Yesterday Today

50 Glamorous Photos of Marion Davies in the 1920s and 1930s

Marion Cecilia Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras;[a] January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies. While performing in the 1916 Follies, the nineteen-year-old Marion met the fifty-three-year-old newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, and became his mistress. Hearst took over management of Davies’ career and promoted her as a motion picture actress. Hearst financed Davies’ pictures and promoted her career extensively in his newspapers and Hearst newsreels. He founded Cosmopolitan Pictures to produce her films. By 1924, Davies was the number one female box office star in Hollywood because of the popularity of When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York, which were among the biggest box-office hits of their respective years. During the zenith of the Jazz Age, Davies became renowned as the hostess of lavish soirees for Hollywood actors and political elites. However, in 1924, her name became linked with scandal when film producer Thomas Ince died at a party aboard Hearst’s yacht.

Following the decline of her film career during the Great Depression, Davies struggled with alcoholism. She retired from the screen in 1937 to devote herself to an ailing Hearst and charitable work. In Hearst’s declining years, Davies remained his steadfast companion until his death in 1951. Eleven weeks after Hearst’s death, she married sea captain Horace Brown. Their marriage lasted until Davies’ death at 64 from malignant osteomyelitis (bone cancer) of the jaw in 1961.

By the time of her death, her popular association with the character of Susan Alexander Kane in the film Citizen Kane (1941) already overshadowed Davies’ legacy as a talented actress. The title character’s second wife—an untalented singer whom he tries to promote—was widely assumed to be based upon Davies. However, many commentators, including writer-director Orson Welles, defended Davies’ record as a gifted actress and comedienne to whom Hearst’s patronage did more harm than good. In his final years, Welles attempted to correct the widespread misconceptions the film had created about Davies’ popularity and talents as an actress.

28 Amazing Portrait Photographs of Musicians From the Mid-19th Century

These amazing photographs that captured portraits of musicians in the 1850s and 1860s.

24 Fascinating Vintage Photos Show American Muscle Men from between the 1930s and 1950s

23 Extraordinary Mugshots of Turn-of-the-Century Prisoners

“Some years ago I discovered a cache of glass negative mug shots taken in the early 20th century; each negative was inscribed with the man’s name and alleged crime. In order to research the life of each man pictured in the 500 negatives, I spent the next three years traveling back and forth from New York to the small Northern California town where the photos were taken. I discovered the photographs were taken by Clara Smith, a town photographer more accustomed to taking images of brides and babies than newly arrested suspects. The only extant records of the men’s crimes were the newspapers of the time, so I read through every copy of the daily newspaper(s) from 1901 to 1908 to find news of the men pictured in the images. The project resulted in the book, Prisoners, a collection of 70 images with accompanying narrative text on each subject.” — Arne Svenson

In Prisoners, New York artist and photographer Arne Svenson presents some two dozen portraits of turn-of-the-century prisoners, which the artist developed from found negatives. Each image (about one to two feet) is a diptych mug-shot (full face and profile), with the criminal’s name and crime etched into the emulsion and visible above the subject’s head. The crimes range from petty larceny to murder in various ages and races.

31 Amazing Vintage Photos of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable On the Set of “The Misfits”, 1960

The Misfits is a 1961 American drama film written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. The supporting cast features Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach and Kevin McCarthy. It marked the last completed film of both Gable and Monroe. For Gable, the film was posthumously released, while Monroe died the following year.

The plot centers on a recently divorced woman (Monroe) and her time spent with a cowboy (Gable), his tow truck-driving friend (Wallach) and his rodeo-riding friend (Clift) in the Western Nevada desert in the 1960s. The film was a commercial failure at the time of its release, but received positive critical comments for its script and performances, and is highly regarded today.

Here below are lovely photos that captured behind the scenes of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable while filming “The Misfits” in 1960.

