Footages of Pope Leo XIII, the Earliest-Born Person Recorded on Film

Leo XIII was the Pope when the motion picture camera was invented, and it wasn’t too long before he consented to being filmed. Within a few years, not only would he appear in this movie, but in a series for Biograph. This remains, interestingly, the first time a Pope was filmed. Despite claims that people feared cameras would steal their souls or that the images of trains on screen would send people rushing for the exits, movies were accepted and adopted very quickly, seen as a way of bringing images and messages to people in a way that even the printed word could not; many could not read, but few could not see.

Leo XIII, who was born in 1810 and was thus 86 years old in 1896, is considered the earliest-born person ever to be captured on film.

It’s long been believed that they were recorded in the Vatican gardens by early Italian filmmaker Vittorio Calcina, who was a colleague of the legendary French brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière. Drawing on Vatican archival material, however, Italian historian Gianluca Della Maggiore has shown that William Kennedy Laurie Dickson actually shot the images on behalf of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which had been founded in the United States the year before and was the first company in the country devoted entirely to film production and exhibition.

Dickson, who had been born in Brittany, France, to British-American parents, relocated to the United States in 1879 at the age of 19 and found a job with famed inventor Thomas Edison, working on early versions of the motion picture camera. Eventually he left Edison’s group and joined the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he was assigned the project of filming the pope.

Della Maggiore found a handwritten letter in the Vatican archives from then-Monsignor Francesco Salesio Della Volpe, a papal aide who would later go on to become a cardinal, addressed to then-Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli, the apostolic delegate to the United States, who would also eventually become a cardinal. In the latter, Della Volpe provided details on the three filming sessions Dickson conducted with Pope Leo XIII in June and July of 1896.

Among other things, Pope Leo XIII blessed the Biograph camera used by Dickson to record the images, marking the first time a pope blessed a motion picture device. The brief video is made up of three segments: Pope Leo XIII on a throne in the Vatican gardens, the pontiff arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, and then Leo XIII taking a seat on a bench flanked by aides.

According to Della Maggiore, subsequent references to Dickson were omitted from Vatican accounts of the filming, in large part because of irritation with what was seen as the inappropriate commercial exploitation of the images, including exhibitions at fairs and other settings in which other, raunchier films were also shown.

In a largely forgotten 1901 essay for Royal magazine, Dickson briefly described his experience in the Vatican.

“I found the pope a most lovable man, and owe much to his kindness,” Dickson wrote. “He took a great interest in the pictures, and on one occasion, having received some prints from London, I showed them to him. He was delighted, and exclaimed ‘Wonderful! Wonderful! See me blessing!’”

Dickson added that “none of the views may be shown in a place of secular amusement, nor without the authority of the Church,” the conditions upon which the Vatican would later remove Dickson and his American company from the equation.

(via Crux)

20 Photos of George Clooney in the 1990s

George Clooney made his debut starring in minor TV shows in the 1980s, but really came to fame with his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the hit medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. After leaving the series in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the 6th season and returned for a guest spot in the show’s final season. For his work on the series, Clooney received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1995 and 1996. He also earned three Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1995, 1996, and 1997.

Clooney began appearing in films while working on ER. His first major Hollywood role was in the horror comedy-crime thriller From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-starring Harvey Keitel. He followed its success with the romantic comedy One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer, and the action-thriller The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman. In 1998, he co-starred in the crime-comedy Out of Sight opposite Jennifer Lopez, marking the first of his many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER.

After leaving ER, Clooney starred in commercially successful films including Wolfgang Petersen’s disaster film The Perfect Storm (2000) which was a box office success. The same year he starred in the Coen brothers adventure comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). The film, a modern satire, is loosely based on Homer’s epic Greek poem the Odyssey and the Preston Sturges 1941 classic film Sullivan’s Travels. This film is set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. He plays escaped convict Ulysses Everett McGill. He received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination for his performance. Variety critic Todd McCarthy compared Clooney to Clark Gable, writing: “Not for the first time recalling Clark Gable in his looks and line delivery, Clooney clearly delights in embellishing Everett’s vanity and in delivering the Coens’ carefully calibrated, high-toned dialogue.”

