Page 90 – LIFE

19 Hollywood Stars Who Never Won an Oscar

February 8, 2022January 15, 2015 by

When Oscar nominations are announced every year, the conversation turns quickly from who got nominated to who got snubbed. And people tend to react with more indignation over who’s missing than in celebration of who’s been recognized.

But the snub has been around since long before the age of Internet outrage, when gossip was relegated to soda fountains and opinions took days to make it from type-written notes to a Letters to the Editor page. And although we tend to associate Hollywood’s biggest stars with that bald, naked mini-man of gold, many of history’s most remembered actors and actresses never got their hands on a statuette.

On the actresses’ side, Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner and Dorothy Dandridge had to settle for nominations alone. Perhaps Natalie Wood and Jayne Mansfield would have been recognized eventually, had their lives not been cut so tragically short. Some actresses gave up a great deal for the roles that would leave them empty-handed. Janet Leigh, who was nominated for Psycho but didn’t win, spent the rest of her life afraid of the shower.

Among their male counterparts, things weren’t all bad. Richard Burton, nominated seven times for films including Becket (1964) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), was one of the highest-paid actors in the world at his peak. Peter Sellers, born in England, could take comfort in his two wins at the BAFTAs, Oscar’s cousin across the pond. And Steve McQueen could wipe his tears of dejection on that clean white t-shirt, though many, to be sure, preferred him without one at all.

Many repeated oversights were corrected, if not fully, with honorary Academy Awards doled out to stars in their golden years, although none of the actors and actresses pictured above even received one of those. For them, alas, money, fame, and a place in the annals of history would just have to suffice.

Natalie Wood, who received three nominations. Pictured at the Cannes FIlm Festival, 1962.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen, who was nominated once. Pictured here during motorcycle racing across the Mojave Desert, 1963.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rita Hayworth, 1945.

Bob Landry (The LIFE Picture Collection)

Jayne Mansfield, who was never nominated, though she once played violin in an orchestra performance at the Oscars. Pictured here posing with shapely hot water bottle likenesses floating around her in her pool, 1957.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Burton, who was nominated seven times. Pictured relaxing with a book in Cantina while on location filming The Night of the Iguana, 1963.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Erroll Flynn, who was never nominated. Pictured aboard his yacht Sirocco, 1941.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lena Horne, shown here in Paris in 1947, was never nominated for an Oscar, though she was honored with a tribute at the 2011 Academy Awards.

Yale Joel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kim Novak, who was never nominated, though she presented at the 2014 awards. Pictured in the movie Jeanne Eagels, 1957.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tony Curtis, who was nominated once. Pictured with his Rolls Royce, 1961.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Montgomery Clift, who was nominated four times. Pictired in Red River, 1948.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lana Turner, who was nominated once. Pictured here with John Garfield on Laguna Beach in a scene from The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1945.

Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dorothy Dandridge, who was nominated once, becoming the first African-American to be nominated for a leading role (1955). Pictured posing in costume for Tarzan’s Peril, 1951.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who was never nominated. Pictured in Sinbad, 1946.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter Sellers, played the piano at home with his wife, Britt Ekland, in Beverly Hills, 1964.

Allan Grant The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Marlene Dietrich, who was nominated once. Pictured in evening dress and hat during Pierre Ball, 1928.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ava Gardner, who was nominated once. Pictured in One Touch of Venus, 1948.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Janet Leigh, who was nominated once. Pictured posing in costume for Jet Pilot, 1950.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Walker, who was never nominated. Pictured riding a tricycle with his two sons, 1943.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Van Johnson, who was never nominated. Pictured duck hunting in a scene from the movie Early to Bed, 1945.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

See Photos of Maggie Smith Before Her Downton Days

August 22, 2025January 2, 2015 by

Maggie Smith was new to many American cinema audiences when she won an Oscar for her role in 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but these days she’s got one of the best-known faces on the big screen and the small one, where she’ll pick up her fan-favorite Downton Abbey role, as the Dowager Countess of Grantham, when the show returns for U.S. viewers on Jan. 4.

With Jean Brodie fresh in readers’ minds and Smith appearing with her then-husband Robert Stephens in a Los Angeles production of the play Design for Living, LIFE Magazine sent a reporter to profile Smith and Stephens. And, it turned out, much of the story focused on that now-famous face. “Maggie Smith, 36, had grown up believing she was ugly, and could only succeed as a comedienne. In fact, her distinctive face and style made her a natural scene-stealer in her early movies (The VIPs, Young Cassidy), which paved the way for greater triumphs,” the July 16, 1971, story read.

