package talked about how drag-raching was going to backroads amusement/hazard to a controlled sport, with a growing number of fans clamoring to see these races that lasted as little as ten seconds.

But not everyone was happy about it. “Safety groups and some police officials feel that the glorification of speed on the strips infects the teenagers with a fatal spirit of derring-do on the highways,” LIFE wrote. The story reported that police chiefs had voted to condemn drag racing at a gathering in Chicago, as had the National Safety Council.

Despite the dangers, the sport carried on, and it still does. These photos are a monument to a time when drag racing was born, and car culture was at its peak.

Competitors sitting on top of cars during drag race in Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People watching cars drag racing in Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A drag race competition, Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A team of men push a car at a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) sponsored drag race held at the Orange County Airport, Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two uniformed men stand beside hot rods at Santa Ana Drags, the first drag strip in the US, Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes of drag racing (and drag racing cars) in Minneapolis, 1957.

Frank Scherschel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A hot rodder tuned up his Model T Ford before a race at a drag strip in Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock

It’s a concern that carries on today. Even as it’s hard to deny that the photos of the world and its enthusiasts all looks pretty cool, as it takes you back to a place and time when car culture was at its peak.

Men praying during drag racing in San Francisco, California, April 1957.

Nat Farbman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A man prepared his hot rod for large drag race, California, March 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In the parking lot of a drive-in, an unidentified carhop serves a tray of food to hot rod owner Norm Grabowsky, who sits with a friend in his customized Ford with a Cadillac engine, as a large group of other admire the car, Santa Ana, California, 1957.

Arthur Schatz/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A drag race begins, 1957.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hot Rodders drag raced in the L.A. River, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A drag race, 1957.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men working on a chromed roadster in preparation for a drag race in California, 1957.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men cleaning their hot rod, 1953.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a 1953 story on hot rods and hot-rod accessories.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Drag racing in Moline, Illinois, 1957.

Grey Villet/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Hillary Clinton Learned About Strong Women “By Reading LIFE”

March 28, 2024 by Bill Syken

At an event at the New York Public Library on March 27, 2024, Hillary Clinton was asked about the women she admired when she was growing up. And she talked about how she had been reflecting with a friend recently that when she was going to school in the 1950s and ’60s, she wasn’t taught much about women in history, with figures such as Joan of Arc or Martha Washington being the rare exceptions.

Her primary source for learning about accomplished women, she said, was the pages of LIFE.

Here’s how the former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady explained it to a packed house at the library (Ms. Clinton’s entire, wide-ranging conversation with author Jennifer Weiner can be viewed here, with Clinton’s comment about LIFE coming at the one-hour mark):

“I learned about women not in school but by reading LIFE magazine every week. And you have to be of a certain age. But that magazine would come to my house every week, and it was a big magazine with great photographs in it, and I’d come home from school and it would be sitting there on the table, and I would read it faithfully. And that’s where I learned about Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Margaret Chase-Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, I mean… Maria Tallchief. I had a lot of exposure to women who I read about and really admired by reading in the magazines.”

While Ms. Clinton talked about LIFE, she did not mention that the magazine was where she just so happened to make her first national splash, when she was an undergraduate at Wellesley and she included in a 1969 story about students’ college commencement speeches. (You can see young Hillary’s commencement speech here.)

This gallery includes images from when she appeared in the magazine herself, and also photos of the women that she learned about as a reader of LIFE.

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, shown on the day she announced her 1964 candidacy for president at the Women’s National Press Club, was the first woman to have her name placed into nomination at the convention of a major party.

Francis Miller/Life Photo Collection/Shutterstock

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, spoke with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during a Senate committee meeting, 1957.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt walks with children en route to a picnic, 1948.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Eleanor Roosevelt addressed delegates at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, where she supported Illinois’ Adlai Stevenson over the party’s eventual nominee, John F. Kennedy.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eleanor Roosevelt talking to another UN delegate near a mural by artist Fernand Leger, 1952.

Lisa Larsen/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock© Meredith Corporation

Portrait of LIFE’s first hired and first female staff photographer, Margaret Bourke-White. She was on assignment in Algeria, standing in front of Flying Fortress bomber in which she made combat mission photographs of the U.S. attack on Tunis, 1943.

(Margaret Bourke-White/ LIFE Picture Collection /Shutterstock)

Margaret Bourke-White with her camera during her later years, when the LIFE staff photographer was struggling with Parkinson’s disease.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ballerina Maria Tallchief (right) performing the Nutcracker Ballet at New York’s City Center, 1954.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maria Tallchief in rehearsal for ” Swan Lake,” 1963.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ballerina Maria Tallchief performing in Swan Lake, 1963.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Aviator Amelia Earhart in 1932, five years before her plane disappeared in the Pacific.

