Cumbria, Britain in the 1880s Through Francis Frith’s Lens

Francis Frith (1822–1898) was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom. He was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, attending the Quaker schools at Ackworth and Quaker Camp Hill in Birmingham (ca. 1828–1838), before he started in the cutlery business.

Leaving in 1850 to start a photographic studio known as Frith & Hayward in Liverpool. A successful grocer, and later, printer, Frith fostered an interest in photography, becoming a founding member of the Liverpool Photographic Society in 1853. He sold his companies in 1855 in order to dedicate himself entirely to photography.

Frith journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions, the first of which was a trip to Egypt in 1856 with very large cameras (16" x 20"). He used the collodion process, a major technical achievement in hot and dusty conditions. When he had finished his travels in the Middle East in 1859, he opened the firm of Francis Frith & Co. in Reigate, Surrey, as the world’s first specialist photographic publisher.

In 1860, Frith married Mary Ann Rosling (sister of Alfred Rosling, the first treasurer of the Photographic Society) and embarked upon a colossal project—to photograph every town and village in the United Kingdom; in particular, notable historical or interesting sights. Initially he took the photographs himself, but as success came, he hired people to help him and set about establishing his postcard company, a firm that became one of the largest photographic studios in the world. Within a few years, over two thousand shops throughout the United Kingdom were selling his postcards.

These amazing photos are part of his work that Francis Frith took landscapes of Cumbria, Britain in the 1880s.

Cumbria. Ambleside, circa 1880

Cumbria. Ambleside & Windermere, circa 1880

Cumbria. Bleatarn, circa 1888

Cumbria. Brathay Bridge, Ambleside, circa 1880

Cumbria. Buttermere, 1889

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Bettie Page’s Mugshots, 1972

Here’s the mugshots of iconic ’50s pin-up model Bettie Page after being arrested in Hialeah, Florida. Bettie was arrested on October 28, 1972 when police answered a call placed by her ex-husband Harry Lear. When they arrived on scene that found him and Bettie out on the front yard with Bettie hitting Harry, repeatedly punching and verbally attacking him.

Harry filed for divorced in December of 1971, on the grounds of separation and irreconcilable differences. By January 17, 1972 the divorce was granted, but Bettie didn’t take it too well. One evening in January a staff manager rushed into the Bible Town’s business manager’s office yelling that “a woman was running around with a gun at the motel” and sure enough it was Bettie. Waving a 0.22 calibre pistol, a gift from Harry to use for protection. Bettie ran around the motel complex shouting about the retribution of God.

Harry got a call from Boca Raton police, explained his way out of any serious charges, packed Bettie’s belongings and invited her to stay back at his house Hialeah. Bettie accepted and stayed until the summer when Harry decided to build an extra bedroom on the back of the house. But the uncontrollable outburst and violent behavior only got worse.

Bettie would stay at Jackson Memorial hospital, a state mental care facility for six months spending most of the time under suicide watch. Harry would come and visit her regularly reassuring her that there would be a place for her to come back to if she wanted it. When she finally left the hospital she left a changed woman, she took up Harry’s offer and moved back in.

“After the divorce, I stayed on at Harry’s house at Haileah for another Seven years doing the cleaning and taking care of the yard”

Harry and Bettie remained friendly with Bettie accepting that they were no longer husband and wife but more like landlord and tenant. By 1978, at the age of 55, Bettie’s alimony from Harry had dried up although Harry would often help her out financially. Harry wanted to retire and move away from Florida and decided he would move to South Carolina. This left Bettie no place to live.

Bettie’s brother Jimmy who had just recently divorced and needed the company was once again there to help. Bettie moved back in with Jimmy in his suburban Californian home near Santa Monica. There she lived for the next nine years. Yet some sources say this may not be the case and could be seen as a cover-up.

30 Vintage Photos of Lucille Ball During the Filming of ‘The Fuller Brush Girl’ (1950)

The Fuller Brush Girl is a 1950 slapstick comedy starring Lucille Ball and directed by Lloyd Bacon. Animator Frank Tashlin wrote the script. Ball plays a quirky door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman for the Fuller Brush Company. The film also stars Eddie Albert and has an uncredited cameo by Red Skelton (who had starred in the Tashlin-scripted and S. Sylvan Simon directed The Fuller Brush Man two years earlier).

The film reunites Lucille Ball with director Lloyd Bacon, producer S. Sylvan Simon and Frank Tashlin at Columbia Pictures after their 1949 film Miss Grant Takes Richmond.

These vintage photos captured portraits of Lucille Ball during the filming of The Fuller Brush Girl in 1950.

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Andre Agassi Had One of the Best Mullets of the 1980s

Andre Agassi is regarded as one of the best tennis players of all time. He’s an eight-time Grand Slam champion who also won gold at the Olympics. And in 1995, he spent 30 weeks ranked as No.1 in the world. Outside of his otherworldly talent for the sport, Agassi was renowned for another glorious asset — his mullet.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Agassi treated the tennis court like a goddamn runway, inspiring tennis plays and fans alike to serve more than just balls on the court.