In the interview, Smith confesses that she still feels that her looks are unusual for a film star, and that the make-up crew always fusses a little too much about her under-eye bags, but that she’s old enough and successful enough for it not to matter. And, in saying so, she demonstrates that the Dowager Countess isn’t the only one who has a way with a witty rejoinder: “Some aphorist once said that nobody has the right to be shy over the age of 25 and that applies to me.”

Plus, points out Stephens, she’s not the only actress to find success despite her own insecurities about her face. Shirley MacLaine, for example, he says, “has always been worried about her eyes being too small and too close together” and that didn’t hold her back. In fact, she’s still going strong. Case in point: She’s frequently guest-starred on Downton Abbey, opposite Maggie Smith.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, 1971

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith, 1971

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, 1971

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, 1971

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens and their children

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, 1971

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Denholm Elliot, Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, 1971

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maggie Smith and her children Christopher and Toby

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sinatra at His Home Bar, and More: Intimate Photos Of a Legend

March 14, 2025December 8, 2014 by

Of all the superstars who helped shape and define popular culture in the 20th century, few lasted as long in the spotlight and even fewer were as enigmatic as Francis Albert Sinatra.

Across seven decades, the skinny, big-eared kid from Jersey who grew up to be the Chairman of the Board influenced generations of singers, musicians and fedora-topped hepcats; triumphed on stage, in the movies (winning an Oscar for his performance in From Here to Eternity) and on TV; and crafted a public persona so indelible that, even today, the image of a figure in a tux, alone on stage, drink in one hand, mic in the other, smoke swirling in the spotlight that image likely evokes for millions of fans the man known, simply, as The Voice.

In 1965, the year Sinatra turned 50, LIFE photographer John Dominis and editor Thomas Thompson were, as the magazine put it, “permitted” to spend time with the singer and his crew friends, family, cohorts, fellow performers for a cover story the magazine hoped to run. The result was a remarkable window into the man’s closely and famously guarded private world, as well as Sinatra’s own take on his celebrity and his music. Here, LIFE.com presents photos by Dominis that ran in that cover story, as well as many others that were not published in LIFE. One such unpublished photo, of Sinatra at his home mixing himself a drink at his home bar, has become one of the best-sellers in the LIFE print store.

In the introduction to the huge, 16-page feature in its April 23, 1965 issue, “The Private World and Thoughts of Frank Sinatra,” LIFE took pains to make clear that the man, 25 years into his career as a performer, was as volatile and as deeply, weirdly inscrutable as he’d ever been:

The kid with the high-pitched voice that came out of the throat wrapped in the floppy bow tie is going to be 50 this year and Frank Sinatra remains the most controversial, powerful and surprising entertainer around. He is a man who will angrily throw an over-cooked hamburger at his valet or an ashtray at an inept assistant and yet never fires anyone from his huge staff of aides and hangers-on. He will spend 10 minutes of his nightclub act attacking a woman columnist so venomously that the audience gasps and will send $100,000 to a Los Angeles college with the strict instructions that the gift not be made public. He sneers “Charley brown shoes” at people he thinks are squares and always says “thank you” when someone asks for his autograph. He is the legendary ladies’ man and he says he has flunked out with women. He cannot read music, yet he has taken popular singing and made of it an art. He is the finest living singer of popular songs, an astonishingly good actor, an ambitious director, a shrewd businessman. . . .

Sinatra contributed memorable insights about his singing technique, the peers he loves (and those he doesn’t like so much) and more to the centerpiece of the feature a long article, titled “Me and My Music” that, LIFE told its readers, “Sinatra himself wrote.” Among the gems in the piece:

It was my idea [in my mid-20s] to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or a violin not sounding like them, but “playing” like those instruments. The first thing I needed was extraordinary breath control, which I didn’t have. I began swimming every chance I got in public pools taking laps under water and thinking song lyrics to myself as I swam, holding my breath.

One thing that was tremendously important was learning the use of a microphone. Many singers never learned to use one. They never understood, and still don’t, that a microphone is their instrument…. [Instead] of playing a saxophone, they’re playing a microphone.