Life Photo Collection

Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969.

Lee Balterman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reality Radio Challenge: Keeping Your Mouth Shut For $1000

March 26, 2024 by Bill Syken

People have been known to do some crazy things on reality television, but rest assured, it’s not an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, stunts like this were happening back when most Americans got their entertainment from the radio.

In 1948 LIFE wrote about one such stunt, taken on by Virginia Taylor of Pasadena. She went a week without talking in order to win $1,000. While that sounds manageable enough—these days people pay good money to go on silent retreats and not speak for that long—the show that ran the contest, People Are Funny, escalated the drama with another condition. Taylor would be monitored for the week by a young actress who would be living in the Taylor home—one who could talk to her husband when she could not.

And the actress sounded like she was ready to have fun with it. Here is how LIFE’s described the contest in its Jan. 17, 1949 issue:

The week of Dec. 14 to 21 was a grueling one for Mrs. Charles R. Taylor of Pasadena, California. Radio’s give-away craze, so desperate that recently everything from Adolphe Menjou to $1,000 worth of books has been pressed on winners, made her the victim of its most frantic stunt to date. If Mrs. Taylor could refrain from talking for the entire week, the program People Are Funny would pay her $1,000. But if so much as one word passed her lips, the $1,000 would go to a very attractive movie bit player, Maralyn Peterson, whom the program had sent not only to keep tabs on Mrs. Taylor but also to entertain Mr. Taylor. “This’ll be a snap,” said Maralyn beforehand, “and besides I’ve brought along a black silk neglige.”

Yes, that’s right, she was bringing a black negligee. One can imagine how that detail sparked the imaginations of listeners to this popular show—a slinky temptress gads about while the housewife must hold her tongue!

LIFE staff photographer Peter Stackpole was there to document the week, and while negligee was nowhere to be seen, he did capture a couple photos of the actress chatting up the husband while Virginia Taylor say by looking helpless. Stackpole’s photos from Taylor’s week of silence also showed her being teased by family members, communicating with a chalkboard, and, strangely enough, taking the stage with her church choir but keeping silent all the while. LIFE said “her narrowest escape was when she almost began singing in church.”

For her week of silenece was rewarded with “two crisp $500 bills,” LIFE wrote. Peterson earned $150 for playing the apple in the garden of Eden. Stackpole’s photos showed the two women “burying the hatchet” afterward and celebrating their bounty.

Taylor’s first words after winning: “I can’t think of a thing to say.”

Virginia Taylor wore tape on her mouth (which she would later take off) during the first day of a challenge in which she stayed silent for a week to win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock948.

Marilyn Peterson (right) lived in the home of Virginia Taylor to see if Mrs. Taylor could keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) sat quietly in a beauty shop while attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right), who was trying to keep silent for a week to win $1000 from a radio show, sat by while her husband got to know Maralyn Peterson, the actress that the radio show People Are Funny had assigned to shadow the Taylors and monitor Virginia’s silence, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) wrote messages for Marilyn Peterson to relay on phone; Mrs. Taylor was attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, while Peterson was her monitor,1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) communicated with a door-to-door saleswoman using a slate and chalk during her attempt to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (center) read the newspaper sulkily in the background while husband Charles chatted with Marilyn Peterson, an actress who was living with the couple to make sure Mrs. Taylor remained silent for one week while attempting to win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) resisted the temptation to talk to fellow church members during her efforts to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (second from left) in church while attempting to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (right) was teased by relatives during her efforts to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor tried to deal with her nephew without talking while she was trying to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (left) communicated with her husband, a plumbing salesman, using sign language during her attempt to keep silent for one week and win $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny, 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Art Linkletter (center) with Virginia Taylor (right) during his radio program People Are Funny, for which he challenged her to stay silent for a week in order to win $1,000 in 1948.

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Taylor (center), her husband (right) and Marilyn Peterson celebrated after Mrs. Taylor won $1000 from Art Linkletter’s radio program People Are Funny for keeping silent for one week, 1948. LIFE described this scene as Taylor and Peterson “burying the hatchet.”

Peter Stackpole/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Greer: The Actress Whose Career Howard Hughes Tried to Quash

March 22, 2024 by Bill Syken

In 1947 Jane Greer starred opposite Robert Mitchum in the film noir classic Out of the Past, and the success of that film helped earn her a place on the cover of LIFE. That movie was a crowning moments of a career that had elements of a film noir story on its own.