With his glorious sun-kissed mullet and bold on-court fashion choices, he stood out long before he bagged the world champion title. He even managed to nab his own line with Nike called the Challenge Court Selection, inspired by his color-coordinated fits, headbands and — of course — the brilliant sports shorts that looked like acid-wash jean shorts that changed the fashion world forever.

But at the time, Agassi held a deep, dark secret — he was losing his hair.

In his acclaimed 2009 memoir “Open”, Agassi admitted that he was using a hairpiece on the court throughout the 1990s. He even revealed he wore a “hairpiece held together by pins” in his first-ever Grand Slam match against Andres Gomez in 1990, out of fear of what journalists would write if he rocked up without his signature locks.

Sadly, Agassi lost the match and to this day believes that the worry that the hairpiece would disintegrate or fall off mid-match cost him the French Open.

“Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole,” he wrote.

“I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?”

In 1995, Agassi finally accepted his fate and shaved his head. He says it was one of the most terrifying yet freeing things he’s ever done.

“It was terrifying, but then quickly liberating,” he told PEDESTRIAN.TV.

“It was very quickly liberating. It was terrifying deciding to do it. It was terrifying when I was about to do it. It was terrifying while I was doing it. And then, it was quickly like ‘Why did I waste so much time worrying about my hair’?”

From then onwards, he returned to the court equally as fashionable with a sexy shaved head.

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25 Wonderful Portraits of a Beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1990s

Michelle Pfeiffer has been one of Hollywood’s most talented and stunning stars since the early 1980s. The three-time Oscar nominee has proven time and again that her talent equals — or even surpasses — her pretty face.

Pfeiffer first came to acting via the beauty pageant circuit in Southern California and soon started appearing on TV shows like CHiPs and Fantasy Island. Her striking beauty may have gotten her get through Hollywood’s door, where so many other hopefuls failed, but it was her intelligence and sense of humor that made her stand out from the competition.

Michelle Pfeiffer made her film debut in 1980, acting opposite Tony Danza in The Hollywood Knights. Two years later, she’d get noticed for her starring role in Grease 2, and soon enough she was starring in popular movies like Scarface, The Witches of Eastwick, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Batman Returns. Throughout her career, Pfeiffer has played a diverse assortment of characters — everything from an ingénue to an action hero — and she was one of the most in-demand actresses of the 1980s and ’90s.

Pfeiffer has often been modest about her extraordinary talents, telling Interview magazine, “I didn’t have any formal training... I was just getting by and learning in front of the world.” She clearly learned well, as she’s still acting today, most recently appearing in Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

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Rare Photobooth Photos of People During Edwardian Era

Photo booths have been in the zeitgeist since the late 1800s. The earliest photo booth patent was filed in 1888 by William Pope and Edward Poole in Baltimore, but there is no known record of a working version.

The first-ever working photo booth was made by French inventor T.E. Enjalbert in March 1889 and was presented later that same year at the World’s Fair in Paris. He named it the “Apparatus for Automatic Photography”. A similar machine was patented only a year later in America by photographer Mathew Steffens.

By the early Edwardian era, photobooth self-portraits had become quite a craze.

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Vintage Photos of the First Columbus Mounted Police Unit in 1922

The first mounted police unit in Columbus, Ohio was formed in 1922. The horses were purchased using donations and the donors were allowed to name the horses. The Columbus Automobile Club facilitated the donations and purchase of the horses.

The primary task of the mounted unit was to assist with downtown traffic. The Ohio State Journal noted at the time that: “Mounted officers are more efficient in handling traffic, in the opinion of Auto Club officials, because the mounted defenders are able to see traffic.”

These photo were taken around 423 Short St. in the Brewery District of Columbus, Ohio in 1922.

Apr. 28, 1941: The First Electric Animated Sign Was Placed on Broadway at 44th in New York City

Apr. 28, 1941: The first electric animated sign, designed by American advertising executive Douglas Leigh, was placed on Broadway at 44th in New York City. The Camel cigarette ad puffed out five-foot-wide smoke rings of steam every four seconds. Over time, especially during wartime, the image was switched from soldiers to sailors to airmen. The sign remained on the Claridge Hotel until 1966, when the building was replaced. This photo is from the early 1950s.

30 Vintage Photos of a Beautiful Carolyn Jones in the 1950s and 1960s

Carolyn Jones was an American film and television actress. She began her career in the early 1950s and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party (1957) and a Golden Globe Award as one of the most promising actresses of 1959. In 1964 she began playing the role of Morticia Addams in the television series The Addams Family.

Born in Amarillo, Texas on April 28, 1929, glamorous Carolyn Jones had a difficult life before finding fame in films and television. Abandoned by her father at age 5 during the depths of the Depression, Jones was an asthmatic, sickly child who was raised by her grandparents. From an early age Jones loved films and harbored a great desire to be an actress. Soon after graduating from high school in 1947, Jones grandfather paid for her to go to Hollywood and study at the Pasadena Playhouse.