I don’t read a note of music. I learn songs by having them played for me a couple of times while I read the lyrics. I can pick up the melody very quickly. I learn the lyrics by writing them out in long hand. When I get a new song, I look for continuity of melody that in itself will tell a musical story. It must go somewhere. I don’t like it to ramble. And then, by the same token, I like almost the same thing more, as a matter of fact in the lyrics. They must tell you a complete story, from “once upon a time” to “the end.”

For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business, the best exponent of a song. He excites me when I watch him he moves me. Vic Damone has better pipes than anybody, but he lacks the know-how or whatever you want to call it. Take Lena Horne, for example, a beautiful lady but really a mechanical singer. She gimmicks up a song, makes it too pat. . . .

And on he goes, following his thoughts to conclusions that feel right, allowing him to say all he wanted to say just as, countless times in his career, he found new, unexpected ways to phrase utterly familiar lyrics from the Great American Songbook.

Sinatra died in May 1998, but music critic David Hadju spoke for untold numbers of fans when he wrote, “To hell with the calendar. The day Frank Sinatra dies, the 20th century is over.” Strong words. But in some elemental ways, the further we get from the Chairman’s death, the more apt and prophetic they feel.

The most controversial, powerful and surprising entertainer around.

All these years later, that still sounds about right.

[Buy the LIFE book, The Rat Pack: The Original Bad Boys]

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, was the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Frank Sinatra mixed drinks at the bar in his home, Palm Springs, California, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and his dog, Ringo, at Sinatra’s home in Palm Springs, California, in 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and his parents in Las Vegas in 1965

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra shaving, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and an associate leave Sinatra’s offices on the grounds of Warner Bros. Studios, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra, 1965

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra watches his son on television, 1965

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, 1965

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra rehearsing, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In Miami, where he appeared with Joe E. Lewis for two weeks this year, Frank Sinatra tells his bodyguard, Ed Pucci, that he will clear the table by yanking the cloth off without disturbing the china.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In Miami in 1965, Frank Sinatra tosses a tablecloth after yanking it from a cluttered tabletop.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In a Miami hotel room Frank Sinatra fell off his chair howling at a joke told by his opening act and longtime friend, comedian Joe E. Lewis, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra backstage with Sammy Davis Jr. and Natalie Wood during Davis’ run on Broadway in the play, Golden Boy, New York, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra backstage, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra in rehearsal, 1965.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra LIFE cover, April 23, 1965

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE Magazine April 23, 1965

LIFE Magazine

Gorgeous Early Polaroids: A LIFE Photographer Plays With the SX-70

January 15, 2020December 7, 2014 by

Instant photography is now, with smartphones, the law of the land and a defining aspect of our digital age. But the phenomenon has pre-digital roots. Polaroid co-founder Edwin H. Land introduced his first “Land Camera” way back in 1947.

His real advance came in 1972, when Polaroid unveiled a marvelous (in every sense of the word) device called the SX-70. That version of the instant camera fully captured the imagination and the attention of photography buffs, industrial design aficionados and pop culture commentators alike. Far from a mere consumer product, the SX-70 quickly became associated with, and in a sense helped to define, the early Seventies.

Self-described gadget-nerd Harry McCracken put the camera’s significance in perspective in a tremendous piece on Land and the SX-70 a few years back. Citing the writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke’s “law” that advanced technology is, at its best, indistinguishable from magic, McCracken wrote that he could not think “of a greater gadget than the SX-70 Land Camera. . . . The sheer magnitude of its ambition and innovation dwarfs the Walkman, iPod, and nearly every other consumer-electronics product you can name.”

Here, LIFE.com pays tribute to Land’s vision and his determination to, as he once put it, “provide an opportunity for creativity that other photography doesn’t allow.”

In the gallery above are pictures made with the first-generation SX-70 by LIFE photographer Co Rentmeester, who experimented with the camera—before it went on sale to the general public—while shooting the cover story on Land for the October 27, 1972, issue of the magazine.

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

A study in motion featuring two dancers from the Joffrey Ballet, made with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of a fashion model, made with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Nude photographed with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wood and flower, photographed with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A farm in Pennsylvania photographed with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dancers photographed from above with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children at a school in Lancaster County, Penn., photographed with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dancers photographed from above with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of a child, made with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Edwin H. Land used one of his own creations, a Polaroid Land Camera, in 1972.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The October 27, 1972 cover of LIFE magazine, featuring Edwin Land.

Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hipsterless Brooklyn: Photos From a Vanished World

February 24, 2020December 7, 2014 by

Brooklyn is big. If it were its own city, and not part of Gotham, its 2.5 million residents would make up the fourth largest metropolis in the United States. Brooklyn covers almost a hundred square miles of intensely varied terrain, from the beaches of Coney Island and Sea Gate to the brownstones of Park Slope and the thronging sidewalks of Williamsburg—a neighborhood filled with stoop-shouldered young men who, evidently, can afford fedoras but have difficulty finding socks, or pants that fit.

There’s cobblestoned Dumbo; the mean streets of East New York; the mansions of Brooklyn Heights; the tree-lined avenues (and, miracle of miracles, driveways) of Ditmas Park; the glories of Prospect Park; the soaring container cranes of Red Hook; the unnameable, party-colored, aromatic ooze of the Gowanus Canal.

The borough boasts countless ethnicities, creeds and religions. It’s somehow wildly bustling and unselfconsciously low-key at the same time. It has given the world memorable phrases (fuhgeddaboudit) and immortal delicacies (the egg cream with no egg and no cream). Brooklyn is cool.

These photos of Brooklyn, made by LIFE’s Ed Clark right after World War II, show something that’s long been elemental to the borough’s enduring appeal: a free-wheeling and unpretentious self-confidence.

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

View of the Manhattan Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with that island across the East River, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Trolley tracks on the corner of Flushing Ave., Graham and Broadway. The last trolleys in Brooklyn stopped running in 1956.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brooklyn, New York 1946

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Corner of Middagh and Hicks, Brooklyn Heights, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jumping rope on Siegel Street near Humboldt, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

City veterans housing project, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brooklyn, New York 1946

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Listening to a Dodgers-Giants ballgame on the radio, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dodgers ballgame, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dodgers fans, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jack Kaufman outside his barber shop on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn in 1946, holding a signed baseball that once beaned future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Subway entrance, Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brooklyn, New York 1946

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On the waterfront, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Moore Street near Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey Boulevard) near Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grocery shopping, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brooklyn, New York 1946

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Under the elevated tracks, Broadway at Lynch, Brooklyn, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Brooklyn Bridge, 1946.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Holiday Jeer: Good-for-Nothing Gifts From Back in the Day

December 10, 2020December 5, 2014 by

In 1953 LIFE featured a number of gifts that, the magazine assured its readers, were far “better to give than to receive.” For our part, after spending a little time with these photos by Yale Joel, we’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that, with one or two exceptions (those velvet glasses acting as a hairnet are kind of cool), these items are preposterous whether one is giving or receiving.

As LIFE noted in its December 7, 1953 issue:

When a sequined $7.50 fly swatter turned out to be one of the best-selling gifts last Christmas (a time of year when flies are rare), department stores were quick to turn its success into a trend. This year the country’s gift counters abound in homely household objects which have been gilded, bedecked with pearls and rhinestones and upped in price. Holiday shoppers whose main object is to pamper the recipient may now choose jeweled back-scratchers which are almost too pretty to use, velvet eyeglasses which are designed to be worn instead of a hat, time-pieces for pets who can not tell time. Here is a selection of this year’s silly Christmas gifts.

Thank goodness we’ve evolved as a society and as individuals to the point where ridiculous and overpriced presents are no longer on anyone’s wish list. Right?

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Sleep mask for light sleepers is satin-edged in gold braid, has gold eyelashes, brows and twinkling rhinestone stars.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “A back-scratcher encrusted with gilt, pearls and sea shells is an expensive adaptation of a standard 39-cent model.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Work gloves with red felt fingernails and a big ring on the wedding finger.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Velvet glasses with net lenses, based on the theory that there are women who wear spectacles to hold their hair back.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Spray gun is coated with gilt and trimmed with bee and flowers, might be used on household pests when company is around.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Swiss watch adorning gold collar, maker says, prompts wearer to bark to go out. Compass in place of watch costs $22.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Leopard print gives a frivolous look to knitted nylon pants and bra. This is a useful notion of the season, being an economical substitute for the expensive fancy lingerie many men like to give as presents. The spots, which make fabric opaque, do not change with washing.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Absurd Christmas Gifts 1953

Caption from LIFE: “Glasses have no lenses, but feature what looks to be a costume jewelry tear-drop dangling from the frame.” (Yale Joel / The LIFE Picture Collection)

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Hipsterless Brooklyn: Photos From a Vanished World

Holiday Jeer: Good-for-Nothing Gifts From Back in the Day

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