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These Amazing Vehicles Painted by Keith Haring

When he wasn’t making erotic graffiti or iconic T-shirt designs, Keith Haring also applied his unforgettable style to cars. Haring had a deep fascination with cars, seeing them as dynamic, moving canvases that could bring art into everyday life. His love for street culture and art accessibility drove him to paint on unconventional surfaces to mend the gap between fine art and pop culture.

One of Haring’s most famous painted vehicles is the BMW Z1, which he decorated in his signature graffiti style. Unlike other BMW Art Car collaborators (like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein), Haring’s version wasn’t part of the official BMW Art Car program—it was more of a personal project, done with enthusiasm for transforming a car into a moving sculpture.

Haring painted several vehicles throughout his career, including a Land Rover, a Buick, and even a Volkswagen Beetle, usually for art events, friends, or charitable causes. In many cases, the cars were painted live at public events, emphasizing Haring’s philosophy of art for all and art in motion.

Haring saw cars as democratic art surfaces, aligning with his goal to make art accessible beyond gallery walls. He believed art should live in the streets and in everyday life—hence, painting cars allowed his work to “travel.”

His car canvases are adorned with dancing figures, barking dogs, radiant babies, and interlocking shapes—visual motifs that carry through much of his work. The designs were often painted directly onto the surface of the car with bold black lines and vivid color blocks.

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Betty Brosmer: 1950s Hourglass Icon of Beauty and Glamor

Betty Brosmer, 1950s pin-up queen and early supermodel, flaunted the iconic ‘hourglass figure’ in magazines like Life and Time, making her the highest-earning pin-up star of her time. Not just a beauty, she owned the rights to her photos a groundbreaking move in the industry.

Known as ‘The Girl with the Impossible Waist,’ her tiny waist defied norms and sparked fascination. Starting as a teenage model, Betty later embraced fitness, co-authoring bodybuilding guides with husband Joe Weider, a prominent figure in the fitness world.

Take a look at these stunning photos to see the beauty of a young Betty Brosmer in the 1950s.

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The First Lady of Country Music: 30 Vintage Photos of Tammy Wynette in the 1960s and 1970s

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Tammy Wynette was one of the creative, unique, and defining stylists and songwriters articulating women’s perspectives with an autobiographical slant that made her life as much an object of audience interest as her music.

Born Virginia Wynette Pugh on May 5, 1942, on a cotton farm in Itawamba County, Mississippi, she spent her youth picking cotton, working as a beautician, a waitress, and a shoe-factory employee before her rise to stardom.

By age seven, Tammy was working the cotton fields along with other relatives on the family farm. Her father’s legacy – a piano, a guitar and the dream that his daughter would make music her life – became her only escape from the dull, arduous routine of farm life. She endured long, backbreaking hours in the cotton fields by daydreaming of singing before thousands of people. Years later, Tammy would still keep a crystal bowl full of cotton in her home to remind her of these meager beginnings.

As a teenage bride she found times even harder than she’d known at home. She had two children within three years and her husband, an itinerant construction worker, was unemployed more often than not. They were finally forced to move into an abandoned log house with no indoor plumbing.

Fed up with poverty and worn out from the drudgery of her life, Tammy enrolled in beauty school in nearby Tupelo, funding her schooling with money given to her by her mother. After becoming a beautician, Tammy moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she gave birth to a third daughter, a 1 lb. 8 oz. premature baby who suffered a near-fatal bout with spinal meningitis before she was four months old. Her shaky marriage crumbled, and while getting a divorce she worked 10 hour days as a hairdresser, after getting up at 4 a.m. each day to sing on the local “Country Boy Eddie” TV show.

Beginning in 1965 she began making regular trips to Nashville meeting producers and trying to attain a recording contract. In 1966, after months of rejections and on the brink of giving up, she made the daring decision to move to Nashville anyway. She had no job, no place to live, and three small children totally dependent on her.

She eventually auditioned for Epic records producer Billy Sherrill who signed her and changed her stage name to Tammy. Her first single, “Apartment #9,” was released within weeks, hitting the charts almost as soon as it hit the record racks. Her next 11 albums went to number one and within four short years, Tammy had won two Grammys and three CMA “Female Vocalist of the Year” awards.

From a naïve farm girl totally unfamiliar with the music business to one of the most recognizable voices in country music, she went on to sell more than 30 million records, grossing more than $100 million. Her recording of “Stand By Your Man” is still the biggest selling single in the history of country music. Her releases have made the number one position on the charts some 20 times and she was the first female Country artist to sell a million albums.

