Portraits of a Young Edith Head in the 1930s and 1940s

Edith Claire Head (1897–1981) was an American film costume designer. She received a record 35 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and won a record eight times, making her both the most honored and most nominated woman in the Academy’s history. She also holds the Guinness World Record for most-credited costume designer in film history, with a total of 432 credits.

Head joined Paramount (then Famous Players–Lasky) in 1923 as a sketch artist after using classmates’ drawings in her portfolio. She learned under Howard Greer and Travis Banton, starting with supporting roles, extras, and less glamorous assignments while gradually taking on more design work. By the early 1930s she had transitioned into full costume design.

She gained her first major on-screen credit and worked with Mae West on She Done Him Wrong (1933), creating the actress’s signature voluptuous, hat-heavy looks that pushed censorship boundaries. Her breakthrough came with Dorothy Lamour’s figure-hugging sarong in The Jungle Princess (1936) and related films such as The Hurricane (1937). The design became a national fashion craze and raised Head’s public profile.

Other early work included films with Shirley Temple, Clara Bow (earlier), and various Paramount productions. She was known for practical, character-driven designs rather than pure glamour, and she developed a talent for flattering different body types and transforming actresses.

In 1938, after Banton left (amid personal issues), Head was named chief costume designer. She oversaw a large department and preferred the 1930s as her favorite decade, when stars “wore real fur, real jewels” and designers were as important as the stars themselves.

Her first marriage (to Charles Head) ended in divorce around 1938; she kept the surname professionally. Head married art director Wiard (“Bill”) Ihnen in 1940; the marriage lasted until his death in 1979.

She designed for dozens of films a year (sometimes 40–50). Key collaborations included Barbara Stanwyck (The Lady Eve, 1941; Ball of Fire, 1941; Double Indemnity, 1944), Veronica Lake, Ginger Rogers (Lady in the Dark, 1944, featuring a much-discussed mink-lined gown during wartime austerity), Ingrid Bergman (Notorious, 1946), and the Hope-Crosby-Lamour “Road” comedies (exotic, resourceful designs using substitutes for restricted materials).

Wartime constraints led to creative solutions (e.g., painted fabrics instead of scarce printed ones, sheer cotton for silk). Her work emphasized character transformation, camouflage of perceived flaws, and story support over pure fashion statements.

The Academy Award for Best Costume Design was introduced in 1948–49. Head received her first nomination for The Emperor Waltz (1948) and won her first Oscar for The Heiress (1949, Olivia de Havilland). She also won that year for Samson and Delilah. These marked the start of her record-setting run (eventually 8 wins and 35 nominations).

Head’s style in this era was versatile, ranging from elegant simplicity and period accuracy to glamorous or exotic looks, while remaining collaborative and discreet with stars. She became known for making actresses feel beautiful and for designs that influenced off-screen fashion. By the end of the 1940s she was firmly established as one of Hollywood’s most important and prolific costume designers, a position she held at Paramount into the 1960s.

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Vikki Dougan: The Iconic “Back” of 1950s Glamour

Vikki Dougan (born Edith Tooker in 1929) was an American model and actress who became one of the most memorable fashion figures of the 1950s.

Known for her striking beauty and daring backless dresses, Dougan earned the nickname “The Back” for her bold, figure-hugging gowns that left little to the imagination. She appeared on the covers of major magazines, worked with top photographers, and posed for high-profile advertising campaigns. Her distinctive look and confident style later inspired the design of Jessica Rabbit.

With her combination of glamour and playful sensuality, Dougan remains an unforgettable icon of mid-century Hollywood and fashion. These vintage photos capture the bold glamour and unforgettable style of Vikki Dougan, the legendary “Back” of 1950s fashion.

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30 Portraits of Elisabeth Bergner From Between the Late 1920s and Early 1930s

Elisabeth Bergner (August 22, 1897 – May 12, 1986) was a highly acclaimed Austrian-British stage and film actress who became one of Europe’s most celebrated theatrical stars during the 1920s and 1930s. Renowned for her expressive, deeply sensitive acting style and her signature androgynous “trouser roles” (Hosenrollen), she achieved substantial international success before being forced to flee continental Europe due to her Jewish heritage.

She achieved breakout international fame in Berlin under the legendary director Max Reinhardt. She was widely praised for her lead performance in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (1924). Her signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never. After originating the character on stages in London and Broadway, she starred in the 1935 film adaptation and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

She played the title character in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) and starred as Rosalind in As You Like It (1936) alongside a young Laurence Olivier. Her talent inspired prominent writers of her time. Notably, Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie wrote his final play, The Boy David (1936), specifically for her.