The actress, born Bettyjane Greer, had actually been in LIFE magazine twice before that ’47 cover. In 1942 she appeared, unnamed, as one of three women modeling the uniforms of the W.A.A.C.s, the new all-female military unit that came into being during World War II. She got the modeling job because her mother worked in the War Department. The very businesslike picture, included in this story, is not the sort of photograph that you would necessarily expect to draw attention to a young woman—but it hit the radar of singer Rudy Vallee. According to the magazine, Vallee “tried unsuccessfully to worm Miss Greer’s address out of LIFE.” He did connect with Greer eventually when she came to Hollywood, resulting in a brief marriage between the two. She and Vallee separated after three months. The uniform modeling job, which also made it to newsreels, had led to a screen test with David O. Selznick, reported LIFE. But “Miss Greer signed up elsewhere, however—with Howard Hughes.”

In its 1947 story LIFE described her audition for Hughes:

She prepared for her first interview with Mr. Hughes by carefully learning the script with which she had heard he tested all aspiring stars. It was a comedy, The Awful Truth, and, because Howard Hughes is a little deaf, Miss Greer read it at the top of her lungs.

Hughes was charmed. And this is when the noir aspects of Greer’s story really took hold. Greer not only signed with Hughes but for time was in a relationship with the eccentric billionaire. She eventually bought her way out of Hughes’ contract and caught on with RKO. LIFE wrote about Greer again for a story about starlets in training, and that studio soon gave Greer the female lead in Out of the Past. By that time she was also married to attorney Edward Lasker, and seemingly set up for superstardom.

But then who should come out of Greer’s past but Howard Hughes, now feeling jealous toward Greer. He bought RKO, which meant that Hughes now controlled her contract. “He said to me, while you are under contract to me, you will never work,” Greer recounted in an interview decades later. “And I said, `But that will be the end of my career.’ And he said, “I guess it will, won’t it?”

Hughes didn’t completely end her career, but he put a damper on it at a time she should have been reaching new heights. Eventually Greer got herself out of her RKO contract and returned to regular work, including multiple appearances in the 1950s on The Ford Television Theatre. And she enjoyed a late-career revival in the 1980s, including an appearance in Against All Odds, the 1984 remake of Out of the Past that starred Jeff Bridges and featured Greer as the mother of the movie’s female lead, played by Rachel Ward. Greer also had a six-episode run on the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest, and appeared in three episodes of the David Lynch television show Twin Peaks.

She died in 2001 of complications from cancer, just shy of her 77th birthday.

Jane Greer modeled the uniforms for the new WAAC units in LIFE, 1942.

Charles Steinheimer/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This montage was the opening photo of a LIFE story on actress Jane Greer in a 1947 issue of LIFE; the caption said that she was “dreaming that she is pursued by the men she has been bumping off all day on the movie set.”

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jane Greer (C) performing in scene from the 1947 movie Out of the Past with actors Steve Brodie (left) and Robert Mitchum.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jane Greer, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jane Greer acting like drunken type, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Greer on set of The Company She Keeps, 1950.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture CollectionShutterstock

Jane Greer (left), with Jeff Bridges and Swoosie Kurtz, costars in the 1984 film Against All Odds, which was a remake of Greer’s 1947 classic Out of the Past.

DMI

What Became of This Rookie Class of RKO Starlets?

March 22, 2024March 20, 2024 by Bill Syken

The mechanics of movie stardom have changed plenty over the years, and a story that ran in LIFE in 1946 gave a window into how things used to be done. Headlined “LIFE Visits With Nine Hopeful Starlets,” the story serves as a snapshot of a bygone system in which studios hired and trained aspiring actresses to—if all went well—appear in their movies.

Here’s how LIFE described the world of these young women, which is something other than a dream:

The nine girls on this page are all movie starlets whom the RKO Studio is paying and training in the hope that it may find one of them to be a new and different version of Katherine Hepburn or Ginger Rogers. Each girl is on a seven-year contract starting at $100 a week, but the studio may terminate the contract every six months.

A starlet leads a life of work and worry—the dedicated and ordered sort of existence enforced on officer candidates in the Army. Usually she knows little about acting and therefore must be instructed. Grooming and posture must be improved. Diction must be changed to remove all trace of local accent.

All the while she worries about getting her contract renewed and about getting publicity. Even more than by schooling she helps herself by getting her picture in newspapers when she is chosen “Miss Poppyseed Roll” by the baker’s association or “The Girl We Would Most Like to Tie Up To” by the docker’s union. Finally comes a real screen test and, in most cases, the ax.