62 Stunning Photographs of Actress Marlene Dietrich From the 1930s to the 1950s

Marie Magdelene Dietrich was born in Berlin, Germany on December 27, 1901. Her father was an army officer who had served in the Franco-Prussian War. Because of his constant absences from the family due to his army duties, Marlene and the rest had to rely on themselves. When he died, while she was 11, Marlene’s mother married Eduard von Losch. Marlene enjoyed music and attended concerts. She was adept at playing the violin and piano. By the time she was in her mid-teens, Marlene had discovered the stage. Acting was to be her vocation. In 1921, Marlene applied for an acting school run by Max Reinhardt. She was accepted. She appeared in several stage production, but never had more than a couple of spoken lines. In short, she wasn’t setting the stage world on fire. She attempted films for the first time in 1922 Her first film was The Little Napoleon (1923) which was followed by Love Tragedy (1923). On this last project, she met Rudolf Sieber and married him in 1924. The union lasted until his death in 1976 although they didn’t live together that whole time. The remainder of her early film career was generally filled with bit roles that never amounted to a whole lot. After being seen in the German production of The Blue Angel (1930) in 1930, Marlene was given a crack at Hollywood. Her first US film was Morocco (1930) with Gary Cooper later that year followed, by Dishonored (1931) in 1931. This latter movie had her cast as a street walker who is appointed a spy. The film was a rather boring affair but was a success because of Marlene’s presence. Movie goers were simply attracted to her. In 1932, Marlene filmed Shanghai Express (1932) which proved to be immensely popular raking in $3 million. Once again, she was cast as a prostitute. The next film was Blonde Venus (1932) which turned out to be a horrible production. Her co-star was Cary Grant and once again she was cast as a prostitute. Marlene seemed to be typecast as a woman of low morals and she wanted different parts. Some films such as Desire (1936) in 1936 didn’t do that but she wanted to expand. Her chance came in 1939 in Destry Rides Again (1939) when she was cast as “Frenchy”, a Western saloon hostess. This began a new direction for Marlene since it shed the typecasting which she was forced to endure during her career. All through the 1940s, she appeared in well-produced, well-directed films such as Manpower (1942), The Spoilers (1942), The Lady Is Willing (1942) and Pittsburgh (1942) all in 1942. Afterwards the roles came fewer, perhaps one to two films every year. In 1945, Marlene didn’t appear in any. She only made seven productions in the 1950’s. Her last role of any substance was Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) in 1961. Despite the lack of theatrical roles, Marlene still made appearances on the stage. However, by 1979, she was a shell of her former self. After breaking her leg in one performance, she never made a go of it in show business again. Spending the last 12 years of her life bed-ridden, Marlene died on May 6, 1992 in Paris, France of natural causes at the age of 90.
(Text bt Denny Jackson via IMDB.com)

**Marlene Dietrich in No Highway in the Sky (1951)**

**Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart in Destry Rides Again (1939)**

**Marlene Dietrich in Der blaue Engel (1930)**

**Marlene Dietrich in Rancho Notorious (1952)**

**Marlene Dietrich in “The Devil is a Woman,” 1935**

**Marlene Dietrich, in Shanghai Express, 1932.**

**Marlene Dietrich, In Seven Sinners, 1940.**

**Marlene Dietrich, in Blue Angel, close-up, 1930.**

**Marlene Dietrich by Milton Greene, 1952.**

**As Shanghai Lily, in Shanghai Express, 1932.**

**Marlene Dietrich by George Hurrell, 1937.**

**Marlene Dietrich, in Song of Songs, 1933**

**Marlene Dietrich, in “The Spoilers”, 1942**

35 Vintage Photos of Moscow during the 1930s

Eirik Sundvor (1902 – 1992) was a Norwegian journalist of Avisa Nidaros from 1924 to 1940, and 1945 to 1957. Sundvor fled to England where he was the editor of the Norwegian Tidend in London with his wife during the war. He was responsible for the release of the first free Norwegian newspaper in Finnmark in 1945.

After Avisa Nidaros entered as a daily newspaper, Sundvor moved back to Bergen, where he originally came from. Here he worked as a correspondent for Dagbladet in Western Norway.

These amazing photos are from a trip to the Soviet Union made by Eirik Sundvor. They document everyday life of Moscow in 1935.

(Photos by Eirik Sundvor)

46 Haunting Portraits Of 19th Century Mental Asylum Patients

44 Interesting Photos Men’s Fashion in the 1970s

Men’s fashion in the 1970s changed fashion history. Never before did men have so many choices. Wide flare jeans, platform boots and leisure suits…

As well as their bold use of colour, peacock looks usually included satin shirts, ruffles, tunics, turtlenecks, Cuban heeled boots, bell-bottoms, and braided belts.

Suits also featured bright colours and unusual styles. In particular, double-breasted designs in corduroy and crushed velvet were popular.

Take a look at these pics to see what men’s fashion looked like in the 1970s.