Following the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, Bergner and her husband, the prominent Czech film director Paul Czinner, left Germany and resettled in London. Beyond her artistry, historical records compiled by the Jewish Women’s Archive note that she actively used her resources to help other Jewish actors escape Nazi Germany.

She spent the World War II years working on Broadway and in American cinema before returning to Europe. In her later years, she traveled back to Germany and Austria for various theatrical tours, eventually earning the prestigious Schiller Prize in 1963 for her immense contributions to German cultural life. She continued acting into the 1980s and passed away in London at the age of 88.

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Members of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch: The Story Behind the Famous “Fort Worth Five” Photograph in 1900

Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch was the most successful train- and bank-robbing outlaw gang in American history. Operating at the turn of the 20th century, this loose-knit coalition of cowboy-outlaws terrorized the Mountain West before being driven into South America by the relentless Pinkerton Detective Agency. Unlike many violent gangs of the era, they were famous for their meticulous planning, strategic getaways, and a reputation for avoiding bloodshed whenever possible.

Five members of the Wild Bunch, ca. 1892. This crudely constructed tintype portrait of five members of the gang dressed in bowler hats and city clothes shows, clockwise, from the top left, Kid Curry, Bill McCarty, Bill (Tod) Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, and Tom O’Day. Without their six shooters and cowboy hats the outlaws appear quite civilized and could easily be mistaken for the sheriffs and Pinkerton agents who pursued them in a “Wild West” already much tamed by the probable date of this photograph.

On September 19, 1900, the Wild Bunch pulled off a spectacularly lucrative heist. They robbed the First National Bank in Winnemucca, Nevada, escaping with roughly $32,640 in gold and cash, a massive fortune at the time. Flush with stolen money, the core members traveled southeast to Fort Worth, Texas, to lay low and blow off steam. They took refuge in “Hell’s Half-Acre,” Fort Worth’s notorious red-light district packed with gambling halls, brothels, and saloons.

To celebrate their criminal success, the gang decided to play the part of legitimate, wealthy high-society businessmen. They bought expensive, matching three-piece wool suits and elegant bowler hats. On November 21, likely after a few drinks, they walked into the professional studio of photographer John Swartz, located upstairs at 705½ Main Street (right above John P. Sheehan's Saloon). The resulting portrait captured five calm, smiling men staring into the lens.

Front row left to right: Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid; Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan; Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy. Standing: Will Carver & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry; Fort Worth, Texas, 1900.

The outlaws were so pleased with the incredibly sharp, high-quality portrait that they reportedly didn’t care when Swartz kept a copy for himself. Shortly after, a local Fort Worth detective or Pinkerton agent happened to visit John Swartz’s studio. Looking at the sample prints, the lawman recognized the faces of Ben Kilpatrick and Will Carver, whom he had dealt with or seen on older Texas descriptions. Recognizing that these dapper “businessmen” were actually wanted train robbers, the police quickly confiscated the original photograph and its negatives.

Before this photograph existed, law enforcement had incredibly poor descriptions of the Wild Bunch. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had spent years operating under aliases, and many lawmen had no idea what they actually looked like. The Pinkertons immediately cropped the group photo into individual, high-definition mugshots. They flooded post offices, police departments, and train stations across the American West with new, hyper-accurate “Wanted” posters.

Will Carver was the first to fall; he was shot and killed by lawmen in Texas less than six months later, in April 1901. Ben Kilpatrick was captured in late 1901 after trying to pass banknotes from a recent train robbery. Butch and Sundance realized the game was over in the United States. Recognizing their own faces on posters everywhere, they fled the country for South America early in 1901.

In 1999, the Smithsonian Institution declared the “Fort Worth Five” portrait the most iconic image of the Wild West, a lasting monument to a moment where outlaw pride paved the way for their own destruction.

1894 Silsby Fourth-Size Steam Pumper: Victorian Firefighting Classic

The 1894 Silsby Fourth-Size Steam Pumper is a rare and impressive example of late-19th-century firefighting technology.

Built by the American Fire Engine Company (later part of American LaFrance), this horse-drawn apparatus was powered by a steam boiler driving a rotary pump capable of delivering around 500 gallons of water per minute. With its distinctive crane-frame design and solid Victorian engineering, the Silsby represented the height of steam-powered fire equipment before the widespread adoption of motorized trucks.

