30 Beautiful Black and White Portraits of Ava Gardner in the 1940s and 1950s

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress whose life encompassed a true rags-to-riches story. Born to a poor farming family in North Carolina, Gardner was discovered in New York City and soon began acting in both film and, later, television. She had a long career that spanned 44 years, and appeared in more than 60 movies, including The Barefoot Contessa, Mogambo, and Showboat.

Gardner is listed as one of the American Film Institute’s greatest actresses of all time. She received an Academy Award nomination for Mogambo (1953).

Her stunning looks, her reputation for wild behavior, and her multiple marriages to prominent movie actors (Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra) combined to make her a figure of international renown.

Unfortunately, her notoriety also provided ample fodder for gossip magazines. These same characteristics also brought her to the attention of the Catholic Legion of Decency, an organization dedicated to identifying and opposing objectionable content in the film industry. Her lifestyle became a very public rebellion against her strict religious upbringing.

See more»

Portrait Photos of American Writer Joan Didion in the 1960s and ’70s

Born 1934 in Sacramento, California, American writer Joan Didion launched her career in the 1960s after winning an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the ’60s and the Hollywood lifestyle. Her political writing often concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric.

In 1991, Didion wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography for The Year of Magical Thinking. She later adapted the book into a play, which premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2017, Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne.

Didion died from complications of Parkinson’s disease at her home in Manhattan on December 23, 2021, at the age of 87. Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of young Joan Didion in the 1960s and 1970s.

See more»

Happy Holidays From Darlene!

Darlene wants to wish you a very merry Christmas, and who am I to say no?

(Photos via The Square America Archive)

Beautiful Photos of Ladies in Hula Dance Outfits in the Mid-20th Century

Hula is a Polynesian dance form accompanied by chant (Oli) or song (Mele, which is a cognate of “meke” from the Fijian language). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form.

There are many sub-styles of hula, with the main two categories being Hula ʻAuana and Hula Kahiko. Ancient hula, as performed before Western encounters with Hawaiʻi, is called kahiko. It is accompanied by chant and traditional instruments. Hula, as it evolved under Western influence in the 19th and 20th centuries, is called ʻauana (a word that means “to wander” or “drift”). It is accompanied by song and Western-influenced musical instruments such as the guitar, the ʻukulele, and the double bass.

Terminology for two main additional categories is beginning to enter the hula lexicon: “Monarchy” includes any hula which were composed and choreographed during the 19th century. During that time the influx of Western culture created significant changes in the formal Hawaiian arts, including hula. “Ai Kahiko”, meaning “in the ancient style” are those hula written in the 20th and 21st centuries that follow the stylistic protocols of the ancient hula kahiko.

There are also two main positions of a hula dance: either sitting (noho dance) or standing (luna dance). Some dances utilize both forms. These beautiful color photos captured portraits of ladies in hula dance outfits in the 1940s and 1950s.

See more»

Amazing Vintage Photographs of Harold Lloyd’s Magnificent (Year-Round!) Christmas Tree

If you haven’t put your Christmas tree up yet, then you are already too late. Did you know that Harold Lloyd kept his tree up all year long!

This most impressive Christmas tree belonged to silent film actor, photographer, renaissance man, Harold Lloyd. His home, Greenacres really sparkled at Christmastime and nothing reflected that sparkle more than his overstuffed Christmas Tree with more than 5,000 glass and handmade ornaments. As the collection grew, so did the tree. It eventually required several trees to be put together along with reinforced branches and stainless steel bolts. His grand-daughter, Suzanne Lloyd, told Beverly Hills Resident of her Christmas tree memories:

“It started sometime around Thanksgiving. My grandparents would take me downtown to the train yards where the annual shipment of trees would arrive for the holiday season. We would pick out three large Douglas firs and they would be wired together to make one enormous, fantastic Christmas tree. It sat at one end of the garden room rising 20 feet in the air. It was 9 feet wide and almost 30 feet around. Imagine the amount of presents that can fit under a tree that is 30 feet around!

“It took from Thanksgiving until Christmas to decorate the tree. Over the years, my grandfather had collected thousands of ornaments from all over the world. The tree held one-of-a-kind rare ornaments valued in the hundreds of dollars when they were first purchased in the 1930s and ’40s. The tree also held homemade ones that Harold received from his charity work.

“I remember a jeweled encrusted ostrich egg, and a sequined football, (a reference to the college football hero Harold Lloyd played in his most popular film, The Freshman) I particularly loved a Christmas ball given to him by his friend, make-up artist, Wally Westmore, that was a miniature diorama depicting a bespectacled Harold in a red bathrobe trimming the tree.

“One Christmas, I was with Daddy shopping for more ornaments in Saks Fifth Avenue. He plucked more and more ornaments off the store’s white-flocked display tree unable to decide which ones to purchase. Finally, he realized that every ornament on the tree would look nice at Greenacres and quickly decided right then and there to buy them all. Since there was no room on the tree at home, his impulse purchase had to include Saks white-flocked display tree as well! So the 12 foot, completely decorated tree, was shipped off to Greenacres and found a home in our front entrance hall. I have no idea where Saks put their presents that year after Harold left a gapping hole in their Christmas display.

“One year we counted over 5,000 ornaments hanging from the tree and we still had enough left over to decorate 3 more trees just as big! Every year the tree grew larger to hold more ornaments; then one year it became a permanent fixture in our home. It was simply too large, too decorated and too engineered to disassemble. So we had it fireproofed and celebrated Christmas every day of the year!”

See more»

A Holiday Classic: Beautiful Stills of Miracle on 34th Street

Miracle on 34th Street is a 1947 American Christmas comedy-drama film written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn. The story takes place between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in New York City, and focuses on the effect of a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real Santa.

Miracle on 34th Street won three Academy Awards: Edmund Gwenn for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Valentine Davies for Best Writing, Original Story, and George Seaton for Best Writing, Screenplay. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.

Since then Miracle on 34th Street has become a perennial Christmas favorite. Take a look through these beautiful stills of the film:

See more»

45 Gorgeous Photos of Janet Blair in the 1940s

Born 1921 as Martha Janet Lafferty in Altoona, Pennsylvania, American actress Janet Blair began her acting career on film in 1941, being placed under contract to Columbia Pictures. She made a string of successful pictures, although she is today best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell’s sister in My Sister Eileen (1942) and Rita Hayworth’s best friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945).

In the late 1940s, Blair had star billing in the crime drama I Love Trouble and the comedy The Fuller Brush Man (both 1948), but was dropped by Columbia and did not return to pictures for several years.

In 1950, Blair took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the U.S touring production of the stage musical South Pacific, making more than 1,200 performances in three years. She also starred in the Broadway comedy A Girl Can Tell in 1953.

Blair died in 2007 at the age of 85 at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, succumbing to complications from pneumonia. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see portrait of a young and beautiful Janet Blair in the 1940s.

See more»