"Tough Guy" of Hollywood: 40 Cool Pics of Burt Lancaster in the 1940s and 1950s

Born 1913 in Manhattan, New York, American actor and producer Burt Lancaster was initially known for playing "tough guys", he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles.

Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards, and won once for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960. He also won a Golden Globe Award for that performance and BAFTA Awards for Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Atlantic City (1980).

During the 1950s, his production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was highly successful, making films such as Trapeze (1956), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), and Separate Tables (1958).

Lancaster's acting career ended after he suffered a stroke in 1990, which left him partly paralyzed and largely unable to speak. He died in his apartment in Century City, California, from a third heart attack at in 1994, at the age of 80.

The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

Take a look at these pictures to see a young Burt Lancaster in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Back in the ’50s There Was "Cigarette Psychology" – 9 Ways of Holding Your Cigarette and What It Says About You

Have you ever noticed that cigarette holding style of one person differ from another? Some people prefer holding cigarette between thumb and index figure while others enjoy it holding between index and middle finger. Are these different cigarettes’ holding styles revealing anything about their personality traits? Your guess is absolutely right.

The way a man holds his cigarette — along with such personal gestures as how he walks, sits, his nervous habits and hand motions—is a sure sign of his inner self. This is an article from a 1959 issue of Caper Magazine showing Dr. William Neutra’s analysis of personality, based on how people hold their cigarettes. It helps expose —or of least give a clue to—many otherwise hard-to-dig-up facts needed in treating the patient successfully.

These are seven examples of what Dr. Neutro has found out about men; also, two examples of ways women hold cigarettes. Curiously enough, however, the cigarette psychology doesn’t work on women. According to Dr. Neutro, women are so affected naturally in their regular posture that they’re more often than not too conscious of how they hold a cigarette, and therefore useless as subjects for this experiment.

1. Just a guess for this female mannerism: insecure, afraid to lose that cigarette. She probably holds on to her man like glue.

2. Typical grasp of a female bored with her date. She has to concentrate on the tip to keep from yawning.

3. Dr. Neutra claims this man is an intellectual, a very brainy type of guy, a contemplative character.

4. This person is generally unreliable, weak, hard to live with, and inclined to excessive lying.

5. Very tense individual, direct, straight-forward, inclined towards stubbornness.

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20 Amusing Vintage Photographs Capture Bizarre Giant Balloons From Past Thanksgiving Day Parades

The Macy’s Day Parade has been an American tradition since 1924. Some years balloons are cuter than others. Some years, they’re downright creepy.

The giant floating figures crowding through the streets of Manhattan are almost as much a Thanksgiving staple as turkey and stuffing. Pop-culture icons like Snoopy the dog and Mickey Mouse are literally (much) larger than life in an event that has people flocking to New York City every Turkey Day morning.

The first Thanksgiving Day parade in 1924 was much less commercial: The marchers were Macy’s employees, many of them first- or second-generation immigrants proud of their new country and eager to mix its traditions with their own ways of celebrating. They dressed in costume and marched or drove horse-drawn carts down the street. The parade was an immediate hit, with 250,000 people crowding in to watch.

Some things have changed; others haven’t. There was a Santa Claus at the very first parade, and he still appears every year. The first balloons were introduced in 1927, when Felix the Cat made his debut. The early balloons (some of which look odd or downright creepy to our modern eyes) were released and floated for a week or so after the parade, with prizes awarded for those who recovered them.

By the 1930s, the parade was attracting more than a million people to see increasingly elaborate balloons and floats. By 1948, it was televised, so all of America could see staples like the Rockettes (who have performed at the parade since 1957). Still, the parade remains a big tourist draw that officially opens New York’s busy winter holiday season.

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32 Hilarious Snapshots of Badass Men in the Past

These snapshots show what badass men looked like from the first half of the 20th century.

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45 Glamorous Photos of Esther Williams in the 1940s and 1950s

Born 1921 in Inglewood, California, American competitive swimmer and actress Esther Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team. Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics because of the outbreak of World War II, she joined Billy Rose's Aquacade, where she took on the role vacated by Eleanor Holm after the show's move from New York City to San Francisco.

Williams caught the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts at the Aquacade. After appearing in several small roles, she made a series of films in the 1940s and early 1950s known as "aquamusicals," which featured elaborate performances with synchronised swimming and diving.

From 1945 to 1949, Williams had at least one film listed among the 20 highest-grossing films of the year. In 1952, she appeared in her only biographical role, as Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman in Million Dollar Mermaid, which went on to become her nickname while at MGM.

Williams left MGM in 1956 and appeared in a handful of unsuccessful feature films, followed by several extremely popular water-themed network television specials, including one from Cypress Gardens, Florida.

Williams was also a successful businesswoman. She lent her name to a line of swimming pools and retro swimwear, instructional swimming videos for children, and served as a commentator for synchronized swimming at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Williams died in her sleep in 2013, from natural causes, in her Los Angeles home, at the age of 91.

These glamorous photos that captured portrait of young Esther Williams in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Punks, Poets and Provocateurs: Marcia Resnick’s Portraits of the Bad Boys of 1970s New York Counterculture

Marcia Resnick spent much of the 1970s and 80s photographing the marginalized, talented and creative souls — as well as some pretty famous rockers and poets — who were drawn like a magnet to dirty, old, low-rent and near-bankrupt New York City. They came there, Marcia observed, to re-invent themselves.

“Musicians, writers, artists, photographers, filmmakers and dancers would congregate at clubs like the Mudd, Max’s and CBGB where they would enjoy the music and begin to collaborate on art projects,” said Resnick. Out of this scene came a mixture of punk rockers, transvestites, performers, and older counterculture figures who Resnick found intriguing.

In 2015, she published Punks, Poets & Provocateurs: New York City Bad Boys, 1977-1982, which focuses on what many consider to be the highlight years of New York’s counterculture.

“The people from the extraordinary New York milieu amongst whom I was living and working had no way of knowing that the years between 1977 and 1982 were enchanted, endangered, and unrepeatable,” explained Marcia Resnick. It was a time and place populated by icons, iconoclasts, and antiheroes whom Resnick documented with a unique and evocative eye.

Here, her photographs of the “enfants terribles” reflect this unique time in the worlds of jazz, rock and roll, literature, art, and film—an era that remains highly influential.

Mick Jagger, William Burroughs and Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

David Byrne

John Waters

Roy Cohn and Steve Rubell

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Debbie Harry Photographed by Chris Stein for Punk Magazine Centerfold Shoot, 1976

A few decades ago, up-and-coming punk-pop star Debbie Harry had a photographer on hand to chronicle her every move – her friend, bandmate and lover Chris Stein.

These photographs of Debbie Harry are from an outtake from Punk Magazine centerfold shoot which were shot in a Bowery loft in New York City, 1976.

“The vulture shirt is a sacred relic that Debbie still has and the spider was plastic,” Chris Stein recalled. “The Metropolitan Museum used this shot as one of several images connected to its PUNK: Chaos to Couture show in 2013.”

(Photos by Chris Stein)