No other female country singer conveyed the emotion of heartbreak like Tammy Wynette. She endeared herself to millions by singing about topics of everyday life – divorce, loneliness, parenting, passion. Her tearful singing style was the voice of every heartbreak a woman has ever known. Perhaps it’s that Tammy herself lived through such tumultuous times that she could convey the emotion of such weighty topics.

Like her career, Tammy’s personal life filled the papers. In 1968 she married her idol, George Jones, creating a union that captured the imaginations of country music fans like no other couple before them. For the next seven years they lived, sang, wrote, recorded and performed in a romantic, stormy and much-publicized relationship that ultimately brought Tammy more headlines than happiness. Jones’ drinking sprees were almost as legendary as his music, and it was this problem that eventually destroyed the marriage. They had one child, Tamala Georgette, born in 1970.

On July 6, 1978, she finally found lasting happiness when she married her longtime friend, George Richey. The well-known songwriter had co-written several of Tammy’s chart toppers and produced hits for Tammy and many other artists.

Throughout the next two decades Tammy suffered a variety of health problems and underwent several operations. Still, she managed to rise to the top of the international charts once again when she teamed with British pop act KLF to create the dance hit “Justified and Ancient.” She continued her streak when she joined forces with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn on their landmark album, “Honky Tonk Angels.”

Eventually her poor health caught up to her. Tammy passed away in her sleep at her home in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, April 6, 1998. Three days later fans and members of the music industry honored her with a world-wide televised memorial service broadcast from Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Later that year, Wynette was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Amazing Steam Locomotive Photos From 1950s America

Steam locomotives powered American railroads from the early 1800s to the mid-20th century. They played a vital role in westward expansion, industrial growth, and wartime logistics. Known for their power and iconic design, steam engines were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives starting in the 1940s.

The 1950s marked the decline of steam locomotives in the United States as railroads rapidly transitioned to diesel power. While steam engines like the 4-8-4 Northerns, 2-8-4 Berkshires, and Union Pacific’s massive 4-8-8-4 Big Boys were still in use early in the decade, diesel locomotives proved more efficient, easier to maintain, and more cost-effective.

By the mid-to-late 1950s, most major railroads had fully dieselized, and steam locomotives were largely retired, ending a defining era of American railroading. Below is a collection of amazing photos from Steve Given, showcasing steam locomotives in the U.S. during the 1950s.

Chicago & Illinois Midland Railroad, Engine C&IM 551, Pekin, Illinois, April 1950

Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad, Engine CB&Q 5145, Gibson, Nebraska, May 6, 1950

Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, Engine CRI&P 2592, Chicago, Illinois, August 26, 1950

New York Central Railroad, Engine NYC 2778, East Syracuse, New York, June 11, 1950

Road Name Illinois Central, Engine IC 3515, Freeport, Illinois, September 3, 1950

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20 Fascinating Photos of Young Lisa Eilbacher in the 1970s and 1980s

Lisa Marie Eilbacher (born May 5, 1956) is a retired American actress known for her work in film and television during the 1970s and 1980s. She was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to an American oil company executive and spent her early years in Paris before moving to Beverly Hills, California.

Eilbacher began acting as a child, appearing in popular TV shows such as My Three Sons, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Brady Bunch. She transitioned into adult roles in the 1970s, including appearances in The Amazing Spider-Man and the TV movie Bad Ronald (1974).

In 1981, she starred in the television film This House Possessed with Parker Stevenson, with whom she worked on The Hardy Boys Mysteries. That year she acted in Lee Philips’s film On the Right Track starring television star Gary Coleman. Some reviews concluded that it was sappy and capitalizing on Coleman’s TV following, many found the film charming, well written, and well acted. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, felt she stood out by saying it “is Coleman's picture, but its unexpected pleasure is Eilbacher.”

Eilbacher is best known for her roles in two 1980s films: An Officer and a Gentleman and Beverly Hills Cop. Eilbacher was also featured in the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War, playing Madeleine Henry. In 1985, she co-starred with Holland Taylor in the ABC detective series Me and Mom. Below is a selection of 20 fascinating photos of a young and beautiful Lisa Eilbacher in the 1970s and 1980s:

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