After toiling in small stage productions for a few years, Jones landed roles in early television, including two appearances in the anthology series Chevron Theatre (1952-1953) and several appearances on the CBS mystery series Mr. and Mrs. North (1952-1954). She was spotted by a talent scout and signed with Paramount; however, after a few bit parts Paramount dropped her option.

Jones then landed her breakthrough role as Cathy Gray in the Warner Bros. 3-D horror film House of Wax (1953). More films roles came her way, including the noir thrillers The Big Heat (1953) and Shield for Murder (1954). During this period, Jones married and divorced her first husband, Donald, in 1950 and married then-struggling actor and future producer Aaron Spelling in 1953.

From the mid 1950s through the early 1960s, Jones’ career was hot, with supporting roles in ‘A’ pictures such as The Tender Trap (1955), The Opposite Sex (1956), and Marjorie Morningstar (1958). However, ‘B’ movies let her shine, including her great performances in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Baby Face Nelson (1957), and Johnny Trouble (1957). Following her outstanding performance in King Creole (1958; with Elvis Presley), Jones won a Golden Globe Award as one of the most promising new actresses of 1959.

In the early 1960s, Jones began doing more television work, with fewer films coming her way. Jones and Spelling parted company as friends in 1964, just as Jones was cast in her most memorable role as Morticia Addams in the ABC series The Addams Family (1964-1966).

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Fascinating Photographs Capture Daily Life of the Young Starlet Ann-Margret in 1961

Ann-Margret Olsson was born on April 28, 1941, in Valsjobyn, Sweden. She was born into a tightly knit family in a small fishing village near the Arctic Circle. Her parents, Gustav and Anna, migrated to America after World War II, and settled in the Chicago suburb of Fox Lake. The Olsson’s eventually relocated to Wilmette, Illinois, where they lived in the funeral parlor that employed Anna.

Ann-Margret was an introverted child, who found it difficult adjusting to American culture. In her early years, she used her love for song and dance as a means of expressing herself. She began to sing at weddings, private parties and church socials. By the time she was 14, she had appeared in a number of school revues and drama productions, and was a frequent winner at local talent contests.

After graduating high school in 1959, Ann-Margret enrolled at Northwestern University as a speech major. Within her first few months at college, she teamed up with three male students to form a jazz combo — The Suttletones. After her freshman year, she withdrew from school, and headed for the West Coast with her newly formed band. They spent most of their time performing at various cabaret clubs in Reno, Las Vegas, and Southern California.

While performing in the lounge of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, Ann-Margret was given the opportunity to audition for Hollywood veteran George Burns. Immediately after, he invited her to perform for a 10-night engagement at the Sahara Hotel, where the 18-year-old earned rave reviews. A succession of offers followed, including a record contract from RCA, and a seven-year film contract from 20th Century Fox.

In the early 1960s, Ann-Margret’s burgeoning career was chronicled in LIFE magazine, who classified her as Hollywood’s next young starlet. She made her film debut as Bette Davis’ daughter in Frank Capra’s Pocketful of Miracles (1961), and released her first album And Here She Is, Ann-Margret.

These stunning photos made by Grey Villet for the 1961 LIFE article that introduced Ann-Margret as a hot Hollywood prospect while she auditioned for a role in the film, State Fair. “Oh, I loved him,” Ann-Margret says of the late LIFE photographer. “When you guys [at LIFE magazine] sent me all these photographs, what a rush. It all came back to me. It’s just ... I’m so blessed.”

Ann-Margret, 1961

Ann-Margret with costume designer Don Feld before a screen test, 1961.

Ann-Margret dining with actor Peter Brown at Har-Omar restaurant in Hollywood, 1961.

Ann-Margret with actor Peter Brown at Har-Omar restaurant in Hollywood, 1961.

Ann-Margret looking over a script with the screen test’s director, Robert Parrish, and the actor who would read opposite her, David Hedison.

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30 Gorgeous Photos of Dusty Anderson in the 1940s

Born 1916 or 1917 in Toledo, Ohio, American actress and model Dusty Anderson began her career as a model and made her film debut in a minor role as one of the cover girls in the 1944 Columbia Pictures production of Cover Girl starring Rita Hayworth. Over the next three years, she appeared in another eight films, usually in secondary roles.

During World War II, Anderson was one of a number of actresses who became a pin-up girl, appearing in the October 27, 1944, issue of the United States Military’s YANK magazine. She was featured in the mystery films Crime Doctor’s Warning (1945), which was one in the popular Crime Doctor series, and The Phantom Thief (1946), from the Boston Blackie crime series films.

Anderson died in 2007 in Marbella, Spain, aged 90. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see the beauty of a young Dusty Anderson in the 1940s.

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