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1 week ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
As Independence Day approached in 1952, LIFE magazine commemorated America’s birthday with a story that celebrated the country in images and words—and not just any words. Actor Charles Laughton selected literary passages that related to the American landscape. Then LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt shot images to pair with those passages. LIFE turned to Laughton because the actor was known for entertaining audiences by reading aloud to them from classic literature.
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2 weeks ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
The magic of photography is that it takes people to places they could never go on their own—whether it’s the front lines of battle or the home of Marilyn Monroe. The power of the photograph to transport its viewers is what made LIFE magazine so popular in its early heyday, when photography was the principal means for gaining a window to the world.
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2 weeks ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
Written By: Richard Jerome The following is excerpted from LIFE’s new special issue on The Karate Kid, available at newsstands and online: The title was ridiculous. So ridiculous nobody thought it would stick. It was a name fit for a silly Saturday morning cartoon, a sappy after-school special, a flop. It certainly wasn’t a title for a movie that could launch an enduring Hollywood franchise. No, “The Karate Kid” had to go.
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2 weeks ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
In his wonderful 2010 autobiography Life—hey, nice title—Keith Richards wrote that “We age not by holding on to youth, but by letting ourselves grow and embracing whatever youthful parts remain.”His philosophy seems to be working, because Keith Richards has moved through the decades with a spirit that remains remarkably untouched by time. He is first and foremost known as a member of The Rolling Stones and for his guitar work on classics such as Sympathy for the Devil.
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3 weeks ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
Big Sur, located on the Central California coast, has been a touchstone of alternative culture for decades. In the final episode of the television show Mad Men, Don Draper is at a retreat in Big Sur when he achieves his climactic moment of enlightenment (which turns out to be an idea for a Coke ad that commercializes 1960s idealism).
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3 weeks ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
In the 1980s and 1990s, Madonna was such a big star that people started comparing her to Marilyn Monroe. Madonna had the hit songs, of course—such as Like a Prayer and Vogue, to name a couple. But as the reigning sex symbol of the MTV generation, she had a a cultural influence that went beyond her album sales. This collection of photos from the height of her fame shows her on stage but also highlights the company she kept.
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1 month ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
In the 1940s Neva Burright gained attention as a harness-racing grandmother. But by that time she had been competing in the sport for decades, and she had been around horse tracks from the beginning of her life—quite literallyBurright was born on the infield of a racetrack in 1883, and for the rest of her life she stayed close by. She had a 57-year career in horse racing; even after she stopped competing she worked as a timer and a race official. She did all this while being a mother of seven.
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1 month ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
Marcel Duchamp arrived on the scene in the early part of the 20th century with brash works intended to upset the art establishment. The most famous of these works were his “ready-mades.” These were store-bought objects which he presented as sculptures simply by placing them on a pedestal. For a major 1917 exhibition in New York, he famously displayed a urinal under the title “Fountain.”He was part of a movement called Dadaism whose goal was anarchy as much as it was creation.
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1 month ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
By 1964 Sophia Loren had been a longtime favorite of LIFE readers, and Marcello Mastroianni was having his moment too. In its Jan. 18, 1963 issue the magazine had introduced the star of Fellini films such as La Dolce Vita to readers with a breathless seven-page story headlined, “.”So when Loren and Mastriano co-starred in the romantic comedy “Marriage Italian Style,” LIFE dispatched photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt—who had already taken so many great photos Loren—to document the moment.
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1 month ago | 
life.com | Bill Syken
The Great Salt Lake in Utah is not what it used to be—not thousands of years ago, when it was a vast inland sea, and not 70 years ago either, when LIFE magazine devoted a large feature to this unique element of the American landscape. It is still the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and it attracts . But a couple years ago water loss had researchers warning that the Great Salt Lake could soon dry up entirely.