Originally delivered to the Philadelphia Fire Department, surviving examples are highly prized today as historic symbols of early professional firefighting. These striking photos capture the powerful design and historic craftsmanship of the rare 1894 Silsby Fourth-Size Steam Pumper, a true Victorian firefighting classic.

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Robert Englund and the Makeup Process for Becoming Freddy Krueger in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)

Transforming Robert Englund into Freddy Krueger for Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was a landmark achievement in practical special effects makeup, designed by David B. Miller. The process took around 3 to 3.5 hours every morning in the makeup chair, followed by nearly an hour of painstaking removal at the end of each shooting day.

Craven wanted Krueger’s severe burn scars to look raw and realistic rather than like a standard Halloween rubber mask. Miller drew inspiration from real medical photographs of third-degree burn victims at UCLA Medical Center, combined with an unexpected source: pizza. Miller reportedly noticed how melted cheese stretched and bubbled over tomato sauce, mimicking exposed muscle and tissue beneath charred skin.

“The final design for Freddy was based on a pepperoni pizza,” David Miller on what inspired his makeup for Robert Englund. “I was at a restaurant one night, and I was having pizza and I was just kind of deep in thought. I started playing around with the cheese, putting it around the pepperoni, and actually made Freddy’s face on the pizza.”

Unlike a single pull-over rubber mask, which would obscure facial expressions, Miller engineered a segmented foam latex system to preserve Englund’s mobility and dramatic performances. The mask consisted of four separate foam latex appliances—the forehead/bald cap, the lower face/jaw piece, and two cheek components. Because the pieces were glued directly to Englund’s face using medical-grade spirit gum, every furrow of his brow, grin, and sneer moved organically with the latex. Miller used liquid latex and cab-o-sil filler to smooth out the edges where the pieces met Englund’s natural skin around the eyes and neck.

Once the foam pieces were bonded, Miller hand-painted the intricate burn textures. Acrylic and rubber-based paints were stippled on in deep reds, raw purples, dark browns, and sickly yellows to convey oozing, unhealed flesh. Englund wore a milky, distorted contact lens in one eye to enhance Krueger’s asymmetrical, grotesque appearance. Custom yellowed, rotting acrylic teeth were fitted to ruin his natural bite and force a distinct, menacing sneer.

The grueling makeup process played a key role in how Englund developed Freddy’s physical presence. Spending hours glued into hot, suffocating foam latex forced Englund to adopt sharp, exaggerated neck tilts, a menacing posture, and a theatrical swagger to project emotion through the heavy prosthetics.

“When Robert was done for the day, as soon as they yelled cut, he would just start ripping at the pieces and throw them behind him as he would walk to the makeup room (...) by the time he’d get there, half his makeup was off already. And there’d be people walking behind him with plastic bags picking up the pieces.”

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Margery Booth, a British Opera Singer Who Emigrated to Germany During WWII and Became a Spy

Margery Booth, also known as Margery Kallus, was a British-born opera singer who lived a double life as a daring MI6 wartime spy, successfully filtering Nazi intelligence to Great Britain while performing for Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. Despite her immense bravery, she remained largely uncelebrated and forgotten for decades after World War II.

Born on January 25, 1906, in Wigan, Lancashire, Margery Myers Booth possessed a remarkable operatic voice. After training at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she eventually married Dr Egon Strohmand, from a brewing family in the Black Forest, and moved to Germany in the 1930s.

Margery and Egon on their wedding day in 1936 with Terry her pet dog.

Performing under her married name, her talent as a mezzo-soprano led her straight to the prestigious Berlin State Opera. Her performances heavily charmed the Nazi leadership. Adolf Hitler became a personal fan, famously sending her 200 red roses wrapped in a swastika sash after watching her perform at Bayreuth.

When World War II broke out, Booth weaponized her proximity to high-ranking Nazi officials to work as an undercover agent for British Intelligence (MI6). Her intelligence work involved. She regularly smuggled high-level military data and ciphers out of Berlin. On at least one occasion, a British officer slipped secret documents to her moments before a show; she hid the papers in her underwear and went on stage to sing directly for Hitler.

The Nazis allowed her to perform for British prisoners of war at camps like Stalag IIID to boost morale or entice them into joining the British Free Corps (a Nazi propaganda unit). Instead, Booth partnered with a captured British soldier, Quartermaster Sergeant John Brown, who was pretending to be a Nazi sympathizer. Together, they compiled records of British traitors working for Germany. In addition to espionage, Booth used her Berlin flat to hide a Jewish woman and help escaped British airmen.

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