Among the nine starlets who where photographed by LIFE’s Bob Landry, two can be said to have made their mark on the cinema. One was Martha Hyer, who was nominated for an Academy Award for supporting actress for the 1958 drama Some Came Running, which was directed by Vincent Minelli and also starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine.

Then there’s Jane Greer, who came to RKO as the ex-wife of singer Rudy Vallee (they married when she was 19 and divorced eight months later), and had actually been in LIFE before, in 1942, when she modeled a WAAC uniform. Greer went on to earn a leading role in the 1947 noir classic Out of The Past opposite Robert Mitchum, but then her career went on standstill for a while after RKO was bought by billionaire Howard Hughes, her former lover. (For more on Greer and that drama, see this story). Greer eventually moved on from RKO, and her career had a late second wind that included appearing in Against All Odds, the 1984 remake of Out of the Past, and also three episodes of the David Lynch TV show Twin Peaks.

The results for the other starlets were mixed at best. Nan Lesilie worked plenty, with 82 IMDB credits from movies and television. Virginia Huston who was heavily featured in the LIFE pics, appeared in Out of the Past with Greer, and wound up with about a dozen credits in her film career. Nancy Saunders had a lead role in the 1947 crime drama The Millerson Case, and after a dormant period she collected some relatively recent credits, including appearing as a landlady in an episode of Dawson’s Creek.

Vonne Lester had 11 roles but only one credited, when she played a messenger girl in the TV version of The Thin Man. Debra Alden had one credit, 1947’s Code of the West. Of Mimi Berry’s four roles, three were uncredited. Bonnie Blair‘s career had a similar fate.

As the LIFE’s story made clear, success for such starlets was more the exception than the rule. The process in Hollywood has changed a great deal since 1946, but one constant remains: it’s tough to make it as an actress.

RKO Studio starlets Nancy Saunders, Debra Alden, Virginia Huston (top row, left to righ)t; Martha Hyer, Mimi Berry, and Bonnie Blair (middle row, left to right); and Vonne Lester, Jane Greer and Nan Leslie (bottom row), 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actor Robert Clark (foreground left) and starlet-in-training Virginia Huston (right, foreground) take lessons from a drama coach with other students in the background, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

RKO starlets trained with studio dance director Charlie O’Curran, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hollywood starlets being trained by RKO Studio, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

RKO starlets in training, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hopeful RKO Studio starlet Virginia Huston posed in front of a measurements board, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hopeful RKO starlet Virginia Hoston posing in front of a measurements board, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Huston, RKO starlet, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hopeful RKO Studio starlet Virginia Huston was dressed in an evening gown, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Virginia Huston, RKO starlet, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

RKO starlets-in-training tanned on the studio roof during their lunch hour, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A collection of starlets being trained at RKO Studio, 1946.

Bob Landry/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“DeMille’s Greatest”: Making The Ten Commandments

March 15, 2024 by Bill Syken

The seasonal favorite The Ten Commandments was a crowning achievement for Cecil B. DeMille, the master of the Biblical epic. He started his career with a version of the film in 1923, and he returned to the story in the 1956 version, which turned out to be its last film. And what a way to go out— LIFE magazine dubbed it “DeMille’s Greatest” when it wrote about his technicolor telling of the Book of Exodus, starring Charlton Heston in the role of Moses.

“DeMille tells this story sumptuously,” LIFE wrote. “He built a huge set on Egypt’s sands—the gates of Per-Rameses and a 16-sphinx avenue—that drew more tourists than Giza’s single sphinx….The result is a film of reverent and massive significance.”

LIFE’s Ralph Crane went to Egypt to capture the scale of this grand production, and his pictures show what it took to make a big movie in the days before digital effects. (Though of course the film is remembered in part for a scene that did require special effects, however old school, the parting of the Red Sea. DeMille filmed that sequence back in Hollywood and used shots of pouring water in reverse to create the illusion of seawater pushed aside by the hand of God.) Plenty about this film required extraordinary effort, as can be seen in Crane’s shots of the massive sets and the hordes of extras—not to mention the caring of the many horses needed for the chariot scenes.

Another LIFE.com story shows captures a more intimate moment from this film, with baby Moses in the rushes—it was Heston’s son in the crib. Those moments great and small help make DeMille’s masterpiece one that families keep coming back to.

Charlton Heston (lower right), playing Moses, in a scene from the 1956 biblical epic ‘The Ten Commandments,’ directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Egypt.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Charlton Heston, playing Moses, in a scene from the the 1956 biblical epic ‘The Ten Commandments.’ directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Egypt.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock